Wisdom Health and Wellbeing

05/01/2026

What is integrative medicine?

Integrative medicine, often colloquially referred to as "holistic medicine,” focuses on whole-person healing, in body, mind, and spirit. This is done through integrating the best of scientific evidence with therapeutic modalities that have withstood the test of time, to achieve healing at a fundamental level.

Integrative medicine is the current term used to refer to the field of medicine that applies the above principles systematically and rigorously. Older terms such as alternative medicine and complementary medicine are now less frequently used.
An integrative medicine doctor helps patients remove the barriers to healing and support the body’s innate ability to heal itself, making it possible to reduce or eliminate the use of medications that are often costly and side-effects laden.

Prominent national organizations in the U.S. that advance the field of integrative medicine include the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health (ACIMH) an organization made up of over 70 academic Institutions and health systems, and the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine (AIHM). The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, funds research related to integrative medicine.

If you are looking for an integrative medicine doctor in New Jersey, visit our website to learn more:
www.wisdomheal.com

04/22/2026

What is the role of environmental toxicants and triggers in inflammatory bowel disease?

The emergence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in developing countries, concurrent with the westernization of lifestyle and industrialization over the last few decades, suggest that environmental triggers may play a role in the development of IBD. For example, in Japan the incidence of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis increased by more than ten times since the 1970s, and similar data can be observed in China, India, and South Korea.

Research has begun to shed some light on how environmental pollutants, including the chemicals and synthetic materials in daily life (some of which we ingest in our diet), may be connected to IBD.

Environmental toxicants and triggers that have been studied for their potential association with IBD include “forever chemicals” PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are a large group of synthetic chemicals used extensively in industries and consumer products), pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals, airborne particulate matter, food additives, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and cigarette smoking.

A mindful functional medicine and integrative medicine approach to the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease incorporates strategies to mitigate these exposures, as well as many more considerations including the use of food as medicine and optimization of the gut microbiome, as part of an effort to restore a dysregulated immune system.

To read our full blog on this topic, go to:

Discover how environmental toxicants and triggers may play a role in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Learn how an integrative medicine and functional medicine can support IBD management.

04/08/2026

To build a healthy gut microbiome, both prebiotics and probiotics are needed.

The gut microbiome refers to the community of the trillions of microbes that live in our digestive tract. A healthy gut microbiome contains a rich diversity of microorganisms and can tolerate different sorts of challenges. On the other hand, an imbalanced microbiome, termed dysbiosis, can be associated with immune-mediated diseases, among other things.

“Prebiotics” refers to any substance that is utilized by health-conferring microbes, in contrast to “probiotics,” which refers to the microbes themselves. “Prebiotic-rich foods” are generally fiber-rich foods that our gut microbes ferment to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are important for maintaining gut health because they are the main energy source of the cells that line our large intestine. Our digestive tract does not have a built-in ability to ferment the plant fibers that we eat, and so we rely on the gut bacteria to “digest” these fibers for us and produce short-chain fatty acids that not only benefit the cells of our large intestine but also feed the gut bacteria. The amount of short-chain fatty acids in the large intestine and blood is critically important for the regulation of the immune system. The production of short-chain fatty acids can change quickly when people switch to a different diet.

To reclaim your health through an integrative medicine and functional medicine approach, visit our website to learn more:
https://www.wisdomheal.com/

06/21/2023

ACHIEVING TYPE 2 DIABETES REMISSION

In our previous post, we discussed how type 2 diabetes comes about in the first place and considered its root cause. In this post, we discuss whether type 2 diabetes remission can be achieved and how to achieve it.

CAN TYPE 2 DIABETES REMISSION BE ACHIEVED?
Medications for type 2 diabetes work by primarily attempting to improve insulin resistance or increase insulin levels temporarily, among other mechanisms of action, but they do not address the root of the problem, because the root of the problem lies in the foods that we put into our mouths about three times a day for the duration of our lives—namely, excess intake of calories. To achieve remission of type 2 diabetes, an energy deficit is required, in order to remove fat molecules and resolve the lipotoxicity as explained in our previous post, until remission is achieved. This why certain diets do not work for the purposes of achieving type 2 diabetes remission, such as the type of so-called “ketogenic diet” that emphasizes low carbohydrates and high fat and high protein intake from animal foods, because they do not reverse excess caloric intake and lipotoxicity. This is a crucial point to understand.

Insulin resistance and compromised ability of the beta cells of the pancreas to produce insulin, as discussed in our previous post, constitute the primary root cause of type 2 diabetes. The important question is, can we reverse these changes? The short answer is, “Yes.” These physiologic impairments need not be permanent and can potentially be reversed, especially in earlier stages of the disease. In a study investigating patients with type 2 diabetes, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers showed that weight loss itself (of about 18 percent) was associated with improved insulin sensitivity (the inverse of insulin resistance) and beta-cell function of the pancreas. Importantly, the study showed that it did not matter whether the weight loss was achieved through diet alone or through an invasive bariatric surgery (gastric bypass).

In an expert consensus statement published in 2022 by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, endorsed by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, supported by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and co-sponsored by the Endocrine Society, a panel of diabetes experts agreed that “diet as a primary intervention for T2D [type 2 diabetes] can achieve remission in many adults with T2D and is related to the intensity of the intervention,” and that “diet as a primary intervention for T2D is most effective in achieving remission when emphasizing whole, plant-based foods with minimal consumption of meat and other animal products.” This means that by primarily making dietary changes, a person with type 2 diabetes can expect to achieve remission of diabetes. Furthermore, the intensity of the dietary intervention determines whether remission can be successfully achieved.

What does it mean to achieve type 2 diabetes remission? The panel of diabetes experts mentioned above defined remission of type 2 diabetes as achieving a hemoglobin A1c level (commonly referred to as “A1c”) of less than 6.5% for at least 3 months, without the use of any blood glucose-lowering medications, surgery, or devices. Most importantly, these experts agreed that remission is the optimal outcome for adults with type 2 diabetes, and that remission is a realistic and achievable goal for some adults with type 2 diabetes. In other words, a person who has achieved type 2 diabetes remission is no longer taking any blood sugar-lowering medications or receiving any blood sugar-lowering surgeries or device-based treatments for at least 3 months.

Clinical research has already shown that such remission of type 2 diabetes is very much possible and feasible. A randomized, controlled trial enrolling about 300 type 2 diabetics in the UK showed that a diet with intensive energy restriction led to diabetes remission after a year in almost half of the participants who received the study intervention, while only 4 percent of the participants in the control group had remission. Greater weight loss was associated with a greater proportion of participants who achieved remission. Two years after the study began, 41 percent of the participants in the intervention group were still in remission, while only 3 percent of the control group was in remission.

USING FOOD AS MEDICINE TO ACHIEVE REMISSION FROM PRE-DIABETES AND DIABETES
According to the panel of diabetes experts that published the consensus statement mentioned above, dietary intervention is the primary way by which type 2 diabetes remission can be achieved. A review article published in the Lancet summarized research evidence showing that in people with diabetes, diets that are rich in whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, and low in red or processed meats and refined carbohydrates, improve blood sugar control and cholesterol levels. Beyond simply improving blood sugar control, a safe and effective dietary intervention that can accomplish type 2 diabetes remission would minimize the use of harmful foods, maximize the consumption of healthful foods rich in micronutrients and antioxidants (important in any healing process), and facilitate weight loss without having to restrict the volume of foods eaten. Dietary interventions that fulfill these qualities invariably emphasize a whole-food, plant-centered dietary pattern, which enables the greatest reduction in fat intake and the greatest increase in foods that are lower in energy density, and prevents consumption of excess calories.

These qualities of such a dietary intervention address the underlying root cause of type 2 diabetes—namely, excess caloric intake resulting in “lipotoxicity” of cells and consequent insulin resistance and reduced pancreatic beta-cell function. In clinical practice, such a dietary approach is reported by experienced healthcare practitioners to be associated with the greatest success in achieving type 2 diabetes remission.

A brief word of caution about using low-carbohydrate diets (such as varieties of so-called ketogenic diets that emphasize higher consumption of animal fats) in the treatment of diabetes. The diabetes expert panel mentioned above did NOT agree on using low-carbohydrate diets as a short-term or long-term intervention for type 2 diabetes, because of potential negative cardiovascular and metabolic effects of such diets, and such low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets have failed to reverse insulin resistance in animal studies. Therefore, a quick takeaway is to not use low-carbohydrate diets that incorporate higher consumption of animal fats for the purpose of achieving type 2 diabetes remission at this time. However, it should be noted that the QUALITY of the fat is more important than the QUANTITY of the fat in the diet, as along as the quantity consumed does not result in an energy (calorie) excess, of course. As re-iterated by authors of the Lancet review article mentioned above, “The quality of fat is more important than total fat intake, and diets that favor plant-based fats over animal fats are more advantageous [in diabetes].”

THE IMPORTANCE OF DOSING OR INTENSITY OF THE DIETARY INTERVENTION
One important and common reason that dietary interventions do not achieve the expected result of type 2 diabetes remission is that the dosing is inadequate. For example, it is easy to understand that taking an antibiotic at a dose that is too low will not result in the cure of an infection. This is a point that is often missed when it comes to dietary interventions. Often, people attribute the failure of a diabetic dietary intervention to the inherent lack of efficacy of the diet and subsequently become convinced that the management of their type 2 diabetes must, therefore, rely on the chronic use of medications. What many people do not realize is that the lack of success is due to an inadequate dosing of the dietary change. In other words, making only some dietary changes (for example, simply eating more vegetables, eating less sweets, or eating less meat), rather than the full extent of the required change, will not result in type 2 diabetes remission, although some improvement in the blood sugar control can still be seen. Research has shown that a lifestyle intervention that is dosed sufficiently intensively will result in type 2 diabetes remission in half or more of the participants.

In my experience, the success or failure of a functional medicine and lifestyle medicine-based treatment for type 2 diabetes remission depends heavily on ensuring the adequacy of the dosing of the dietary intervention, elucidating misconceptions about the proper lifestyle changes necessary to achieve remission, and having access to support and educational reinforcement from a physician or clinician who can model the proper dietary change through personal, first-hand experience with such a change.

CAUTIONS AND CAVEATS
If you are already on one or more diabetes medications that lower blood sugar levels, you should only start dietary changes under the oversight and guidance of your physician or a lifestyle medicine physician, who can promptly reduce your medication dose and de-prescribe your medication(s) as necessary. This is crucially important because, as you make dietary changes, your blood sugar levels may drop too much, resulting in hypoglycemia (low blood sugar level), a potentially dangerous situation if not monitored and corrected immediately. Generally speaking, a more intensive lifestyle intervention requires swifter “de-escalation” or “de-prescribing” of blood-sugar-lowering medications. If you have diabetes or other medical conditions, consult your physician before making dietary changes or any changes to your medical treatment.

Another important point to keep in mind is that once remission is achieved, continued monitoring is important, because high blood glucose can recur. Reasons for the recurrence of diabetes include reverting to a diet that promotes high blood glucose, weight gain, stress from other illnesses, and side effects from medications. HgbA1c should be measured at least once a year, if not more often. Of course, continued active engagement in a healthful dietary and lifestyle pattern is crucial to maintaining diabetes remission.

A HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE
The fact that remission of type 2 diabetes is possible and achievable, without the use of blood glucose-lowering drugs or surgeries, may come as a surprise to many people even in 2023, but this should not be the case. Public education is needed. While new drugs garner wide attention because of the proprietary interest behind the marketing of such drugs, the effectiveness of a dietary intervention such as we discussed here, powerful as it may be, does not enjoy similar widespread marketing campaigns because no single commercial entity stands to gain monetarily from them. However, the value of such non-patented treatments to each and every individual with type 2 diabetes is priceless. So please share this newfound knowledge of yours with others, or share this post. The fact that research continues to show possible ways to reverse chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, gives me hope for the future of medicine. Let us, clinicians and healthcare consumers alike, continue to work together to make disease remission a reality for all.

(If you have diabetes or other medical conditions, consult your physician before making dietary changes or any changes to your medical treatment.)

To read my full blog on this topic, go to:
https://www.wisdomheal.com/post/achieving-type-2-diabetes-remission
Always consult your physician when it comes to the management of diabetes.

Many people are not aware of the fact, even in 2023, that patients with type 2 diabetes can often successfully achieve diabetes remission through a functional medicine and lifestyle medicine approach, using a "food as medicine" dietary intervention. In our previous blog, we discussed how type 2 diab...

05/08/2023

What is the root cause of type 2 diabetes?

Many people are not aware of the fact that patients with type 2 diabetes can successfully achieve remission through therapeutic dietary and lifestyle interventions, such that they will no longer be dependent on the chronic use of diabetes medications. So, let’s focus here on a crucial and potentially lifechanging topic, achieving remission from type 2 diabetes.

This is an important topic to address because diabetes is well-known to be associated with such long-term complications as cardiovascular disease (including heart attacks and strokes), chronic kidney disease, peripheral neuropathy (resulting in tingling, numbness, and/or pain in the extremities), blindness, and increased susceptibility to infections.

How does type 2 diabetes occur in the first place?

Type 2 diabetes results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin (the hormone that the pancreas secretes in response to a rise in the blood sugar level after a meal), as well as insufficient insulin release. Normally, as blood sugar (glucose) level rises, the beta cells of the pancreas secrete insulin into the bloodstream. When healthy cells “see” insulin and binds to it, blood glucose is taken into the cells, and the blood sugar level decreases and becomes normal. What happens in type 2 diabetes is that the cells of the body, such as the muscle and fat cells, have become resistant or numb, so to speak, to the insulin that circulates in the blood. This is a phenomenon called insulin resistance, which is essentially an impairment in the body’s ability to respond normally to insulin and thereby optimize blood sugar levels. When insulin resistance is present in the body but blood glucose levels are not yet in the diabetic range, this condition is called prediabetes.

What happens next is that, because of insulin resistance, the beta cells of the pancreas output higher and higher amounts of insulin in order to maintain normal blood glucose, until eventually the function of the beta cells deteriorates and the blood sugar level can no longer be kept normal, resulting in type 2 diabetes. This understanding overthrows the previous notion that, in type 2 diabetes, an inability of the pancreas to produce insulin only happens at a late stage of the disease. Rather, both insulin resistance and inadequate beta-cell function of the pancreas (“beta-cell dysfunction”) occur together at the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Different classes of diabetes medications lower blood glucose levels through different mechanisms (such as increasing insulin production or reducing insulin resistance while the medications are taken daily or regularly), but they do not address the root cause of the problem, which is excess caloric intake more than what the body needs, resulting in insulin resistance. For diabetics who are not motivated to make dietary changes or are unable to make dietary changes (for example, lack of adequate access to healthful foods), these medications do help diabetics control their blood sugar levels. However, for people who have access to healthful foods and are motivated to make dietary changes to address the root cause of the disease, achieving type 2 diabetes remission without the need to take diabetes medications is a realistic goal for many.

A randomized, controlled trial that was done more than 20 years ago already showed us that lifestyle intervention is more effective than metformin, a commonly used diabetes medication, in preventing the new onset of type 2 diabetes. Among more than 3000 study participants who were randomly assigned to receive lifestyle intervention, metformin, or placebo, lifestyle intervention reduced the incidence of diabetes by 58 percent, while metformin reduced the incidence by only 31 percent, compared with placebo.

At the root cause, insulin resistance results from increased caloric intake that is in excess of energy expenditure. When we overfeed ourselves beyond our body’s daily energy needs, a positive energy balance and weight gain result. The fat (adipose) tissue in obesity fosters a chronic, low-grade inflammation that is a major and well-known cause of insulin resistance. For example, eating unhealthful foods that are high in calories and saturated fats but low in nutrient content, typical of the standard American diet, coupled with reduced physical activity or a sedentary lifestyle, can lead to insulin resistance.

The excess-calorie dietary habit also leads to a phenomenon called “lipotoxicity,” which occurs when higher levels of fatty acids circulate in the blood and more lipids accumulate in the cells of the body, particularly in the muscle and liver. The circulating fatty acids interfere with the action of insulin, and the accumulation of lipid products inside cells causes insulin resistance. In other words, lipotoxicity compromises the normal response of cells to insulin, and it does so by affecting glucose transporters, which are “channels” that move to the surface of cells to allow glucose to enter cells, such as muscle cells and fat cells. These channels are regulated by insulin. When these channels are affected, insulin resistance results, requiring higher amounts of insulin in order to “push” glucose into cells.

In addition to insulin resistance, people with type 2 diabetes also have what is called beta-cell dysfunction of the pancreas, as mentioned above, which is associated with inadequate insulin production. Part of this defect is due to a loss in the number of beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Lipotoxicity, as unexplained above, results in beta-cell loss.

This summary serves to pinpoint the primary drivers of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. With this understanding, we can move on to consider how to treat type 2 diabetes at the root cause.

Please stay tuned for my next post, “Achieving Type 2 Diabetes Remission.”

(If you have diabetes or other medical conditions, consult your physician before making dietary changes or any changes to your medical treatment.)

To read my full blog on this topic, go to:
https://www.wisdomheal.com/post/what-is-the-root-cause-of-type-2-diabetes

Always consult your physician when it comes to the management of diabetes.

Many people are not aware of the fact, even in 2023, that patients with type 2 diabetes can often successfully achieve diabetes remission through a functional medicine and lifestyle medicine approach, using a "food as medicine" dietary intervention. In this first blog of a two-blog series, we discus...

05/22/2020

Here at Wisdom Health and Wellbeing, patient care continues during the coronavirus pandemic. In response to COVID-19, all patient appointments are conducted by telemedicine (virtual visit), rather than in-person, until further notice.

To make an appointment as a new patient, please register yourself through our website on the following page:

Schedule a consultation visit with Dr. George Wang, MD, a board-certified internal medicine and functional medicine physician who provides a holistic approach to medical care in NJ.

09/25/2019

Can high blood pressure be “cured”?

Hypertension, or high blood pressure (BP), is notoriously associated with a slew of undesirable health outcomes over the long-term, including enlargement of the heart, heart failure, stroke, and chronic kidney disease.

But in conventional medicine, we rarely see “cure” in the treatment of hypertension, and most people end up staying on one or more BP-lowering medications for many years, if not for the remainder of their lives. Is this the inevitable fate of any person diagnosed with hypertension?

The answer is, “No”: not from the perspective of integrative medicine and functional medicine (holistic medicine).

The key lies in addressing the root causes and risk factors that lead to high BP.

When the root causes are addressed, the right food plan is selected, and the right lifestyle choices are made and actively kept, hypertension can be very effectively treated and controlled, often without having to rely on long-term use of medications.

Of course, there are situations where medication use is prudent and necessary, and no one should ever try to discontinue or taper BP-lowering drugs on their own without the oversight of a physician or licensed practitioner. (That would be dangerous.)

Beyond the basic recommendations such as quitting smoking and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle, perhaps the most important part of the treatment is choosing the right food plan. This does not simply mean eating less sodium.

Eating whole foods, rather than processed or refined foods, and eating plants, rather than animal-derived foods, are important ingredients in the recipe for achieving optimal control of blood pressure and maintaining blood-vessel health. In other words: Enjoy a whole-food, plant-based food plan.

Simply eating plants is not the whole equation; for example, one can eat excessive amounts of plant-derived processed foods and be unhealthy.

Eliminating sugar and refined carbohydrates is a critical part of the plan, but often the most challenging. (On the other hand, complex carbohydrates, which can be found in whole grains, legumes, and vegetables which provide fibers, are fine.)

Having a well-balanced nutritional plan that includes a diverse spectrum of phytonutrients, macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals is the foundation to kindle our body's own ability to heal itself, including achieving optimal blood pressures. Stress management and mindfulness practice are equally important in this regard.

When the holistic treatment plan is designed well and executed correctly, many people have the hope of achieving optimal blood pressures without having to rely on chronic use of BP-lowering medications.

To read my full blog on this topic, go to:
https://www.wisdomheal.com/post/can-high-blood-pressure-be-cured

Always consult your physician when it comes to the management of hypertension.

08/28/2019

Having healthy blood vessels is a critical foundation for lifelong health.

A new study that followed more than 1800 people showed that having smaller and larger infarctions (cell death resulting from blocked blood vessels) in the brain, in middle age, is associated with cognitive decline over the next 20 years (bit.ly/34dQ6RQ).

Smaller brain infarctions are often seen on brain images (such as MRIs) in people who had no symptoms or no recollections of symptoms related to neurological function, and are often ignored. Larger brain infarctions, on the other hand, may or may not be associated with stroke symptoms. This study followed only people who never had stroke symptoms.

The presence of both smaller and larger infarctions in the brain indicates blood vessel disease there, even though no symptoms are felt. The study showed that having such silent blood vessel disease in midlife can result in cognitive impairment later in life. Therefore, maintaining blood vessel health earlier in life may reduce late-life cognitive impairment or dementia.

How can one maintain healthy blood vessels in the brain (and in the heart, in the legs, and throughout the body)?

Dietary and lifestyle choices, and other risk factors such as smoking, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic stress (and suboptimal management of it), and sedentary habits, all contribute to blood vessel health.

So, choose healthy foods and stay physically active! (And if you smoke, be open to quitting or receiving help to quit smoking.)

B. Gwen Windham, MD, MHS; Michael E. Griswold, PhD; Steven R. Wilkening, MD, MS; Dan Su, MS; Jonathan Tingle, BS; Laura H. Coker, PhD; David Knopman, MD; Rebecca F. Gottesman, MD, PhD; Dean Shibata, MD; Thomas H. Mosley, PhD

11/05/2018

November is Alzheimer's Awareness Month. Prevention of Alzheimer's disease is an important public health focus.

What we put on our dinner table can significantly influence our risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

A study that included more than 7,500 people showed that following a Mediterranean diet (which emphasizes whole plant-based foods and avoidance of processed foods) reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by 36%. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946820/)

Read more on our blog:
https://www.wisdomheal.com/post/does-diet-influence-the-risk-of-developing-alzheimers-disease

09/25/2018

Every 65 seconds someone in the U.S. develops Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease is the only leading cause of death for which no "disease-modifying therapy" (a treatment that favorably changes the natural course of the disease) is currently available. An integrative and "multi-modal" approach to preventing and treating Alzheimer's disease is crucial.

Dr. George Wang will be giving a seminar on September 26, 2018, at the New York Medical College, on integrative approaches to treating and preventing Alzheimer's disease. This seminar is part of the Public Health Seminar Series sponsored by the School of Health Sciences and Practice and the Institute of Public Health.