The Functional Medicine Approach to Obesity & Weight-LossPosted by Digital Seo on September 24th, 2019 Are you trying your best to eat a healthy and balanced diet and to exercise regularly, and yet your body won’t lose those extra pounds that you would give everything to get rid of? Difficulty to lose weight can in many cases be the effect of one or several underlying metabolic imbalances that you and your doctor are not aware of. My functional medicine approach to difficult and stubborn weight-loss is to determine first of all the real hidden causes of your weight issues and correct them with advanced lifestyle prescriptions, nutritional therapy, key targeted supplements, and stress management. To uncover these hidden metabolic glitches, we need to investigate your current biochemistry with the help of functional diagnostic tests. In my practice, the first four hidden causes of obesity and over-weight problems are 1) inflammation; 2) Underactive thyroid function; 3) High cortisol levels; and 4) female or male hormonal imbalances. .
Allover-weight individuals are highly inflamed. They have low grade chronic inflammation, which over time causes severe damage to their organs and bodily systems. The main causes of internal inflammation are irritants like poor food choices (alcohol, gluten, diary, etc.) that cause food intolerances and leaky gut syndrome among other issues; intake of pharmaceutical drugs; sodas & artificial drinks and processed foods; smoking; and not properly addressed infections.
Conventional medicine only tests for two markers of thyroid disease: TSH and T4. In functional medicine we test for many more important markers on top of these two, like free T4, total T4, T3, fT3, antibodies to the gland, heavy metals in the body affecting they thyroid, Selenium, Iodine and other key nutrients that are fundamental to the production of thyroid hormones, etc. In functional medicine we address hypothyroidism with an advanced nutritional strategy removing foods that slow down thyroid hormone production, and with exercise. Low thyroid function causes muscle and joint pain, low energy, depression, hair loss, constipation, and low body temperature.
In functional medicine we want to see the adrenal stress curve of cortisol (stress hormone) production throughout the day to determine at what times of the day and evening stress is causing weight-gain, and to be able to apply a therapy to it.
Imbalances in insulin and sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, in both men and women are also common underlying causes of obesity and difficulty losing weight. When these hormones are off, people suffer from sugar cravings, weakness, and sleepiness after meals, irritability, and fat around the midsection. Memory and focus will suffer, and in many cases insomnia will exacerbate the problem. My approach with functional medicine is to investigate all these hormones with functional diagnostic tests and then address all biochemical glitches with nutrition, lifestyle, and stress management. Detoxification of the toxic load (caused by pesticides in foods, tap water, chemicals and additives in foods & drinks, recirculation of used hormones in the body due to genetic flaws and abnormal gut flora), is also a key step in the process. For more information please visit:The Root Cause of Disease Like it? Share it! More by this author |