The medical practice of Dr. Toni Bark is permanently closed. Should you require your medical records, please contact the office directly.
Spiraling Physical and Mental Decline Can Be Reversed: Anti-aging researchers tell us that the human body is designed to live well beyond the 100-year mark. They frequently cite the longevity of the Hunzas, or other tribal peoples in the mountains of Eastern Europe or South America. Reportedly these peoples were strong and vibrant into their…
I spent a good 15 months devising a product which will help increase stress resilience and reduce mitochondrial damage. My product is called Invigoral and can be found here and here The next few blog entries will be chapters of the blooklet I created about Invigoral: New Hope and Help for an Age Old (Old Age)…
Cancer rates have skyrocketed, we are seeing cancers in younger and younger patients every year. It has become the new normal. While many experts will tell you if you live long enough you develop cancer, it wasn’t always like this. The focus in mainstream medicine is to state cancers are unrelated to each other and…
The concept of a Ketogenic diet has been around for decades and was historically recommended to treat intractable seizures. The initial iteration was yukky! All cream, butter, margarine, corn oil, mayonnaise and nothing tasty, interesting or very healthy. Ketogenic diets have come a long way, and the concept of eating low carbohydrates and higher fat…
In the early nineties, the buzz word for anyone seeking out alternative views on chronic illness was candidiasis. Candidiasis is an overgrowth of Candida, a yeast that is normally present in our environment but is opportunistic and can overgrow when normal bacteria are missing or reduced. Candida was blamed for everyone presenting with chronic inflammation,…
In my Chicago area office, I often discuss nutrition, recipes and the need to avoid GMO and pesticides as part of a smart disease prevention program. The past year, I had the honor to be intricately involved with creating and shooting a film (Bought) to be released this summer, which highlights the conflicts of interest…
It seems that everyone is on some sort of low carb diet. The wave of people on some variation of a paleo diet is growing for good reason: carbs are inflammatory and excess carbs lead to increased triglycerides and dense LDL, and hence, heart disease diabetes and even increased cancer risks. However, it seems many…
Many patients come to my office for sexual dysfunction (SD). SD can look like painful intercourse for women and erectile dysfunction (ED) or Peyronies for men. While there are many reasons for SD, one commonality among patients is an underlying dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. The exception is ED caused by vascular damage or…
This is a high protein, nutritious and easy to make soup meal, a type of meal often requested by my patients who either taste my lunch or hear about my cooking or attend my food prep classes. And, who have patiently been waiting for a cook book (ugh, don’t hold your breath)! Measure a cup…
While this season has been particularly bad for viral illnesses, not all viral illnesses with fever are actually influenza. In a typical year, only about 7% of those labelled as having flu, actually have influenza. This year could be a very different percentage. we won’t know until the “flu” season is over. I would not…
So many patients ask for my recipes and not everyone can make it to my cooking classes. For an easy holiday meal that feels like cozy comfort food I’m sharing my favorite quinoa-lentil dish. This dish, a one pot, meal wonder, is a super easy and really yummy dish without being high glycemic or un-healthy…
Once again, the mainstream medical PR machine has managed to infuse a reductionistic and myopic conclusion on a study which was set up from the beginning to focus on distracting issues. The Stanford study on organic food as compared to standard commercial food did look at some important issues including pesticide levels in the children…
While the medical community likes to focus on cancer cures, there are those of us who believe in putting our energies into prevention. So many of our chronic illnesses, including many common cancers, can be prevented. Much of our focus is on cures because big pharma makes it’s profits on selling cures and it’s big…
Everyone likes to have good energy. What often attracts people to others is energy: positive energy, “a good vibe”. We are all packets of energy, and what we pick up on when we meet others, is how they make us feel. Feeling good mentally, physically and spiritually is the biggest attractant we have. How do…
Every time I hear about another young woman who has succumbed to breast cancer, I am deeply saddened and wonder “what if”. What if she didn’t use commercial skin care, cleaning fluids, perfumes and dry cleaning, would she still have died of breast cancer? When new patients make appointments to see me in my Chicago…
For all the readers out there familiar with my blog, you know that I have kept this site committed to being an informative, knowledge based site. It will stay that way. For those of you who are interested in what products I use in my personal skin and health care, I have started the online…
While I am not into fad diets or dieting, I do support creating the right diet for individual metabolic needs. Over the years I have used virgin coconut oil in patients with everything from seizure disorder to metabolic syndrome and cancer. The benefits of virgin coconut oil are many: production of ketones due to the…
Oxidative damage is something everyone has heard of but might not really understand. The patients I see in my Chicago area office often show me the anti-oxidants they are taking with great delight. They know the supplements are somehow combatting the negative effects of bad things they might be exposed to. Oxidative damage can come…
I introduced readers to Zonulin a few entries back. To recap, Zonulin is a protein made by our bodies that creates loosening of tight junctions such as those in the gut, brain and testicles. The tight junctions control transportation of molecules across junctions. An example is the prevention of food particles in the lumen of…
We are bombarded by commercials about statins to lower cholesterol levels. We’re made to believe that cholesterol is a bad thing and needs to be reduced as much as possible. Numerous studies show the benefit of a healthy cholesterol profile. In fact, a recent study looking at muscle mass gain from exercise, showed that those…
I have written about stomach acid reduction and how that increases stomach cancer risk. And, in my video, I have spoken about carcinogenic compounds formed by cooking or dietary ingredients. Below is an excerpt taken from a blog I wrote about breast cancer prevention. There are no good studies linking nitrosamines to breast cancer, however,…
Over the last decade, we have seen acid blockers go from requiring a prescription to over the counter. The commercials for them depict them as benign in side effect and beneficial as taking a vitamin C drink for the common cold. While the packaging inserts for this classification of drug is enough to scare your…
Here is a link to one of my recent lectures on cooking, food preparation and avoiding toxic compounds formed from high heat cooking. This lecture delves in toxic compounds that are created by cooking at high heat and explains where AGE s come from and how they affect blood vessels and organs. The lecture also…
Uterine fibroids are a very common phenomenon among women of all backgrounds. Women of African decent do have a higher risk of developing fibroids but the incidence rate among women in general during the reproductive years is about 30 %. A fibroid is a non-malignant growth of tissue in the muscular layer of the uterus…
The latest fad in dieting has been the HCG diet. In addition to taking or injecting HCG, patients eat a 500 calorie a day diet. The biggest problem with this is it’s a DIET! According to the American Obesity Association,the failure rate for dieters is well over 95%. This is based upon research they published…
One often hears how healthy someone looks. What prompts people to say that someone looks healthy? Most often, it is subtle cues such as texture of skin, even skin tone with a mild glow and bright eyes. Many of these features are interpreted unconsciously to be equivalent with health, vigor and youth. Proper skin care…
In my Chicago area clinic, I see many people with dull or sagging, lifeless looking skin. There are many reasons for this; enlarged pore size, poor nutrition, disease, inflammatory processes, sun damage and hormonal changes. Whether we like it or not, first impressions are often the main reason we get chosen for a job, a…
There are two types of abdominal fat; visceral and subcutaneous. While many studies cite the dangers of visceral fat because of it’s association with heart disease and diabetes type two, subcutaneous fat can also pose some dangers. All fat cells have the capability to transform cholesterol into hormones, particularly estrogen, and large amounts of subcutaneous…
Many patients that walk into my Chicago area clinic want to go on a cleanse. While it can be very beneficial to go on a cleanse, what you do after you’ve finished, is more predictive of the longterm gains you’ll have made from doing it in the first place. We all know someone who is…
There are so many products out there professing to turn back the clock. And, the barrage of supplements you “must” take lest you fall apart is mind boggling. However, for improved collagen and young looking skin, there are not many supplements that compare to red micro algae or “astaxanthin“. This is a naturally occurring plant…