Functional Medicine Archives | Page 4 of 5 | Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

September 9, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

VDR – A Missing Piece in Your Hashimoto Journey

My last post was about MTHFR. If these letters are new to you or you think I just called you an insult, please go back and review before proceeding.

Letters like MTHFR, COMT, MTRR, and today’s topic of VDR have to do with your DNA code. Genetically, the human race is virtually identical. You can take a female from Sri Lanka, mate her with a dude from Alaska, and they will produce a gorgeous baby with all the right parts and capacities for that human to become a world leader someday.

The goofy letters I listed above fall into the category of what makes us unique. MTHFR is used in how we process folic acid. MTRR is used on how we process B12. COMT has roles in breaking down neurotransmitters like dopamine and epinephrine. Regardless of your stance on creation and/or evolution, the one point of agreement is that today’s modern human has been around for 10,000 years. This means your DNA code has been unchanged from classic hunter-gatherer type populations.

What has changed immensely is our environment. That’s why this has the greatest factor on your overall health expression. With that same DNA code being passed from generation to generation for 10,000 years, there’s potential that the basic blue print over time can have a typo here and there or even a little fading at times.

It’s these ‘typos’ that may create challenges the more your environment is compromised in your eating, movement, thought, social, and spiritual patterns. They are called SNPs (snips). Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms.

One I want to highlight today is the VDR.

Vitamin D Receptor

[Read more…]

September 2, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

MTHFR Myopia

If you happened upon this post with interest in how MTHFR can cause near sightedness, you’ll be sadly disappointed. You’re probably looking for affirmation that the cause of all your problems stem from a MTHFR dysfunction. Instead, I hope to provide information for those practitioners and general population people that learn just enough about MTHFR to become dangerous…and careless…and myopic.

For those that are still hung up on the letters MTHFR and wondering if I just insulted you, let me explain. Actually, let me give you the meaning of life. Ready? Life is like our favorite food. You need ingredients and directions to create a finished product.

Substrate + Enzyme/Co-Factors = Product.

Substrates are your basic ingredients. These are your lifestyle choices, circumstances, perceptions, nutrition levels, social influences, movement patterns, and all the variables in life. This accounts for 98% of your health outcomes (finished product).

The enzymes are coded for in your DNA. This is your recipe guide. It’s the constant in the equation, it doesn’t change. There can be tweaks here and there but any typos in that recipe can most often be corrected for by changing your spices, heating, altitude, etc (i.e. co-factors).

The product is you and your health expression. You have an amazing recipe and access to ingredients to live a life your ancestors only dreamed about.

The better your ingredients, the better the product. This life recipe has stood the test of time but because it’s a copy from your great-great-great grandmother x 10,000 years, some of the print may be a bit faded or maybe even contain some typos? You’ve seen plenty of those in my posts. Depending on your surrounding environment, you may get caught up on those typos and decide you don’t want to read any further. You’re disgusted by my ineptness of editing and disregard anything I’ve ever said because I used the wrong version of affect versus effect.

For the majority of you, it’s no big deal, you’re kind and forgiving and will send a sweet email directing me to a correction that needs attention. I appreciate those.

Typos

This ‘typo’ is a simplistic way of looking at MTHFR. In essence there’s a deviation in the code from your DNA and it may or may not affect you…or is that effect? I’ll never understand that one.

[Read more…]

August 2, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

When High Intensity Harms

I’ve been getting a very similar question/story lately. It goes something like this.

I’ve been eating paleo for months, doing high intensity exercise, doing everything right, and I still can’t drop the weight.

They often add fatigue into the equation as well. That statement in itself could mean a lot of things but for the sake of this post, I want to focus on the high intensity exercise piece.

I LOVE high intensity exercise. I do high intensity workouts in a CrossFit manner. But exercise is actually one of the poorest interventions for you to lose weight. Why? Because most measure exercise in terms of calorie expenditure. This mind set is when high intensity harms as it leaves you in the mental state of more it better. I don’t really want to get into the calorie-in, calorie-out falsehood of activity and weight. Instead, I’m going to focus on the bigger picture.

[Read more…]

July 25, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

The #1 Question I Hate Answering

I get asked a LOT of questions. It is the nature of my profession. But there’s one question I cringe at answering. I hate this question because it’s usually in an awkward social setting with people I will probably never see again. Honestly, I would rather speak to a group of 200 people than make small talk with 5. Don’t even get me started about flying alone.

The question I dread is, “so what do you do for a living?” I don’t dread it because I’m embarrassed or hate what I do. I’m more excited and passionate today than I was 12 years ago when I started my professional career. I dread it because the answer limits what I do and have done in the minds of the question asker, especially over this last year.

If I say I’m a chiropractor, I often get the obnoxious response of someone grabbing their neck or pretending that their back just went out. Or I get the totally uninformed person that responds with, “I love having my back rubbed.” At this point, I’m ready to put a knee in the middle of their back. Or it’s the total opposite and they think I’m the spawn of Satan and practice voodoo.

I could say I’m a writer, but it’s just a piece of what I do. Yes I wrote a book and have written probably 200 articles the past 4-5 years. I could also say I’m a speaker, but again, it’s just a piece. I use these pieces more as one of the core expressions (Education) of my core values (Leadership, Family, and Community) to ultimately support my mission of helping you create ‘More Health Less Healthcare.’

What I usually say is that I practice Functional Medicine. The problem is that unless you’re looking for a functional medicine practitioner you’ve probably never even heard of the term. This role of ‘what I do’ has been the focus of my career over the past few years.

I just have completed the course work and passed the 12 exams through Functional Medicine University in the credentialing process. This means in the near future you will see some additional letters after my name, CFMP. In all honesty, the letters don’t matter. What matters is if I’m able to use all that information, apply it to each individual and move them towards their health goals.

So what is Functional Medicine? I would define it as assessing and supporting systems and origins, instead of treating symptoms and organs. Honestly, it takes my chiropractic education and biochemistry background and ties it all together to assess the root cause of a person’s health problems more efficiently, effectively, and thoroughly.

Many practitioners are using the term ‘functional medicine’ in their marketing. I have a cynical feeling this term will get as bastardized as the term ‘wellness’ has. A doctor can say they practice functional medicine but how do you, the consumer, know?

[Read more…]

July 15, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

Chasing Pain

Pain is nothing but a perception.

Pain is the cortical, emotional response to nociceptive information that reaches the cortex and there can be a great deal of nociceptive input that does not reach the conscious brain (cortex). Nociception is the detection of noxious stimuli or stressors and the body responds accordingly by increasing the stress response and associated stress hormones, such as catecholamines (epinephrine/norepinephrine) and cortisol. Increased nociception can lead to sensitization of the nociceptive pathways both peripherally and centrally via the process of synaptogenesis and neuroplasticity. This sensitization process results in lowered firing thresholds and has been documented to lead to allodynia. Dr. James Chestnut

What the flip does all that mean?

Cortical/Cortex.

This is the cerebral cortex, which is the conscious part of your brain. It’s estimated that the brain receives 3 TRILLION bits of information every second but only 50 bits actually reach the conscious brain.

Nociception/Noxious Stimuli.

Nociception (No-See-Sep-shun) is the transfer and communication of noxious stimuli (signals that indicate potential harm in the body). The more potential harm your body undergoes, the more the body adapts into protection mode, just in case you are actually in danger. As a result, this sets the stage for your body, regardless of how you feel, to be in a constant state of fight or flight.

Sensitization and Lowered Firing Thresholds.

You increase sensitivity to things like sound, sight, hearing, touch, and for our purposes, pain. In other words, the more sensitive you are, the less stimulus it takes to set you off. Imagine one of your kids annoying the crap out of you and you’re doing a good job at holding it together but irritated. But as soon as your second child joins the “mom…mom…mom…mom” chant, you blow your fuse and snap at the second child.

Synaptogenesis and Neuroplasticity.

The best way to translate these terms is “the cells that fire together, wire together.” The more you repeat something, a habit, a movement, or even a thought, the more your nervous system creates increased communication and default pathways around those actions. You learned to ride a bike or swim. As a result, you created new nerve pathways to remember how to do that the rest of your life. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Allodynia.

This is pain associated with things that should not cause pain, like light touch. As a chiropractor I hear this all the time. As I’m assessing someone’s tissues, I often hear, ‘I didn’t realize my back was so sensitive,” or “I didn’t realize I had pain until you started poking around.”

What’s Your Point Smarty Pants?

[Read more…]

July 1, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

Hormone Testing

One of the most sought out requests I get is in regards to hormones, especially for women. More often than not, they have been to 1-2 other providers and not getting answers. Instead, they get a hormone test and then prescribed a hormone, synthetic or bio identical. It sounds logical but that approach can do more harm than help, especially long term. Let me say it upfront, I’m not a fan of hormone replacement.

Why? Because hormones are messengers of harmony. You’ve heard the saying, ‘don’t shoot the messenger?’ I look at hormone replacement in the same light. A hormone just does what it’s told to do.

Hormone Assessment Requires Context

Context #1: The Nervous System

Every minute of every day, your nervous system is organizing and coordinating what is happening to you or what could potentially happen to you. This organization will either create pathways to favor your immediate protection. Or this organization will create pathways to favor your long term legacy. Here’s the catch. If you aren’t set up for immediate protection, there’s no reason to plan for your legacy.

I was listening to a podcast once and the guest was some sort of an elite military trained individual. When in active duty, he had the type of position that he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what he was doing. The reality that he may become separated from communication or his troop was on the side of probable. In this podcast, he was giving tips on how to survive the wilderness.

There were 3 things that one needs to survive the wilderness: Shelter, Food, and Water. He said the #1 reason why people fail to survive the wilderness and die is that they go seek food and water before establishing shelter. They are looking to sustain their long term legacy over their immediate protection.

Most of us are no different. We go and seek that long term legacy by trying to balance hormones. The problem is that your innate intelligence is over riding your well-intentioned, yet selfish behavior to make sure you have protection right now.

This all takes place in the nervous system. Assessing the situation happens in your hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus then triggers your anterior pituitary to send the appropriate signals to the body in response to what is happening in life at that moment. The pituitary can talk to your adrenals, your gonads, your thyroid, your liver, and skin (stimulating sun tan, freckles, etc).

If you need immediate protection, your pituitary is going to spend most of its time and energy talking to the adrenals. This is your stress response. A stress doesn’t have to be just mental or emotional like fear and worry. A stress is going to include what areas of life you are deficient and or toxic. It will be nutrition, movement, thoughts, social, spiritual, chemical, electromagnetic, etc.

The point is that if your brain is setting up signals for your immediate protection, it’s not going to support and waste energy on long term legacy. Therefore, the signals that go to a woman’s ovaries, FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) and LH (Luteinizing Hormone) get disrupted. FSH will have a major role in the ovulation of a follicle in the menstrual cycle, producing estrogen. LH will have a major role in the development of the now empty follicle to the corpus luteum, producing progesterone.

The problem is that traditional hormone testing is a one day spot shot of estrogen and progesterone without giving context as to the deficiencies and toxicities the individual woman is facing. All the doctor asks for is symptoms. Symptoms are not sufficient context.

If you are super stressed, your brain will shift your hormone needs to immediate protection opposed to long term legacy. If you’re running from a bear, your brain could care less about making babies.

Context #2: It’s a Cycle, Not a Day

The text book average menstrual cycle is 28 days. Within those 28 days, it’s expected to have hormone fluctuations. The first 1/2 of the cycle (follicular phase day 1-14), should favor estrogen. Estrogen’s role is to make cells grow. The second 1/2 of the cycle (luteal phase day 15-28), should favor progesterone. Progesterone’s role is to make cells mature.

Therein lies the problem. How many women, concerned about their hormones, have a text book, consistent 28 day cycle? How many women, NOT concerned about their hormones, have a text book, consistent 28 day cycle? There is too much assumption at day 19-21, when a blood test is run, attempting to assess a higher progesterone than estrogen. The strength of the follicular phase is dependent on the strength of the luteal phase and the strength of the luteal phase is dependent on the strength of the follicular phase.

Assessing the cycle with a one day spot shot is like taking a quote out of context or seeing the retaliation punch from your kid.

The other problem is that most often the hormones are assessed using a blood sample. Blood isn’t bad but with hormones the serum is a measurement of bound protein. Basically, it’s the inactive form. Using saliva will give the free and usable values. Ask your doctor about using a saliva collection instead of a blood sample. Also ask about getting samples through the entire 28 days.

DiagnosTechs is a lab that has an 11 sample profile that gives insight into your entire cycle, not just one day. Besides estrogen and progesterone, it looks at LH, FSH, testosterone, and even DHEA.

Context #3: Lifestyle

Xenoestrogens: There are going to be many other factors that influence your hormones. Many of the environmental exposures women encounter, especially in beauty products, as well as plastics and pesticides will mimic estrogens.

Aromatase: Excess body fat can induce an excess of estrogen by way of an enzyme called aromatase. This enzyme causes testosterone to be converted to estrogen. This can apply to males with that spare tire and seeking treating for low T.

Liver: The liver will have major influence on hormone regulation. The first influence is the production of cholesterol. Cholesterol is a major building block of our steroid hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, cortisol, and even Vitamin D. If the body is going to favor immediate protection over long term legacy, then cholesterol production will be shunted towards the production of cortisol (survival hormone) instead of our sex hormones.

Cholesterol: Something else to think about. Could the past 40 year battle against cholesterol be a major contributor to our hormone imbalances today? After all, heart disease is the #1 killer of both men and women and one of the immediate recommendations is to lower cholesterol. If there isn’t enough materials to make up our hormones, something has to be sacrificed, right?

Another influence by the liver is the ability to detox. The liver isn’t just detoxing chemicals, it detoxes hormones. If that process isn’t supported, then it’s possible the hormones don’t get de-activated and cleared through the body sufficiently.

Posture: Posture will greatly affect hormones. If the head is ‘stuck’ on that top vertebrae, this is a stressor as much as eating my 3 year old McRib. With the abundance of sitting, this is a prime routine to lock in your skull, disrupting that nerve communication between brain and body.

The list could go on and on with inflammation, auto-immune, sugar, adrenals, insulin, and many more. The point is that if you’re going to address a hormone imbalance without causing more harm down the road, then you’re going to have to address and assess many issues that influence your hormone expression. Got questions? Come find me. If your question is, “what’s the best hormone replacement therapy?” I will hang up on you.

May 16, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

Methylation Madness

The term methylation is getting thrown around a lot. That’s good because the biochemical process of methylation does so much in your health outcomes and you should be familiar with it. Methylation is the 2nd most abundant chemical reaction that occurs each and every day inside you, right after oxidation-reduction reactions that produce your energy power house ATP.

So what is methylation? The literal answer is the addition of a methyl group (CH3) to an inactive compound to make it active. But what does that mean to you and your health plans? This simple process of adding a single carbon molecule has global effects for maintaining and acceleration many pathways including: neurotransmitters, hormones, detoxification, DNA synthesis, immune system activity, and joint health.

In short, methylation promotes health cells and regulates the expression of genes. One of the most well known genes that relies on methylation is MTHFR (Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase). In short, this gene helps the conversion in the pathway from folic acid to methyl tetrahydrofolate (the active form of folic acid). Without this ability, folic acid remains inactive and this can disrupt a number of reactions that should feed the nervous system. If the nervous system isn’t supported, this can have global consequences, especially for a fetus in early development. It’s this active form of folic acid that starts and creates a series of countless critical enzymatic reactions.

For example: Dr. Ben Lynch points out

[Read more…]

April 18, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

3 Rs for Gut Restoration

I’m sure there isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t see a Facebook post talking about the gut. In fact, I just posted one from some researchers concluding:

The study results support the hygiene hypothesis which, in the case of IBD, argues that the absence of exposure to worms in too-clean modern living spaces has left some with oversensitive, gut-based immune systems vulnerable to inflammatory diseases. Gut worms have helped to train and balance immune systems throughout human evolution, but are now missing in developed nations, which, in turn, have the highest rates of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. #GetDirty.

I’m currently reading Dr. Kelly Brogan’s book, A Mind of Your Own: The Truth About Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives. She is tackling the gut as a major source of mental illness. The gut’s affect is linked to WAY more than just belly discomfort. It’s linked to thyroid issues, hormones, joint destruction, autism, chronic fatigue, and so on and so on.

So what’s a person to do about it? How do you know if you have gut problems?

The safe answer is to assume that you do have gut problems. The solution is to create an internal ecosystem that promotes gut health. What’s the danger of doing this if you don’t have gut problems? Nothing. It’s called creating health. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your brain. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your hair. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your sex drive. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your mitochondria.

[Read more…]

March 18, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

To Antibiotic or Not

It’s no mystery that we have a massive over-use of antibiotics problem in our culture. Once the miracle cure for anything that ails you, has now been linked to auto-immune conditions, obesity, and the rise in drug resistant bacteria. The use of antibiotics on the human ecosystem is like an atomic bomb, wiping out any and all types of bacteria present. It’s able to end internal wars when used appropriately but over use can lead to the end of civilization as we know it.

For these reasons, many of the parents in my practice are weary about putting their kids or themselves on antibiotics. For clarification, I cannot prescribe antibiotics nor can I tell you to not go on them. We just strive to have good relationships with our practice members so many want to know what I would do and are comfortable asking. What I do is give circumstances about how I would approach the situation if my kids needed them. Thankfully, at the time of writing this, my 3 boys of 4 yo, 2 yo, and 3 months, have never been on antibiotics nor needed them.

If my boys or wife, or even myself had need for them, I would be just as cautious as my practice peeps are. As a kid, I was on antibiotics more than I can remember. Eventually, someone realized I was allergic to them and they were causing more harm than help. I would say my repeated doses were a major contributor to the horrific eczema that I had in college.

Fortunately, the nurse practitioner at my college was severely wrong about my diagnosis, and pretty much every other kid that walked into her office in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. If you were a female not feeling well, her top differential diagnosis was that you were pregnant and she automatically gave you a pregnancy test. For college males, you automatically had an STD. In my case, she tried to label my eczema as scabies. Ridiculous and not possible to say the least.

I digress….

What is a parent supposed to do with facing the potential for antibiotics? If the illness is viral, the antibiotic is useless and wipes out anything beneficial that would have helped the body fight. But if it’s bacterial, the antibiotic will still wipe out everything but can have benefit. Most doctors and most parents don’t want to wait for a culture to see the the type of bug that is causing the problem. This doesn’t fit the profile of the parents I see.

[Read more…]

March 4, 2016 By Dr. Kurt, DC

Magnifying Magnesium

The past 2 months, I feel like I have had more and more people indicate on their intake forms that they are taking magnesium. It’s not taking magnesium for general health. It’s often the consumption of magnesium for symptoms like headaches, constipation, hypertension, poor energy, sleep, and restless leg. Magnesium is being used and consumed like a medicine.

I know you’ve seen the Hippocrates quote of “Let food by thy medicine and medicine by they food” but I think with a little understanding of magnesium’s role in the body in addition to my favorite hormone, insulin, you will start magnifying magnesium.

Magnesium:

Searching the the criteria “magnesium deficiency”[MeSH Terms] OR “magnesium deficiency”[All Fields] in Pubmed elicits over 4,000 references. Although it’s the least abundant blood electrolyte, it plays critical roles in regulating other processes in the body. It is extremely important for the metabolism of Calcium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Zinc, Copper, Iron, Sodium, Lead, Cadmium, Hydrogen chloride, acetylcholine, and nitric oxide (NO). Magnesium is essential in the production of ATP. It’s necessary for your methylation processes.

Why are so many deficient? Other than our poor soil quality, magnesium levels are decreased by excess alcohol, salt, phosphoric acid (sodas) and coffee intake, by profuse sweating, by intense, prolonged stress, by excessive menstruation and vaginal flux, by diuretics and other drugs and by certain parasites (pinworms).

Therefore the range of ailments associated with magnesium deficiency is staggering: hypertension (cardiovascular disease, kidney and liver damage, etc.), peroxynitrite damage (migraine, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, Alzheimer’s disease, etc.), recurrent bacterial infection due to low levels of nitric oxide in the cavities (sinuses, vagina, middle ear, lungs, throat, etc.), fungal infections due to a depressed immune system, thiamine deactivation (low gastric acid, behavioral disorders, etc.), premenstrual syndrome, calcium deficiency (osteoporosis, hypertension, mood swings, etc.), tooth cavities, hearing loss, diabetes type II, cramps, muscle weakness, impotence (lack of NO), aggression (lack of NO), fibromas, potassium deficiency (arrhythmia, hypertension, some forms of cancer), iron accumulation, etc.

What do many people do to treat these ailments that don’t want to to use pharmaceuticals? They take more magnesium. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to magnify magnesium, there’s one physiological process that may have the most impact on how your body utilizes this key nutrient.

I'm exhausted, but I just can't seem to relax. Maybe it's more of an insulin problem than adrenals. Click To Tweet

Insulin Sensitivity:

Many are confused on the concept of insulin sensitivity. Let me try and put it in context.

[Read more…]