Using the Functional Medicine approach is the ultimate solution to healing your chronic health conditions, such as hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, diabetes, digestive problems and many other chronic diseases.

Many think that some chronic conditions are part of aging and once they have it, they just have to control and prevent it from getting worse.  Use of prescription drugs is very common.  However, eventually many side effects from the medication are experienced.  Sometimes, the side effects are worse than the original problem.

In my practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, Functional Medicine has helped my patients eliminate their health complaints.   It is a proven natural and effective method, solidly based on fundamental physiologic processes, for resolving chronic health conditions..

It is superior to other treatment options because of the following:

Functional Medicine Identifies and Deals With The Underlying Root Causes

The first step in treating your condition is to identify the underlying causes.  Unless the underlying cause of your disease is identified and dealt with, you are very likely going to “treat” the condition on an ongoing basis because the underlying problem is not corrected.  For example, you can make lifestyle changes and take medication or nutritional supplements that help lower your blood pressure but if you don’t address the root problem, you’ll need to continually control your blood pressure.  Functional Medicine doctors will identify the root causes and target the cause to resolve each of them.

Functional Medicine Recognizes That The Body Consists of Interconnected Systems

Doctors trained in this approach have a comprehensive understanding of the human body together with its interconnected systems.  This is an important factor in determining the underlying causes of chronic health issues.  For example, diabetes is treated not only by controlling insulin to control your blood sugar, but also considering how imbalances of other hormones affects the process.  In diabetes, inflammation contributes to poor blood sugar control, so using nutrients and lifestyle to decrease inflammation is needed.

Functional Medicine Uses Food As Medicine

Most chronic diseases are the result of bad diet and lifestyle practices.  Functional Medicine uses sound scientific knowledge of how different nutrients influence your body towards healthy processes.  Mankind has come a long way since the simple discoveries of health conditions resulting from nutrient deficiencies, such as vitamin C for scurvy.  Countless books and scientific papers have been published on nutrient benefits, and experts say there are a lot more we do not know about fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Bad diet and lifestyles cause various nutrient deficiencies and imbalances in our body systems.

The Functional Medicine practitioner will design a treatment plan for you that consists of eating foods and/or taking nutritional supplements so desired nutrients are consumed in therapeutic levels.

Using food as medicine eliminates the side effects from synthetic components included in medications.  Your body also benefits from an increased consumption of healthy nutrients  found in fruits and vegetables.  This influences fundamental physiologic processes to resolve fundamental clinical imbalances.

Find out more about this medical discipline that’s been called the 21st Century Medicine by visiting the Institute of Functional Medicine.

If you have questions on how  this treatment approach can help you, schedule a free first consultation by calling (650) 394-7470.  Although I practice Functional Medicine in the San Francisco area, we also offer phone consultations for those outside the bay area.

Metabolic detoxification is one of the keys to vibrant health and long lasting weight loss.

Our bodies must routinely get rid of metabolic waste and remove toxins, otherwise, we die.  When you have poor cellular detoxification, it results in slowly waning health and multiple subtle symptoms.

From the biochemical perspective, metabolic detoxification occurs in 2 phases:

Phase I Detoxification:

Phase I works using enzymes called cytochrome P450 enzymes. They are found in various tissues, with the liver, the gut lining, kidneys, lungs and brain tissues having the greatest amounts of these enzymes.  The cytochrome P450 enzymes help move toxins from the cells by using the active form of niacin that makes them into more reactive molecules. These more reactive molecules are then ready for phase II, which is excretion.  If they are not taken through phase II, they can be more toxic than the original toxin and cause damage inside the body.  Increased cancer risks and Parkinson’s disease are associated with increased phase I activity without adequate phase II detoxification.

Phase I detoxification requires very little nutritional support to be fully active.  In fact, during fasting and starvation, phase I “detox” can increase substantially.  Enhancing phase I detoxification requires antioxidants.

Phase II Detoxification:

The reactive phase I intermediates are attached to a series of enzymes that make the intermediates more water soluble. The final detoxified molecule can then be excreted in the urine, and via sweat and feces.

Phase II detoxification is very dependent on these various essential nutrients:

• the amino acids glycine, taurine, glutamine, N-acetylcysteine, cysteine, methionine
• vitamin B6, B12, and folate
• essential fatty acids: DHA and EPA

Balanced phase I and II metabolic detoxification processes are essential for proper elimination of toxins from the body.

A proper hypothyroidism diagnosis is often missed among those who are already experiencing many of the symptoms of hypothyroid problems.

A typical general practitioner or family physician will test your thyroid function by checking the TSH and T4 levels through a blood test. If your doctor runs the blood tests and the results show “normal” but you are having many of the signs and symptoms above, you will need to find a doctor who does the complete thyroid testing.

Complete thyroid testing includes free T4, total T3, free T3, reverse T3, TPO, thyroglobulin antibodies, salivary cortisol and DHEA-S, along with TSH and T4. These tests will show a more precise hypothyroidism diagnosis. It will also help identify if adrenal dysfunction is an underlying cause of the thyroid problem. This may surprise some of you, but even many endocrinologists may misdiagnose hypothyroidism.

Simply Getting Diagnosed with Hypothyroidism Is Not Enough

A hypothyroidism diagnosis is incomplete when the underlying cause of the thyroid problem is not identified. When you don’t identify the root cause, how will you resolve the thyroid problem? In that case, you can only get treatment for symptoms. The typical “treatment” is thyroid medication to address low thyroid.

You will end up with managing the symptoms either with a doctor or on your own. For low energy/chronic fatigue, you’ll be seeking energy-enhancers and/or you’ll adapt a lifestyle to accommodate lots of rest and sleep. For depression, you might get an anti-depressant. For many, it will be years and years (and perhaps, for the rest-of-your-life) of taking stuff or doing stuff to cope with it.

Those given the thyroid medication, levothyroxin (synthroid), often experience the following problem:

Synthroid contains only one of the necessary thyroid hormones (T4). Your problem may be your body isn’t converting the less-active thyroid hormone, T4, to the more active thyroid hormone, T3. Synthroid will not help that process so eventually you’ll be given higher and higher doses because the conversion is the problem.

The conversion is helped by a form of selenium. There are other necessary complementary nutrients that also help this conversion.

Taking this medication is like planting a plant that requires direct sunlight in a shady area. Though you water it and fertilize it (and even talk to it), it will not look healthy and vibrant.

In my experience, the most common root causes of hypothyroidism are adrenal dysfunction and gut problems.

For some, the adrenal glands may be the primary problem, not the thyroid. If they are imbalanced, your body can start making antibodies against the thyroid, and then the thyroid symptoms and lab tests start to show a problem. The antibody markers often not checked are antithyroglobulin antibodies and thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO). Since many doctors don’t check adrenal problems until the symptoms and signs are very severe, adrenal problems are often missed.

In my clinic, the hypothyroid patients I’ve diagnosed and treated for adrenal dysfunction, have had their thyroid problems improve.

For others, the gut is the source of the problem. If your gut is not absorbing the nutrients to make the thyroid hormones, you’ll have an on-going low thyroid level. Many hormone imbalances are actually a result of the bad state of the gut.

To read more about these two common sources of low thyroid in this blog post: The Thyroid, Adrenal, Gut Connection   For more information on hypothyroidism, visit our Hypothyroidism page.

The bottom line is the key to a proper hypothyroidism diagnosis is a complete blood test and determining the origin of the thyroid problem.