In my two decades of working with autoimmune patients, I have observed one factor that is the most overlooked and yet has the biggest impact. You may expect it to be one of the following: A food A supplement A diet However, it’s not any specific treatment. So what is it? It’s your social environment.…
One of the more common approaches to autoimmunity in the alternative health world is heavy metal chelation, a process that pulls metals and other chemicals out of the body. But did you know that under the wrong circumstances — which are actually fairly common — this can make patients significantly and permanently worse? Heavy metal…
In the 20 years I’ve been working with autoimmune patients, three things have always stood out that separates them from other patients: No autoimmune diagnosis. Despite seeing numerous doctors and healthcare practitioners, they have not been diagnosed with autoimmunity. Without this step, treatment plans rarely succeed. One of my patients had been to 125 different…
With the media focus on cancer and heart disease, most people don’t know we are living in the midst of an autoimmune epidemic. Some shocking stats: The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) estimates up to 50 million Americans have an autoimmune disease (AD). In comparison, cancer affects up to 9 million and heart disease…
When a patient complains of subtle bloating and heartburn, typically doctors diagnose them with high stomach acid and prescribe acid-blockers. However, reducing stomach acid frequently compounds the problem because in many cases the issue isn’t high, but low stomach acid caused by a pervasive H. pylori infection. H. pylori is a common bacterium that burrows…
We’re led to believe there are good and bad bacteria, and that if you take good bacteria then it will support your gut health. However, we now know probiotics have a completely different effects from one person to the next. This is going to change how they are used in medical practice. So how do…
Gastrointestinal problems are some of the most common complaints functional medicine practitioners face from new patients. However, many practitioners treat the gut with a one-size-fits-all protocol — probiotics, digestive enzymes, gut supplements, and a gut-healing diet that cuts out all the “bad” foods. Unfortunately, many patients continue to suffer because a cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work…
Many of our patients today suffer from chronic anxiety and nervousness. They also may be overly sensitive to quick movements or motions (perhaps they have to close their eyes during the roller coaster ad at the start of a movie), light, sounds, crowds, emotions, and other stimuli that overwhelm them. These patients often do not…
Do you or your patients ever suffer from brain fog, that feeling like you’re disconnected from the world, moving in a daze, and slow to process information? If so, you should take this symptom very seriously as it’s one of the earliest signs of neurodegeneration, or accelerated brain aging. This means you are at increased…
Traditional treatment for chronic depression typically involves medications that impact brain neurotransmitters — brain chemicals responsible for mood, motivation, behavior, and mental activity. However, many patients with depression do not respond well to pharmaceutical treatment or natural remedies such as 5-HTP or Saint John’s Wort. While the conventional medical model insists on sticking with these…