This Monday (October 5, 2009) at 6pm PST 9 PM EST the Functional Medicine University will be holding a preview webinar of it’s online university which specilizes in training physicians and practitioners in the field of Functional Diagnostic Medicine. The online training in Functional Medicine offers 24×7 online access to an extensive archive of learning materials.

If you would like to attend the FREE webinar you will need to register at the link below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/island/webinar/registration.tmpl?id=414499873

The webinar will be hosted live and will give you an inside glimpse of how the online university functions and what you as a student of FMU can expect. If you have never taken an online training before this is a great opportunity to get involved and learn Functional Medicine. The online learning center at Functional Medicine University, allows for you to learn at your own pace and without incurring the costs  of travel and accommodations, such as with a traditional conference or seminar.

The upcoming  tour will include a review of all aspects of the University, including  the online training forums and downloads library.  There will also be a review of the indepth nine modules which comprise the Functional Medicine online training.

Previous students  will also be given an opportunity to share some of their experiences of how they found the training and what they recommend when getting involved in learning Functional Medicine.  If you need more information please visit: http://www.FunctionalMedicineTraining.com or click on the link above.

We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming webinar.

If you haven’t heard by now Functional Medicine University has been hosting what could be known as the Super Bowl of Functional Medicine. Ten Days of Functional Medicine Telesemiars by world leading experts in the field of Functional Diagnostic Medicine.

So far the feedback has been outstanding and particpation has been tremendous! This years 2009 Functional Medicine Teleseminar line up includs lectures by Andrea M. Girman MD, Joel Yaffa, MD Jeffrey Moss DDS, Richard S. Lord Ph.D, Shelia Dean Dsc-C, RD, Ronald J. Grisanti, D.C., David Quig Ph.D, Aristo, Vojdani, PH.D, Dicken Weatherby ND, Joe Evans Ph.D.

All lectures are being recorded and are now available for download at the website http://www.FunctionalMedicineExperts.com

Official sponsors of Septembers Functional Medicine Teleseminar includes: Metametrix Institute, Genova Diagnostics, Diagnos-Techs Inc., Bio Health Diagnostics, Doctor’s Data, Moss Nutrition and Xymogen.

We want to express our appreciation to everyone who is participating and who is attending the 2009 seminars.

In this article Dr. Michael Lyon, medical director of the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine, discusses treating childhood obesity with a functional medicine approach.  The article continues discuss the founding of  new weightloss camp in Squamish this spring. The  camp is the first of it’s kind located in Canada and will be open to youth between 11 and 18 who are at least 20 pounds overweight.  Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: Helping obese youth shed pounds

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Similar to a traditional ‘Fat Camp’ The Wellspring Camp  also limits calories, but clinical director Kirschenbaum claims it offers a more scientific approach that uses psychology, activity and a low-fat diet.

“By emphasizing fat reduction over calories, Kirschenbaum says the campers don’t leave the table hungry.”

“We try to prevent a feeling of deprivation,” he says. “If they feel hungry and deprived, it’s not going to last. Our approach is designed to increase satiety, increase satisfaction with kid-friendly foods.”

Read More…

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Originally Published: Vancouver Sun
Article Title: Helping obese youth shed pounds
Author: Karen Gram

In this article Dr, Weymouth, a practitioner of Functional Medicine discusses the connection between the need need for Women to stay well fed and thus get optimal sleep. She discusses some of her experiences with patients. In specific situations in which the patient claims to not feel  feel hungry but  on a nutritional level they are lacking fuel  to create the cortisol  needed by the body. Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: Why Can’t Women Sleep? Part I: Building Better Sleep Basics 

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“Feed Your Brain

Dr. Weymouth, a chiropractor and ex-insomniac, practices “Functional Medicine” whose aim is to answer the why’s, what’s and how’s of health. When a woman appears in her office complaining of poor sleep - and most do - she asks what they’re eating.

“If you’re not sleeping well at night, you’re probably not eating as well as you think you are,” she says.

Women who wake during the night may not feel hungry. But they may well be starved for nourishment their brain needs to make it calmly through the night.

“If we don’t have enough fuel, the body asks the adrenal glands to make cortisol,” Dr. Weymouth explains. Which, as I understand it, is like making fight-or-flight in a bottle that just happens to be your trying-to-sleep body.

To up your odds of sleeping well, Dr. Weymouth suggests eating breakfast within an hour of waking, have lunch within four hours of breakfast (and if you can’t, have a snack, and then your meal).

If three to four hours pass between dinner and bedtime, eat a snack before bed made up of fat, protein and carbohydrate - part of an apple with a small amount of nut butter, cheese and crackers, a fork-or-two of dinner leftovers.

Orgasms can be a great natural sleep aid for women who find them relaxing. (”If you want to run around cleaning your closet afterward, then you have your sex in the morning,” Weymouth says.)

Lemon balm, lavender and linden teas can have a calming effect on the nervous system, as can 2-3 minute rounds of slow deep breathing.

Insomnia, of course, is very real. So, where is the line between sleeping badly and sleep disorders?”

Read More…

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Originally Published: Huffington Post
Article Title: Why Can’t Women Sleep? Part I: Building Better Sleep Basics
Author: Sharon Glassman

Here is an interesting article which draws a connection between lack of sleep and belly fat. The Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine in Vancouver has run several clinical trials  in which several of the participants have reported sleeping better after weight-loss.  In specific the article discusses how dramatic fluctuations in their blood sugar throughout the night can effect one’s sleep. 

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Belly fat may keep you up at night 
Author: Kerry Benjoe

“Having sleep trouble?

It could be your belly fat keeping you awake, says one researcher.

Kate Rheaume-Bleue has discovered a link between excess abdominal fat and insomnia.

“This is really a serendipitous finding coming out of weight loss trials dealing with a combination of fibres that’s developed at the University of Toronto,” explained Rheaume-Bleue. “There are clinical trials being done on this PGX combination at the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine in Vancouver. Many of the participants in the weight-loss trial were reporting that they were sleeping better.”

Rheaume-Bleue, a naturopathic physician, said she’s become interested in keeping on top of research in into insomnia and weight loss because it’s new and interesting information. She shared some of her insights with people who attended the Total Health Show at Evraz Place on the weekend.

She said in the most recent trials researchers have begun monitoring glucose levels and their connection to belly fat and insomnia.

“What was shown in these weight-loss trials is that many people who were overweight but with abdominal fat in particular because that fat is actually different from fat in the rest of the body, those people would suffer with quite dramatic fluctuations in their blood sugar throughout the night,” explained Rheaume-Bleue.

She said those types of changes don’t happen in average or generally healthy people.

“When the blood sugar drops at night time, especially at 3 a.m., that could wake them up,” said Rheaume-Bleue.

She explained that fibres have a very stabilizing affect on blood sugar so it was noticed very early in the trials the affect fibre was having on participants.” 

Read Full Article…

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Originally Published:  Canada.com 
Title: Belly fat may keep you up at night 
Author: Kerry Benjoe

An allergy begins long before the manifestation of allergic like symptoms. The body has to be set up to respond to an allergen. This usually begins in early childhood. It takes a disturbed intestinal environment, the internal terrain of the body, for the body to react allergenically. Unfortunately this disturbance to the intestinal environment often goes unnoticed, since it is chronic, and tends to build up over many years.

Dysbiosis is one of the major disturbances to the intestinal environment leading to the presentation of allergenic symptoms. Dysbiosis can be described as an abnormal intestinal flora and an abnormally permeable intestinal mucous membrane. The intestinal flora, comprising of billions of bacteria, forms a fine film on the inside of the intestines. Everything you eat passes through this bacterial layer, which alters and filters the foodstuffs. The build up of pathogenic bacteria, yeast and parasites severely impairs the absorptive ability of the intestinal mucous membranes.

Functional hypochlorhydria and pancreatic insufficiency cause the maldigestion of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Large macromolecules are left undigested and form the substrate for dysbiosis formation. Over time the villi, the large absorptive surface of the intestines, becomes irritated and inflamed due to the production of destructive enzymes and toxins from the dysbiotic pathogens. This causes the villi to become less dense and the intestinal lining to become “leaky”. With the destruction of the villi comes the reduction of the GALT and the secretory IgA, the body’s first line defense against “foreign” invaders. Large, incompletely digested macromolecules, especially proteins, start to penetrate the hyperpermeable intestinal mucous membrane and enter the blood stream. Once in the bloodstream, the body’s immune system recognizes the small, incompletely digested macromolecules as foreign, and produces antibodies against it. These antigen-antibody complexes circulate in the blood stream, migrating to various tissues in the body. It is the reaction of the antibody/antigen complex systemically that produces the classic allergy symptoms.

The body’s second layer of defense lies in the liver. The liver normally screens the blood for antigens. On each pass through the body, the blood must pass through the liver for cleaning and detoxification. The liver normally takes these foreign substances and destroys them or gets them out of the body. Unfortunately, liver dysfunction is a very common occurrence in our society. The destruction of foreign substances will not occur if the liver is not functioning as it should, if there is too much of the substance to get rid of easily or the liver’s phase I and II detoxification pathways cannot destroy it.

Over 80% of the human immune system is situated alongside the intestines. It is therefore understandable that disturbances of the intestines and the intestinal flora place a tremendous overload on the immune system, which then often reacts “allergically” to otherwise quite innocuous proteins. Allergies are usually indirect ailments of the intestinal mucous membrane. Thus, in treating allergies, the greatest attention needs to be given to assessing the health of the mucosal barrier, identifying whether or not the patient has dysbiosis, restoring the intestinal flora and repairing the intestinal mucous membrane.

In our experience working with physicians, the health of the mucosal barrier is not routinely assessed. The key is to identify the primary cause and extent of increased intestinal hyperpermeability. The test we recommend is the Mucosal Barrier Function Test.

The Mucosal Barrier Function Test

The Mucosal Barrier Function Test measures the serum levels of IgG, IgM and IgA antibodies to five combined dietary proteins (wheat, corn, soy, milk, and eggs), yeast (Candida albicans), two aerobic bacteria (Bacteroides fragilis and Clostridium perfringens), and two anaerobic bacteria (E. coli and Enterococcus) using the ELISA method of analysis.

How is the Mucosal Barrier Function evaluated?

The Mucosal Barrier Function Profile measures the health of the mucosal barrier lining of the GI tract from a functional standpoint. A healthy mucosal barrier will have secretory IgA (sIgA) levels in normal range and will show normal recognition of food proteins, enteric yeasts and enteric aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. This means that IgA, IgM and IgG levels to food proteins, enteric yeasts and enteric aerobic and anaerobic bacteria are all within normal range.

What if the mucosal barrier does not recognize normally encountered antigens?
If the mucosal barrier has shut down, the results for IgA, IgM and IgG levels to food proteins, enteric yeasts and enteric aerobic and anaerobic bacteria will all be <400. A continuum of events can lead to the complete shutdown of the mucosal barrier. When a healthy mucosal barrier is first challenged by an infectious agent, sIgA rises and elevations of specific antibodies may occur. At this point the antigen load is compartmentalized within the GI tract. As the infection begins to overwhelm the mucosal barrier defenses, the humoral immune system becomes more involved by increasing the number of circulating antibodies.

As an infection overpowers the mucosal barrier defenses, at some point the tight junctions between the intestinal cells open up and antigen penetration into the general circulation increases resulting in an increase in allergy and inflammation. Also, if any one of the three antibodies (either IgA, IgM or IgG) are elevated in each of the four compartments on the Mucosal Barrier Function Test (dietary proteins, yeasts, anaerobic bacteria, and aerobic bacteria) this would indicate hyperpermeability in the intestinal mucosal lining.

If no intervention occurs, eventually the mucosal immune response begins to weaken and can eventually shut down. As time goes on it loses its ability to recognize and process antigens properly. Ever increasing antigen penetration can eventually result in overstimulation of the humoral immune system leading to hyper-immune response and eventually the humoral immune system burns out.

If a hyper elevated or shut down mucosal barrier and/or leaky gut is confirmed, it is extremely important to identify the cause.
Suspect: Increased intestinal permeability or “leaky gut”

Possible Causes

1. Exposure to toxic substances (drugs such as NSAIDS and alcohol, chemical exposure)2. Food allergy/intolerance
2. Intestinal dysbiosis
3. Parasite, yeast, viral, or bacterial infection
4. Maldigestion (includes hypochlorhydria, pancreatic insufficiency, and disaccharidase insufficiencies)
5. Bacterial overgrowth of the small bowel
6. Prolonged fasting/nutrient insufficiencies
7. Inflammatory bowel disease, e.g. Crohn’s disease
8. Insufficient mucosal glycocalyx and/or sIgA

Finding the cause of a patient’s intestinal impermeability will help you determine the direction of treatment. It’s important to remember that correcting intestinal hyperpermeability can take quite a long time, especially as it’s often taken years to develop. Fortunately, the gut tends to be a responsive organ, and correcting its imbalances can reverse longstanding, painful symptoms.

For more information on this test please visit this site: http://www.mucosalbarrier.com/

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD or ADHD) is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder. It affects about 3 to 5% of children with symptoms starting before seven years of age.

ADHD treatment begins with the proper diagnosis by a certified practitioner or doctor. Often times ADHD can coexist with other disorders and identifying them is crucial in determining the correct treatment.

Medications are usually prescribed and behavioral modification techniques are used to prevention symptoms, but not addressing the root cause of ADHD.

Functional Medicine offers a more in-depth approach to investigate some of the underlying biochemical, physiological, environmental and psychological factors which might be occurring in the patient and thus creating the particular experience.

Functional Medicine treats the person at the root cause for AD/HD ADHD rather than treating the ailment alone.

To lean more talk with your Functional Medicine Doctor today.

How can a mother to be most supported in having the best experience during this physically and emotionally demanding time?

During an average pregnancy / postpartum women can commonly experience a wide variety of  changes from depression to anxiety, soreness,  reduced  libido, and overall discomfort.

Working with a Functional Medicine Doctor or practitioner can often offer women with a better understanding for the changes they are experiencing as well as a way in which to work with these changes.

Implementing a personalized approach to medicine which focuses on primary prevention and whole body health care.

More detail

By working with a certified FM Doctor or FM Practitioner you  are making an informed decisions to make empowered healthcare decisions.  Start early with children by applying  principles of disease prevention, self-healing, and noninvasive treatment. As a parent you want the best for your children make informed decisons by taking steps to learn more about functional medicine today and enjoy the benefits for years to come.

In addition FM Pain Medicine takes an analytical approach for how all components of the human biological system interact within the environment thus creating and causing chronic pain. By addressing the root cause of the situation FM Doctors are able to approach pain managment  and create Functional Pain Managements Plans which offer both  individualized & holistic treatment.