Modern medicine is in a state of despair. The current paradigm is progressively spiraling our country down into a deep hole of poor health. Driven by the idea of improving the nations health, the American Medical Association is cowing to the forces that are determining this downturn.  

Horror Autotoxicus, literally translated as the horror of self-toxicity, was how the father of modern immunology, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, described the theory of the body having the capacity to turn against itself in an autoimmune fashion.  This was in 1908, and the Nobel-Prize winning physician and researcher believed that the concept of a body creating a molecular battle directed against itself was incompatible with life.  

One of the hardest questions I find myself struggling with is simply the question of what is “Functional Medicine”? 
 
The relative “newness” of the medical specialty may play a part into some of the challenge. Many observers might not even recognize what I do as a medical specialty at all. Let’s look at how a conventional specialty is defined and how through specialized treatment of the human body, mind and physiology have been splintered into limited subsets and categories.  

I think that one of the most compelling pieces of science to make it into the cultural consciousness recently is that of a “leaky gut.”  This term has been bantered about by the alternative medical practitioners for years, but it has recently come to the attention of the general surgeons, who are perhaps the most stringent and unmoving of the mainstream medical providers. Recent research, in association with some pretty old clinical testing, makes it rather convincing that the gut has the capacity to “leak” and that this porousness can contribute significantly to our health.

Dr. Scott Resnick | Chattanooga Functional Medicine

One of the most common complaints in a physician’s office is one of fatigue or malaise, but few clinical complaints are as hard to fully qualify and understand as these.  Inherent in the words are a degree of vagary, a lack of a true description or roadmap by which the clinician can be guided.  When the appointment sheet reads “rash”, or when the patient presents with a “broken finger”, the clinical approach is immediately clear.  “Shortness of breath or severe chest pain” obviously demands immediate attention.  But too often when the doctor is faced with the patient who complains of a lack of energy, there is often a state of confusion or indecision that is encountered; not the razor-sharp “aha” that we would expect from the other examples shown. 

I truly believe that at our cores, most of the people in this country with the initials MD after their names are well intended, and have in large part entered into the field of medicine with the purpose of helping people.  Still others have put an emphasis on the monetary/ business side of things, and while this is not my thrust as a practitioner, I don’t blame them. 

In an earlier blog post, I developed a clinical picture of the ways in which inflammation presents itself to the clinician.  If your patient presents with a cut on the hand, a broken bone, or a known food allergy, or the flu, it is easy to see that the inflammatory process is in action.  Molecular signals from the environment have activated the immune system and inflammatory chemicals have been released locally (pus and redness around a cut) or systemically, meaning throughout the whole body (aches and pains, fevers, nausea).

Inflammation  is one of those words so easily tossed around in medical parlance, yet it would appear that there is some confusion as to its meaning.  Is inflammation a bad thing, one that should be avoided at all costs, or is it good?  The answer is that it is both; it is essential for our health and safety, yet when unregulated and undisciplined, it can be a potent and unrelenting negative force on our cellular health.   The following should clear the air on inflammation, and give a rationale as to why a balanced state of inflammation is essential for health and longevity.

Detoxification. The process by which our bodies eliminate waste. I encourage you to incorporate this important concept into your wellness plan.  I would expect the results in which you look, feel and think will be tangible.  They will be compelling enough that you will incorporate the tenants of detoxification into your daily diet, your health routines and your life.