functional medicine and nutritional genomics - American Association ...

AAPI’S NUTRITION GUIDE TO OPTIMAL HEALTH: USING PRINCIPLES OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE AND NUTRITIONAL GENOMICS
provide optimal immune stimulation and will be
manageable for most patients.
Stress can play an important role in interfering
with immune health, in causing inflammation, and
in disrupting hormonal balance. The fourth pillar,
stress management, is a general term under which
spirituality and living with meaning or purpose can
be included. Patients should be encouraged to
meditate, to pray, do yoga, tai chi, or anything
else that gives them relaxation, peace and a
sense of inner strength. One can also use
‚quantum biofeedback‛ and ‚EFT‛ (Emotional
Freedom Technique) to help reduce stress and
improve emotional balance and well-being.
The fifth pillar is detoxification, a subject curiously
ignored in conventional medicine. Heavy metals,
for example, are known immune disruptors and
many of them are frankly carcinogenic. Those
patients with body burdens of these substances
need chelation to help restore immune competence
and cellular energy. Pesticides, plasticizers, and
many other environmental toxins are endocrine
disruptors and have been implicated in the rising
incidence of breast and prostate cancer as well as
other types of cancer. In addition to chelation, it
is good to offer far-infrared sauna treatments and
colon hydrotherapy to aid in the detoxification
process. The first pillar, a clean diet, will also
limit toxin exposure. Vegetable juicing and eating
high-fiber food will speed elimination and
detoxification as well.
The final pillar is hormone balancing. One
important example of the hormone problem is the
growing epidemic of unrecognized hypothyroidism.
It has been recently noted in studies that breast
cancer is associated with high TSH values (a
symptom of hypothyroidism). Hypothyroidism
suppresses immune function in general. Many
patients have cancers that are sensitive to
hormones. In fact, it is sometimes the presence of
higher levels of toxic estrogen metabolites (like
4.-OH and 16-OH estrone) that may have
predisposed the patient to cancer in the first
place. Fortunately, the thyroid gland can
sometimes be naturally stimulated (in some cases
the removal of toxins from the body can aid in
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this process). For other patients, replacement of
thyroid hormone is indicated. In the case of toxic
estrogen metabolites, diet change, simple
supplements, and exercise can lower these levels.
There are other hormonal issues that can also
play a role. All must be taken into account in
order to optimize treatment.
All these six pillars are covered, but what about
aggressively killing the cancer cells that have
appeared in our body? Insulin Potentiation Therapy
Low Dose― chemotherapy (IPT) is an effective,
yet gentle way of killing cancer cells. The theory
behind IPT could not be more logical. Cancer
cells in general concentrate sugar through their
abundance of insulin receptors as described earlier.
If a small measured dose of insulin is given, the
cancer cells become selectively more permeable,
and then the insulin receptor sites are maximally
saturated with insulin (the therapeutic moment).
Very small doses of chemotherapy agents are then
introduced into the body and these doses are
effectively concentrated into the cancer cells
providing enhanced killing powers with a much
lower side effect profile.
How do we choose among different chemotherapy
drugs? As with conventional oncology, we can
choose an agent that has been shown to be
effective in most patients with a specific type of
tumor. However, in the interest of a truly
individualized approach to treatment, we can send
the patient’s blood to a laboratory in Europe that
will test the blood for circulating tumor cells and
then test these for resistance to various
chemotherapy drugs. This will allow us to pick out
the most effective drugs for each individual patient.
These drugs could be very different from the
standard protocols in oncology. This laboratory will
also test for alternative (natural and
nontraditional) agents that can help overcome
chemotherapy resistance or even directly kill
cancer cells. Natural killer cell function (a
measure of immune function) is also assayed
(tested) and information is given as to the most
effective agents to more effectively attack the
cancer.
2012