'Tis the time of year for weight loss challenges, detoxes, cleanses, and other health challenges and I am no exception. I have signed myself and my husband up for Diane Sanfilippo's 21-Day Sugar Detox Program to help us kick sugar and carb cravings to the street!

So what is Doctor DiNezza's New Year's Vegan Challenge? It has two parts.

1. If you are thinking of going vegan in an effort to get healthier this year this part of the challenge is for you. First of all, be aware that I rarely recommend that anybody follow a vegan diet, but I think that there are some good take-aways we can glean from vegans. Eat less processed foods, be aware of the ingredients in foods, eat a variety of vegetables- all of these are the keystones to a good diet. If you are still considering trying a vegan diet this spring, I highly recommend- nay, challenge you to run a complete set of blood work on yourself* both before changing your diet and after maintaining that diet for three months. This will not only show you how your body is responding to your new diet and if you should keep doing it, but it will help guide you should you need supplements or vitamins.

2. If you are already a vegan this new year, this part of the challenge is for you.
Like I did for the aspiring vegans above, I challenge you to test whether or not your vegan diet is really as healthy as you think it is. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies (not just Iron and B vitamins), hormonal problems and immune problems abound in even the healthiest of vegan dieters, so it is absolutely critical to run good* blood work and laboratory testing.


In both groups I recommend the following tests:
1. A full set of basic labs (like this panel) including a FULL thyroid panel (include antibodies)
2. A fat soluble vitamin (Vitamin A, D, E and K) panel like this one from Genova
3. An omega-3/omega-6 ratio test from Lipid Labs

*Don't bother going to your GP or primary care MD for these tests- I can almost guarantee they won't run them for you. Find yourself a functional medicine doctor (read here and here) and specifically ask them if they can run these tests for you.

So there you have it, folks. Doctor DiNezza's New Year's Vegan Challenge is to find out once and for all if a vegan diet is really right for you. Let your lab work do the talking and remember, dietary choices are health choices. If your new diet doesn't appear to be healthy for you then you should try to find something that suites your needs better. Stopping a diet in this context doesn't make you a quitter- it just means you learned something from the experience and made another choice based on new information. Be careful not to get pulled into the cult-mentality of any one diet (vegan, vegetarian, paleo) and make your health your number 1 priority this spring.

If you or somebody you know is interested in working with a functional medicine doctor please call my office at (919) 238-4094 and see if we are the right fit for you. ​Infinity Holistic Healthcare is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, part of the Raleigh-Durham "triangle" area.

In my last article, I explained why doing a detox or a cleanse with your friends' multilevel marketing company is likely not the best use of your money. I'm not against cleanses and detoxes, nor am I against multilevel marketing. What I am against is uneducated people dispensing products (and making promises) that they know absolutely nothing about. Multilevel marketing supplement companies thrive on that and blend a dangerous combination of:

     1. Laypeople who typically don't know what they are doing
     2. Who are usually desperate for money or at least looking to recoup their investment
     3. Who have been "educated" aka spoon-fed only one point of view from their company
     4. Have gotten psyched-up at huge mega-conferences every year- extra fun brainwashing!

This usually leads to an army of uneducated people who are sure that everybody needs to take their company's products. The result? A lot of people try an MLM product, don't see results, and go on to swear-off all supplements and natural healthcare entirely. Ohhhh that really grinds my gears- that's how multilevel marketing supplement companies are ruining it for the rest of us.

Don't believe me? Let's look at just a couple of examples of these folk's expertise, shall we?

The person, whom will refer to as "MLMer 1", is sure that their company's products are better than normal multivitamins because of this nifty little at-home experiment. The only problem? Apparently MLMer 1 didn't look at the ingredient lists of each product. Either that, or she doesn't know anything about the ingredients in the products. Of course an enzyme broke down the food and the regular vitamin didn't. Are you kidding me? That's like marveling at how paint thinner dissolves paint but olive oil doesn't do anything. It is also worth noting that MLMer 1 never responded to that last comment, though she was quite eagerly commenting with me before I started pointing out the holes in her rock-solid logic.

If that first example didn't convince you that these people have no idea what they're doing, perhaps my old pal Ashley can help us out. This was an exchange that took place on the website titled "The Truth About Zeal". Now, I will say that I don't agree with everything on this website, but the author does a decent job at outlining some of the problems with Zeal for Life and the MLM supplement world as a whole. I have several beefs with what this Ashley has to say. I will label which of her two responses they came from with a (1) or a (2). 

1. No vitamin or mineral makes you feel worse before you feel better. None. That is simply not how deficiencies work. If you give somebody with a vitamin or mineral deficiency (which are super common, by the way) the nutrients they actually need they should immediately  (within a few days) start to feel better. If they feel nothing or have a bad reaction to the treatment I would consider the following:
               A. Fillers and herbs in the product that can cause numerous reactions (like in Zeal)
               B. The form of the vitamin or mineral you are giving, as some are better absorbed
                    and tolerated than others (Mg Citrate versus Mg Oxide, for example)
               C. Is the patient able to absorb what you are giving them?
               D. Is this (what you are treating) actually the problem? Or is it time to go back to
                   the drawing board and look for other possibly mechanisms? (1)

2. The doctors who designed zeal are human beings, and are thus fully capable of being incorrect, biased, or otherwise imperfect. Using the explanation "these people are really smart and "amazing", therefore must be correct and we should blindly take their word for it" is a fallacy of reasoning called "appeal to authority". (1)

3. "Every vitamin, antioxidant, and nutrient in zeal is great for your body". I wasn't aware that Ashley had conducted a physical exam, history or laboratory testing on Theresa. This is most likely because I'm 100% sure that she hasn't. It's fine to say that something is healthy, but this woman is obviously having a negative reaction to this stuff which makes it NOT healthy for her body. Ashley has been fully brainwashed by the Zeal For Life people and has lost any and all objectivity she may have once had. (1)

4 (Part A). Ashley, like so many others, falsely believe that the minimal training from her company and her own research give her the authority to dispense health advice. Admittedly, I don't know what she means here by "I have researched my nutrition"- she may be very well read. However, judging by our short exchange it is far more likely that Ashley has done a few basic google searches, read information provided by her company, and called it a day. (2)

4 (Part B). Ashley takes this delusion one step further than most by boasting that she has "family that are doctors", which I suppose also entitles her to give people health advice. This one blows me away for a number of reasons:
               A. Most doctors know nothing about nutrition, vitamins, herbs, or supplements. I
                   would have been equally impressed had she said her family are plumbers.
               B. She did not mention if her family of doctors approve of, or even know of, Zeal
                   for Life. Sheer relation to Ashley does not mean that they endorse this product.
               C. See point 2 and the "appeal to authority" fallacy.
               D. It doesn't matter who you're related to or who you know- that doesn't mean that
                   you know what you're doing. My husband is an engineer, and though we talk all
                   day every day, I can assure you that I know nothing about engineering. (2)


Multilevel Marketing supplement companies will almost certainly waste your money, and may be downright dangerous. Do yourself a favor and skip the MLM cleanse or detox this year and entrust your health only to those of us who know what we are doing.

If you or somebody you know is interested in working with a functional medicine doctor please call my office at (919) 238-4094 and see if we are the right fit for you. ​Infinity Holistic Healthcare is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, part of the Raleigh-Durham "triangle" area.

Isagenix, Shakeology, Amway, Herbalife, Shaklee, Zrii, Zeal For Life and countless others

Have you been approached by a friend or family member about doing a detox or weight-loss program for the new year? Do they call themselves a "wellness coach", "wellness advocate", "beach body coach" or something similar even though you know for a fact that they never went to school to obtain a degree in nutrition or a health related field? Then they likely work for a multilevel marketing company like one of the ones above.

I'm not inherently anti-multilevel marketing. However, I am very much against multilevel marketing supplement companies. The reason? These companies thrive- nay, rely on regular, uneducated people to join and perpetuate their business. This isn't especially dangerous if what is being sold is skincare or makeup (like Nerium, for example), but I draw the line when it comes to people's health. Some of the above products are better quality than others, but that doesn't change my biggest problem with MLM supplement companies: the lack of experience and expertise of the people dispensing the products.

Imagine this scenario, if you will-

1. You walk into a store with a friend
2. You walk into the vitamin and supplement section of the store
3. Your pal, whom has no training in anything related to healthcare, nutrition or supplements and no real knowledge of your body or health history, starts telling you that you simply MUST try this protein shake/product/package

Would you take them seriously? Or would you know that they don't know what you need any more than you do?

For that matter, have you ever heard of the saying "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail"? If you have anemia caused by low stomach acid and an H Pylori infection you may complain of fatigue, for instance. Talk to an MLM supplement company rep and they'll likely tell you that you need their company's energy product (or that you need to do a cleanse). Because most of these folks have absolutely NO training in nutrition or healthcare whatsoever, they have no ability to properly diagnose and evaluate what you really need. As a result, they will sell you whatever products their company sells- regardless of if you need it or not.


This year, make a resolution to not do one of these MLM programs. Spend your money going to a doctor who specializes in functional medicine- you'll thank me later.

For Part 2 to this article, click here.

If you or somebody you know is interested in working with a functional medicine doctor please call my office at (919) 238-4094 and see if we are the right fit for you. ​Infinity Holistic Healthcare is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, part of the Raleigh-Durham "triangle" area.