Although we are living longer, as we reach our forties many of us begin to have chronic aches and pains, neurological problems or some type of degenerative condition. We seem to accept this as a normal part of aging. Actually a lot of these “normal” aging phenomena are related to malfunctioning of our detoxification system or the fact that it is being overloaded with too many toxins. Because we are exposed to so many new chemicals, our bodies have not yet developed mechanisms to metabolize and eliminate them.

Toxicity drags down your system and as toxic levels build from our multiple daily chemical exposures, they add to your “body burden” and increase your total load. Here are some articles on toxicity and some simple actions you can take to help lighten your load and minimize environmental factors that affect you.

Once you start to lessen your body burden, a healthy diet and quality nutritional supplements will help supply your system with the nutrients you need to optimize the functioning of your body’s own detoxification system.

Detoxification is an essential part of our program.

Posted in Protocols

When your hormones are in balance, you feel great — lots of energy, you sleep like a baby, your sex drive is strong, you look wonderful, and your immune and digestive systems function beautifully.
This is your body’s normal state. And with proper support you should feel that way from your 20’s through your 70’s — and even beyond.
Most of us put enormous demands on our body — so much more stress than it was designed to handle — and don’t give it adequate support.
As a result, for many, Menopause symptoms can be unbearable and interrupt your quality of life.
Dramatic results can be obtained with proper hormonal balance using bioidentical hormones and nutritional supplements.
What are the typical symptoms of hormonal imbalance?
Dysmenorrhea (cramps), PMS, infertlity/endometriosis, irregular menstrual periods, fibrocystic breasts, premenopausal symptoms, weight gain, mood swings, reduced libido, vaginal thinning, dryness, painful intercourse, hot flashes, night sweats, depression, poor concentration, memory lapses, insomina, disturbed sleep, arteriosclerosis and osteoporosis.
We help you take control of your health at any age.

Posted in Protocols

As Baby Boomers come of age, we hear more and more about one of the many subjects our parents often avoided talking about: female “change of life”, or Menopause. Nowadays, the symptoms women experience during this natural adjustment in hormonal balance are well documented and treatment is widely available.

Male Menopause — or Andropause — however, is just as common an experience for men as its counterpart is for women. Just as women deals with a shift in their hormones, men as they grow older, inevitably experience a gradual shift in their hormonal balance.

Usually, men do not like to talk about this fact. A man’s masculine identity is often linked to an awareness of the necessity of male hormones. Any suggestion that hormonal levels are imbalanced, or are low, can be a threat to his sense of self worth.

Denial can run deep. And while symptoms of Male menopause mount–including depression, fatigue, loss of libido, increasing irritability and more–a basic medical condition goes untreated.

However, by properly treating the underlying causes and not just the symptoms; You can feel like a 30 year old again!

EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF ANDROPAUSE:

MALE HORMONAL IMBALANCE

The symptoms of Andropause are varied. Some symptoms occur very gradually. Others seem to just hit one day, like a ton of bricks. There are infinite combinations of symptoms and severity. Every Man is different and his particular symptoms and severity is unique.

It is perhaps a good idea to talk with your partner about these warning signs.

Depression, low or negative mood

Decreased stamina

Irritability

Fatigue

Decrease or loss of sexual enjoyment

Erectile dysfunction

Anxiety and nervousness

Inability to concentrate/memory loss

Stiffness in muscles and joints

Feeling fat, gaining weight

Decreased effectiveness of exercise

Decreased urine flow

Increased abdominal fat

Sleep disturbances

Increased amount of time to recover from injuries or illness

Loss of interest and self-confidence

Feeling time is running out

In aggregate, these symptoms can be and often are diagnosed as indications of other medical problems.

Depression, for instance, may be the result of an imbalance in chemical receptors in the brain. Doctors often treat the symptoms for depression and prescribe an antidepressant. Often, the underlying cause, an hormonal imbalance is often overlooked.

Similarly the symptoms of Erectile Dysfunction. A tablet of Viagra can be used for the physical symptom but does not treat the underlying cause.

Testing is Key

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We subscribe to the Autism Research Institute’s biomedical approach to treating autism spectrum disorders.
We believe that autism encompasses a spectrum of disorders with multiple provoking stressors and multiple possible susceptibilities. Our approach is based on paying careful attention to the unique symptoms, history, examinations and data of each child. We offer a process of choosing various options for biomedical intervention.

Autism and related problems reflect dysfunction of the neural, metabolic, immune and/or digestive system in individuals genetically predisposed to such problems as sub-optimal nutrition, food intolerances, microbial overgrowth, metabolic abnormalities, immune dysregulation and reduced ability to eliminate toxins. People with autism spectrum disorders have difficulty processing sensory, perceptual, cognitive, biochemical and immunologic messages and have faulty mechanisms for regulating, organizing, expressing, processing and detoxifying various inputs.

We believe that a combination of environmental factors may interact with genetic predispositions that are due to variations in human genotype. Timing of the appropriate treatment is important because certain insults appear to occur at vulnerable times in human development when the brain’s neuronal network connectivity is being established.

Appropriate treatment involves identifying and alleviating the problems causing symptoms in a particular individual, rather than attempting to suppress symptoms through the use of [psychoactive drugs. Our focus is on biomedical balance in the individual emphasizing two questions: Does he or she have a special unmet need that would advance healing if it were met. Does he or she have a special need to avoid or get rid of toxins, allergens or metabolic by-products?

The answers to these questions come by a careful sequential process in which the patient is recognized as the expert who, by his or her history, physical examinations, lab results and response to therapy, helps practitioners choose the best options for each diagnostic and therapeutic step. With our patients and their parents, we conduct collaborative conversations with an abiding respect for the intelligence and intuition of parents and their children. We involve families as full participants in the search for answers and recognize that the child is often listening, even when he or she appears inattentive.

We reject one-size-fits-all strategies while including the broad range of diagnostic and treatment modalities that are appropriate to each patient. We look for ways to support nature’s strong impulse toward healing.

We also value relational, occupational, physical, speech, educational, and other external therapies, many of which become far more efficacious once underlying biomedical conditions are addressed. While our focus is on biomedical interventions, we look for opportunities to collaborate with our educational, behavioral, physical and speech therapy colleagues.

W draw information and inspiration from the fact that autistic children are treatable and curable by systematic means that address the need to restore dysregulated biochemical and immunological processes to the virtuous pathways from which they descend. We believe that autism is also preventable by paying greater attention to environmental issues and parental health.

We endorse Dr. Rimland’s position of trying to disregard our egos and remembering that most of the important elements in our understanding of the treatment options for autistic individuals have come from listening to parents.

Posted in Protocols

The results of a sensible diet and lifestyle include an ideal body weight (body composition). Therefore, weight loss programs that just involve fad diets and diet pills do not actually help people achieve their goals. Inappropriate body compositions (more body fat and less muscle mass) can be due to a host of different factors including hormonal imbalance, food allergies and nutritional deficiencies among others. In our practice, we try to get to the root cause/causes of the problem to help people achieve their health goals.

Posted in Protocols

Environmental Medicine explores the role of dietary and environmental allergens in health and illness. Factors such as dust, molds, chemicals, and certain foods may cause allergic reactions that can dramatically influence diseases ranging from asthma and hay fever to headaches and depression. Virtually any chronic physical or mental illness may be improved by the care of a physician competent in this field.

Posted in Protocols

Toxic Food Syndrome

95% out of 100 people are poisoning themselves and don’t even know it!

Are you one of them?

The symptoms vary from individual to individual, but all have one thing in common: when a person stops eating the foods that are causing toxic reactions in their particular system, their symptoms disappear. These symptoms vary from indigestion to earaches to joint pain, to extremes of what might be considered mental illness.

Call now to find out if you’ll benefit from food allergy testing!

Posted in Protocols

FirstLine Therapy is a specialized therapeutic lifestyle change program unlike any other in that the FLT system targets the underlying causes of chronic illness by incorporating a sensible eating plan, exercise, nutritional supplementation, and stress management. In fact,the following key characteristics are unique to the FLT program.

FLT is not just a weight loss program- most programs are focused on weight while FLT is best used a s a first line treatment for common, chronic health problems (e.g., metabolic syndrome, high cholesterol, insulin resistance, unhealthy body composition).

The FLT eating plan is different- most programs are focused on low fat diets while FLT emphasizes the importance of a low-glycemic eating plan that is consistent with current research. Low glycemic eating plans result in less hunger and better compliance, better risk reduction, and better weight loss than traditional low fat diets.

FLT incorporates medical foods and nutritional supplements- the appropriate use of medical foods and supplements enhances program effectiveness and shortens the time it takes people to achieve their risk reduction goals.

Posted in Protocols

Long before bioidentical hormones became a hot topic, there were already doctors using the therapy with great success. It took Suzanne Somers, a celebrity actress and health promoter, however, to bring the topic of bioidentical hormones to the general public. I am fortunate to have learned about this therapy (from some of the pioneers in alternative medicine) about 13 years ago. One thing I learned from these generous individuals is that everybody is different. Such is the concept of biochemical individuality. What does this have to do with bioidentical hormones? What this means that everyone is unique and as such, a program that works for one person may or may not work for another.

What are bioidentical hormones? These are hormones that have the exact molecular structure that our bodies produce. Any structure that deviates from the original endogenous molecule is synthetic and as such is not bioidentical. Therefore, a person who gets a synthetic hormone is not having his or her hormones replaced. What they’re getting is hormonal substitution.

A medical doctor just recently appeared on the Oprah show, who said that bioidentical is just a marketing term. Dr. Christine Northrup, M.D. one of the main proponents of the use of natural bioidentical hormones, gently corrected her. I’m still amazed at how people in the mainstream don’t think for themselves but just follow the “party line.” It’s like having an “earth is flat” mentality.

I believe that our hormones are like a symphony orchestra. If one is off, the rest get affected. Even so-called “minor” hormones have a great role to play. That’s why it’s important to balance everything. In my practice, I’ve encountered people who are just taking one hormone thinking that that would resolve their issue.

I believe in the concept of yin and yang in Chinese medicine. For instance, when I treat the thyroid, I look into it’s sister organ, the adrenals. Their functions are closely linked together. Thus, it’s important to support both organs.

When I see a new client, I am always humbled because of all the new things I learn. I look into a person’s signs and symptoms as well as their lab work. One is as important as the other. As the saying goes, “if it talks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it is a duck.” The problem with “what’s going on” is that if a person falls within a normal range, even though they may be symptomatic, they may be denied proper treatment. What we do as healthy aging practitioners (also known as anti-aging), is that we look at optimal ranges rather than normal ranges.

For individuals who may not be candidates for bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), there are alternatives available. Besides the use of herbal medicine, I’ve used medical aromatherapy with essential oils and spagyric/homeopathic remedies.

For anyone seeking answers to their health issues, my advice is to listen closely to your body and to always keep an open mind.

Posted in Protocols