In The Beginning
Over twenty years and what sometimes seems like a lifetime ago, I attended a Functional Medicine meeting and met the man who was to become an important mentor for me, Dr. Jeffrey Bland. An internationally recognized leader in the nutritional medicine field, Dr. Bland co-founded The Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991 and is often called the “father of Functional Medicine.” I will never forget that, as he began speaking, he held his hands together as if he was reading from a book and said, “In the beginning we all receive a “Book of Life”, our own unique 23 pairs of chromosomes. But the stories ultimately told in that “Book” are not simply a result of those genes. The stories greatly depend on what bathes those genes, including . . .
What we eat,
What we drink,
What we think, and
How we move.
All of these determine how our individual stories will unfold!”
Dr Bland went on to outline how Functional Medicine could guide us and our patients to make healthier lifestyle choices and improve our quality of life. Practically everyone in the room that day, myself included, had a father who died of a heart attack too young, a grandmother with Diabetes, an aunt with arthritis or a mother who died of breast cancer. It’s a sad and scary part of many lives. Because we are related, we all ask ourselves, “When will it happen to me?”
The good news that comes directly from Functional Medicine is that we won’t necessarily get heart disease just because our father had it. We have the caring and knowledge to orchestrate bathing our genes. We can create a better life story than our relatives and our ancestors if we are truly invested and ready to make the life choices that allow us to be everything we can be.
So, let’s start with the book’s possible Chapter One: What do you eat?
If you came into my office as a patient with symptoms of chronic complex illness, I would probably recommend a Paleo Mediterranean Diet with emphasis on vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, berries, and lean sources of protein. What was the original Paleo diet? Try to imagine mankind of two million years ago. It was the time in which man first stood up on his two legs, followed the great herds and lived in caves or moveable housing. What would have been available for these hunter-gatherers to eat? They may have caught fish, picked up shellfish, gathered eggs from the nests of birds or captured the bird itself (with luck). Add in seeds, berries, nuts, fruits in season and some plant tubers. The genetics that made this diet appropriate have barely changed over the millennia.
By 5,000 years ago, Agrarian or Agricultural societies had developed. These people lived in larger communities, grew grains and legumes, domesticated animals and drank their milk. Skeletal remains from these people have indicated dental caries and osteoporosis, due in part to a less mobile lifestyle, but overall their diet of cereal grains, legumes and dairy was much more acidic than the fruits and vegetables, fish and lean meat diet of their hunter-gatherer ancestors. Grains and Legumes contain Phytic acid which impairs the absorption of iron, zinc and calcium and may promote mineral deficiencies. Dairy creates acidity too, and therefore also can leech minerals from our bones to buffer the acidity of this diet.
The Paleo Mediterranean diet suggestion would of course include modifications for patient-specific food allergies and sensitivities (thereby excluding grains in general and gluten containing grains in particular). Your diet would now be free from the most common allergens and triggers, like wheat/gluten and milk/dairy. By taking these actions you will have implemented a definitive anti-inflammatory diet. What does that mean? Inflammation is at the heart of almost everything that hurts on your body. Symptoms of fatigue, fibromyalgia, depression and pain often decrease significantly on such a diet. The ability of gluten containing grains to trigger brain inflammation, migraines, common headaches, and auto-immune brain conditions is well documented and irrefutable. A gluten free diet is both delicious and curative!
Follow this path and your genes will soon be luxuriating in a near perfect pool of comfort and healing. Like I indicated at the top of the page, it’s just the beginning. Next time we’ll talk about how you might handle drinking, starting with that delicious old standby . . . water.
Stay safe and be well.
Barbara