Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Incredible Insulin

Pure and simple, the better you are at regulating insulin, the better life you will live.  I’m not talking about destroying your body to the point where you have to check your blood sugar 3x/day and regulate the spikes with an extra injection of insulin.  Even if you’re a type 1 diabetic with an insulin pump, your choices can have a dramatic effect on the amount and frequency of usage.

If I’m speaking at an event and the topic of insulin arises, which it most likely will, people are quick to blurt out, ‘it regulates sugar.’  Yes, you are correct but this just scratches the surface to how insulin will impact your life, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

Weightloss Rollercoaster

Yes, it is true that insulin reacts to elevations in blood sugar. As blood sugar levels rise, this is a signal to your nervous system that you have more energy than is needed at this point in time.  You can either drastically increase your energy demands by sprinting and doing box jumps or you can rely on insulin to store it for later.

Your body will first store it in the liver and muscles in the form of glycogen.  If you added up all the stored energy in your liver and muscles, it may last you 24 hours.  This is why exercise alone, though fantastic for brain development and nervous system regulation, often fails as a weight loss strategy for many people.  Someone is looking to burn off that spare tire.  Unless you plan on exercising non-stop for 24 hours, you may not get past the stored energy in your liver and muscles to touch the stuff around your midsection.

Female Athlete Is Performing Box Jumps At Gym

What kills your 6 pack dreams even more is that you reward yourself for all that hard work you just accomplished.  You know better than to eat garbage.  Instead you go for the ‘healthy’ low fat, low calorie goods.  In reality, you just ate a 1/2 cup of sugar, which gets redeposited back into your liver and muscles.  Since you didn’t use ALL your stored liver and muscle glycogen during exercise and just consumed more sugar than you burned off, you added another layer of insulation for the winter.

The stored energy that targets the butt, gut, and thighs isn’t glycogen, it’s stored in the form triglycerides.  You’ve seen these on your lab work.  Because it’s fat, I’m sure your well intentioned cardiologist told you to eat a diet high in complex carbohydrates and low fat.  “If we need to eliminate fat, than we have to lower our fat intake.”  The only thing that cardiologist did was keep himself in business with advice that resembles assisted suicide.  Since ‘diet and exercise’ didn’t work for you, then you have no hope other than taking drugs.  Sound familiar?

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Conflict Resolution with Your Doctor

A bit back, I wrote a piece on how to find the right doctor.  Once you find the right doctor, just like with any relationship, at some point, conflict may happen.  Hopefully this piece will give you a glimpse at why conflict arises but better yet give you understanding on how to initiate conflict resolution with your doctor.

Conflict happens for 1 reason.

The sole reason is that expectations aren’t being met.  Mis-expectations can be broken down into 2 categories.  One, there is perceived threat.  Two, there is perceived negligence.

Or for you analytical minds.  Here’s a formula.  C=E÷2.  C (conflict).  E (expectations). 2 (perceived threat or perceived attack).

Conflict Resolution with Your Doctor

I get the stories all the time from new patients coming in dissatisfied with their previous doctor.

“He wouldn’t listen”…perceived negligence.  “She said if don’t take this drug, I will die,”…perceived threat.  “The staff never returns my phone call,”…perceived negligence.  “The practice will kick me out if I don’t vaccinate my kids,”…perceived threat.  I’m sure you have your own story.

I also get the stories from fellow practitioners.

“He never makes his visits”…perceived negligence.  “She’s hell-bent on ONLY using her insurance and if we don’t accept it, she is walking out”…perceived threat.  “The staff never gets their calls returned,”…perceived negligence.  “He has to check first with his regular doctor,”…perceived threat.

As a patient, you want to know 3 basic things from your doctor in no particular order.  One, can the doctor help me?  Two, how long is it going to take?  Three, how much money is it going to cost?

As a doctor, you want to know 3 basic things from your patient in no particular order.  One, will the patient follow recommendations?  Two, is the patient able to pay?  Three, does the patient have the time?

Really the doctor and patient want to know the exact same things.  The problem is that expectations are vastly different.  It’s ok not to agree on things.  I have plenty of patients that don’t agree 100% with me on certain issues.  But this is also why I have the coolest patient base; they aren’t afraid to disagree but they also aren’t afraid of discussing it and looking at an issue from my side.  The same goes for them from me.  We have an unspoken ‘judgement free zone’ relationship.

If you’re a patient looking for a new doctor, I’d love to see if we would make a good team.  Book a free 15 minute phone consultation.  All expectations are met ahead of time.  You know how long it’s going to take.  You know how much it’s going to cost.  Just like me, you don’t know if I can help or not yet.  We start on an even playing field.

If you’re a fellow practitioner passionate about helping your community create More Health, Less HealthCare, let’s chat.  I often get inquires from people in other states looking for a doctor in their area that can help them in a drug free manner.  Nothing formal, just reach out.

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Top 5 Ways to Lose Weight…Guaranteed

One of the most searched items on the internet is how to lose weight.  Instead of searching through all the diets, workout programs, and supplement regimes, I have decided to be a knowledge broker for you and give you my ‘Top 5 Ways to Lose Weight…Guaranteed.’  Guaranteed means guaranteed.

If you don’t like the outcomes, you can get a full refund of the weight you lost.  Some will work quicker than others but all of them are very effective and only 1 of them will cost you money directly.

Before

1. Stop Eating

What happens when you don’t give your body the nutrients and calories that it requires to operate on a daily basis?  The weight just falls off.  This may take some time and won’t always be pleasant but the sky is the limit.  Want to get back into those Bugle Boy jeans you wore in 8th grade?  What better way than restricting any and all calories.

If you don’t have the will power or you feel you need accountability, you can head to south central LA and start yelling racial slurs.  There will be plenty of people that will bash your face in, making it nearly impossible for you to chew food or even open your mouth.  The best part of this plan is that you will save thousands of dollars on your food bill. All that money saved can be re-invested into your life insurance policy since you’ll be needing it in the near future.

2. Chop Off Body Parts

If you’ve ever seen the movie Jerry Maguire, you know the human head weighs 8-12 pounds. Chopping off your head is just plain ridiculous and only losing 10 pounds doesn’t move the interest needle very far.  Instead, choose a non-essential, heavy body part.

According to the book Human Body Dynamics: Classical Mechanics and Human Movement by Aydin Tozeren, the average percentage of weight for each body part is as follows:

• Trunk (Chest, back and abdomen) – 50.80%
• Thigh – 9.88%
• Head – 7.30%
• Lower leg – 4.65%
• Upper arm – 2.7%
• Forearm – 1.60%
• Foot – 1.45%
• Hand – 0.66%

Just think about it, you’re 200 lbs and wanting to get down to a cool 170, the fastest route is to cut off a leg.  Between your thigh and lower leg, that’s easily close to 30 lbs.  Depending on your tool of choice, that could be as quick as 3 minutes.  Fast and effective.  There’s no way you need 127 hours to get these results like Aron Ralston did in the middle-of-no-where Utah.

3. Cocaine and Meth

Have you ever noticed there’s rarely ever a fat or obese person portrayed in the movies or TV that is addicted to cocaine or meth?  Look at all the rock stars, movie stars, and athletes that admit to having a cocaine or meth addiction.  Skinny, skinny, and skinny.  The longer you use it, the better the meth_lipstickweight loss results…GUARANTEED!!

The added benefit is that these drugs are also appetite suppressants so if you like option #1, this can be a great adjunct for quicker results.  Not to mention as your teeth fall out, it’s hard to chew food.  Plus those teeth are just added weight anyway.  In weight loss, “every ounce counts.”

If you can’t afford the high cost of cocaine or meth, you might be able to get your doctor to prescribe a drug for ADHD.  Same difference, right?  Best of all, your insurance pays for it.  Win-Win.

4. Blood Letting

You have too much blood anyway, you can afford to get rid of some.  According to a UC San Diego study, the average blood draw burns 650 calories.  “A pint’s a pound, the world around.”  Not only are you losing a pound at each donation, you increase your calorie burning capacity.  The hangup is that donating often is tricky.  They try and make you wait like 53 days.  Only losing 1 pound every 53 days is only almost 7 pounds in a year.  You’re looking for 7 pounds per week.

Imagine if you donated 2x week, once on each arm.  Weight loss jackpot.  If the nurse is concerned that you just donated blood because of the needle marks on your arm, just tell her “Chill out, it’s been 53 days since my last donation.  Those needle marks are from heroine…I’m trying to watch my weight.  Gotta be healthy to donate blood, right?”

5. Parasites

Tapeworm-dietThis might be the best of all because you can eat all you want, the parasite just steals it from you.  It works as the same premise as option #1 except you can eat all you want and never have a regret.  You can look pretty on the outside and not worry about the inside.

Honestly, I thought this was a little far fetched until my wife asked me yesterday, “have you heard of the tape worm diet?”  Apparently, I’m late to the game.  Just like when I thought Red Box was a stupid idea.  Seriously, just google the tape worm diet.  Apparently it’s been around for a LONG time.  People already willfully ingest tape worms to allow the parasite to aid them in the pursuit of life, liberty, and the consumption of excessive, guiltless calories.  God bless ‘Merica.

In our society’s craze for the next weight loss strategy, don’t confuse weight loss with health loss.  Just remember, dying early with less weight is not a successful outcome.  If the diet or routine seems sketchy, it probably is, even when it’s ‘doctor supervised.’

 

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Healthcare Epic Fail

I think it’s really simple on why our healthcare system fails to produce health.  It’s not because our system is only accessible when you’re sick, therefore being a sick care system.  It’s not because a lack of insurance coverage for the masses.  It’s not because we don’t have a large enough vaccine coverage rate.  It’s not because the FDA and government regulations are just subsidiaries of the drug companies.  It’s not because of lack of technology, primary care physicians, and testing.

The healthcare epic fail comes down the basic premise of the goal of healthcare.  Healthcare has one premise.  That’s to remove disease.

Wait, what?  Isn’t removing disease a good thing?  In theory?  Yes.   In practicality, nope.

Removing disease is like trying to remove darkness.  You can’t do it.  Seriously, go into a dark room and try to remove the darkness.  Look at your sleeping cell phone and try to remove the darkness of that screen.  You’re not going to be able to do it unless…

candleYou add light.  If you want to remove darkness, you have to add light.  It doesn’t even have to be a big, bright, spot light.  It can be the slight glow of your smoke alarm’s red flashing light.

Disease is darkness.  Health is light.  The ONLY way you’re going to create less disease is by creating more health.  This is why this website is called ‘More Health, Less Healthcare.’

For this reason we have a healthcare epic fail.  Medicine cannot add light.  The best medicine can do is slow down the rate of darkness.  Medicine continues to attack darkness with short term results at best.  How many ‘fighting (insert diagnoses)’ campaigns are there out there.  We have walks for breast cancer, telethons for diabetes, and months dedicated to heart disease awareness.

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Homophobia for Homocysteine

Homophobia is defined as a ‘dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people.’  I would rather you turn your attention to a dislike or prejudice of another word with the ‘homo’ prefix in it…Homocysteine.  If you want to change your future health outcomes, I would encourage you to create homophobia for homocysteine. 

I was delivering a recent workshop on the Thyroid and I was asked, “if you could only test for one value, what would it be?”  This was difficult to answer as your lab values interconnect so much and to base anything on one value is lazy and ignorant.  But to play the game with the audience member, I said I would test for homocysteine, not an analyte directly used to measure thyroid function.

Here’s why.

Homocysteine, when in a nice range of 4 – 8 umol/L  is a good thing.  This range is definitely tighter than what you see on a standard lab panel of 0 – 15 umol/L.  Why do I like a tighter range?  Because of what homocysteine indicates and contributes to when it’s elevated and I don’t want to wait until it’s outside the ‘normal’ ranges before action is taken.

homocysteine_metabolism

 

Homocysteine is actually a middle step in the formation of the amino acid cysteine, which is a precursor of one of the most power antioxidants in your body in glutathione so to be low is a bad thing as well.  Homocysteine is actually a good thing.  But often times too much of a good thing has the opposite desired effects.  

Homocysteine is one of those scenarios but takes it up a level too.  Homocysteine has been called the single best indicator of your longevity and quality of life.  It’s not just an indicator of many disease processes like cardio-vascular disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Auto-Immune disease, diabetes, Hypothyroid, Osteoporosis, liver disease, hormone imbalance, autism, and anemia, to name a few, but a massive contributor to them.

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Auto-Immune Roller Coaster

At a workshop I gave over the weekend I had a woman come up to me afterwards to ask about her auto-immune disorder.  She ate amazingly clean but was still having many ups and downs with her progress and symptoms.  I could tell in the first minute of this conversation that she was someone that always had to be in control of her life.  

So I asked about her home life and marriage.  “They’re great but my husband and son won’t do what I tell them to improve their health.”  

Would you say you are often frustrated and irritated by their lack of drive to seek health like you do?  She said, “yes, they just don’t get it.”

rollercoasterI said, that’s why your symptoms go on roller coasters.  You like control and the easiest thing to control is what you put in your mouth.  You can’t control other’s motivations, especially grown men and children.

Your immune system has 2 basic branches.  TH1 and TH2.  Simplistically, the TH1 side is more responsible for the symptom side of sickness like coughing, runny nose, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.  The TH2 side is more for antibody formation.

In times of stress (physical, chemical, emotional, social, and spiritual), your body, via Cortisol, will suppress the TH1 side.  It’s not going to be efficient to your survival if you have to stop and throw up or stop to fill your pants if there is a lion chasing you down.  Short term, no problem.

Long term, you suppress your first line of defense (TH1) enough to the point that the antibody side (TH2) gets over enhanced and makes your auto-immune progress up and down.  I know this first hand.

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Finding the Right Doctor…Here’s How.

I get emails and messages every week from people complaining about their doctor.  I get very similar stories each time.

“I want to know nutritional strategies to help my condition but all they do is recommend is a stupid low fat diet.”

“I told them I don’t want medications and all they recommend is drugs.”

“They told me if I don’t get my kid vaccinated, they will kick me out of their office.”

As much as I sympathize with these complaints, it’s not really the doctor’s fault.  As the consumer, you have to do some homework about that doctor you are trying to develop a relationship with more than just looking up if they are covered by your insurance.

There’s a lot of doctors that are covered by your insurance that will do you far more harm than help.  After all, our healthcare system is the 3rd leading cause of death in our country.

Your insurance has covered everything that hasn’t worked for you so far.  What makes you think using your insurance has anything to do with your health outcomes?  Your attitude, your diet, your sleep, your physical activity, your environment, your stress levels are all things that get you better. And guess what?  None of those are covered by your insurance.  No wonder you’re sick.  – Dr. Sachin Patel

You don’t go to a Muslim mosque and get pissed because they didn’t talk about Jesus.   You don’t watch an R rated movie and get complain because there was too much violence and profanity.  So why do you get frustrated stepping into an MDs office and them wanting to prescribe you drugs or give you horrible  nutrition and lifestyle advice?

Contradictions lead to destruction.  The contradiction at play with these destructions is your health outcomes.  We see this pretty evidently with the results of our healthcare system.  Lots of access and interventions, not much health production.

If you take anything away from this post, just remember, ‘contradictions lead to destructions.’  To avoid destruction, you have to clear up contradictions.  To clear up those contradictions, you need to assess your own philosophy and see if that matches the philosophy of your doctor.  If you try and engage this conversation with your doctor and they don’t have time, that probably answers your question.

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Rethink Birth Control Pills

For the majority of women, they are on birth control pills to prevent birth.  Despite it being my wife’s body, one thing I was adamant when we got married was that she never be on birth control pills.  It has nothing to do with a religious belief but the reality that I wanted my wife around for the long haul in life.  I didn’t want her bombarded with extra estrogen for health reasons.

Don’t get me wrong, estrogen is essential to health but too much is detrimental to life.  Just think about it, adding more estrogen into the body is a treatment to prevent the formation of life.  If it has enough effect on the body to prevent a new life from forming, what effect does it have on a life that is daily attempting to build, repair, and heal?

Estrogen (as with testosterone) is a steroid hormone, synthesized from cholesterol.  Since cholesterol is the basis for all these steroid hormones, in a statin-crazed-cholesterol-is-evil society, are we creating our exponential increase in hormone imbalances in the name of heart health?

Cholesterol is also the basis of Cortisol, which is your prime life saving, stress-induced, survival hormone.  The body will favor survival over sex any day.  It’s not news that we are a stressed out society, physically, chemically, and emotionally.  Again, is the pursuit of bigger and better also a hit to our hormone imbalances?

Courtesy ZRT Labs

Courtesy ZRT Labs

Once estrogen is made, it’s released into the bloodstream, where it targets specific tissues and binds to a hormone receptor.  The marriage of the hormone and receptor then activates a host of genetic reactions to stimulate cell growth, healing and repair.  When you hear steroid hormones, think steroids.  These are hormones to build the body up.

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TSH Chase

I think I’ve fielded more thyroid questions and concerns this past week from patients than ever before.  The running theme among them is that they are fed up with their doctor playing what I call the ‘TSH Chase.’

I also think one of the laziest healthcare practices is diagnosing and trying to manage someone’s thyroid condition just with a TSH score.  If you don’t have a thyroid problem, or don’t think you have one, the rest of this probably doesn’t pertain to you and may be a bit boring.  If you feel like crap and have been told your thyroid is fine due to a ‘normal’ TSH score, then you may want to consider to keep reading.

TSHLong story short, your thyroid is involved in basically every system in the body.  And as a result of that involvement, is the canary in the coal mine.  It’s very sensitive to dysfunctions in other systems in the body.  You can’t affect one system without affecting every system.  The minute your doctor tries to compartmentalize your internal systems is the minute you need to find someone else that looks at the body as a whole.

Did you know that your lipids (cholesterol, Triglycerides, etc) creeping up could indicate that your thyroid is imbalanced?

Did you know that digestive difficulties could be a sign your thyroid is dysfunctional?

Did you know thyroid hormones probably have more input into the brain and nervous system development of a fetus than just getting enough folic acid?

Did you know that women with miscarriages often have a misdiagnosed thyroid condition?

The thyroid is not just for metabolism function.  Therefore I feel it needs a thorough analysis on lab work, opposed to the lazy way out of just testing a TSH score and calling it good.  This would be like assessing your entire car’s function by just checking tire pressure.

Here’s the thing, let’s say your TSH is abnormal.  Yes, it could be an abnormal thyroid.  It could also be an abnormal pituitary.  It could be an abnormal hypothalamus.  It could be an abnormal conversion problem.  It could be inflammation interfering with function.  It could be an insulin resistance problem not allowing for proper receptor binding.  It could be an auto-immune problem.  It could be a sedentary living problem.  It could be an autonomic imbalance problem.  It could be an adrenal imbalance.  It could be a DNA receptor problem.  It could be a globulin problem.  It could be a toxicity problem.  It could be a methylation problem.  It could be a nutrient deficiency problem.  It could be an estrogen problem.  It could be a Vagus nerve/upper cervical spine problem.  Anything else?

Do you see how ridiculous it is to just test for TSH and chase the TSH value with Synthroid?  Or just supplement with uber amounts of iodine and call it good?

What specific thyroid tests do I like to see on lab work?  These are just to get the baseline.

TSH

Free and Total T4

Free and Total T3

T3 Uptake

Reverse T3

TPO (Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies)

TgAb (Thyroglobulin Antibodies)

Sex Hormone Binding Globulin

Diurnal Cortisol

Homocysteine

CRP

A1C

Remember you can’t separate one system from every other system.  These thyroid values are going to have to be put into context along with other factors that analyze the 5 pillars of illness:  Autonomic Imbalance, Adrenal Dysfunction, Immune Imbalance, Insulin Resistance, and Inflammation.

It’s also more than just having them tested but interpreted from a functional perspective.  The ‘normal’ lab values seen on lab work labels you, along with 95% of the population, as healthy.  You’re telling me that 9 out of every 10 friends you have is healthy?  Just look at your friend’s Facebook statuses.  You probably can’t find 3 out of 10.

Stop settling for the standard healthcare model of throwing you on Synthroid for the rest of your life to satisfy the TSH chase.  You want a different outcome?  Let’s do it.  You know how to find me.

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Maximize Recovery…Reassess These

The point of exercise and training is to break the body down.  Your workout is actually doing damage.  This damage is essential and intelligent to you getting stronger, faster, quicker, and more efficient.  The only way the body gets better is through challenges. 

The problem is that many think it’s the workout that creates the magic.  The actuality is that it’s the recovery that is key.  Most people might workout 30 minutes.  That leaves 23 1/2 hours to recover.

Reassess these 3 common practices that put a damper on your recovery and ultimately your performance.

caffeineCaffeine

Many consume coffee pre-workout to boost their performance.  It’s essentially a performance enhancing drug.  There’s no denying that coffee boosts energy.  Just ask the 54% of Americans over the age of 18 who consume coffee daily.   It’s also no mystery that kids consume caffeinated beverages like energy drinks and such, which would drastically raise that 54%, if you included the entire population.

The problem is that this habit may boost short term performance at the expense of longevity, injury prevention, and recovery.  If you ever have lab work, usually there is a panel that lists out the type of white blood cells.  You will see these as neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils.

Monocytes are cells that clean up inflammatory damage as well as debris from destroyed microorganisms.  They differentiate into macrophages and play a huge role in tissue repair whether you are injured, you are sick, or you have been training hard.  Without monocytes, muscles would not be able to heal after training or injury.

Cortisol and adrenaline (hormones released during times of stress, which can be physical, chemical, or emotional) lower macrophage activity and count.  In essence stress lowers your immune system.  Your immune system stimulates inflammation.  Caffeine is a direct hit to the adrenals, causing release of cortisol and adrenaline, lowering your healing inflammatory response triggered by your immune system.

Think about this way.  If you’re running from a bear, it would not be efficient if you had to stop to cough, sneeze, or dig a hole and pop a squat because you’re fighting the flu.  It also wouldn’t be conducive to your survival if you rolled your ankle and it ballooned up and caused you to be immobile.  Ever get injured during the heat of competition but not realize it until it was all over?  That’s the cortisol and adrenaline kicking in to keep you surviving.  Caffeine is a stress on the body.

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