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According to the Journal of Clinical Chemistry 1996, the seven symptoms of chronic poisoning are fatigue, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal distress, headaches, allergy symptoms, confusion, and anxiety. You might wonder what the poison is? It’s toxicity. Every chemical reaction in your body produces toxins in the form of acid, which we measure with the BTA. Your detoxifying organs (liver, kidneys, lungs, large intestine and skin) are able to handle this burden. When you add to the equation that every year we release 550,000,000 lbs. of industrial chemicals into public sewage, 1,000,000,000 lbs. of chemicals released into the ground, 188,000,000 lbs. of chemicals into surface waters, 2,400,000,000 lbs. of air emissions, that adds up to 4,138,000,000 lbs. of toxins per year. We ingest this through our food, water, and air. There are over 10,000 chemical additives in our food supply. The average American ingests 14 pounds of additives, 158 pounds of sugar, and 8 pounds of salt per year. This is way more than your organs were designed to handle.
If you have dysbiosis, which is an imbalance of the intestinal tract, you can greatly increase your toxic burden. Dysbiosis is an overgrowth of yeast, bacteria, and parasites. These are all living organisms, and living organisms eat, and when they eat, they go to the bathroom. Their bowel movements are very toxic to you.
We are constantly ingesting heavy metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and many more everyday. This ingestion comes from the food we eat the water we drink and the air we breath.
All these chemicals, metals and toxins can be stored in your body, usually in body fat and in the extracellular space. This can cause cellular fluid shifts that are measurable with the BIA and the toxicity levels can be measured by the BTA, and blood microscopy.
Poor blood sugar management, also known as dysglycemia or insulin resistance, is an epidemic problem in our society today. It is estimated that 25% (60 million Americans). of the non obese, non diabetic population have some degree of insulin resistance (hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia).
The biggest contributing factor to dysglycemia is the amount of refined carbohydrates eaten. In 1999 Each American ate an average of 158 pounds of sugar. Below is a description of how insulin resistance progresses to diabetes.
Referring to the diagrams, you should have optimal blood sugar (glucose) and optimal insulin.
As you begin to have dysglycemia your insulin levels rise to keep your glucose levels within optimal. Insulin is a storage hormone, therefore the person usually stores body fat. Blood sugar weight gain is found in the stomach area (apple body shape). The next thing that usually happens is an increase in cholesterol or triglycerides, which is measured by a lipid panel. In time your insulin doesn’t work as well and your glucose level begins to rise.
The progression continues, insulin levels continue to rise trying to keep your glucose levels under control, but glucose levels continue to creep higher. During this time, if you get high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high triglycerides this is called Syndrome X.
The final stage is that insulin no longer has any effect on the body, glucose levels rise and you are diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. In time your pancreas cannot keep up with the demands for insulin, and production decreases, leading to Type 1 Diabetes as well.
Insulin resistance can cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high LDL, low HDL, heart disease, depression, inflammation, pain, obesity, polycystic ovary syndrome, thyroid problems, hormonal imbalances to name a few. If you would like to know more about dysglycemia click here.
Functional medicine is personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease. It is a science-based field of health care that is grounded in the following principles:
Biochemical individuality describes the importance of individual variations in metabolic function that derive from genetic and environmental differences among individuals.
Patient-centered medicine emphasizes “patient care” rather than “disease care,” following Sir William Osler’s admonition that “It is more important to know what patient has the disease than to know what disease the patient has.”
Dynamic balance of internal and external factors.
Web-like interconnections of physiological factors – an abundance of research now supports the view that the human body functions as an orchestrated network of interconnected systems, rather than individual systems functioning autonomously and without effect on each other. For example, we now know that immunological dysfunctions can promote cardiovascular disease, that dietary imbalances can cause hormonal disturbances, and that environmental exposures can precipitate neurologic syndromes such as Parkinson’s disease.
Health as a positive vitality – not merely the absence of disease.
Promotion of organ reserve as the means to enhance health span.
Functional medicine is anchored by an examination of the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions. Those imbalances arise as environmental inputs such as diet, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, and trauma are processed by one’s body, mind, and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs. The fundamental physiological processes include communication, both outside and inside the cell; bioenergetics, or the transformation of food into energy; replication, repair, and maintenance of structural integrity, from the cellular to the whole body level; elimination of waste; protection and defense; and transport and circulation. The core clinical imbalances that arise from malfunctions within this complex system include:
Hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances
Oxidation-reduction imbalances and mitochondropathy
Detoxification and biotransformational imbalances
Immune imbalances
Inflammatory imbalances
Digestive, absorptive, and microbiological imbalances
Structural imbalances from cellular membrane function to the musculoskeletal system
Imbalances such as these are the precursors to the signs and symptoms by which we detect and label (diagnose) organ system disease. Improving balance – in the patient’s environmental inputs and in the body’s fundamental physiological processes – is the precursor to restoring health and it involves much more than treating the symptoms. Functional medicine is dedicated to improving the management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to address these core clinical imbalances and to restore each patient’s functionality and health. Functional medicine is not a unique and separate body of knowledge. It is grounded in scientific principles and information widely available in medicine today, combining research from various disciplines into highly detailed yet clinically relevant models of disease pathogenesis and effective clinical management.
Functional medicine emphasizes a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Functional medicine uses the patient’s story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the patient’s environmental inputs and his or her physiological function. It is a clinician’s discipline, and it directly addresses the need to transform the practice of primary care.
(Information © 2009 The Institute for Functional Medicine)
