Dr. Turcotte’s proprietary system of functional medicine consists of the five steps to restore health and balance using functional medicine.

Functional medicine is part of integrative medicine. The basic tenants of functional medicine encompass the restoration of the body’s interrelated physiological systems and address the underlying roots of the disease process, allowing the body to restore balance and health by supporting the healing process. Successfully addressing toxicity and obesity entails the practice of applying functional medicine.

Functional Medicine is a term intended to convey a new paradigm of medical thinking, which looks at patterns and systems of function rather than single disease diagnoses. It approaches the complexity of human health and disease as unique to the particular individual’s genetics, behavior and circumstances. It looks for the key points of leverage where an “illness” can be coaxed back to the preferred and optimally-adapted dynamic state we call “wellness.” Functional medicines identifies several key systems of basic healthy human functioning. It is important to note that each of these affects all of the others. The clinical judgment lies in understanding which of these is both the most treatable and is most likely the best way to reduce the strain on the overall balance of the patients’ internal systems.

Definitions

IMMUNE IMBALANCES
Autoimmune diseases, allergies, frequent infections, some cancers, chronic infections

HORMONAL AND NEUROTRANSMITTER IMBALANCES
Hypothyroidism, adrenal exhaustion, diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety

STRUCTURAL IMBALANCES
Many types of chronic pain, scoliosis, post-polio syndrome, hypermobility syndromes, surgical absence or modification of organs

GENETIC MUTATIONS
Inherited chromosomal damage in genes that express critical functions such as susceptibility to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, mental illness, cancer. Simple and affordable genetic testing is now available.

TOXICOLOGICAL STRESSES
Heavy metal poisoning, multiple drug sensitivities, hormone disruptors from the environment, various environmental sensitivities

NUTRITIONAL, DIGESTIVE, ABSORPTIVE IMBALANCES
Irritable bowel, bacterial overgrowth, reflux, incomplete digestion, food intolerances, subtle vitamin deficiencies

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL
Early childhood trauma, toxic relationships, chronic stress, isolation, fear, post- traumatic stress syndrome

THE INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE MODEL

Restorative medicine’s basic tenant is to restore health by treating the underlying cause of the disease and integrating the various physiological systems to optimize whole body function.

Suppression of symptoms, or attempts to correct imbalance in only one part of the body, leads to imbalance in other parts of the body. Imbalances are referred to as side effects in western medicine, but side effects are often actually the symptoms that emerge as the body attempts to restore balance disrupted by toxins.

Pharmaceutical companies are continuing to create a growing list of new drugs. In most cases, these drugs also come with side effects.  Sometimes you need more drugs to suppress the side effects of the earlier drugs than the original symptoms.

A functional interaction of body systems.

There is an interaction between the body’s functional systems along a specific axis, and these systems must remain in balance for maintaining optimal health. The orange axis in the above diagram encompasses relationships between the endocrine/hormonal system, the brain/central nervous system and the cardiovascular system. The green axis illustrates relationships between the kidney system (which includes the adrenal glands and bladder in Chinese medicine), the respiratory system and the gastro intestinal/digestive system. The musculoskeletal and skin infrastructure is central to all these systems.

Your maturation is marked by stages of systemic development as you age chronologically. Trauma at a specific age of systemic development, from birth through the mid-twenties, can affect the physiology and future health of that age-specified system. Note the ages on the functional interaction of body systems illustration that correspond with each system’s development.

A functional approach to medicine applies traditional medical models of healing and balance. Basic tenants of this traditional medicine are currently used in other countries’ modern health care systems with improved outcomes and dramatically lower cost than the suppression of symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs.  Empirically, we can observe that attempts to suppress symptoms eventually result in a reduced ability of the body to heal itself.

There are important interactions between the systems of the body to create balance and health.  Specific developmental milestones are involved within the systems that run the operations required for you to remain healthy. If one system is suppressed, it throws off the balance of the others. Compensation allows the systems to keep operating, as the body attempts to regain balance. Over time, however, chronic symptoms emerge as the systemic imbalances become more severe.

Symptoms are indicators that the body is trying to rebalance. Symptoms are the last to come in the disease process and the first to go away. The lack of a symptom is not necessarily the end of the imbalance or disease.

Acute symptoms are signs that a strong balancing response is being mounted, lasting less than hours to a week or so.

Chronic symptoms are an indication that the body lacks the vitality to overcome the imbalance and can last from weeks to a lifetime.

If a trauma or nutritional deficiency occurs at an important chronological milestone, the  system(s) correlating with that age may not develop properly.  A person who experiences trauma at a stage of systemic development will often be subject to disease or imbalance related to that system or organ.

UNDERSTANDING THE HIGH COST OF HEALTHCARE

Western medicine and traditional healing approaches can work together as integrated functional medicine to overcome obesity and restore health.

REDUCING HEALTHCARE COSTS

The cost to business for healthcare expenses and loss of work due to chronic illness are major detractors from profitability and economic sustainability. In addition to the health benefits of solving the growing health problems associated with obesity in the U.S., we are at a tipping point financially in both our country’s fiscal spending and in the exorbitant spending on a medical model that cannot effectively address the problems of obesity and chronic disease. Businesses are looking for ways to reduce these costs, including implementing wellness programs.

Safeway has been leading the way for reducing costs by supporting the health of employees and is reducing the average expenditure of $11,000 per year per employee to $8,000 per year. This savings has other businesses gaining interest in financing their own healthcare programs with a focus on functional medicine (Burd, 2009).

MEDICAL PROGRAMS VS LIFESTYLE PROGRAMS

Health care costs have been shown to be reduced more by supporting medical programs not lifestyle. Think of the savings if functional medicine was applied as well.

Surprisingly, wellness programs per se might not help reduce healthcare costs.

According to the RAND Wellness Programs study corporate wellness programs have little if any, impact on the amount employers pay for employee health care. The study surveyed 600,000 employees from seven businesses. The programs were generally divided into lifestyle management to reduce and prevent disease and a second component to manage chronic diseases.  Savings of about $30 per month were seen, but the return on investment was primarily driven by the disease management component, not by the lifestyle management program.

LIFESTYLE AND DISEASE

It takes more than lifestyle to turn around disease. When you understand your body’s physiology and what drives the growing levels of chronic disease that we see in the U.S., you will understand why it takes proper diet, exercise and medical intervention using functional medicine, not drugs, to turn these epidemics around.

It will require a new approach to medicine that addresses underlying causes of symptoms, pays health care providers for spending the time needed to address individual medical needs and minimizes engaging expensive heroic intervention and specialists prematurely in the health care process.

You have been empowered to take the next steps towards solving obesity and restoring your own health. You will not be alone; millions are joining in this health care revolution to impact themselves, their families and friends and to be free of patterns of disease that plague our country

STRUCTURED WATER

Any kind of water optimization apparatus must obey nature’s principles and one of this principles is forming vortexes or whirls. Masuro Emoto photographed frozen water crystals and discovered that water is responding to “information” and has a “memory”. Water responds to human emotions, recording and storing information like a computer. Losing the structure of water, how its molecules are organized, makes water a sickness agent, as it destroys the body fluids structures. In the last decade, three groundbreaking scientific findings have proven why the alignment of the molecules in the water you drink is essential for your health and longevity.

When we are born, the water molecules in our cells are aligned in a single-file. Our body even converts any water we drink into that necessary single-file structure. As we age, our body’s ability to convert water into the single-file alignment dramatically decreases. Our body’s hydration becomes increasingly compromised. Nobel Prize winning research from the early 2000’s has proven that in order for water to be optimally effective in the body, the water molecules must be aligned in a single-file structure. Research confirms that the molecules of most of the water we consume daily are aligned in a chaotic, large-clustered manner. That makes it extremely difficult for our body to absorb and optimally hydrate, ultimately leading to unintentional, yet chronic dehydration. The inventor of the i-H2O Activation System (“MRET-Water is Nuclear Physicist Dr. Igor Smirnov has developed GIA’s patented Single File Alignment (SFA) Technology allows for cellular hydration.

LiveWater systems is a structured water technology using optimizing devices. LiveWater is not a filtration, reverse osmosis or a softener system; it is a complex water optimization method using the major water properties for increasing water crystallinity and forming natural structured water, usually hexagonal shape. Self-cleaning occurs by application of a whirl to form many vortexes and significantly increasing Ionic oxygen content, able to reduce blood clotting energetically due to it dipolar charge. Treated water is reimprinted with the information approaching the qualities of natural spring water. Technology is available at lyranara.com. Watch the documentary; LiveWater – The Secret of Living Water at youtube.com.

Symptoms directly resulting from dehydration include: uneven skin tone, premature onset of wrinkles, anxiety and/or depression, headaches, joint pain, excess weight, sleeplessness, lack of focus and fatigue.

WATER AND THE CELL

It is important to drink adequate amounts of pure water (water filtered by reverse osmosis or an adequate filter system, rendering it as free as possible of fluoride and other contaminants). For example, many processes in the liver are dependent on proper water content of the liver cells. Carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism can be seriously impaired when the cells become dehydrated (Graf, Haddad, Haeussinger, & Lang, 1988; Lang, Stehle, & Häussinger, 1989; Meijer, Baquet, Gustafson, van Woerkom, & Hue, 1992).

WATER AND VIRAL REPLICATION

Water is involved with gene expression modification at cellular levels (Bedford, Bagnasco, Kador, Harris, & Burg, 1987; Garcia-Perez & Burg, 1991; Kwon et al., 1992; Paredes, McManus, Kwon, & Strange, 1992; Yamauchi, Uchida, Preston, Kwon, & Handler, 1993) causing changes in the expression of important proteins in the cells and even the ability of viruses to replicate (Häussinger; Offensperger, Offensperger, Stoll, Gerok, & Häussinger, 1994; Schliess & Häussinger, 2002).

CELL HYDRATION AND PHYSIOLOGY

Cells can change their water content, depending on the presence of certain nutrients such as protein or amino acids. Your cells are constantly responding to the physiology around them by changing their hydration levels. Change in cellular water content occurs not only in response to how much water you drink, but also to various hormones and chemicals in the body. Changes in cellular hydration are used as a messenger system by the cells to help them adapt to the environment (Häussinger et al., 1991; Schliess & Häussinger, 2002).  For example, the cells can swell as a consequence of insulin effects on cell function (Schliess & Häussinger, 2003).

The accumulation of ammonia, sometimes as a result of liver disease, can also lead to the accumulation of water inside the cells. When the brain cells swell as a result of ammonia toxicity the result is brain damage (Häussinger, Lang, & Gerok, 1994).

 

In the liver, insulin-induced cell swelling is critical for stimulation of glycogen and protein synthesis as well as inhibition of breakdown of cells. Glucagon, epinephrine, cortisol, and growth hormone all possess biologic activity capable of opposing insulin action (Butler & Rizza, 1989).

Cellular dehydration impairs insulin signaling and may be a major cause of insulin resistance, which develops into systemic hyperosmolarity (Schliess & Häussinger, 2003). In addition, oxidative challenges and unbalanced production of insulin-counteracting hormones can also result in hyperosmolarity. Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS) refers to the high concentration of glucose in the blood. Elevated blood sugar is a serious metabolic derangement that occurs in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) and can be a life-threatening emergency. HHS most commonly occurs in patients with type II DM experiencing reduced fluid intake due to an infection or another concomitant illness. Cellular dehydration leads to a catabolic situation where the cell begins to break down and also sensitizes cells to apoptotic stimuli resulting in cell death (Schliess & Häussinger, 2003).

DEHYDRATION CAUSES PAIN

Your body signals a need for water by producing pain as a symptom of dehydration. According to Dr. Batmanghelidj, M.D. a graduate of St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School of London University, in his book “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water”, a lack of water may be linked to many degenerative diseases including asthma, arthritis, hypertension, angina and adult-onset diabetes.

The main obsesogen found in tap water is atrazine, which slows thyroid hormone metabolism. Atrazine is a herbacide used on broadleaf weeds in crops such as corn and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and residential lawns. This chemical has been banned in Europe, but is one of the most widely used herbicides in US. Tributylin, a fungicide which stimulates fat cell production, is another common tap water contaminant.

A disinfectant, chloramine, is a compound made of chlorine and ammonia that is used by some water districts. This is an extremely toxic chemical that is highly corrosive and requires an advance carbon filtration to remove from drinking water.

The President’s Cancer Panels reports that endocrine disruptors such as pesticides and herbicides are directly linked to cancer. Most water filters cannot effectively remove the chloramine, pharmaceutical residues and pesticides from your drinking water. Protection from absorbing contaminants through our skin and lungs during a shower or bath is just as important as having proper filtration for drinking water (Miranda, Kim, Hull, Paul, & Galeano, 2007).

Drinking water filtration systems should have multiple separate stages, full bed depth filters, at least one high quality granular activated carbon filter stage and one highly rated carbon block stage. These filter stages should typically be replaced every year.

High quality home filtration systems should meet the following criteria:

  • Minimum 1000 iodine rating of carbon media, and
  • Automatic backwashing to prolong filtration media lifespan and keep it from reverse channeling.

Quality whole home filtration should last a family of four on chlorinated (not chloramine-treated) water about ten years (http://www.ewswater.com/).