Have you ever wondered why the US spends more on healthcare than any other developed nation but, yet, we have the worst outcomes? Our chronic disease rates continue to rise despite all the money spent on research. As nurses, we should be looking into these facts and wondering what we can do to help our clients (and maybe ourselves).
I want to introduce you to the (relatively) new and exciting world of functional medicine. This is a growing discipline where practitioners actually delve into the reasons a person has a disease and learn, through sophisticated laboratory testing what will fix it. We know medications don't fix chronic diseases- they just manage the symptoms. Most doctors do not learn what actually causes a disease - they learn to manage it with medication.
So, if you are interested, I will share what I have learned from these physicians and other scientists so that you can apply it to your life. I must emphasize that I WILL NOT be practicing medicine. I am sharing information about what new ideas about diseases are being learned. You can then take this information to your health care provider to discuss options.
The first topic we can discuss is autoimmune disease. There are over 800,000 diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. Some common diseases like heart disease and cancer are now considered autoimmune diseases. This diagnosis takes about 7-10 years before symptoms occur. So, before an autoimmune disease diagnosis is made by your HCP, you will have some vague issues that occur and most practitioners and patients do not suspect the cause is coming from your gut. Yes, your gut. Your gut health is the main driver of your immune system and, consequently, your health.
When you have vague issues such as gas, bloating, weird rashes, foggy feeling, headaches, fatigue, frequent viral illnesses, constipation, etc., no one makes the connection that these symptoms are coming from your gut. Dermatologists have about 60 rashes for which they can prescribe various lotions or creams. They may even prescribe oral medications. What they never suspect is that these rashes are coming because of issues with your gut. It is fairly well known now that heart disease is not a cholesterol issue but an inflammation issue- which results because of issues with your gut.
We must mind our microbiome. What type and amounts of bacteria that are present in the gut are very important and will determine, to a large extent, how healthy we are. We want lots of good bacteria and there are 2 major ways to accomplish that proper nutrition and a decrease in toxic exposures.
What scientists have learned that is not being taught in medical schools yet is that all autoimmune diseases begin in the gut. It doesn't matter whether you have RA, Lupus, Hashimotos, MS, eczema, cancer, heart disease, or Type 1 diabetes etc. All those diseases began when your gut health started to crumble. For example: RA antibodies (CCP) will be present for 5-15 years before x-ray changes occur. During this time, you will slowly begin to have some vague symptoms but not necessarily in your joints.
Along with gut health (or lack of), toxicity has been found to be a major trigger for autoimmune diseases. These toxins come from BPA, phthalates, GMO, herbicides,fungicides, pesticides etc.
Let's talk about gluten. Here is what functional medicine scientists have learned. You can have gluten sensitivity without celiac disease. Wheat is a relatively recent addition (in the grand scheme of evolution) to our diets. We are not engineered to eat grasses and grains (wheat, rye, barley, oats etc) - we are not ruminants. Because this is true, we ALL have issues with wheat whether or not we have Celiac disease. It is a matter of how those issues are exhibited and to what degree. We have antibodies to wheat because it is a foreign "object" that is not recognized by our body. These antibodies come about because of tiny holes that are created in the lining of the gut wall when we consume these products. This is called leaky gut. So these antibodies then go about attacking various cells in your body. It could start out as general fatigue, some rashes, headaches, foggy feelings which can occur for 5-15 years before a "true" autoimmune symptoms and diagnosis is manifested.
Another issue contributing to our gut health is dairy. We are not designed to drink the milk of other mammals. It is not natural and our body will again have the same issues as with wheat. I can hear some of you loudly proclaiming that milk is needed for proper tooth and bone health. So think about other animals living in the wild. Once they are weaned, they only drink water yet they have powerful bones and teeth ( tigers, lions, elephants- right?) Humans do not need to drink milk either once they are weaned.
We have "normal" environments for our skin that have good and bad bacteria as well as viruses and fungi. We have "normal" environments that have good and bad bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live throughout the outside of our body as well as inside in our intestines. Matter of fact we have more bacteria, viruses, and fungi in our intestines than we have cells in our body. Mother Nature put them there for a reason and functional medicine doctors and other scientists have been exploring that reason for over a decade now and have come to some astounding conclusions.
When the balance of good and bad bacteria, fungi, and viruses is out of balance, you get autoimmune diseases, diabetes, cancer, or some other diseases. Even obesity can be sometimes be related to gut dysfunction. When food is not being digested properly or is inflammatory or not even food, it causes holes in your gut so that contents leak out of the tiny holes into your blood stream. This activates the immune system. These digestive products are seen as foreign and your immune system sends out the army to "arrest them". When this happens over and over again, the immune system is overloaded and other things start to happen like those weird symptoms mentioned earlier. When nothing is corrected at this stage, eventually an autoimmune disease emerges.
