Functional Medicine Discussion Group Meeting Announcement 2-16-2016

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Functional Medicine meeting Announcement 11-17-2015

I hope that you can attend our next Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting on Tuesday November 17 at 6:30 on the Prevention and Reversal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and other Neurological Problems. Metagenics will again be sponsoring some food.
Degenerative brain diseases, like Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), are on the rise today, especially in women. What do we know about these and what can we do about them?  One thing we know is that diabetics have a much higher rate of AD, and in fact some experts refer to AD as Type III diabetes. The literature shows a connection between sugar intake and insulin resistance and AD.  Muscle cell insulin resistance leads to brain cell insulin resistance and this leads to the inability to get the sugar into the brain cells (neurons) and eventually neuronal death.

But insulin resistance is certainly not the only factor in degenerative brain conditions.  Dr. Dale Bredesen from UCLA lays out a series of possible underlying factors, including vitamin D levels, B vitamins, zinc/copper ratio, antioxidants, DHA, hormones, inflammation, heavy metal toxicities, exercise, sleep, and stress in the attached paper.   Please also listen to the mp3 of him being interviewed by Dr. Bland on the February 2015 Functional Medicine Update.

I have also attached a recent paper on how Taurine leads to regeneration of brain cells in rats.  Other good sources to read if you have time (ha, ha!) are Dr. Perlmutter’s Grain Brain, Brain Maker, Chapter 14 of Dr. Perlmutter’s The Better Brain Book, and Why Isn’t My Brain Working by Datis Kharrazian.  In Grain Brain, Dr. Perlmutter talks about the relationship between gluten and casein proteins and increased intestinal permeability and AD.  Leaky gut can lead to leaky brain. You might want to look at this Mercola article about Perlmutter’s writings, including a short interview with Dr. Perlmutter:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/09/29/dr-perlmutter-gluten.aspx

***I hate to keep changing the dates, but I have decided to move our December meeting to Thursday Dec 10 in order to accomodate Dr. Lise Alschuler, who has agreed to join us from Arizona by Skype.  The topic will be antioxidants and cancer and Dr. Alschuler is one of the top cancer experts in the country and the author of The Definitive Guide to Cancer.  I have not used Skype before, but I’m curious to see how it will work.

***I asked Jeffrey Bland’s company to give our group members a discount if we wanted to subscribe to Dr. Bland’s monthly audiotape series, Functional Medicine Update and Linda Blodgett said that we could have free access till the end of the year!  Linda said “Please have anyone who is interested send me an email with their mailing address and email address that they will want to use for logging into their online account that I will establish for them.  I will email them the information they will need to access their new FMU account.” Send the email to: lindablodgett@jeffreybland.com

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Functional Medicine meeting summary 10-22-2015

If you didn’t attend last night’s Functional Medicine Discussion Group, you missed a good one. We discussed differences between Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis and some of the diets that are commonly recommended by dieticians for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including the elemental diet, the specific carbohydrate diet, and the FODMAP diet.  Dr. Marc Wishingrad, a conventional Gastroenterologist who specializes in IBD, gave his informed input on the topic, including how some of the pharmaceuticals work and the side effects. It was a real treat to have Marc join us.

Group member RD Lauren Cornell gave us a great case history of how she successfully handled a patient with Crohn’s Disease, who is now doing well and is off the meds. I also weighed in with my own case history of one of my patients who has Crohn’s and has responded extremely well to a nutrition based program. We both utilize UltrainflamX 360 in our protocals, as well as probiotics and various other nutritional supplements, including fish oils.  Adam Banning from Metagenics gave us some of the scientific basis of the newly redesigned UltraInflamX 360 (no longer has fructose and a specialized form of curcumin, instead of turmeric) and their new SPM active product for the second phase of inflammation. We also had a vigorous discussion of food allergy testing with Dr. James, Dr. Toulon, and myself weighing in on the benefits of IgG and IgA testing, with input from Dr. Wishingrad about why immunologists don’t think this form of testing is valid.  Metagenics once again treated us to some great, healthy food, this time from True Foods. You should really make our next meeting in November on Tuesday the 17th. Since a number of members have been having trouble getting there by 6, we have decided to change the time to 6:30. But try to get there a little early and you’ll have the best food choices. I will send an email in the next few weeks with the topic and a few papers to read.
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Functional Medicine meeting announcement 10-22-2015

Our next discussion Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting is on Thursday, October 22nd at 6 pm and our topic will be Inflammatory Bowel Disease.  I am very excited that we will be discussing a GI topic, the foundation for functional medicine.  I am pleased to note that a respected gastroenterologist in Santa Monica, Dr. Marc Wishingrad, has agreed to join us.  Please email or call if you will be able to attend so that i can get a head count. As usual, Metagenics, our sponsor, will be providing us with some healthy food.

As you probably know, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) refers to chronic inflammatory conditions that involve both the small and large intestines and affect approximately 1.4 million people in the US.  The two most common categories of IBD are Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s Disease (Cr) and as you know, these conditions can be incredibly difficult to manage.  

Registered Dietician Lauren Cornell has a practice specialty on GI disorders and has taught about nutrition and IBD and she has offered to start the discussion with an overview of some of the most effective dietary regimens and supplements that may help manage both UC and Cr.  Among the dietary regimens that have been found to be effective for patients in the literature with UC and Cr are the elemental diet, the specific carbohydrate diet, the anti-inflammatory diet, a low fiber diet, an elimination diet, and the low FODMAP diet.  Among supplements that have been found to have documented benefit to some patients are the following:  1. Probiotics, 2. Prebiotics, 3. Fish Oil, 4. Curcumin, 5. Glutamine, 6. Vitamin D, and 7. Boswellia, among others. If anyone else would like to present a case study, that would be great.

I’ve attached a couple of papers. One is an overview on natural therapies for IBD and the other is on the low FODMAP diet for Crohn’s, my personal favorite dietary approach.  Another good thing to read would be the chapter in the Integrative Gastroenterology book edited by Gerard Mullin, “Alternative approaches to the patient with inflammatory bowel disease.” published by Oxford in 2011.

I’ve been asked to change the dates of the November and the December meetings, since the dates are too close to the holidays, so I propose that we switch them to Tuesday November 17 and Thursday December 17.  Is that o.k. with most of us? Feel free to pass the invite on to any of your colleagues who are interested in functional medicine or send me their email.

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