Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Depression: Chemical Imbalance or a Brain on Fire

More Health, Less Healthcare
More Health, Less Healthcare
Depression: Chemical Imbalance or a Brain on Fire
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Is depression really an imbalance of serotonin? Why has disability associated with depression have a direct increase as more people are put on antidepressants? Let’s dive deeper into this issue and look at some major metabolic dysfunctions driving your emotional anguish.

 

Dr. Kurt Perkins

Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE online 30 Ways for 30 Days program. It’s a daily email for 30 days diving into my top tips, techniques, and practices to enhance and shift your health expression. Join the 30 Ways private Facebook group for accountability, encouragement, and challenges to keep you slightly out of your comfort zone. Click the Image above.

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Full Body Fix Radio: Pain, Inflammation, and Auto-Immune

Functional Medicine Colorado Springs

 

I was recently interviewed on Dr. Scott Mills’ podcast, The Full Body Fix.  You can subscribe to it on iTunes or click the image above for show notes.  We dive into the topic of when your aches and pains are more than just aches and pain and where to look when traditional body work isn’t fixing the problem.  Enjoy.

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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.

When High Intensity Harms

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Metabolism Summit

 

Metabolism Summit

Reboot your metabolism to lose weight and gain energy!

Is willpower the reason you can’t lose weight? When’s the last time you reset your metabolism? Maybe your lack of energy and weight loss challenges aren’t a diet issue, but a metabolism that needs a wake up call!

Learn from 30 experts at The Metabolism Summit when you register for free today!

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WHY ATTEND?

Sara Vance created The Metabolism Summit to help those who are suffering with weight and chronic health issues. No diet will work until the underlying metabolic issues are resolved. And, many falsely blame themselves or a lack of willpower for not being able to lose or keep off the weight. But this has never been a failure of will, it’s due to a broken metabolism.

Optimizing your metabolism can help you:

  • Lose excess weight and increase energy
  • Reduce inflammation and cultivate digestion
  • Advance brain function and improve mood
  • Upgrade sleep and reduce stress
  • Boost immunity and prevent disease
  • Manage cravings and help hormones

Attend and listen to the following experts (and 25 others!):

Register today and you’ll gain access to the following free gifts:

  • Expert Talk #1: Ann Louise Gittleman, Bile: Your Metabolism’s BFF
  • Expert Talk #2: Jeffrey Smith, Hidden Ways GMOs Can Devastate Your Health
  • Free Gift #3: Your Host, Sara Vance, Interviewed by Dr. Eric Zielinski, Fix The Metabolism: The Real Secret to Optimal Weight & Health
  • Free Gift #4: The Perfect Metabolism Plan, Chapter One: Break up with Sugar, by Sara Vance

The Metabolism Summit is online and free from February 1-8, 2016!

Register for FREE

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Own all of the expert talks to listen at your own pace:

The live event is totally FREE.  But what happens if you miss a topic you were craving to hear?  Or what happens when you want to review the information?

Own the entire line up for your personal health library.  But act fast.

The price to own the talks will increase once the event starts on February 1, so check out this amazing opportunity to improve your health now!

You’ll own these talks forever, with the ability to learn and share what you’ve learned with friends, family and your medical professionals to truly help the world be a healthier place!

Plus, your purchase comes with over $350 in healthy eGuides, videos, eBooks, discounts and more, at no additional cost to you!  Best of all, you get a 100% money back guarantee, no questions asked.

Pre-Order Today!

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Fat and Fabulous or Inflamed and Ignorant

Fat and Fabulous

I was giving a presentation to a group of other doctors and students and in the mental health field last week. One attendee interrupted me when I was talking about insulin resistance.

She was probably 100 pounds overweight but told a story that she has already lost about 30 pounds, had decreased her thyroid med dose by 1/3, and even had regression of ovarian cysts. These were fantastic changes and I praised her.  She said she was fat and fabulous.

But the part that made her over step her boundaries was her statement that I shouldn’t lump all fat people as unhealthy and that all skinny people are healthy.  After all, she was fat (her words not mine) and she is healthy.

First of all, I didn’t; those words never spewed from my mouth nor will they ever. What I was discussing was how certain areas of the body have more or less affinity to store energy (insulin resistance), hence why people gain weight in the butt, gut, and thighs.  It’s an area that is a lot less resistant to insulin than the liver or muscles.  It’s an easy area to store excess energy.

Then she went on to say how healthy she was and that all her labs came out looking good, etc. I didn’t have time to get into why both of those statements are false in front of the group, so I thought I would tackle it here.  She wasn’t looking for my help, just looking to be heard in a crowd.

In my mind, I don’t look at fat as fat. I look at fat as an outward expression of inflammation. You can be fat and fabulous but don’t let that blind you to being inflamed and ignorant.

The fact that she said her labs look good is a huge red flag in my book, especially when she says that other conditions are present, like hypothyroid.  Those ‘normal’ ranges on blood work lump 95% of the population as ‘normal’ and fabulous. When I read them, I tighten and interpret those values in a much more narrow spectrum.  It ends up being more predictive and preventative in nature.

Secondly, the standard lab work is the epitome of lazy healthcare. I doubt that she was tested for anything of value, especially anything that would be measuring levels of inflammation.  If your doctor is only running a TSH to assess thyroid, your cholesterol levels to assess heart disease, or blood glucose to check diabetes, it’s time to go elsewhere.

With that said…

Inflammation

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Heart Smart…Really?

It’s February and with no surprise, the media is all over ‘heart disease’ awareness campaigns.  But if you keep following what the media (and your doctor) push, you will probably get what most of Americans are going to get.

What are Americans going to get?

How about 1 in 3 will die of CardioVascular Disease (CVD)? How about a death from CVD every 40 seconds?

How about every 40 seconds someone has a stroke and about every 4 minutes someone dies from a stroke?

They like to say deaths have decreased from CVD by 31% from 2000 – 2010.  How about an almost 30% increase in heart related surgeries from 2000 to 2010?  I’ll give it to modern medicine for saving your life in the immediate danger but if our healthcare system was truly about health, you shouldn’t be laying on the OR table in the first place.

How about 920,000 Americans having a heart attack this year?  How about 1/2 of those will show no prior symptom?  How about 1/2 of those silent heart attacks have a first symptom of death?

And if you don’t think your health is at risk, how about your wallet?  Since we are shifting to a universal health care system, your taxes go to paying $315 Billion dollars every year.  Don’t think your tax dollars are paying for it?  In 2010, it was estimated that over 2150 Americans died every day of CVD.  That equates to about 785,000 deaths/year in 2010 (today it’s estimated closer to 1 million).  ONLY 150,000 came from people younger than 65.

What rite of passage does a 65 year old have in this country?  They qualify for Medicare, the government funded health plan.  How does the government fund a health plan?  Through your tax dollars.

One of the ways that the media via the government and heart association try to change your behavior is to drill into your head that cholesterol is the enemy and is an early warning sign of CVD and should be controlled…or you will die.

A UCLA study analyzing heart attack patients nationwide found that 75% of the heart attack victims had LDL (supposed bad cholesterol) within the safe limit.  The researchers analyzed data from 136,905 patients whose lipid levels upon hospital admission were documented in the AHA data base. This accounted for 59 percent of total hospital admissions for heart attack at participating hospitals between 2000 and 2006.

UCLA

The deadly irony is that the researchers conclude that maybe cholesterol isn’t low enough?  How about opening your mind to the possibility that the cholesterol – heart disease connection is about as solid as the Iraq War – Weapons of Mass destruction connection?

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