Blog Posts

Are “Purposeful Parasites” The Next Probiotics?

9/18/2017

I found this article in the magazine, Holistic Primary Care and wanted to share it with you.

What the Helminth! Are “Purposeful Parasites” The Next Probiotics?

click on image to read article

Additional thoughts from Dr. Goldman:

Autoimmune disease is a huge problem in the U.S. The main drug treatments are antihistamines, steroids and drugs that inhibit TNF-alpha. All of these drugs have significant side effects. TNF-alpha drugs can lead to cancers, fungal infections, tuberculosis and even death. Many of these drugs are hugely expensive -- which means they are very lucrative for the pharmaceutical companies.

There has been some research for a number of years indicating that the disappearance of parasitic disease in the U.S. may be a reason for the increase in autoimmune disease. Although I personally am not ready to try this with my patients, I feel that people in the U.S. should know about it as a possible treatment. Pressure should be put on the NIH, CDC and FDA to promote research in this direction.

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With Cancer Screening, Better Safe Than Sorry?

8/10/2017

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With Cancer Screening, Better Safe Than Sorry?

click on image to read article

Here is the link to the NY Times article published last month.

Additional thoughts from Dr. Goldman:
Breast Cancer: In Europe, routine screening starts at the age of 50, is done every other year, but ends when the patient turns 65. Then mammograms are only done if the doctor or patient finds a mass or has other issues. Routine screening in patients with no symptoms is not performed.

Prostate Cancer: The chances that a man is carrying a quiet prostate cancer is about equal to his age. For instance, a 60-year-old man has a 60% chance that prostate cancer will be found (if enough biopsies are done). So it seems that an elevated PSA is mostly an excuse to perform a biopsy.

In 2014, about 210,000 men were treated for prostate cancer and about 30,000 died of the disease. For most of the last 30 years, the number of yearly deaths has remained at approximately 30,000 a year. During this time the number of men treated has grown from 30,000 annually to about 210,000. That is a lot of men treated with very little effect on the death rate. There are a lot of side effects from prostate cancer treatment. Thousands of men are becoming impotent, leaking urine or having their testosterone surgically or chemically eliminated with very little change in the death rate.

I heard a radio report in February stating that in 2016 half the men diagnosed with prostate cancer had decided not to receive any treatment. Here is my question: If you are going to refuse treatment, why get the biopsy? If you are going to refuse the biopsy, why get the PSA test?

The official United States Preventive Services Task Force says to start examinations at the age of 55 and to stop PSA testing when the male reaches 69. Was it even helping those men during the 14 years of exam recommendations? Many primary care doctors are still doing PSA tests on patients well into their 80s. Word of the new guidelines does not seem to be getting out.

Colorectal Cancer: Much better results. I agree with the guidelines.

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It looks like the Susan G. Komen organization is losing ground. It’s about time.

7/18/2017

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I received this email from founder, Annie Brandt, and wanted to share. Dr. Robert Goldman

Some Interesting News!

I ran across a very interesting piece of news recently that I want to share with you. The Susan G. Komen organization is pulling out of Arizona. Mary Budinger, an Advisory Board member who lives in Arizona, sent me two articles from the Arizona Republic newspaper which says SGK:

“will close in July because of dwindling donations and event participation … 7,500 people ran in the 2016 Race for the Cure, a number significantly lower than in previous years, which at one time saw upward of 30,000 participants.”

Lower participation and donations are attributed to the fact that Arizona’s weather permits many organizations to hold races and outdoor fundraising events. The executive director suggests there is simply too much competition.

Nice try, but there is much more to it than that. I’ll let Wikipedia hit some of the high points:

“In 2012, Komen's controversial attempt to withdraw funding for mammogram referrals provided by Planned Parenthood caused a significant decline in donations, event participation and public trust. The organization was further criticized for its use of donor funds, the CEO's 64% pay raise after the significant drop in donations, its administration costs, its choice of sponsor affiliations, its role in commercial cause marketing, and its use of misleading statistics in advertising. In March 2013, Komen dropped from Charity Navigator's highest rating of four stars down to three stars and then to two stars in 2014.”

I still remember when SGK slathered their pink on M&M candies and buckets of fried chicken—foods no cancer patient should touch—in return for sponsorship money. The organization chooses to beat the drum for annual mammograms, despite a mountain of evidence that they represent a poor early detection technology. Why not make the choice to promote some form of thermography? Why not wage a war on sugar, cancer’s favorite food? Why not come out against trans fats which we’ve known for decades to be carcinogenic? Why not give voice to the 2005 research by Environmental Working Group which detected 287 chemicals in umbilical cord blood, of which 180 are known to cause cancer in humans or animals? Or give voice to the more recent work of Dr. Thomas Seyfried? You get the idea.

Seems the American public is getting the same idea.

SGK, founded in 1982, started out with a promise to find a cure for cancer. In 2016, SGK announced their “Bold Goal to reduce the current number of breast cancer deaths by 50% in the U.S. by 2026.” Given how they choose to operate, it is hard to imagine SGK could even make a small dent in the coming fatalities.

It is my opinion that so many people have had cancer now, or known family members and friends who have had cancer, that they have glimpsed the harsh realities of the cancer industry’s machinery. And SGK, advocating for the status quo, is part of that machinery. Increasingly, the public is rejecting the status quo.

So to all of you on the front lines of innovative, integrative care—keep it up. The public is waking up and rejecting the status quo. Yes, many still fall for the mainstream marketing because getting the diagnosis of cancer can scare the living daylights out you. Having some good survival statistics for alternative therapies can help people look at the options that are available.

I strongly encourage all of you to participate in one of our clinical studies to get quotable survival stats for alternative medical therapies. Write me and I'll tell you how.

I also encourage us all to amplify our messaging and let people know good options exist.

Our efforts ARE making a difference! Change IS happening!

Thank you for all you do,
Annie

[email protected]
bestanswerforcancer.org

Copyright © 2017 Best Answer for Cancer Foundation, All rights reserved.

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Why French Food is Healthier

5/4/2017

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In April my sister and I went to France to celebrate my 70th birthday. I learned some interesting things about the way the French grow their food — it could be done in America, but unfortunately, it is not.

We landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris and flew on to Bordeaux, located in the south of France near the Atlantic coast. Our flight crossed the heart of France. It was a cloudless April day and I had a good view of the French countryside. Unlike the Midwest, the French countryside is divided into many small fields. Multiple crops grow in small patches. According to our trip guides, France is second only to the United States in terms of total agricultural output. But unlike the U.S., France’s output comes from many small farms, not from a large corporate agribusiness. Almost half of their total production is organic, or as the French call it, Biologique.

While attending elementary school in the 1950’s, I learned about crop rotation, contour farming to maintain healthy soil, and how to minimize the loss of topsoil. We are not doing this in the U.S. anymore, but the French still are.

Looking down at a field (while still in the air), the French
agri-system is obvious. The field has odd-looking shapes to accommodate the varied slopes of the landscape and is divided into different portions. One section has planted vegetables, and a nearby field is filled with fruit trees. A pasture with cattle, sheep or goats can be observed and finally, another is planted with grain or flowers. Interspersed throughout are small patches of forest. Between the fields are borders of flowers, bushes and trees. Any one area contains a whole ecosystem — it’s just not one single crop planted for miles and miles (as we see in the U.S.!).

Honeybees, birds and insects are the main pollinators of crops, but American honeybees are actually dying off. One reason is from our heavy use of insecticides and herbicides. Another reason is the poor diet of the pollinators themselves. With only corn, wheat or soy available for miles, the bees and other species have too narrow a diet. The French locations offer a variety of crops, trees, flowers and grasses, providing the pollinators with plenty of choices to accommodate their diet.

The French have a very long-term view. In Bordeaux and the Dordogne River Valley, we toured wineries and small villages. An important point — wine barrels are made from oak trees that are nearly 200 years old. Barrels are good for only three years and cannot be reused for Bordeaux wine. To continue to make wine, new oak trees must be planted and maintained for over one hundred years. Today’s oak plantings are intended to make wine for six to ten generations from now.

In the American South, the soil became rapidly depleted and was attributed to raising mostly cotton — after the soil was used up the solution was to simply move on. Farmers gradually moved from Georgia to Alabama, then to Mississippi, on to Arkansas and finally Texas. The French have been making wine and living on the same land since Roman times, nearly 2,000 years ago. They do not have another place to move and they are very serious about keeping their soil healthy and maintaining the quality of their food.

Travel can be educational. Americans do not have a monopoly on the best ways to live. I am not saying that France is perfect but they do have some great ideas that we could adopt. Most of their food is locally grown and the quality and flavor of their fruits and vegetables is wonderful.

Better tasting fruits and vegetables almost always have higher nutritional value. The tax and subsidies of American agribusiness was designed to favor large, corporate farms. Although food prices may go up somewhat, we would be much better off subsidizing small organic mixed-use farms instead of large farm businesses. We would need much smaller farm machines, fewer chemicals and there would be jobs for many more farmers. In the 1920’s, it required over 30% of the American population to raise our food. Today, just 2% of Americans have agricultural jobs. The American rural economy, the quality of our food, the health of our soil (and the health of the pollinators) would all be better if we raised our food more like the French.

Maybe we shouldn’t start our search for the next president in Iowa, the land of corn and corn and corn.

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Getting To The Root Cause Of Hair Loss

2/27/2017

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American doctors with various specialties are locked into their own little silos. Dermatologists just look at the skin. Endocrinologists may test only for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and base everything on too narrow a view.

As a Holistic Functional Medicine doctor, I explore a broad sweep of the body’s functions looking for the central, underlying problem. Just finding a treatment for the symptom is not enough — the difficulty with hair loss is that it can result from many different issues. Some are treatable and some (at this point in time) are still untreatable. I have to cast a wide net as I check the function of many glands, sugar metabolism, hormone levels, diet and family history.

Some of the issues I investigate:

Excessive Stress
A stressed brain and body is just trying to survive and excessive stress can contribute to hair loss — this is not a good time for growth or reproduction. The adrenal gland makes stress hormones and the pituitary (the master gland), sends strong signals to the adrenal to make more stress hormones. At the same time, stimulation of the thyroid and reproductive organs is dialed down.

Low Thyroid
Hypothyroidism (low thyroid levels) is a common cause of hair loss. Other symptoms are cold hands and feet, constipation, weight gain and loss of the sides of the eyebrows.

There can be problems with the thyroid itself. The most common cause of low thyroid is an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. To rule this out, I check the three thyroid antibody tests available.

In general, if thyroid production is low, the pituitary tries to stimulate the thyroid even more to increase production. Many doctors only measure TSH to assess thyroid production and just measuring TSH alone can be misleading. Under stressful conditions, the pituitary dials down TSH production. The doctor can see a low TSH reading and assume thyroid production is high, when it is actually low. It is very important to measure the full set of thyroid tests at the same time to really understand what is happening with the patient. Low TSH usually indicates high thyroid levels and high TSH usually indicates low thyroid levels (but not always).

Anovulatin and PCOS
Women who are not producing eggs on a regular basis, either because of a hormone imbalance or due to age, can have irregular periods, rising levels of testosterone and other male hormones such as DHEA and androstenedione. Excess male hormones can cause loss of hair from the scalp while stimulating hair growth on the face and other body areas.

Low Estrogen
As women near menopause, estrogen levels can fall. Scalp hair growth and maintenance is supported by estrogen and if there is a loss or reduction in estrogen, hair loss can result.

The high estrogen levels of pregnancy enables individual hair follicles to live longer than usual. After having a baby, the placental estrogens disappear. In addition, breastfeeding suppresses estrogen production. The sudden loss of estrogen can result in a large die off of hair follicles and major hair loss in the months after childbirth.

High Testosterone and Other Male Hormones
In some people, the hair follicles on the top of the head are sensitive to male hormones and stop growing hair in their presence. Those hair follicles can change the strong male hormone, testosterone, into the even stronger male hormone DHT (dihydrotestosterone).

There are several treatment approaches:
• Spironolactone is a medication that was originally used to treat high blood pressure. It blocks testosterone from stimulating the hair follicles.
• Finasteride stops the hair follicle from turning testosterone into DHT.
• Birth control pills can stop the ovaries from producing too much testosterone.
• Diet changes such as eating sugar and other carbohydrates can raise insulin levels. Insulin can stimulate the ovary to make more male hormones. A low carbohydrate diet can help reduce the hair loss.
• Metformin reduces insulin production.

Genetic Male Pattern Baldness
Some people carry a gene that makes their scalp hair very sensitive to male hormones. Their hair follicles turn testosterone into DHT which inhibits hair growth. It is only hair located in certain areas that experience this issue -- thus the male pattern of baldness occurs. The gene is on the X chromosome. Men have only one X, which is inherited from the mother signifying male baldness comes from the maternal side. The mother’s brothers are also an indication. Women have two X’s, one from each parent. They can inherit hair loss from either side or both parents.

Estrogen-Testosterone Ratio
Many menopausal women still make normal female levels of testosterone from their adrenal glands. As estrogen levels fall, the normal testosterone becomes dominant. This can cause hair loss from the top of the head while still stimulating facial hair growth. Estrogen replacement therapy can solve the problem by restoring the normal estrogen-testosterone ratio.

Autoimmune Alopecia
Rarely, some individuals develop an immune condition where antibodies attack the hair follicles and kill them off. This can result in total baldness. There is no current FDA approved treatment that is known to be effective. There are a few individual reports of an intestinal parasite that can affect the immune system resulting with the hair growing back.

Other Causes
Some dietary deficiencies can contribute to hair loss (such as iron deficiency). Vitamin and mineral supplementation should also be considered.

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New Hope for Alzheimer's

2/7/2017

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Most chronic diseases are not from a single source.
Strep throat, measles, mumps and other infectious diseases are caused by a single bacteria or virus. If we treat or prevent that singular cause, we can stop the disease. Most long-term chronic diseases such as coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and osteoporosis are gradual problems that are caused by multiple things going a little wrong at the same time. This is also true for Alzheimer’s disease.

Dale Bredesen, MD, has been doing amazing work in this field. Using a multi-system approach, Dr. Bredesen has experienced significant results, especially with newly affected patients or folks just beginning to develop systems.

Here is the idea.
Patients have multiple issues that push the brain toward loss of function. The drugs that are currently used for Alzheimer’s each do one thing. You can’t fix multiple problems with a single therapy. You have to repair the problem from as many angles as possible.

A brief description of Bredesen's approach:
Fix the diet. Stay on a low carbohydrate, low inflammatory diet with limited grains and lots of fresh (not processed) vegetables and fruits.

Healthy sleep. Take melatonin and magnesium before going to bed. If you stop eating four hours before bedtime and then sleep for eight hours, your body has gone twelve hours without food. The blood sugar levels fall, the melatonin levels rise, growth hormone rises and plaque is cleared from the nerve cells in the brain.

Reduce stress. Personalize with yoga, meditation, soothing music, etc.

Regular exercise. Minimally 3 times a week, 30 to 60 minutes.

Brain stimulation. Learn a new language, play brain games.

Vitamin supplements. Take ideal levels for vitamin and mineral deficiencies (not just the minimum requirements).

Reduce inflammation. Take fish oil, stay on a low inflammatory diet and take curcumin (the most active ingredient in tumeric).

Hormone balance. Balance thyroid to ideal levels, utilize menopausal hormone replacement with appropriate dosage using bioidentical estrogen and progesterone. For men, balance DHEA, estrogen and testosterone.

Monitor blood sugar. Control with a proper low glycemic diet. Eliminate artificial sweeteners and keep sugar at a minimum.

Rule out sleep apnea. Treat if needed with C-PAP, surgery or appliances.

Dr. Bredesen measures many other parameters and treats the individual to attain a proper balance. It is a truly holistic approach. He does not rule out the use of drugs, but sees them as only one part of the program.

The take home message:
You can’t solve a complex problem (with many separate things going wrong simultaneously) with a single drug or therapy. It takes a holistic and a Functional Medicine approach to bring the patient back to balanced health.

Additional resources:
Below are two video’s of Dr. Bredesen speaking about reversing Alzheimer’s and a detailed paper written for the publication, Aging, a leading journal in the field.

Aging: Reversal of cognitive decline:
A novel therapeutic program

dale_bredesen_paper.pdf
File Size:	813 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

9/19/2016

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Last month my inbox contained an article with the headline, “Combined HRT Could Increase Breast Cancer by Nearly 300%!” Is this really true? If so, my question is, what kind of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) did they use for this cited study?

In July 2002, the WHI (Women’s Health Initiative) published a controversial and much discussed report about menopausal management. News outlets were screaming, “Stay Away From Hormone Replacement Therapy—It Causes Cancer!” In 2007, I wrote a follow up article breaking down the study into what it really meant. Read article.

As I reiterated in my article, the only women in the study who experienced an increased frequency of breast cancer were
those who took Provera (a progestogen known as medroxyprogesterone acetate, a synthetic, man-made molecule unlike real progesterone). The women who were solely on estrogen did not experience increased breast cancer rates. I will not prescribe Provera to any of my patients -- only real, bioidentical progesterone.

This latest study followed 39,000 women for six years and was published in the British Journal of Cancer. The women used a combined HRT with progestogen but it never mentioned the actual name of the drugs. I printed out the fifteen page study and finally, on page nine, the drug names were identified. The most used continual regimen was Premique (comprised of conjugated oestrogen, 625 mcg and medroxyprogesterone acetate, 5 mg).

Other products used contained birth control pill type progestogens instead of Provera. All of the estrogens were given by mouth, not through the skin as a cream or patch.

They used mostly the identical drugs that were used in the Women's Health Initiative Study back in 2002!

What's different? Nothing. The same ol’ drug given the same ol’ way. It’s not surprising they got the same ol’ result.

When reading an article or watching the news, I still see some doctors blaming breast cancer on hormone replacement or natural progesterone. But (and this is important), every time I check out these studies, Provera was ALWAYS the drug used.

Provera is NOT the same as progesterone! Below is an excerpt from my 2007 article about Provera:
Progesterone is a natural human hormone. In addition to reducing cancer of the endometrium, the lining of the uterus (which Provera does do), real progesterone builds bone growth, improves sleep, promotes thyroid function and probably reduces the rate of breast cancer. Provera consists of synthetic altered progesterone and has been known for decades to diminish bone growth (which accelerates osteoporosis). There is a direct warning in the Physicians' Desk Reference regarding Provera and has been shown to increase breast cancer rates in dogs. Read full article.

I don’t understand the reason for this repeated scare tactic -- who doesn’t want women to get the benefits of hormone replacement (or wants to scare them away from using the therapy)? The headlines never use the word Provera or medroxyprogesterone acetate. They just reference general terms such as progestin (or the British version progestogen). Who are they protecting and why?

Unfortunately, a study has never been financed with women using real estradiol given through the skin, matched with real progesterone (taken either orally or through the skin).

Nine years later, I still stand by my 2007 article. There is no new data to change what I wrote back then. In the words of Yogi Berra, “It's deja vu all over again.”

Using the same old bad drugs only gives the same old bad results.

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7 Lifestyle Tips to Better Health — Pathway to Health is both Complex & Simple

8/19/2016

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Below is a basic roadmap for longevity and health:
1. Exercise on a regular basis.
2. Eat lots of fresh vegetables, fruits and whole foods (raw or prepared in a healthy way -- avoid eating processed foods!). Meats are a minor part by volume.
3. Avoid processed sugars and artificial sweeteners.
4. Limit intake of salt, sugar and alcohol.
5. Take a balanced set of vitamin and mineral supplements (unfortunately, our current crops of vegetables and fruits have been depleted of nutrients to help extend store shelf life).
6. Sleep 7 ½ to 8 hours a night. Stop watching stimulating screens at least 30 minutes before bedtime. Stop eating carbohydrate foods and alcohol two hours before bedtime.
7. Have your hormones evaluated and balanced. As people age, some may require a low dose of natural hormone supplements.

Over the past fifteen years, my quest has been to obtain a new view of the best way to not only help my patients, but also with my own pathway to health and longevity. I have been amazed at both the complexity and simplicity of that pathway.

There has been an explosion of detailed scientific research on the mechanisms of how our bodies work. Unfortunately, very little of that science trickles down to the mainstream medical community unless a new drug or product gets involved.

A single human cell can have thousands of receptors on its outer membrane, getting signals from thousands of messenger chemicals. DNA does not always determine how our bodies work — it is just the basic program. Complex interactions between DNA, messengers and programming compounds, a system called Epigenetics, determines what parts of our DNA, our Book Of Life, are turned on or off. Finding out what is going on (or going wrong) in a particular person can be very complex.

Individuals might have inherited peculiarities in their DNA called SNPs, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (pronounced like snips). These SNPs can either give strengths or problems that are unique to a family or individual. This is where understanding of the individual patient (not the big population statistics), becomes important.

On the other hand, most of our diseases for aging, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and general wear and tear are connected to broad lifestyle problems. The ideal lifestyle and hormone balance principles are mostly the same when I want to help patients who may have a tendency for any these diseases. Some people are more likely to have problems in some areas and not others, but the pathway to health is mostly the same for everybody.

In the future, genetic and chemical pathway testing will become more available and less expensive to enable honing in on special individual issues. Although these tests and possible therapies are much talked about as the wave of the future, they only figure in about 7% to 10% of health problems.

The 7 lifestyle points listed above will get you 90% of the way to better health.

To know everything about one person is extremely complex but most of what is needed to stay healthy is simple and applies to everyone.

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Functional Medicine Means Figuring Out “Why?”

7/1/2016

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Functional Medicine means taking the extra time to figure out, “Why?”
At Georgia Hormones, we practice Functional Medicine and it means taking the extra time and effort to figure out why a problem is happening to you — we don’t just treat the symptoms.

Is Functional Medicine really different from seeing my regular doctor? Yes!
Your regular doctor most likely practices what is called “standard Allopathic medicine.” “Allo” means against; “pathic” means disease. Allopathic medicine attempts to just stop whatever disease the patient has. If you tell your regular Allopathic doctor you have migraines, you will be given drugs that only treat the pain of migraines. Allopathic medicine will then send you out the door. It’s known as, “Got an ill? Take a pill.” For many patients, a pill is not enough. A pill can cover up a problem, rather than fix it. That’s where Functional Medicine is different — we keep digging. American Allopathic doctors are simply taught how to paper over the problems, mainly with pharmaceuticals, surgery and radiation. They are not taught to dig down to discover the cause of the problem.

How does standard American Allopathic medicine work?
Allopathic means against disease. If someone has high blood pressure, doctors are taught to just prescribe an anti-high blood pressure drug. If they have a migraine headache, they are given an anti-migraine medication. An osteoporosis diagnosis will usually have the physician prescribing an anti-osteoporosis drug. And on and on and on.

Why? Functional Medicine
At Georgia Hormones we take the time to figure out “why?” Why? is the key word because it makes a difference! With Functional Medicine we don’t send you out the door. We talk it out. We dig down. We individualize. Why is this symptom happening in the first place? Let’s fix the cause, not just patch the damage. American doctors are taught how to treat problems. For every ill there is a pill. Jeffrey Bland, PhD, is one of the founders of Functional Medicine. In his book, The Disease Delusion, Dr. Bland explains that we must investigate and treat the underlying cause of disease, not just paper over the symptoms with a pharmaceutical drug.

How do engineers approach problems or failures?
I have a patient who is a network engineer. His job is to investigate failures in the system, fix them, and reduce the chance that this failure will occur again. He told me that the key is to ask Why five times. Why was there a failure? What were the conditions leading to and allowing the problem? Why did they occur? What allowed that to happen and Why did it happen?

To truly fix the issue and ensure robust health of the system we have to keep asking Why? until we get down to the basis for the failure.

OK, but what really changes for me, the patient?
Fixing an underlying problem is often harder than just taking a pill, but it works better and longer. We are not against pills, but we work along with the whole body and lifestyle. This means we may work with a personalized approach to change diet or exercise patterns. We may guide you to specific supplements, to furnish what a patient individually needs. We may reduce or eliminate certain toxins (which your body may be poorly reacting to). It’s about working with a patient to figure out why the symptoms are happening and to change your life and medicine to fix the cause.

In Functional Medicine, We Ask Why?
Why is this person gaining weight?
Why does this person have high blood pressure or high blood sugar?
Why does menopause cause hot flashes?
Why does menopause cause osteoporosis?
Why does this man have erectile difficulties?
Why do people get Alzheimer’s disease?

How does this change the treatment?
When we shift from asking How? to asking Why? we treat the underlying problem, not just the symptoms of the problem. This often involves changing diet or exercise patterns. A patient may need additional supplements or might need to reduce or eliminate toxins (including environmental), excess sugar, salt, alcohol, or even pharmaceutical drugs.

Functional Medicine is about fixing the underlying problem. We must keep asking, Why, Why, Why, Why, Why.

Additional Resources
Read Dr. Goldman’s review of Dr. Bland’s book: http://bit.ly/2920wZh

Watch video of Dr. Bland's book presentation: http://bit.ly/298j4sw

Buy the book, The Disease Delusion: http://amzn.to/295j10c

For an appointment, just call 770.475.0077.

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Your Gut Loves Probiotics

4/20/2016

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 Probiotic Foods

Feed your microbiome for healthier digestion.
The human intestine is inhabited by billions of bacteria. Most are good, or “beneficial bacteria.” Good bacteria live in your intestine and consume the food you eat. They actually do most of your digestion for you. You want a diverse variety of beneficial gut bacteria. The collection of bacteria inside a person's intestine is called the “human microbiome.” A diverse microbiome is absolutely necessary for a you to have healthy digestion and an overall healthy life. Research in this area is new, but current studies suggest that people need to eat a healthy mix of good bacteria to thrive. We call foods that contain a healthy mix of bacteria “probiotic.”

Your traditional cultural foods may already have the bacteria you need.
Virtually all traditional diets include foods that contain healthy beneficial bacteria. Most are pickled or fermented foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables have bacteria on them from the soil in which they grow. Traditional cooks make pickles by putting fresh vegetables in salty water, called brine. As the vegetables pickle, the good bacteria on them grows, while most bad bacteria die off. The good bacteria make lactic or acetic acid, which tastes sour -- like a pickle. This method is how cooks make olives, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickled turnips, and other traditional foods. These foods are probiotic.

Breads and yogurts can also contain beneficial bacteria. For example, sourdough contains good bacteria. A bit of dough containing the living bacteria is kept from past sourdough batches, and added as a starter to grow more bacteria for each new batch of dough.

The traditional market vs. the modern American supermarket.
Foods containing beneficial bacteria are fragrant, even smelly. Imagine walking into a traditional Italian grocery store. You are surrounded by barrels of tangy olives, sour pickled peppers, sweet pickled tomatoes. Peppery hams, spicy salamis, and pungent cheeses hang from the ceiling. Each of these traditional foods contains its own unique blend of healthy bacteria. The bacteria produce volatile organic esters; we smell them as complex delicious odors. Their living bacteria can help keep us healthy. Probiotic foods are alive.

In contrast, the modern American supermarket is designed to be clean, odor free, and house shelf stable foods. The processing to make food sealed-up and odor-free kills all the bacteria, both good and bad. Pickles or olives that have been boiled, so they can sit for years in jars or cans, are sterile. These foods are dead.

Just a little is enough.
The key to getting healthy probiotics is not quantity, but variety. For example, traditional Korean cooks make dozens of types of kimchi by fermenting many kinds of vegetables with herbs and spices. Typical Korean meals include small amounts of several kinds of kimchi at a single meal. You don't need to eat huge quantities of fermented foods. A pickle and some olives with lunch is enough. A little fresh sauerkraut on your hot dog is enough.

Where to get your probiotics, food or supplements.
Some health and specialty markets have real probiotic fermented foods available. If you can find them, begin to add them to your meals. If not, you can buy refrigerated probiotics at health food stores. Take probiotic supplements at the beginning of your meal. Just as with food, variety is the key. Buy a brand that has different kinds of bacteria— a large quantity is not necessary. If you can't decide which brand to buy, rotate among a few different kinds. Don't consistently take the same brand because you want as much variety as you can get.

Finally, eat your vegetables! The bacteria in your intestine, your personal “human microbiome” wants to eat vegetables. Feed your bacteria by eating a variety of fresh, high fiber vegetables. Eating fruits and vegetables is important for healthy intestinal function and regular bowel movements. For a healthy life, eat lots of vegetables and some probiotic foods every day.

Enjoy!

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Forward>>

Are “Purposeful Parasites” The Next Probiotics?

With Cancer Screening, Better Safe Than Sorry?

It looks like the Susan G. Komen organization is losing ground. It’s about time.

Why French Food is Healthier

Getting To The Root Cause Of Hair Loss

New Hope for Alzheimer's

It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

7 Lifestyle Tips to Better Health — Pathway to Health is both Complex & Simple

Functional Medicine Means Figuring Out “Why?”

Your Gut Loves Probiotics

Robert P. Goldman, M.D.

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