This is often asked as it has been a buzzword in healthcare for the past few years. But in reality it is far from a buzzword, it is a paradigm shift in healthcare that is taking place and far overdue in my opinion. Healthcare in the sense of drugs and surgeries for the most part is failing. And the typical approach to healthcare is a symptoms approach. Which at best is a band-aid, and that is true whether for medical or alternative, the alternative practitioners approach may be healthier and less harmful but it still is a band-aid symptom approach a lot of times. To be functional, to truly treat a condition we have to look at healthcare from a systems approach. This means we have to diagnose and assess the body much like a mechanic might look at your car being low on oil. The car not having enough oil is just a symptom, it doesn’t tell us anything about why the car is low on oil. And adding more oil to the car would be a symptom approach to treating the problem, which is low oil. A system approach would be determining if the oil pan is missing the drain plug, is the engine burning oil, did the mechanic forget to fill it up last time etc. In assessing today’s complex healthcare problems we have to look further than the call names like crohns, irritable bowl, a low functioning thyroid, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, peripheral neuropathy, herniated disc, and so on. And we have to assess the entire system or body as to why is it experiencing these symptoms. When I was going to school I saw an educational poster that made a lot of sense to me. It showed an iceberg and was relating symptoms to the 10% percent of an iceberg that is above water. The problem or what is really going on the 90% that is under the water that you don’t see. When looking at the body there are a lot of organ systems and all need to be assessed to determine the underlying cause of the current symptoms. For example someone with a low functioning thyroid may have an autoimmune thyroid, they may be suffering from adrenal stress and poor insulin response disrupting the thyroid, or they may have a dysfunctional digestive tract that is inflamed or has a bacterial infection that is affecting it. The list can go on and on but to just assume the thyroid isn’t functioning well and put a patient on synthroid or some other drug to mask the symptom is not an acceptable approach anymore. This goes for almost every disease and chronic sickness we deal with from diabetes to a a simple sprained ankle. Todays healthcare must include a systems approach and assume most of the symptoms are related not individual issues. There is not much the body cannot heal itself from if given the right care and proper support and nutrition. And if we want to change the current healthcare crisis in america this approach has to be adopted by not only doctors but insurance companies, the food industry, the drug companies etc. In my office I have seen many conditions that are supposedly not treatable that patients have suffered from for up to 30 years because they were not assessed from a functional standpoint, they were not educated how the body heals, and were given treatment to mask their symptoms. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired and want to stop suffering from whatever it is call our office or another functional medicine practitioner and start changing your health today!
Today on mercola.com was an article posted by Dr. Mercola about why the war on cancer is failing. I couldn’t agree more. The key is prevention. I know there are a lot of medical doctors out there that truly care about their patients health but they are part of a model that is failing and just telling someone to eat healthy is not sufficient advice for these patients. If you asked patients to define what they think healthy eating is it’s surprising. Well no it’s actually not surprising because today’s advertising would lead you to think that following the food guide pyramid is healthy or that eating processed foods like healthy choice meals is a good thing. Advertising is deceptive and many are confused. The truth is that educating people to where they have a change in their mindset or beliefs is the only way we are ever going to make a difference. As long as toxic overload from the environment we live in, the foods we eat, the stress we endure, etc continues we will continue to see the epidemic health problems we see today. And its not just on that front that we need to educate people. The vast majority of drugs used to fight these diseases and health conditions don’t work! They just don’t. For example the number one selling drug for the longest time has been lipitor. It is the mother of all drugs, its the wonder drug to protect you from cardiovascular disease. Well the big question is then, wait for it, why isn’t it. The rate of cardiovascular disease in the united states is not dropping, its increasing! And the deaths from cardiovascular disease are not dropping. They are increasing! Maybe I’m a little off but isn’t it logical that if it was working those numbers would be decreasing? The other big concern with statin drugs and the bigger question to me comes from looking at the deaths associated with those drugs and the massive list of side effects that accompany taking these drugs. If statin drugs are not changing the rate of cardiovascular disease, and or the number of deaths and age at which people die from it, then why would we subject people to taking that drug and risk all the side effects associated with it let alone risk of death from the drug itself ? That is the question I have. I know sorry a little tangent there. But my point is whether it’s cancer, obesity, cardiovascular disease, thyroid disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, adhd, arthritis, or whatever the list goes on, the solution is prevention! The solution is decreasing the toxic overload, the stress overload, and educating people about prevention. Below is Dr Mercola’s list.
Winning the War Against Cancer Begins with Your Personal Choices
You can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity, and carrying excess weight. So making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward ending the failure-streak and becoming one less statistic in this war against cancer:
Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure. This works primarily by optimizing your vitamin D level. Ideally, monitor your vitamin D levels throughout the year.
Control your insulin levels by limiting your intake of processed foods and sugars/fructose as much as possible.
Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats.
Get appropriate exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much underappreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.
Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
Maintain an ideal body weight.
Get enough high-quality sleep.
Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42159445
This was a recent article on msnbc news feed this morning. It is always interesting to me being from the chiropractic profession how the media will downplay things that are real health threats with significant evidence to support the threat but yet will blow way out of proportion something like the risks of alternative healthcare. Not to get into a huge debate over that I just wanted to share this article and discuss a little about genetic expression and what happens in these situations and why our health is so important. Our bodies are made up of cells and each of us is in a sense genetically predisposed or set up differently. By that I will use an analogy of when God was putting us together for example he made both Tiger Woods and I both with a love for golf. Tiger though got all the aces in the deck I was given some low number cards and maybe a jack got in their somewhere but it seldom shows up in my game. Irregardless he has some genetic advantages to playing golf. Well in our overall health as individuals its kinda the same. Some of us are just healthier than others, some received a better hand than others. Having said that though there is a lot that we can do to drastically improve or maintain our health and things we do inherently matter and profoundly affect our health or lack thereof. Each cell has what’s called a genome which is kinda the center of the cell and an epigenome which is kinda the outer layer of the cell. The genome is for practical purposes mostly unalterable, but the epigenome we are finding more and more is very susceptible to change and modification. A lot of what is considered chronic health conditions today are nothing more than these epigenomes that have been subjected to poor health choices by individuals, or unwanted exposure to environmental things or events like the radiation exposure in Japan. Some of this obviously is choice and can be controlled and things like nuclear powerplant meltdown not so much. But in either situation what can be done is what we do that can have a profound effect on protecting our bodies and preventing a lot of these conditions. There is no doubt that in areas where people have been exposed to these type of conditions that there is an increase in conditions as the article states like cancers and especially thyroid dysfunction. There are a lot of people for example living in southern utah that during the years past when they did nuclear testing down wind radiation has affected these populations. The problem with scientists correlating it or contributing it to that incidence or exposure per se has to do with this epigenome. A lot of people for example in a population will have increased thryoid problems for example but not all of them. And then you add in the factor of genetics, i.e some families are affected more so than others it is easy for them to link it to that than the environment. So the point I am getting at is this epigenome is highly susceptible to environmental or outside changes, but someone with better genetics may not be as affected by it, even more so someone who takes better over all care of their health is less susceptible these changes. So for example we know that certain things like antioxidants like resveratrol, curcumin, and CoQ10 play a huge roll in protecting this epigenome. So someone who eats a clean diet, supplements with various nutrients such as though in optimal doses, and gets regular exercise will fair far better than someone who eats processed food, takes no supplements, doesn’t exercise, and overall has poor health. A bigger look into the effects of these type of environmental occurrences would be to take into consideration a populations over all health and genetic makeup but these things are not happening. The studies are very superficial and usually done for the sake of downplaying something like the risk involved with for example the radiation exposure from this nuclear plant, the side effects of certain drugs are, or risks of processed food for example. The truth is all of these things have a risk and how they will affect someone depends in part not only on their genetics but on what they are or are not doing that affects the epigenome. So if you want to play like tiger and you don’t have the talent he does what do you do? You hire a coach, you get in the best shape you can, you practice, practice, practice, you use the best equipment etc. In my opinion those who have less health problems in their life are conscientious of many things that affect their overall health and they do all that they can to optimize it. Some of the things that are extremely important in optimizing our health is making sure we have a nervous system that is working optimally, making sure that all the nutrients our cells need not only to function optimally but to repair themselves when damaged are there in our system when the body needs them. By getting adequate exercise, rest, and nutrition. As a chiropractor a lot of the conditions we treat that many think are not treatable or that a lot of other healthcare professionals struggle to get results with are not because we cure anything or do anything magical but because we start to implement these things with the patient and their bodies get back to a state of health because it has the tools needed to repair itself. Its like hoping your car will drive without oil in it or gas in the tank. It may for a bit but poorly and only to lead to damage. So to prevent health problems or if you suffer from a serious health condition these are absolutely things that have to be considered to restore or optimize health.
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