Functional medicine should have seen this one coming. Researchers sat around thinking about how to get the anti-cancer spice, curcumin, into cancer cells to do their work. Why not attach doxorubicin to curcumin and see if they would attack cancer cells? In this article researchers reported finding the administration of this new combination chemical would…
Eliminate the diet? Some may like the idea of an elimination diet…IF it means they can eliminate the idea of a diet. Well…it all depends on what you mean by the word “diet”. The functional medicine elimination diet is not focused on eliminating calories for weight loss. Rather, it aims to eliminate trigger foods. Those foods causing illness. By…
Functional MD’s tell some odd punch lines, like this one. They talk about their bacterial neighbors of course. Okay, not expecting any belly laughter on this one, but there is truth in this corny joke. My staff at Sanctuary Functional Medicine are used to my bad jokes though. Researchers constantly find new interactions between our…
By its nature functional medicine operates in a multitude of small offices across the world. Countless physicians and other providers have awakened to the success of functional medicine. The only downside to the grassroots movement is that, without large institutions or labor intensive networking, statistical proof is hard to come by. The Institute for Functional…
Functional MD’s find the strangest connections in the functioning of the human body. Today’s odd connection links gut bacteria with sarcopenia and inflamaging. Sarcopenia means that your muscles are shrinking. Inflamaging refers to the increased inflammation which occurs in many of our patients as they reach their later years. Researchers have long wondered why human…
At the end of September, I was privileged to attend an AFMCP conference. This stands for Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice and was hosted by the Institute for Functional Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. I wanted to share some of the things I learned and realized during that week. Not all of the thoughts will…
The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recently published the results of a study in post-menopausal women with early hypertension. The study provided daily blueberry powder to half the women and after 8 weeks, those receiving the blueberry powder had a statistically significant decrease in blood pressure. For systolic pressure (the top number)…
Experience with any identical twins quickly reveals that they are not clones one of another. Personality, demeanor, preferences, and other factors are very similar but not 100% copies. In terms of health, twins have a higher rate of sharing certain diseases, but rarely 100% there either. In the functional medicine world, we always say…
Have you ever run across an article that blows your mind by filling in connections that you were sure existed but could never put your finger on? This is one of those articles. Daily we at Sanctuary Functional see patients with autoimmune and metabolic diseases, either of which can lead to inflammation. From studying past…
As always, excited to see epigenetic research that has potential for clinical application in helping patients to live healthier lives. In this research discovery, a specific gene HDAC3 can be modulated to improve remyelination of nerve cells after autoimmune damage. Several disease processes can cause injury to the myelin covering of nerve fibers. This myelin…