Why should you be aware of Inflammation?

Many researchers from completely different fields of medicine seem to be independently coming to the same conclusion – inflammation plays a key role in the development of what seems like completely unrelated diseases. Arthritis, Asthma, Parkinson’s Disease, Osteoporosis, Heart Disease, Cancer and many other seemingly unrelated diseases all seem to have chronic inflammation as a key underlying mechanism. Chronic Inflammation is a systemic problem, affecting multiple organs in the body and is starting to be acknowledged as a major issue that many of us struggle with, especially as we age. The Standard American Diet is a prime cause of chronic inflammation – sugar, processed foods, dairy, gluten grains and grain fed factory farm animals being huge factors.

Why has Western Medicine been slow to recognize the many problems that result from Inflammation?

Unfortunately the way our medical system is set up, a specialist only looks at the symptoms as they relate to the organ system that he/she has the expertise in. This proves to be an ineffective approach as the symptoms and signs of chronic inflammation are systemic and affect many parts of the body at once. The tools of Western Medicine are drugs and surgery. Surgery obviously can’t address such a systemic problem and there are no drugs that treat the underlying problem, although some may help various symptoms.

What about Anti-Inflammatory drugs?

Although the anti-inflammatory drugs do work, they don’t address the underlying causes and, as we’ve recently learned, can have serious side effects. So although short-term use of anti-inflammatory drugs may be advised in some cases, long-term use can cause serious problems. Instead, I suggest taking fish oil and other anti-inflammatory nutrients like Turmeric and Boswellia. It’s important to get to the source of the inflammation so you can take the necessary steps to alleviate it, not mask it with medications.

Is there any way to test for Inflammation?

Unfortunately, there are not any accurate tests to measure this chronic problem as of yet. The only commonly available test at the moment is the High Sensitive CRP (C-Reactive Protein). CRP is an enzyme made in the liver, which becomes elevated with inflammation. An optimal level would be less than 0.7.

Here is my list, I am sure there are more

1. Modern Western Medicine is based on a narrow “scientific” model, and arrogantly ignores and rejects therapies and entire medical systems that don’t fit this model.
2. Doctors are trained in hospitals in “crisis care” medicine, not to take care of the “walking wounded”, which is the majority of people. They need to be trained to take of the “walking wounded” as well.
3. Instead of treating the underlying causes or imbalances, Doctors often merely manage symptoms. Symptoms are seen as something to be suppressed rather than a pointer to some underlying imbalance.
4. Doctors see the human body as a machine with separate parts that can be treated independently rather than as an integrated whole. In addition the mind and body are also seen as separate independent entities and emotions are often ignored.
5. Man is not seen as part of nature and how what happens in nature effects humans.
6. We look for a magic bullet instead of all the possible factors that make up the total load which are causing the underlying imbalance. No understanding of the total load.
7. No belief that the body has a self healing capacity and no ways to boost that capacity.
8. Everyone with the same disease gets treated the same way, patient uniqueness ignored.
9. We treat the disease, not the patient.
10. There is a reliance on numbers and tests rather than how the patient is feeling and what is found on examination.
11. We don’t take into account the importance of diet and lifestyle on health. How could we? We get a total of 6-8 hours of nutrition lectures in medical school.
12. We don’t recognize or understand the correct use of supplements to optimize health.
13. We don’t recognize the importance of toxicity on our bodies nor know how to boost the body’s own detoxification systems.
14. The Doctor patient relationship is not emphasized and the role of the patient as a partner in their own health care not encouraged.
15. The placebo has a negative connotation and ignored. The placebo is really the body healing itself and should be encouraged.
16. The Drug Industry is too enmeshed in the medical system The Pharmaceutical Industry has WAY TOO MUCH power and is “bribing” Doctors to use their drugs and researchers to produce positive results for their drugs.
17. More than 80% of all medical treatments used have been untested by rigorous peer reviewed study, yet the Medical establishment insists that alternative health treatments must undergo these before they can be used. The system of evaluation needs to be changed.

Anyone who has taken a painkiller certainly knows that there is a big difference between temporary relief and real healing.  Even though a person who takes a painkiller may not consciously feel pain, it is widely understood that this relief does not necessarily mean that a “cure” or a “healing” has occurred.

And yet, it is surprising how many people think that various conventional drugs have performed some type of miracle just because they provided short-term relief of pain or discomfort.  Little do many people know that when a drug “works,” this may be the “bad news.” It may be that the drug works by suppressing the disease, thereby creating a much more serious physical and/or mental disease.

Although antibiotics and select other drugs may be an exception to this general observation, getting rid of an infection will not influence the immune factors that led the person to be susceptible to infection in the first place, and in fact, antibiotics are known to disrupt one’s inner ecology, disturb assimilation of nutrients, and even tend to make the person more susceptible to new infection (a future blog will deal more directly with this issue).

Painkillers, on the other hand, may provide great reduction in pain, but this may result in the person continuing to walk on that injured ankle and cause increased injury.  The person with arthritis, as another example, may continually take one or more painkilling drugs that provide some relief but these drugs also create their own tolerance, addiction, or pathology, usually leading to much more serious health problems.

A smart person might consider taking a conventional drug that provides temporary blessed relief while concurrently seeking some more deep treatment that nourishes, nurtures, or augments the body’s own defenses.  A problem, however, is created when a sick person frequently relies upon a drug to provide temporary relief and does not seek a real, more profound healing.

Differentiating Real Healing from Suppression of Disease

When a person experiences relief from any treatment, conventional or alternative, one should not necessarily assume that a real healing has occurred.  While it is possible that the person may really have been healed, it may also mean:

• the symptoms went away on their own, and the treatment had nothing to do with it.
• the treatment palliated the symptoms, providing short-term relief but resulted in the recurrence of symptoms in the near future.
• the treatment “worked” by suppressed the person’s symptoms or his/her own immune and defense system, thereby pushing the disease deeper into body. Although suppression of symptoms may cause them to disappear, they tend to be replaced, sooner or later, with more serious, deeper symptoms that are more discomforting and potentially dangerous.

Homeopaths and naturopaths both assert that there is a big difference between real healing, palliation of symptoms, and suppression of disease, even though each of these results may initially seem to be the same.

What people don’t usually understand is that there may be a danger in the frequent or recurrent application of treatments that suppress symptoms.  The concept of suppressing symptoms is well accepted and understood in psychology.  It is commonly observed when a person suppresses his or her emotions, such actions tend to push the emotional turmoil deeper, leading the person to explode at some future time, often at people who are not directly related to the origin of the person’s problem.

While people may be familiar with the problems associated with the suppression of emotions, people are generally not familiar with the possibility that many conventional medical treatments can suppress their physical symptoms, driving the disease deeper into the person. And yet, suppression of disease is so commonplace in today’s medical treatment that it is virtually ignored.

Doctors and drug companies tend to minimize the real problems of suppressing the disease process by referring to the “side effects” of a drug.  And yet, pharmacologists commonly note that the determining a drug’s “effects” and its “side effects” are completely arbitrary.  They are both the direct effect of the drug upon the human body.

Ironically, many conventional drugs are touted specifically for their ability to “suppress” symptoms…or even suppress the body’s own immune system.  Ultimately, pushing the disease deeper into the person is the result of using pharmacological agents that are explicitly prescribed for their ability to control or inhibit symptoms that are the natural defensive functions of the body.  Suppression of disease may provide the semblance of benefit (or at least short-term benefit), but ultimately may make the person much sicker.  Such suppression of the disease process may lead to increased chronic disease, immune dysfunction, and mental illness, all of which we are seeing together in epidemic proportions.

Understanding the Healing Process from a Whole Systems Perspective

The father of American homeopathy was a German physician named Constantine Hering, MD (1800-1880).  Hering was a respected conventional physician who was hired by a publisher to write a book critical of homeopathy, and in his research on the topic, he became convinced of its efficacy.  After many years of practicing homeopathy, he observed that people go through a specific healing process after being given the correct homeopathic medicine. He developed guidelines in which to determine when a real healing is taking place. These guidelines have been called “Hering’s laws of cure,” but some homeopaths prefer to call them “Hering’s guidelines of cure.”

To understand these guidelines, it is first useful to know that homeopaths carefully evaluate the evolution of a person’s physical, emotional, and mental/spiritual symptoms.  Homeopaths consider mental/spiritual symptoms to be deepest to the core of a person’s being for they represent the will, the ego, the sense of security that the person feels, and the person’s overall state of consciousness.  Homeopaths today wonder if the immune system’s important ability to identify “self” from “non-self” is dynamically connected to a person’s mental/spiritual state of health, thereby linking mind and body health.  The emotional symptoms are external to the mental/spiritual level of the person because imbalances in the deeper level will create increased propensities to various fears, angers, depressive states, and other emotions. The physical symptoms are the most outer manifestation of the person, though every level can and will influence the other.

Also, each level has certain symptoms that have more or less influence on a person’s overall health.  For instance, a person’s asthma will be deeper than his or her skin rash, a person’s fear of death will be deeper than his or her irritability, and a person’s loss of self esteem will be deeper than a subtle reduction in memory. Likewise, when comparing symptoms on different levels, a person’s heart disease will more profoundly affect his or her health than a difficulty in concentration experienced on the mental/spiritual level.

In light of these levels of the human being and the degrees of intensity to which a symptom impairs a person’s ability to live, Hering found that healing progresses:

· From within to without (from the deepest part of our being to the most external);

· From the most recent disease back in time to previous ones (a reversion of the disease process);

· From the top of the body to the bottom of the body.

Ultimately, basic concepts of survival and evolution are at the heart of this understanding of the defenses of the body.  The human body can and will defend its most vital functions first before defending its more superficial functions.

Homeopaths observe that a truly effective therapy sometimes elicits a temporary exacerbation of certain symptoms, usually in the superficial ones or sometimes ones that the person had many years previously. Homeopaths assert that a true healing is taking place when a person’s present symptoms are more superficial than previous ones.  One of the reasons that homeopaths and their patients have come to believe that homeopathic medicines are not simply placeboes is their observations that some symptoms tend to increase in the process of a curative response (healing from within to without…and the above other guidelines).

This “externalization” of symptoms is commonly observed by homeopaths who witness that approximately 20-30 percent of their patients with a chronic illness tend to experience skin symptoms, nasal or bronchial discharges, diarrhea, early menstruation with clots, profuse perspiration, or some other externalization of the disease process after an effective homeopathic treatment is provided.

On the other hand, if and when a person takes a conventional drug and his or her symptoms disappear but new ones that are more serious develop, this result suggests that the treatment has suppressed the person’s condition and has made them worse. Unknown to most physicians and patients, people undergoing conventional medical treatment are commonly having their disease suppressed. Homeopaths assert that one of the reasons that there is increased mental disease and increased chronic disease at earlier and earlier ages is because of effective suppression of the disease process by conventional medical treatment.

Distinct from methods that suppress disease are those that help disease express and externalize itself.  Homeopathy’s use of the principle of similars (using medicines bases on their ability to CAUSE the similar symptoms that the sick person is experiencing) is one important safeguard against disease suppression because it mimics the wisdom of the body rather than suppresses its symptoms.

I like to call homeopathy a type of “medical biomimicry” because a homeopathic medicine is chosen for its ability to mimic the symptoms that the sick person is experiencing.  Because there is a certain wisdom to the bodymind, mimicking this wisdom is a good way to elicit a real healing.

You may have never even considered the fact that your Birth control pills, allergy medicine, or over the counter antacids could be depleting your nutrients, but they could be. Here’s the scoop on just a few drugs and their nutritional effects.

Birth control pills deplete vitamin B2 (ribofl avin), vitamin B12 (cobalamin), folic acid, vitamin C, and zinc. Estrogen supplementation can lower serum magnesium levels. Acid blockers (Protein Pump Inhibitors and H2 blockers)  are commonly used either in prescription or over the counter medications by people who have heartburn and indigestion. The acid in our stomach is important for absorption of minerals, digestion of protein, and protection from food poisoning. Studies show that acid blockers increase risk of defi ciencies of : vitamin B12, folic acid, iron, and zinc. Animal studies also show lowered calcium levels and altered the way we use vitamin D.

Statin drugs are used commonly to lower cholesterol. It’s been known since 1985 that statin medications can deplete CoEnzyme Q10 levels. Research suggests that some of the muscle aches and weakness and liver toxicity of these medications is caused by CoQ10 depletion. If you are taking a statin medication, take 60-200 mg of CoQ10 daily to insure that you have adequate amounts. (Higher dosages would be for people who have heart disease.)

Since the article in the NYT in November 2008, about the Jupiter study in the New England Journal of Medicine which suggested that millions of healthy people could benefit from taking statins, even if they don’t have high cholesterol, I have been asked countless of times what my thoughts are about the subject.

Well, here they are….

I think this rush to put everyone on statins is CRAZY!

While statins (like Cresor and Lipitor) may save lives in patients with serious heart problems or who have had a heart attack, the benefits for anyone else are minimal at best. Although the investigators reported a 50 percent decrease in heart problems from the statin users, in reality the number went from 1.8% in the placebo group to 0.9% for statin users.  So the risk was very low to start with and if read correctly, the risk was reduced by less than 1%. Even the New England Journal editorial concluded that treating 120 people with statins for about two years would only prevent one heart attack or stroke. The last three sentences could be could clearer. I don’t quite get the jump from 50 percent to less than 1 percent.

In addition, the five-year Jupiter study was stopped after two years, because of the “overwhelming success” (normally studies are stopped because of adverse effects). But the adverse effects of statins are cumulative over time, so there was not enough time to see what the long term effects of these drugs are. Even in this short two-year period there was a 20% increased risk for diabetes from taking Crestor, the statin used in this study.

The good news from the study is that doctors will now measure the CRP, C Reactive Protein, which is a measure of inflammation in the body. The acknowledgement that there are other factors in heart disease apart from cholesterol, in particular inflammation, which need to be addressed is a big step forward factor.

Using statins to decrease inflammation is missing the point. Changing your diet, exercising and taking certain supplements like Vitamin D and Fish oils much more effective in decreasing inflammation.

Interestingly, the lead investigator of this Jupiter study, Dr. Paul M. Ridker, by some strange coincidence is the co-inventor of the CRP test……hmmmmmm

I applaud President Obama for his efforts. I too believe that everyone deserves proper healthcare and that access to healthcare must be a right for all. But I think Washington is barking up the wrong tree. They’re busy arguing about what amounts to health insurance reform, while what this country needs is true health care reform.

Interestingly, what is happening in Washington mirrors much of what we do in Western Medicine. We suppress symptoms instead of dealing with the root causes of the problem. All the options on the table now only address how we pay for healthcare, rather than why we are unhealthy and how we change that. If we don’t change why we are unhealthy, not only are we unlikely to secure better medical outcomes, but it will probably bankrupt us too. In terms of getting better health care or becoming a healthier nation we have to make serious changes. We will only flourish if we address the root causes of the problem.

As a nation, we’re highly skilled in crisis care and the treatment of life- threatening diseases. But we’re rank amateurs when it comes to the equally important issues of preventative care and the management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and many cancers. True healthcare reform needs to provide greater support to these areas as at least 75% of our medical costs are spent on treating these chronic diseases.

Recently on Huffington Post, four physician colleagues of mine Andrew Weil, Dean Ornish, Deepak Chopra, and Mark Hyman all eloquently articulated the problems we face. I won’t repeat their arguments, instead I will present some facts about our system and will offer some recommendations many of which complement their thoughts.

1. We have an outrageously expensive medical system. Our costs are more than double that of any other country.
2. In spite of the expense, over 45 million of our citizens have no coverage, whereas most other developed countries insure everyone.
3. Our system doesn’t work well for preventing and treating the chronic diseases that are causing our costs to skyrocket.
4. According to the World Health Organization’s rankings, the U.S. (health-care system) is 37th in overall performance.
5. Our system is not particularly safe. Millions of people are hospitalized annually or suffer from serious side effects of properly prescribed drugs or medical errors.

I don’t claim to have all the answers and some of these suggestions may seem unrealistic given our current system, but to fix health care in this country we need radical change.

In addition to my strong belief that any civilized society should guarantee healthcare for all its citizens without exception, here are 10 recommendations that I feel should be an essential part of any health care reform.

1) Invest in educating the public in self care

Ultimately the most effective way to increase the health of the nation and to cut healthcare costs in the long term is if we all take responsibility for our own health and learn prevention. It has been repeatedly shown that what we eat, how we respond to stress, how much exercise we get, our exposure to chemicals and the quality of our relationships and social support systems is powerful medicine. Unfortunately most of us don’t know how to do this, so training health coaches to go out and educate the public would help.

2) Motivate people by rewarding lifestyle changes that foster health.

We should encourage and reward people who take responsibility for their own health. Help pay for or give tax deductions for gym memberships, yoga classes, cooking classes, instruction in relaxation techniques, and appropriate doses of certain supplements like Vitamin D, fish oils and probiotics. Visits to Healthcare Professionals for lifestyle counseling and disease prevention should be encouraged and covered.

3) Educate Doctors and other Healthcare Practitioners in nutrition, exercise, stress reduction techniques and natural remedies.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are wasted by doctors when they request unnecessary tests, over prescribe drugs (often with harmful effects), and perform unnecessary surgeries. Many of these services are reimbursed because of lobbyists and clinical practice guidelines established through industry influence or custom, not because the reasons for doing them are scientifically sound. Educating doctors to start with the least expensive, least harmful and least invasive treatments, while having a backup of the “big guns” when needed, would prevent a lot of unnecessary expense. The Institute of Functional Medicine, has a clinical model that is extremely effective for the prevention, assessment and management of chronic diseases. It has already trained over 10,000 doctors and should become part of every doctor’s training.

4) Reimburse doctors for their time in preventing and managing chronic diseases.

In the current model, the reimbursement structure financially rewards crisis care and disease care, but not prevention, early intervention and effective long-term management. But we now understand that chronic diseases develop over many years because of an individual’s genetic makeup combined with their lifestyle, environment and social network. The effectiveness of a Functional Medicine approach to chronic disease has been demonstrated, so the tools we need to reduce the burden of chronic disease are available. But it requires more than just a 10 minute consultation. To encourage doctors to practice preventative care, they need to be paid not only for expensive procedures, but for the time they spend with patients supporting them through these changes. In addition, we need to train health coaches or other health care practitioners to provide this personalized, preventive and participatory medicine.

5) Practice the Precautionary Principle.

In brief, the Precautionary Principle states that: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” Before chemicals or other engineered substances that may impair body functions and cause diseases are put into our food, water, soil, air, cosmetics and home products, they need to be proven safe. At the moment, our attitude to these chemicals is that they are innocent until proven guilty. They should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.

6) Protect our food supply and encourage healthy eating

The Health and Agriculture departments should work together and apply the Precautionary Principle to our food production. Harmful pesticides, additives and other chemicals should not be used in our food production until proven safe.
Food labeling should be honest, for instance, irradiated and GMO foods should be labeled as such.

Local farmers and farmers markets and the consumption of fresh and seasonal foods should be actively supported and encouraged.

7) Feed our children healthily and educate them responsibly.

Serve fresh unprocessed food for school lunches, food that’s nutritious instead of just cheap and convenient. Eliminate junk food and soda vending machines from all schools (and while we are at it, from all public buildings and airports).

Put organic vegetable gardens in schools especially in low-income areas. This not only provide kids with nutritious food to eat, but it also teaches them about the importance of nutrition in general and how to grow their own food.

Ban the advertising and marketing of junk food, sodas and fast food to children…$13 billion is spent annually on it. We should not be convincing children–or adults–to buy products that harm them.

Don’t eliminate physical education programs from the schools as is happening now with budget cuts.

Subsidize healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.

Most of the billions of dollars in subsidies go to huge agribusinesses that produce feed crops, such as corn and soy. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of factory farmed meats and dairy products. Corn is also made into high fructose corn syrup. All of these contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies. Switch these subsidies around.

9) Remove corporate influence from healthcare.

Corporate influence should not be what drives the system. According to The Washington Post, 1.4 million dollars a day is being spent by healthcare interests to get what they want in the new health bill. There are 4 lobbyists for every Congressman on Capitol Hill. They should be banned. Unfortunately the self interest of these parties often works against outcomes that would better serve our collective and societal good.

Stop direct-to-consumer drug advertising and radically limit the more than $30 billion that is spent by the pharmaceutical industry on marketing drugs to physicians.

10) Give everyone freedom of choice

Lastly, people should have the freedom to choose what method of treatment they want to follow, whether conventional or alternative, western or non western, traditional or non traditional.

Focusing only on how people can get access to costly disease treatment, without having the more important discussion about how lifestyle changes can be implemented to prevent these diseases in the first place, is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We will simply be perpetuating a flawed and costly healthcare model. For the sake of not only our personal health, but also for the financial health of the nation, we must address the causes that underlie the prevalence of chronic disease that we are experiencing. Unless we address why people are getting sick or the underlying mechanisms of their illnesses, our system will lack a solid foundation. Unless we change our disease care model to a true health care system, we are bound to both overpay and underachieve in the long run.

An absolutely brilliant interview with a leading progressive journalist on health care reform. He points out that one of the main reasons Democrats aren’t sticking together to see the reform through is due to corporate interests. How true is that? We rarely talk about the flow of money with politics, but doesn’t that get to the root of the problem?

Can anyone point out some interest groups / corporations that are changing the “deal” we put together for health care?

Everyone is talking about health care reform, so I thought this week I would do some blogs on what I think have been some relevant discussions. Today I link to a recent piece in the Washington Post by T.R. Reid, who is a journalist and author of 9 books. He set out on a global tour of hospitals and doctors’ offices, exploring health-care systems around the world in an effort to understand why the U.S. remains the only first world nation to refuse its citizens universal health care and how other industrialized nations provide affordable, effective universal health care. He recently published a book about it The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

He wrote an article recently for the Washington Post addressing the 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World. Here are the 5 myths

1. It’s all socialized medicine out there.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

For the full article and to see how he backs up each argument, check out Reid’s full posting on Washington Post.

Reid was the lead correspondent for the 2008 Frontline documentary Sick Around the World, which examined five other capitalist democracies, looking for lessons on health-care delivery.

Of course I do when I feel it is appropriate. For instance, the other day, a patient came in with a sudden onset of fever, chills and symptoms of a urinary tract infection. Because a urinary tract infection can spread to the kidneys with serious consequences, I immediately started her on antibiotics. But most patients come to me with chronic problems like headaches, indigestion, depression or fatigue. And these issues cannot be resolved with antibiotics or drugs.

What I’ve learned over the years is to see these type of symptoms as pointers to some underlying imbalance in the system that needs to be corrected.

If I correct the imbalance, the symptoms usually go away. So, instead of rushing to use drugs to suppress the symptom, I look to see what the underlying dysfunction or imbalance is and if possible try remove the cause.

For instance if you have heartburn, taking a drug like Nexium will help the symptom but not treat the underlying imbalance nor the cause. And if you don’t deal with what is causing the heartburn, you will need to stay on the Nexium indefinitely, which is what the drug companies want. But this is not good for your health as you are removing the cause and correcting the problem. So you are bound to have other consequences later on and in addition, most drugs have side effects especially if taken over a long period.

I think it is important to realize that suppressing symptoms may be necessary short term but is not a long term solution. Heartburn is not a Nexium deficiency, headaches are not a Tylenol deficiency and insomnia is not an Ambien deficiency. These are all warning signals your body is giving you that something is out of balance. Listen to your body!

So, yes, I do use drugs when I feel it is appropriate, especially for acute short lived problems like bacterial infections. But for all chronic problems, I will always look for the underlying imbalances and possible causes and will try less aggressive treatment modalities first. As we Physicians all learn at medical school, “First, Do no Harm.”

Functional Medicine is a true combination of Chinese Medicine, Western Medicine and scientific research. It combines the philosophy of balance and how to restore function from Chinese Medicine and the knowledge of biochemistry and physiology of Western Medicine with the latest scientific research about how our genetics, environment and lifestyle all interact with each other. Functional medicine focuses assessment and intervention at the root levels of metabolic imbalance and is an evolution in the practice of medicine that addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century by focusing on prevention and uncovering the underlying causes of serious chronic disease. Instead of just suppressing symptoms, it deals with the root causes of disease and is less concerned with making a diagnosis and more concerned with the underlying imbalances, which are the mechanisms of the disease process.

For instance, in the last 2 weeks, 3 people came to see me complaining of reflux and all had been given Nexium by their Doctor. But for one of them, the cause was his diet and eliminating the foods that caused the problem did the trick. For the second person, giving her probiotics and nutrients to heal the lining of the gastro-intestinal system helped and for the third person, giving him HCL, yes you read correctly, giving him Hydrochloric Acid tablets to help digestion helped. All 3 had different causes and needed to be treated accordingly.

As opposed to Western Medicine, Functional medicine treats the patient and not the disease. In addition, it provides a framework for the practice of medicine that uses all the tools of healing, both conventional and alternative, to address the whole person rather than an isolated set of symptoms. I have studied Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine which taught me to see the body from a holistic perspective. Now Functional Medicine gives me a framework to combine this with a Western understanding of the body.

I feel blessed to have met Jeff Bland, who pioneered Functional Medicine over 20 years ago, and been exposed to his brilliant teachings. What started as lectures by Jeff has now turned into a burgeoning movement, with an Institute of Functional Medicine, a faculty and textbook to teach interested Practitioners. I am proud to be part of this new medicine movement as it provides a timely new way of thinking about prevention, public health, wellness and the treatment of chronic disease that can lead to better outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

For more information, go to Functional Medicine.org