Doctors Notes


Tackle Chronic Disease with a Functional Medicine Approach


mune disease, and/or hypothyroid (low thyroid) I often get responses such as my father/mother had it (genetics), or I have always been unlucky. Genetics definitely play a part in the development of chronic disease, but just because your family member(s) had a disease does not mean you are destined to develop it as well. And luck may be an easy answer, but your state of health is not a game of chance. Chronic disease or health is a result of the interac- tion of your environment with your genes. The definition of chronic, (dictionary.com), is constant; habitual; continuing for a longtime; or recurring. As men- tioned above, most people have the false impression that chronic diseases are due to genetics and bad luck. In fact the development of chronic disease occurs over time with the interaction of our genes and environment.


W Sustained Disease


I suggest that we refer to chronic disease as sustained disease or ongoing disease. Sustained disease more ap- propriately describes, defines and even helps clarify the nature of what we mean by chronic. Sustained disease is the ongoing exposure and stimulation of our body and ge- netics, day in and day out, with one or more of the nega- tive environmental influences:


1) Pro-inflammatory diet rich in processed foods and empty calories; and deficient in nutrients essential to sup- port life and normal metabolic, physiologic and biochemi- cal processes 2) Food allergies and sensitivities that continually stimulate and activate the immune/inflammatory systems of the body


18 Essential Living Maine ~ October 2014


hen asking patients what they think caused their chronic disease of diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), cardiovascular disease, autoim-


3) Xenobiotic (toxic metals, medications and/or con- taminants) accumulation and exposure 4) Microbial imbalance or overgrowth in/on our body 5) Hormonal imbalance 6) Mental stress/psychological imbalance/low self-


worth/spiritual disconnection. The go-to therapy for most chronic disease, through


the eyes of allopathic medicine, is symptom-suppressing drugs. This current paradigm of dealing with chronic dis- ease will continue to fall short over and over because it:


• Fails to search out and address the underlying biochemi- cal, physiological or immunologic cause(s), • Promotes dependency on pharmaceuticals that perpetu- ate the disease process by causing nutrient depletion and/ or grave side effects, • Have ever-increasing costs, which eventually create a financial burden on the individual and/or the society.


Functional Medicine


Functional medicine is about searching for and identi- fying the underlying cause(s) of chronic sustained disease and then addressing the causes through changing the ways we have negatively interacted with the environment. These lifestyle changes could include implementation of health- promoting dietary guidelines, introduction of specific nutrients that allow the body to function optimally (vita- mins, minerals, phytonutrients), psychological interven- tions (stress reduction, goal setting, increasing self-worth, etc), microbial rebalancing, up-regulation of detoxification pathways and/or hormonal balance. Clinicians should work very intimately with patients


to improve function and to improve health, not just treat through a one-size-fits-all approach addressing each


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