Body of Wonder

Latest Episodes:

Episode #28 Answering Listeners' Health & Wellness Questions Apr 26, 2022

Show notes

On this special episode, integrative medicine experts, Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Victoria Maizes, answer questions sent by listeners.

Join us as our hosts share integrative approaches to popular questions, such as:

Is a vegan diet healthy for everyone? What about popular keto and paleo diets?
How can you discern gluten-intolerance facts from fiction?
Is consuming insects a necessary strategy for global food sustainability?
How can you support the gut microbiome with fermented foods?
How often is it recommended to do intermittent fasting?
How can beginners use mind-body medicine?
Can you suggest help for tapering off benzodiazepines?
When are blood pressure medications beneficial?
Is there a link between antihistamine medications, mood disorders, and dementia?

As always, we want to hear from you and warmly invite you to submit questions for the show by visiting our website or leaving us a voicemail 1-520-621-3950. We will review and answer as many questions as possible on the program.

Please note, the show does not advise, diagnose, or treat medical conditions. Please seek the advice of your physician or healthcare provider for questions regarding your health.

Episode #27 The Compounding Effect of Healthy Lifestyle Habits with Arianna Huffington and Dr. Aaliya Yaqub Mar 28, 2022

Show notes

Lao Tzu, the 6th-century Chinese philosopher, wrote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” 500 years later a growing number of studies demonstrate the powerful compounding effects of a singular action repeated over time.

We welcome Arianna Huffington and Dr. Aaliya Yaqub, leaders of Thrive on this episode. Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books. Dr. Aaliya Yaqub is the Chief Medical Officer at Thrive and a board-certified internal medicine physician. Thrive, a behavior-based technology company, launched in 2016 with the mission of changing the way we work and live. Since launching they have partnered with the world's leading enterprises to study how microsteps, or small changes in behavior, impact health.

Dr. Weil and Dr. Maizes meet with Arianna Huffington and Dr. Yaqub to discuss microsteps, the value of sleep, and to challenge society’s industrial-age conception of productivity. They discuss how small, intentional steps combined with a purposeful mindset can lead to long-lasting positive health outcomes in individuals and communities.

Episode #26 Breakthrough Therapies for the Treatment of Mental Health Disorders with Charles Raison, MD Feb 27, 2022

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Primary care providers are often the first to recognize and treat mental health disorders including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Despite the growing number of pharmaceutical agents that can be prescribed, there has been a dramatic increase in mental health disorders. What is happening in our society that is leading to this increase?

Our guest on this episode is a pioneer in mental health research, Dr. Charles “Chuck” Raison.

Dr. Raison is a psychiatrist, the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Distinguished Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, and the director of clinical and translational research for the Usona Institute. He is internationally recognized for his studies on novel mechanisms in and treatment of major depression as well as for his work examining the effects of compassion training. Dr. Raison is also studying psychedelic medicines as potential treatments for major depression.

In this episode, Drs Weil, Maizes, and Raison look at the future of mental health treatment. They discuss the problems with common anti-depressant medications and the link between chronic inflammation and mood disorders. Finally, they explore three new promising therapies: precision medicine, psychedelics, and compassion practices.

Episode #25 Living Longer, Healthier, and with Purpose with Dan Buettner Jan 25, 2022

Show notes

What are the keys to living a long, healthful life? Insights from regions where people thrive well into their 100’s demonstrates that diet, physical, social, and even spiritual factors contribute to longevity.

In this episode, Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Victoria Maizes sit down with award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and National Geographic explorer, Dan Buettner to discuss the habits that contribute to a live a long, healthy, meaningful life.

In 2000, Dan, National Geographic, and the NIH Institute on Aging identified the regions in the world where people lived the longest, healthiest lives. Those areas - dubbed Blue Zones - are Icaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Okinawa, Japan; and Sardinia, Italy. In each of these places, residents often lived well into their 90’s, with many living to be 100 years old or more. Dan’s articles, which closely examined the lifestyle trends of these centenarian populations, were published in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic magazine.

Seeking to bring these life-enhancing habits to other populations, Buettner created partnerships with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities. Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that focus on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. These communities have seen sharp decreases in preventable diseases and saved millions in healthcare costs.

In this conversation, Dr. Weil, Dr. Maizes, and Buettner explore blue zones lifestyles and discuss ways to integrate their habits into your life.

Episode #24 Exploring Trauma, Addiction, and Emotional Pain with Guest Dr. Gabor Mate Nov 29, 2021

Show notes

Addiction is a public health crisis, made worse in the last year by the emotional stress and grief experienced by so many during the pandemic. It is characterized by compulsive actions despite harmful consequences.

Our guest on this episode is addiction expert and author, Dr. Gabor Maté. He is internationally known for his work on mind-body unity in health and illness, attention deficit disorder and other childhood developmental issues, and his breakthrough analysis of addiction as a psycho-physiological response to childhood trauma and emotional loss.

Dr. Maté contends that a deeper understanding of trauma is needed in healthcare to address the substance abuse epidemic. Together with Drs. Weil and Maizes, Dr. Maté, explore the roots of addictive behavior. He reasons, that at its foundation, “Addiction is an attempt to solve a problem.”

Episode #23 Embracing a Sustainable Diet with Brent Kim, MHS Sep 28, 2021

Show notes

Our daily food choices can have a lasting impact not only on our personal health but also on the health of our planet. The worldwide population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 and research shows that human dietary patterns may have a staggering effect on climate change.

Today we’re joined by Brent Kim, MHS a global disease epidemiologist and researcher at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Kim has published works on sustainable diets, climate change, industrial food, animal production, soil safety, and urban food systems.

As we witness dramatic consequences of climate change, it’s clear that we must work together to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Kim outlines the criteria critical to a sustainable diet and how they play a role in climate change. He describes factors accelerating global emissions and the actions we must take now to avoid future disasters.

In this episode, Kim explains why meat consumption is a complex topic, and Dr. Maizes and Dr. Weil discuss motivations for adopting and maintaining vegetarian and vegan diets. The discussion includes meat alternatives, like plant-based-processed burgers and lab-grown meat, and addresses their health implications. Dr. Weil suggests lesser-known, low-food chain organisms like algae and insects as new sources of protein. All agree that integrative medicine and sustainability are founded on systems-based thinking, leading to the question, “what other societal changes are needed to meet the challenges of climate change?”

Episode #22 Mind-Body Approaches to Understanding and Healing Chronic Pain with Howard Schubiner, MD Aug 31, 2021

Show notes

Living with chronic pain can be both physically and emotionally challenging. Nearly 50 million individuals in the US report experiencing chronic pain. The symptoms may become worse over time, spread to new areas of the body, and result in restricted mobility and limitations in daily activities.

Evolving research has demonstrated that for some sufferers emotions can be the source of chronic pain and may be the key to treating the symptoms. Studies have demonstrated that identifying, expressing, and releasing difficult emotions, like fear, can successfully reduce chronic pain.

Our guest is Dr. Howard Schubiner, an internist, pediatrician, and director of the Mind Body Medicine Center. Dr. Schubiner and his colleagues have developed psychological treatments for chronic pain and created a series of studies to evaluate these treatments.

In this episode, Dr. Schubiner helps us to see pain with a new lens. He explains how chronic pain can be protective. He describes how brain-generated pain is different from structural pain.

Dr. Weil and Dr. Schubiner discuss the revolutionary work of the late Dr. John Sarno, a pioneer in treating patients with chronic back pain with mind-body medicine. Dr. Maizes describes how language and common approaches can reinforce a message of disease and perpetuate symptoms. Dr. Schubiner explains how pain reprocessing therapy can help to eliminate and even cure pain and why this therapy offers great hope to people who live with chronic pain.

Episode #21 Ethnobotany: The Science of Indigenous Medicine with Michael Balick, PhD Jul 28, 2021

Show notes

Plants have provided human beings with nourishment, medicine, fibers, and other resources for millennia. And, the passing of botanical knowledge through generations not only ensured survival, it shaped how cultures understood their world. Occasionally, this knowledge would be exchanged with neighboring people in the forms of stories, rituals, and daily practices.

In the 1800’s Western anthropologists studying indigenous cultures began to categorize this relationship between plants and people as a new science called, ethnobotany, “ethno” meaning people and “botany” meaning plants.

Over the last 200 years the field has evolved to include ethnomedicine and most recently it’s application in modern pharmaceuticals.

But, how is it that centuries ago societies without modern laboratory equipment learned how to use botanicals with such precise applications and outcomes?

To understand this, we welcome Dr. Michael Balick, ethnobotanist, and Vice President and Director of the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Gardens. For more than four decades, Dr. Balick has studied the relationship between plants and people. Most of his research is in remote regions of the tropics, like Micronesia, on the islands of Pohnpei, Kosrae, Palau and Melanesia, in the Republic of Vanuatu where he works with indigenous cultures to document plant diversity, knowledge of its traditional use and evaluation of the potential of botanical resources, particularly medicinal plants, for broader application and use.

Dr. Weil, Dr. Maizes, and Dr. Balick discuss why it's so important to understand ethnobotany in modern society, the benefits of “whole-plant” traditional medicines, and how ethnobotanists are working with indigenous elders to preserve cultural practices and ancient knowledge.

Episode #20 How Psychedelics Will Change the Future of Mental Health Treatment with Ronan Levy Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

Psychedelics, such as ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD have been tightly controlled and highly debated substances for decades, but after several years of clinical trials, the FDA has recently awarded both MDMA and psilocybin, when used in conjunction with psychotherapy, with breakthrough status for the research of challenging mental health disorders, like PTSD.

The breakthrough status designation means that the FDA will expedite the review of the research. Mental health advocates are keen to open these treatments to a wider demographic of patients. And, it’s important to note that there’s been a long tradition of psychedelic use as a healing practice among cultures across the world.

So, is modern society ready to embrace psychedelics? Newly passed local laws show that it’s becoming more widely accepted. Legal access to psilocybin is already available in parts of the US and Canada.

Joining us on this episode is Ronan Levy, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Field Trip Psychedelics a new company that is treating patients who have mental health diagnoses with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Together, Dr. Weil, Dr. Maizes, and Levy discuss important aspects of psychedelic treatment. Dr. Weil defines psychedelic-assisted therapy and how it works. Dr. Maizes raises the questions, “What should be considered when applying these treatments?” and “When will it be made available to patients?” Levy describes the current regulations and laws around the substances in the US and Canada, the treatment protocols at his clinic, and what the future holds for patients seeking psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Episode #1 Healing Medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil & Dr. Victoria Maizes Feb 04, 2020

Show notes

Dr. Andrew Weil is a world-renowned leader and pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. His philosophy is centered on a healing-oriented approach to healthcare which encompasses the body, mind, and spirit.

So, what is integrative medicine? How does it differ from conventional medicine?

In the new series, Body of Wonder, Dr. Weil and internationally recognized integrative leader, author, and women's health expert, Dr. Victoria Maizes will discuss integrative medicine with thought-provoking researchers, authors, and doctors.

For two decades, Weil and Maizes have led a training program at the University of Arizona. Today, 2,000 healthcare practitioners have completed the integrative training Fellowship and continue to apply the knowledge in their care of patients across the world, develop clinical research, author medical text books, and more.

In this episode, Andrew and Victoria discuss the early years of training practitioners in the new field of medicine. That story begins with an unexpected stop in the desert.

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