Don Matesz is a philosopher, herbalist and nutrition counselor. He has over two decades of experience in the fields of nutrition, fitness, and natural health care, and is the author of over two dozen articles on nutrition published in popular health-oriented journals.
Don has a master's degree in philosophy (with a concentration in Asian philosophy), and received his certification in comprehensive nutrition counseling from the American Academy of Nutrition. He is also certified in Chinese herbology, having received his training from the Institute of Chinese Herbology.
Don is currently a student at Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture in Phoenix, Arizona. Before enrolling at the institute, he and his wife Rachel studied and taught macrobiotics. Together, they self-published The Nourishment for Life Cookbook. In 2004, they released a new book entitled The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.