Not too long ago, I read a book called Metabolical by Dr. Robert Lustig. He is a now-retired pediatric endocrinologist who trained in nutritional biochemistry at MIT and then attended medical school at Cornell.
What’s he up to now? He challenges the current health paradigm, which he believes has gone off the rails under the influence of specific industries in our society. He ascribes to 8 underlying disease causes, one of which is inflammation.
I like to keep things simple, and as I learned from my mentor, Dr. Dan Kalish, I consider four main drivers of chronic disease, but like Dr. Lustig, one is inflammation.
We can talk about the other drivers of disease later, but for today, let’s focus on inflammation. It’s a big one!
The truth is that inflammation isn’t always harmful! Your body was perfectly designed for inflammation to arise from time to time. Inflammation is trying to protect you. We need an inflammatory response to kill foreign invaders like bacteria or viruses and heal injuries like a sprained ankle.
However, inflammation can go rogue, and the standard American lifestyle and diet set us up for just that.
Do you know what’s so great AND confusing about functional medicine? Everything can cause everything, and anything can cause anything.
Healing inflammation or any driver of chronic disease takes time. So it’s not a pill-for-an-ill, one-size-fits-all approach. I know most (if not all) patients are focused on symptoms, and I completely sympathize with that; I’m focused on symptoms, too.
However, I have seen the functional approach work enough times to know that results come if I trust the process, don’t give up, and constantly tweak and assess the underlying physiology. It’s a marathon, not a sprint mentality requiring precision, patience, and perseverance. The only way we’ll fail is if we give up. I don’t give up easily. I LOVE it when it works efficiently the first time. But I’m always committed to investigating when it doesn’t work quickly and figuring it out like a detective.
What causes inflammation? The food we eat plays a vital role, as do the things living in our gut that can either make or break our microbiome. Inflammation can also present itself in a wide range of forms, such as:
- Emotional stress/ negative thoughts
- Aging
- Loss of nutrients
- Insulin resistance
- Injured tissues
- Chronic illness–it is in and of itself an inflammatory state. It may be obvious, but often it isn’t.
So, who’s inflamed? Everyone is different, but everyone has inflammation to some degree. As mentioned, it might not be apparent how to fix it. However, improving the underlying inflammation by addressing the ROOT CAUSE almost always seems to crack and improve the code.
We can also do several things to reduce inflammation through diet, lifestyle, sleep, balancing the circadian rhythm, and limiting exposure to harmful environmental, indoor, and product-based substances. This leads us back to Metabolical and Dr. Lustig’s advice for treating all NCD (non-communicable diseases): protect the liver and feed the gut.
If you or someone you know is experiencing chronic inflammation, whether at the beginning or later stages, consider working with a functional medicine practitioner like myself to help pinpoint the root cause and cure inflammation with a personalized treatment protocol. Contact us today.
