HEAL THE GUT & HEAL THE BODY Words to the Wise from Gastroenterologist Angie Sadeghi, MD by Cathy Katin-Grazzini
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r. Angie Sadeghi knows from personal experience how powerfully plants can reverse entrenched chronic conditions. In our last issue, she told us how to revolutionize fitness with plant-based nutrition. This time, she tells us about her own arduous health journey and explains how plants can heal our gut and shore up our overall health. Tell us about your health journey. Throughout the young years of my life I had debilitating pustular eczema, with painful pus-filled lesions all over my hands and on my body that were extremely itchy. It made sleeping and school a misery. I had to use corticosteroids all over my body and take anti-itch medications, which were quite powerful and knocked me out. I’d wake up quite
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The Food Issue
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Issue 59 - July/August 2020
groggy and unable to concentrate. I also had developed high cholesterol. And I had chronic fatigue, where I felt like I was crawling in the sand all day. It had taken me a couple of extra years to finish college because I wasn’t healthy. I had to always push myself. By the time I was doing my internal medicine residency at USC, about 15 years ago, sometimes I would miss Grand Rounds because I was so exhausted after my 17-mile commute, I just couldn’t will myself to get out of the car. I was a zombie. Back then it took an immense effort just to get myself through the day. When I was a second-year resident, I stopped eating meat for ethical reasons. I was still ignorant about nutrition, however, and continued to eat dairy because I thought I needed
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