In functional medicine, we apply both the best of natural and the best of conventional medicine to bear upon the root and the fruit of whole person dysfunction. This means understanding the therapies we use in terms of their mechanisms and targets and applying them in a personalized fashion to each patient. In order to…
Much of our time in providing functional medicine care is spent in establishing balance in a patient’s body. Too little or too much of just about anything can be bad for the person sitting across from us. Take salt for example. It has gotten such bad press relating to blood pressure and heart disease that…
Read Part One here. As promised from my recent post on how to think about the recent Ohio train incident, there are a number of things you can do even while experts sort out the scientific facts and storyline of what happened and what will happen. The first two steps are things we should all…
One might ask how we can know so little about something that everyone is talking about? After 2020 & COVID, we should realize that in times of crisis, talking and ignorance often coexist. Now, with so many facts still being debated and (probably) many facts being withheld or hidden, let us consider how to look…
Given that our society is obsessed with self-fulfillment, one should not be surprised that foods are one of the many ways that humans seek happiness. A recent survey indicated that high percentages of different groups between 50 and 80 years of age exhibit an unhealthy relationship with food. By looking at how the individuals thought…
Functional medicine providers are always searching for silver linings in medical research to share with their patients. In this case, the silver lining is literal: silver nanoparticles have been found to synergize with a class of somewhat toxic antibiotics, making it easier to use the antibiotics at a lower dose. Building on the centuries long…
In caring for over a thousand mold patients at Sanctuary, we face challenges like the one in the linked article on a regular basis. In the article, Legal Services of Alabama state that they have received numerous complaints from rental tenants about moldy conditions. A few individual stories sound like the stories of our patients. …
With over 500,000 tonsillectomies occurring per year in the United States (1), researchers regularly search for opportunities to save the tonsils. Two of the more common reasons that surgeons remove tonsils are recurrent throat infections and sleep-disordered breathing patterns. Like any surgery, multiple complications may occur and thus avoiding the surgery is a better option…
Functional medicine providers get lumped in with conspiracy theorists and get a lot of quacking scoffs, but again we have to say a “I told you so” on this one. For decades, natural, functional and integrative providers have warned patients about the dangers of all the artificial ingredients in the food supply. We have warned…
With Alzheimer’s disease boasting stats as the fifth leading cause of death over 65 years and 6.5 million in the US alone facing it, finding effective therapies is on everyone’s mind. Pharma has not hit any home runs, but besides the functional medicine root cause approach, a simple nutrient called choline shows promise for preventing…