The American Paradigm of Aging In every culture, the concept of aging carries certain expectations and ideas, including generally accepted changes within the body. Essentially, what is common is considered normal. The American experience has taught us that it is normal to experience a myriad of age-related changes, including: Deficits in our hearing and eyesight…
Investigating a New Paradigm of Brain Health When you first joined the ranks of functional medicine practitioners, I’m positive it didn’t take you long to meet patients with complaints like these: “I’m tired all the time.” “I have frustrating bouts of brain fog and forgetfulness.” “No matter what I do, I still feel so depressed.”…
It’s your first patient of the day. She comes in experiencing bloating and heartburn. You do a little digging and don’t find much—only that she mainly has issues after eating rich proteins like eggs or meat. Because it seems like just another case of heartburn, you give her a prescription for an acid blocker and…
You don’t have to look too far to find frustrating and disparate advice, especially in the world of medicine. Perhaps one of the more notable cases in recent years involves the rise of probiotic supplements. For many medical providers, both those within the functional medicine focus and outside of it, the advice to add a…
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…