George W Yu, MD, trained at Tufts University Medical School and did his residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. He is a  urologist at George Washington University Medical Center and has been in the practice of medicine and surgery for over 25 years. Dr Yu has had the clinical experience to focus on nutrition, detoxification and cellular regeneration with a concentration on digestive enzymes and probiotics. He continues his work as a urological surgeon, but his focus will be on men's health and endocrinology. (This interview took place this year at the Kushi Institute Summer Conference where Dr George W. Yu was guest speaker).

Dr Yu: My interest stems from surgical hyperalimentation, at the time when Jonathan Rhoades at the University of Pennsylvania finally formulated intravenous feeding without using the intestinal tract. So digestion is a very important thing, more than nutrition, because it is about what the body needs as the end product.

Marlene: How do we better educate our physicians and all medical professionals about proper nutrition, so they can help their patients understand diet and lifestyle changes?

Dr Yu: Your habits start at home! Your parents teach you how to eat. Then you learn as you go through grade school, and high school and college, whether you are interested in eating properly. Eating properly means what makes you feel good. It is not easy to teach nutrition but it is getting easier with more and more literature and increased awareness. When I was in medical school, it was difficult enough to get through the curriculum within the first two years. (Some medical schools have integrated nutrition in their curriculums or provided CEU credit seminars for medical professionals). Most doctors are so stressed with time and obligations that they can barely keep up with their own specialty, let alone reading inter-disciplinary literature on nutrition, digestion, etc. I believe that it will come and I am impressed by some of my colleagues already who are becoming more aware of nutrition. For example, instead of saying Vitamin D is nothing, everybody is saying it is something. That is a big 180 degrees from 10 years ago!

For the complete interview with Dr Yu, please go to my  blog,

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My  friend Meg Wolff from Maine connected me with a lovely lady, Karen Wildwood. In 2004, Karen was diagnosed with a form of breast cancer and instinctively she turned away from traditional treatments and started a macrobiotic, healing diet. She told me she had tried macrobiotics back in the 1980s and believed that it would help her with her breast cancer. Her cancer started disappearing and she regained her health. But by 2007, Karen said "arrogance" kicked in and she was more complacent about her practicing a macrobiotic lifestyle. Her cancer began to spread rapidly. Karen found a wonderful support group , a "team" of macrobiotic cooks and a courageous counselor who started her back on a healing journey. Visit my blog for a more detailed story of Karen Wildwood's cancer and her healing program, 

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Try our Fruit Kanten, a fun and quick summer dessert recipe!

Bring juice to a boil with agar agar and sea salt. Place cut fruit in a dish. When juice boils, lower flame and simmer 1-2 minutes. Pour liquid into dish covering the fruit. Refrigerate and kanten will firm up in about an hour.

(Agar Agar is a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed (red algae) and a vegetable source protein.)

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 The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (www.cmbm.org ) founded by James S Gordon, MD in Washington, DC is an non-profit, educational organization dedicated to transforming the practice of medicine. The Center is working to create a more effective and compassionate model of healthcare and health education. The model for the Center integrates the precision of modern medicine with the world's healing traditions of medical practices. I was impressed that this Center runs a professional nutrition training education program for physicians, medical school faculty and allied health professionals. The program is titled, Food As Medicine.