Integrative Health Blog

The Truth About Addiction: Drug and Alcohol Addiction is NOT Caused by Drugs and Alcohol

Posted by on Tue, Sep 19, 2017

President Donald Trump[1] has just proclaimed September 2017 as the National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month.  One can’t fault any concerned American for bemoaning our #1 national epidemic that continues to escalate with no solution in sight.  In true Trumpesque form, the issue is being met head on and brazenly confronted, a welcomed call to action. 

Deaths from drug abuse kill more Americans by far than any other disorder, with tobacco alone killing nearly a half million Americans per year and underlying much of the death and disability of the classical #1 and #2 killers, heart disease and cancer.  Deaths from opioid abuse alone, heavily fueled by the prescription pad, now tally more than the deaths from auto accidents and gunshot wounds combined. 

Why can’t addictions be solved like many other medical problems; find the cause, address them, and be done with it?

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Tags: addiction, functional medicine, precision medicine, Dr. Gant

How to Find Out About Your Genetic Risks

Posted by on Mon, Aug 14, 2017

A human being’s genetic blueprint is housed in our 23 chromosomes which is where the name of the genetic test “23andMe” gets its name.

Each of our 23 chromosomes has an average of about 1000 genes, and each gene has an average of about 100 quirky substitutions, which are sometimes referred to as mutations or polymorphisms.

These millions of quirky substitutions partly explains why we are all so delightfully unique in the way we look, think, act and feel about life’s challenges. Most of these mutations or polymorphisms are not considered to be detrimental, but a handful could be important under certain circumstances and cause serious diseases and other health problems, which is why it is important to know about them.

These important genetic polymorphisms are also:

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Tags: functional medicine, genetics, precision medicine, Dr. Gant

New Hope for Dementia

Posted by on Mon, May 02, 2016

Dementia is a broad category of brain diseases associated with long term, irreversible, gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember which is great enough to affect a person's daily functioning and which is worse than would be expected with normal aging.  

For decades, scientists have studied brain tissue samples of Alzheimer’s Disease victims, the largest dementia subcategory, (>50%), and have found distinctive pathological changes in the brain such as “plaque” and “neurofibrillary tangles” that are thought to somehow be causative of the disease.  The new sciences of Omics sheds new light on Dementia and is challenging long held views about its causes and treatments.

Omics, A Field of Study in Biology Read More

Tags: functional medicine, brain health, precision medicine, Dr. Gant