She strongly believes that healthcare needs to change to benefit the patient and has traveled, lived, and volunteered medically in over 40 countries, equipping her to offer culturally competent care to all ethnic backgrounds. She has led multiple medical volunteer trips internationally and embarked on the World Race before medical school and works part-time for an anti-sex trafficking agency. She has also participated in additional training in healthcare related to LGBTQI needs and gladly accepts patients from any walk of life. In the future, she wishes to offer counseling and therapy to her patients. In her free time, Dr. Kelvas practices yoga, mindfulness meditation, and travels. She owns a medical writing company and is currently writing a book on PTSD in healthcare providers.
- Homeland Security: new COVID prophylaxis treatment - December 16, 2020
- Chronic back pain: sick and tired - December 16, 2020
- Gut Health: You are what you eat - December 16, 2020
It’s no secret that the average American diet consists mostly of fake, processed food. Somehow fresh vegetables steadily became unaffordable, and schools still offer fried and pre-packed items, teaching our children poor eating habits from the start.
When I treat chronic illness, I ensure to include in the conversation their diet. Western medicine focuses on expensive medication instead of formally addressing what caused diabetes, heart failure, etc from the start. On average we consume nearly 6,000mg of sodium each day, when we should really only consume ~2-2,300mg. We don’t eat nearly enough vegetables, causing us to be terribly deficient in B vitamins, sulfur, and omega 3 fatty acids.
Vasepa, a new drug produced to help treat elevated cholesterol, goes for about $400 month. Spoiler: it’s literally just a high dose of fish oil.
As hunter gatherers, our diet originally consisted of leaves, berrys, nuts, fish, and meat occasionally. Gluten and dairy, among many things, cause chronic inflammation in our guts and the rest our body. Over time, this exacerbates and contributes to all other chronic disease, including IBS, MS, and heart disease.
Most of my articles end with me advising that you talk to your doctor, but here I will suggest seeing a Naturopath or Functional Medicine doc. Ancient medicine had this right over 3,000 years ago. Western medicine prefers expensive over preventative.
Danielle Kelvas, MD
