Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Coffee: One Sugar Please
I have a strong relationship with coffee. I began drinking coffee when my mother put coffee in a bottle with a little sugar for me when I was a toddler. These days, a mother would get reprimanded by somebody if she did such a thing, but in the 1950s there weren’t the variety of drinks […]
Supplements and Safety for Kids
The real issue with melatonin and children is not with the actual overdose. Of the 260,000 calls to the U.S. Poison Control Centers, 218,000 were about kids under five years old. Kids will put just about anything in their mouths, especially those younger than five. The issues as I see them are the delivery system […]
Melatonin: Is It Safe for Kids?
Health headlines can dictate what I write about if they concern nutrition, exercise, or supplements: one article in my newsfeed, and my world gets changed. Such is the case when the CDC published an article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report titled Pediatric Melatonin Ingestions—United States, 2012–2021. The resulting health headlines said Melatonin Poisoning Cases […]
Soreness and Specificity of Training
The first Super Bowl Webinar I ever did was about specificity of training. A running buddy years ago summarized how to run faster this way: “If you want to run faster, you gotta run faster.” In other words, even short bursts of running very fast would eventually help build speed more than slow, long runs. […]
Walking for Exercise Again
How did you do with the Summer Kickoff Challenge? Let’s start with exercise. Did you get at least a 15-minute walk or some other activity done—especially if you’ve been sedentary? As I said last week, this was my first attempt at walking with a purpose since my knee replacement surgery. Of course I’ve been walking […]
Summer Kickoff Challenge
This weekend kicks off the summer holiday season: cook-outs, concerts, backyard cornhole tournaments, the beach. And of course, the food: barbeque, hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salad, ice cream sundaes and pies—more foods than I can name. Here’s my challenge to you: how about making a couple of small changes? First, get a little exercise […]
Distress Is Normal!
We’ve experienced ever-present stress over the past three years, from pandemics to politics to prices of just about everything. It hasn’t slowed down, and that can take its toll—if you let it. Am I saying that stress is normal? I already said that in the last Memo. The objective is to train the body to […]
Living in Anxious Times
A psychologist I’ve interviewed on my local radio show on WGVU-FM, the Grand Rapids NPR affiliate, called me recently to talk about a wave of anxiety that seems to be impacting people: increased visits to doctors and ERs for chest pain, headaches, high blood pressure, and many more symptoms that don’t have a physiological explanation. […]
My Nutrition Questions for This Next Year
Is 100 years a long time? How about 10,000 years or a million? The answer: it depends on the reference point. In human terms, 100 years is a long time, but in terms of changes within a specific type of food or in terms of the microbiome, maybe not. In the next year, there are […]
I’m Alive: V2.53
When I opened my eyes this morning, I knew I had another year to do what I was created to do: teach people how to be healthy and fit. For those of you who are new readers, here’s the story: when I wake on May 10th every year, my superstitious belief is that I have […]
