Last weekend I attended a most informative seminar on functional endocrinology. This is the study of various hormones including your sex hormones, adrenal, thyroid, pancreas, pituitary, pineal and hypothalamus along with considerations for how your liver, blood sugar and gut are doing which then all establishes your overall hormonal state, for good or for bad. The instructor, Eric Dorninger ND, and acupuncturist, lectures across the country to alternative doctors and specializes in treating medical and alternative doctor failures.
There are five things that he almost universally will recommend to all patients. He calls them the Fab Five. They are basic and baseline. They include:
1. 3 grams of EPA / DHEA per day (4 grams if they are quite ill). This is typically derived from fish source. Eating a can of sardines would equate to 3 grams of EPA / DHA.
2. Adequate vitamin D – a minimum 5,000 IU per day unless you live on the equator and a more precise amount depends solely on your vitamin D level as seen on a blood test. Generally a good idea to take with Vitamin K2, 200 mcg / day.
3&4. Two supplements to assist the digestive tract including a probiotic and butyric acid which feeds the healthy bacteria in the colon. Generally unless one has specific digestive disease, you can in my opinion bypass these two items by eating a mason jar’s worth of vegetables daily along with a couple of tablespoons of your favorite fermented food such as sour kraut, pickles, kimchi or kefir. Stewed apples or just a regular apple or kiwi fruit also helpful in this department.
5) One supplement to assist the liver with its detoxification needs. Typically here he likes to use glutathione or it’s precursor N-Acetyl Cysteine along with selenium 200 mcg per day and some herbs like milk thistle. Generally there are liver support products out there enabling one to take a combination of nutrients in one pill.
To this list of five basic items I would add these additional 5 items
- Hidden Infections: identity and treat, preferably with herbal medicine, those pathologic microbes that are always there with chronic conditions. These would include yeast, mold, parasites, bacteria including Lyme, and viruses. How do you identify these mysterious microbes? Either through energetic medicine or through lab testing of one’s blood, stool and/or urine.
- Food sensitivities: Identify and avoid to the best of your ability those foods that you are reactive to. Ideally get off the food 100% for two weeks then reintroduce the food in a big way and look for reactions such as pain, sleep disturbance, GI upset, swelling, fatigue and/or weight gain over the next 3 days.
And how do you find these mysterious food sensitivities? Well lots of times one or more are already known. How you find the rest is either through energetic testing or through lab tests typically via blood, but also through saliva and stool testing. And there are lots of different blood tests out there, each claiming to be better than the others, so buyer beware. In fact, the gold standard for identifying one’s food sensitivities is doing a 2 to 3 week modified food allergy elimination diet. This would involve eliminating all likely high allergy potential foods such as gluten and dairy – which are the two most common problematic foods – of course any and all junk food, any refined sugar, corn, beef, eggs, nuts, citrus, soy and pork. Google it or ask our office to send you a copy of this diet. Then you introduce back into your diet one food at a time, one new food every 3 days and look for reactions.
3. Identify and treat toxic accumulation of chemicals and/or toxic metals which have overburdened your liver, gut, kidneys and / or immune system’s ability to deal with them. And how do you identify these mysterious toxic metal or chemicals that are causing havoc? Almost all chronic patients have this issue and it almost never is being addressed by standard medical procedures. You can test for these toxic substances through energetic testing or through lab testing via blood, urine, stool and/or in the case of toxic metals via hair analysis. Just taking a standard blood test and looking for excess of medical normal will typically not find the problem unless one is being acutely poisoned. On the other hand looking for antibodies in the blood to the chemical or toxic metal(s) will help shed light on this important issue.
4. Identify and treat dysfunction in the blood sugar and hormonal pathways. This is primarily done via a proper and adequate blood test. A thorough consultation is critical including one’s family background to determine genetic weakness. In this category I would also add that one needs to include numerous inflammatory markers in their blood tests, which unfortunately are not typically run even though they are not particularly expensive. It is universally agreed these days that inflammation is the underlying driver of all chronic disease. To properly treat chronic disease one then needs to find the source(s) of this inflammation. These markers give important clues as to what systems are involved and provide good feedback on retesting to indicate that you are making headway on treating the underlying condition.
5. Emotions. Some people live and or work in a toxic emotional environment. If so make a plan to leave if possible. It is established fact that having lived in a toxic emotional environment as a infant and/or young child directly leads to significantly higher incidence of chronic disease. While traditional counseling can of course be helpful, some of the more modern energetic emotion treatment techniques can frequently bypass the counseling and make meaningful corrections to the toxic emotional burdens which are being carried around. These techniques include Emotional Freedom Technique, EMDR and Neuro Emotional Technique to name a few. Many alternative providers as well as psychologists are trained in these techniques. The bottom line is that they can potentially handle emotional issues much more rapidly.
The big idea with the above approach is to treat underlying cause issues, and thereby get the body repaired enough so that it’s innate immune, neurologic and healing systems can all come together to do what nature designed the body to do, that is to be a self repairing well functioning human, living to his/her full potential.
If you would like to discuss this further please email me or contact my office at 805-569-5000 to schedule an appointment.
Sincerely,
Dr. Bastomski
Dr. Jacob Bastomski, a board-certified chiropractic neurologist, has served the Santa Barbara area since 1981. As a Santa Barbara chiropractor, Dr. Bastomski seeks to improve health through functional neurology and clinical nutrition.
Please contact us anytime at (805) 569-5000 if you’re looking for a holistic approach to alleviate a chronic condition, especially if traditional medical approaches have failed. Dr. Bastomski’s Back to Health Wellness Center is located at 1900 State St. Suite H in Santa Barbara.
