The Wonderment of Our Essential Minerals

When Dr. Richard Lord and our team were authoring the textbook Laboratory Evaluations for Integrative and Functional Medicine (LEIFM) in 2008, a major focus of mine was on the Elements Chapter. As I drilled down into the literature around minerals, I became enamored with each of them and their unique roles. Since I’ve been blogging,…

Eat Real Food Summit

Pin-Point Precision Personalized Nutrition: A Tale of Two Very Different Weight Loss Success Stories

Last week I ran a nutrient intake analysis (NIA) on a couple of patients of the clinic; let’s call them Ava and Paige. In both these cases, weight loss is one of the primary goals. An NIA is something we regularly do with individuals that we work with to ensure that not only is their…

Top Tips for Laboratory Testing in Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE)

Introduction to Tongue Nutrient Diagnosis in Functional Medicine

“Red, raw tongue; red, raw gut.” —Jeghers, New England Journal of Medicine, 1942. In 1942 it was understood that what was happening in the gut was often reflected in the tongue. A red, irritated tongue was thought to mirror a red, irritated gut. This was seen in B-vitamin deficiencies, glossitis and ileitis. Simply correcting the B deficiency…

Nutrition Physical Exam: Tongue & Nails Suggest Gut Health

Two of the most useful — and often overlooked — components of the nutrition physical exam are the tongue and fingernails. Together, abnormal findings can often be sourced to gut. In this blog, I’m presenting a case where tongue and nails were extremely useful in providing clear treatment direction. Next month, I’ll give some additional…

Are You a Hospitable Host to Your Microbial Partners?

Are you enriching their lives with good, healthy food choices and lifestyle habits or are you angering your trillions of guests, pushing them towards causing disease? I wrote my thesis in medical school on stealth infections, where I concluded that health had much to do with how well we tended our microbial garden… I was…

PCBs-A Case Report Suggests We Can Reduce Burden Despite Their Years-Long Half-Life

A patient was in my office the other day explaining that she’s gotten rid of all her plastic cookware, purchased new pots and pans and wooden cooking utensils. “I am going crazy thinking about all the toxins and what to do!” she said, “It keeps me up at night!” After expressing my admiration for her…