The Dr. Hyman Show

Maintaining good health is front and center in most of our minds right now, and for good reason. As we take in the latest news on COVID-19 each day, it’s the perfect time to take a deeper look at why some of us are more susceptible to this virus. How can we collectively improve our immunity to combat this pandemic more successfully? How can we protect ourselves in the future? There are many ways....

Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases often go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed. This is partially because Lyme mimics other illnesses such as the flu, manifesting as diverse symptoms including headaches, muscle aches, stomach ulcers, constipation, and joint pain, making diagnosing and treating Lyme very difficult. Left unchecked, Lyme symptoms can worsen, creating a long-running inflammatory...

The ketogenic diet has gained a lot of popularity in the past couple of years. If you’re not quite sure what it is, why it could be beneficial, or you’re well-acquainted with it and just want to learn more, this episode is for you. The ketogenic diet, or keto as it’s called, is a high-fat low carbohydrate diet. While some people take this to mean loads of conventionally raised meat and dairy, the...

Only 12% of us in the US are metabolically healthy—it’s pretty alarming when the healthy population is the minority. And in the age of COVID-19, it’s important to recognize that those with a chronic disease are at an exponentially higher risk of hospitalization than someone who is metabolically healthy. If we as a population were healthier (think less obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disea...

Many of us wonder why we keep getting sick and repeatedly suffer from recurrent infections—whether it be sinus infections, ear infections, urinary tract infections, cold and flu, or a range of other infections. While conventional medicine typically treats these infections with antibiotics, Functional Medicine digs deeper to determine the cause of the infection and what can be done to eliminate it....

Food is political, whether we like it or not.   From the subsidies used to grow the crops that produce our massive amounts of ultra-processed foods, to school lunches, to the meals being served on our own dinner tables and even in the White House, the state of our food system is impacted by policy on an incredible scale. My guest on today’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy has played a very positiv...

While we can’t be sure what’s in store for us with the future of COVID-19, we can try to learn from the past to tackle this situation in the smartest way possible. That means looking at previous infectious disease epidemics and understanding zoonotic diseases like this one, that are passed from animals to humans, and how they’re different from the other pandemic diseases we’ve been able to eradica...

Functional Medicine is all about looking at the way our systems function together, rather than focusing on one part of the body at a time. The steps you take to support whole-body health work in the same way. Diet, exercise, stress reduction—they simultaneously affect more than just one aspect of your health—and new research has revealed that choices around these things can have major impacts on o...

When’s the last time you remembered a new phone number? This used to be the norm, but now most of us rely on our digital devices for everything from phone numbers to directions and even basic math. This might feel harmless but it’s actually doing our brains a disservice. We’re living in an age of digital dementia, because we don’t have to rely on our brains for the memorization and navigation we u...

As we continue to learn more about COVID-19, we continue to see a pattern in those more at risk. People who aren’t metabolically healthy (think obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension) are much more likely to experience severe complications if they are to get the virus. And to put that in perspective, only 1 in 8 Americans are considered metabolically healthy. That means...

The body and brain are one interconnected system, which means you can’t treat anxiety effectively by using only drugs or psychotherapy. You need to treat the body, because the body and brain are one interconnected system. Unfortunately, conventional medicine plays the name and blame game. It says, you are “anxious;” you need an “anti-anxiety” medication. But saying you are anxious explains nothing...

When we think about health, we usually think about diet and exercise. We think about the things we are doing for our physical body to promote wellness. But what about the things we can’t see? Relationships are a big one. For example. committing just ten to fifteen minutes a day to talking to someone we love is a powerful way to keep ourselves happy and connected, especially now during this time of...

One in three children born today will develop type 2 diabetes and four out of ten will be overweight. There’s a fundamental problem happening around our country when it comes to how we feed our kids and the lifelong health risks they face as a result. When we think about fixing the problem, it makes sense to look at our schools. In Boston, for example, 30,000 children a day rely on the school food...

Mounting research shows that there is no magic bullet to treat heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, allergies, digestive disorders, headaches, fatigue, or any of the myriad problems we suffer from in the 21st century. But increasing evidence also shows us something else. It shows that food is the most powerful “drug” we have not just to prevent, but also treat, cure, an...

Energy is such a major piece to overall wellness—we don’t feel very motivated to practice self-care and pursue the things we love if we simply don’t have the energy. So what does it really look like to have great energy, and what can we do in our own lives to create more of it? Today’s guest on The Doctor’s Farmacy is the perfect person to answer that. Ben Greenfield is a human performance consult...

People have never been more curious about strengthening the immune system than they are right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has got us all thinking seriously about our health and what it means to have immune strength, now and in the future. To get the most out of this trying time, we need to be open to looking at our health in ways we haven’t before. My guest today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, Dr. Jeffre...

We’ve all heard the fiendishly simple and completely untrue colloquialism that to lose weight you just have to eat less and exercise more. Or that it’s all about willpower and that it’s the individual’s fault if they are fat. Not only are these ideas completely unsupported by the scientific literature, but they also lead to a blame-the-victim mentality that tells people who are struggling with the...

We’re all going through this era of coronavirus—separately but together. I feel like humanity is taking one big existential breath; it’s a pause for us all to think about our previous normal lives, our currently abnormal lives, and how we want to reinvent life when this whole thing is over. And I know many of us have become confused by the different news outlets sharing different information. When...

There are so many questions about how coronavirus can impact our health, and rightfully so. This novel virus has completely changed the way we function as a society and brought about a feeling of uncertainty most of us haven’t ever experienced. But we’re in this together. There is, of course, a wide range of common concerns—from how to protect ourselves and families to what kinds of treatment opti...

Hormone imbalances are epidemic these days. For example, symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), like mood swings, irritability, depression, anxiety, fluid retention, bloating, breast tenderness, sugar cravings, headaches, and sleep disturbances, affect 75 percent of women. But just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you have to live with these symptoms.  The real fact is that suffering related...

We’re all trying to make sense of the new world order. And while my wife and I stay at home and navigate these unusual times, we find routine and practice to be the core of our wellbeing. We’re meditating every morning, going for walks in the woods, and taking afternoon work breaks to check-in and find time to connect. These seemingly simple actions have become the parts of our day that keep us gr...

Multiple times a day, even multiple times an hour, we’re hearing new information about COVID-19. Some of the most common questions I’ve received have to do with testing. We had our first case of novel coronavirus the same day South Korea had its first case. Yet they are much further ahead of us when it comes to testing, something that has helped them quickly control the virus in a way we haven’t b...

It’s natural to have a lot of questions right now. COVID-19 has quickly changed the way we think about health and go about our daily lives. And though we still have a lot to learn about the novel coronavirus, there are also a lot of ways we can keep ourselves, our families, and our communities strong and healthy. I recently hosted a webinar, along with the doctors at The UltraWellness Center, to a...

Numerous things can contribute to cancer development and cancer recurrence. Studies show diet, exercise, thoughts, feelings, and environmental toxins all influence the initiation, growth, and progression of cancer. And when it comes to treating cancer, we are good at cutting it, burning it, and poisoning it with surgery, radiation, and drugs, but many doctors fail to treat the root cause of the ca...

Only about 12% of Americans are considered “metabolically healthy.” That means the other 88% of us aren’t meeting basic medical guidelines for things like blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, and other markers of metabolic health. Which percentage do you fall into? When it comes to answering that question, one common factor is how many fast carbs you’re consuming. These are the carbohydrate...