Continued from last Friday! Any given neighborhood depends not only on its residents but also on the environment where they reside. Humans provide some partially understood infrastructure for the microbiome through a variety of genes like NOD2, IL23R, ATG16I, and IGRM. These genes both prepare hospitable homes for good bacteria and modulate how our bodies…
Just the other day, I asked myself why doesn’t someone come up with a test for choline deficiency. I constantly address this critical nutrient for patients, especially women of child bearing age and especially those with PEMT snps. Women of child bearing age are at risk of choline deficiency since they give away tons of…
Living in any neighborhood involves ,well, getting to know your neighbors. Functional medicine opens a window allowing us to interact those little bacteria living in our gut neighborhood for these neighbors profoundly affect our health. With about 1.3 trillion bacteria living in each of our gastrointestinal (GI) tracts, these neighbors abound beyond the number of…
Representing a classic Dr. Potter Blog: Five Little Letters Can Spell Big Trouble MTHFR = Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase. For some reason, you now know that you have a mutation. School bullies may have claimed as much in years past, but now it is confirmed. Does it really matter if it is 677 or 1298 or whatever…
Re-Presenting a classic Dr. Potter Blog: My most recent article, by the same title, light-heartedly approaches a topic that can be very frustrating for patients seeking answers in our current hyper-specialized health delivery system. Patients seek care from primary care physicians/providers (family practitioners, internist, pediatricians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and others) for complex issues, but…
Gut Punch to the Head? Traumatic Brain Injury receives more attention these days as more professional sports stars suffer from years of concussions and equipment designers work to lower the risk of long term consequences. Beyond that, as more and more youth are pressed into intense sports at younger ages, TBI effects are recognized earlier…
Prior to the discovery of genetic’s mechanisms of passing family traits, humans from the beginning of time have recognized that children carry characteristics of their parents. However, they simultaneously recognized that the chip off the old block sometimes fell further from the block than others. At some point, the headline “Nature versus Nurture” offered good…
What’s wrong? Are we really saving lives if we don’t heal the whole person? While medicine proclaims many advances in conquering disease, the reality of our failing approach to health care stands behind the smoke and mirrors of technology and public relations strategies. Though we “save” lives with acute interventions, we are faced with long…
Baby’s brains begin as a collection of cells inside a mother’s womb. They separate out from other cells destined for other purposes and begin forming the nervous systems. Both the internal instructions of DNA and the external influences of neighboring cells ultimately combine to shape the future brain. Where the cells finally reside in the…
Nearly all species need to sleep for survival although the amount needed by a given animal varies from species to species. Practically everyone loves sleep, yet busy lives or illness commonly deprive us of this much needed recharge. Journals are filled with studies reporting the negative effects on cognition as well as links to obesity…