functional medicine and nutritional genomics - American Association ...

AAPI’S NUTRITION GUIDE TO OPTIMAL HEALTH: USING PRINCIPLES OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE AND NUTRITIONAL GENOMICS
b. Extensive Elimination Diet: Reduce intake of foods
to a very low inflammatory diet, then gradually reintroduce
foods while documenting symptoms.
c. Food Sensitivity Testing: I have found that the use
of the ALCAT has provided my family and my clients
significant improvement in all measures of wellness;
therefore, it has become the testing method of choice
in my clinical practice. The test is designed to
measure the innate immune response to food, allowing
the patient to eliminate foods that are activating the
immune system and causing downstream inflammation.
IgG testing, or allergy testing, is used by some
practitioners, however, there is question at this time as
to whether the presence of an antibody to a food is a
reliable predictor of a pathological response.(35,36)
4. Take a robust pharmaceutical grade nutrient
regimen:
a. L-glutamine will aid in gut cell regeneration.
b. digestive enzymes may aid the digestive process.
c. broad spectrum probiotics have been found to help
reduce the inflammation.
d. multivitamin and multi-mineral.
5. Journal: this process allows your client to discover
the wide variety of responses their
body has to certain foods, provide objective information
about their diet, and understand and change food
behaviors that may be driving pathological eating
habits.
Keep It Simple
Consider a paradigm changing thought: Wellness is the
NORMAL state. We work hard to get sick. Often,
instead of ordering expensive testing, I counsel clients
to start their wellness program by eating only what
their grandparents would have eaten. Nearly everyone
returns feeling significantly better!
Concluding Thoughts
Food sensitivity is a complicated problem because it is
both the end result and a perpetuating factor in a
vicious cycle of gastrointestinal dysfunctions. Food
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sensitivity is important because it reflects underlying
metabolic, immunologic, and anatomic abnormalities.
These include various degrees of intestinal flora
abnormalities, intestinal hyper-permeability, anatomic
damage to intestinal micro-structures, improper
digestion and absorption, and chronic activation of the
immune system leading to local and systemic
inflammation.
The benefit of a vicious cycle is that it can be broken
at any point along the chain of events. When dealing
with a complicated patient, I recommend looking at
gastrointestinal health immediately. This may be as
simple as recommending your patient stop milk and
gluten products and journal symptoms for 2-4 weeks.
This brief time period is not overwhelming and will
allow the patient to ‚feel‛ the positive effects and
establish ‚buy-in.‛
With a motivated or significantly ill patient, it may be
appropriate to evaluate the stool for digestion,
absorption, and dysbiosis and use ALCAT testing to
guide their diet more specifically.
There are no risks to food elimination and the benefits
can be tremendous and immediate:
1. promote gut healing
2. reduce inflammation
3. reduce immune system activation
4. improve metabolic processes and reduce chronic
disease
Remember, WELLNESS IS THE DEFAULT STATE.
From this perspective, complicated problems are
simplified because understand that the body will return
to a state of health as certain physiologic, psychologic,
and metabolic stressors are removed.
So peel back the layers and help your patient discover
wellness! Start with gut health; you can’t go wrong. I
wish you the best!
Jamie Wright is a Board Certified ‚reformed‛
Gynecologist who fully embraced integrative medicine
as he helped his wife overcome autoimmune disease
and chronic pain. He is pursuing a Master’s Degree
from the University of South Florida Medical School
with a focus on Metabolic and Nutritional Medicine. He
is also board certified by the American Academy of