February 27, 2024 • 38 mins
Podcast summary
In this episode of Wellness Connection MD, Dr. McMinn take a deep dive into the root causes of disease and how an understanding of these root causes can be used as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool as a part of a functional medicine approach to a patient.
Think about your own health, or if you are a provider then think about the patient in front of you, then keep asking the question "What is the underlying root cause of the problem." Then use the list of root causes outlined in this podcast to help you come up with the answers. I call this the "why" approach to medicine. This approach may help you better understand the problem, and thus come up with more effective solutions.
Along the way, Dr McMinn also provides some insights and practical solutoins pertaining to each of these root causes of diseae.
At the end he summarizes all of these into the four fundmental causes of disease. It is where these four factors come together that we see disease emerge.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, this is Dr McMahon and welcome to Wellness
Connection MD.
Have you ever wondered what arethe root causes of disease?
Well, that's what we're goingto talk about on the show today.
Give you a breakdown of justabout all of the causes of
disease and if you listen to theend, I'll explain to you how
all health problems fall down tofour fundamental causes.
I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast
with Dr McMahon and CoachLindsey, where we bring you the
latest up-to-date,evidence-based information on a
wide variety of health andwellness topics, along with
practical take-home solutions.
Dr McMahon is an integrated andfunctional MD and Lindsey
Matthews is a registered nurseand IIN certified health coach.
(00:48):
Together, our goal is to helpyou optimize your health and
wellness in mind, body andspirit.
To see a list of all of ourpodcasts, visit wwwmdcom and to
stay up to date on the latesttopics, be sure to subscribe to
our podcast on your favoritepodcast player so that you'll be
notified when future episodescome out.
The discussions continue.
(01:08):
These podcasts for educationalpurposes only and are not
intended to diagnose or treatany disease.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without approval
from your personal doctor.
And now on to the show with DrMcMahon and Coach Lindsey.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Hello and welcome to Wellness Connection MD, the
evidence-based podcast on allthings wellness.
We thank you so much forjoining us today.
I'm Dr Jim McMahon and I'mflying solo today.
Coach Lindsey has amuch-deserved day off and we'll
jolly miss her, but we'll lookforward to having her back next
time on the show.
As always, we come to you tobring you commercial-free,
honest, unbiased, up-to-date,evidence-based,
(01:44):
outcomes-oriented information,along with practical solutions
in order to empower you toovercome your health care
concerns and to optimize yourwellness in mind, body and
spirit, and to become a greatcaptain of your ship when it
comes to your health andwellness.
If you've been with us for a bit, you're familiar with the term.
Functional medicine is definedas a system-spiology approach
(02:05):
that focuses on identifying andaddressing the root causes of
disease.
Today's show gets at the heartof the matter and that we're
going to be discussing theunderlying root causes of
disease.
It has been an interestingchallenge for me over the years
to put together this list, andit is something that I actually
use on a clinical basisday-to-day when I was seeing
patients.
When some complicated patientpresented to me, I would use
(02:27):
this list to uncover what mightbe the root cause of the
patient's problems.
Sometimes it's created abreakthrough in the patient's
care plan and improved theiroutcomes.
So I'm excited to share thislist with you today and hope you
enjoy it.
Before we get going, we have acouple of brief housekeeping
duties to take care of.
Our podcast remainscommercial-free, so you won't be
bothered by those annoying andsometimes disingenuous
(02:50):
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However, it does cost us moneyto produce these podcasts, so
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(03:10):
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Thank you so much.
And now on to the show.
Again, we're going to bediscussing the root causes of
(03:51):
disease in the context of afunctional root cause approach
to our health problems.
I call functional medicine whymedicine?
Because we're always asking thequestion why?
Why did the patient get theproblem?
What's the root cause?
When you are a functionalmedicine doctor, you revert to
being a three-year-old.
I remember when my kids wereabout that age and they would
always ask daddy, why is the skyblue?
(04:11):
Or daddy, why is the moon sobright or whatever.
I have to be honest, sometimesthe questions challenge me.
Even when I did come up withwhat I thought was a pretty good
answer, they would follow upwith another why question.
The kids were just trying tobetter understand the world
around them, how things worked.
Similarly, as a functionalmedicine doctor, when I go
beyond the standard symptom pillmedicine approach to more of a
(04:31):
functional why medicine approach, then I can better understand
what's going on with the patient.
Hopefully, this allows me todevelop a better treatment plan
and to have better outcomes.
It even allows me to havesuccess with difficult patients
where other what I call regulardoctors have failed.
Now, before I became afunctional medicine doctor, I
was on the regular medicine sideof the fence for 20 years, both
in the emergency room and inacademics at various medical
(04:53):
schools.
So I've seen it from both sides.
And let me be clear there's atime and a place for both kinds
of medicine.
It's not either or both havetheir place, and the point of
this discussion is not to bashregular doctors.
On the contrary, I have greatrespect for them.
However, I'm just pointing outthat there is another new,
exciting way of practicingmedicine, called functional
medicine, where we're trained to, as Apple says, think different
(05:16):
, to peel back the layers of theonion as we get to the root
cause of the problem, ratherthan taking what sometimes to
turn out to be a bandaid symptompill approach.
In regular medicine, theemphasis is coming up with the
diagnosis and then the doctor'smind immediately turns to
treatment, which is usually inthe form of drugs or surgery.
This is the way that doctorsare taught to think what drug
can I use to treat thisdiagnosis.
(05:37):
Let's use a real patientexample to illustrate this.
I will call this patient MrsJane Doe.
She came to see me with a maincomplaint of diarrhea.
She had already been seen andworked up for the diarrhea and
was found to have C diff colitis.
C diff is an infectious colitisthat often comes about after
the use of antibiotics.
These infections can actuallybe quite severe, difficult to
treat and in some cases evendeadly.
(05:58):
The classic treatment for thisis to give even more and
different antibiotics.
So in this case, the doctorsdid what they were trained to do
they came up with the diagnosisand they treated her with drugs
.
But what I want to focus on isthe why of the matter.
That's the premier question infunctional medicine that we
always come back to why did thepatient get the problem I E?
(06:19):
What are the underlying rootcauses?
So in Mrs Doe's case, let's puton our functional medicine hat
for a moment and then ask thequestion, just like a
three-year-old why did thepatient come see me?
She has chronic diarrhea.
Why does she have diarrhea?
She has C diff colitis.
Then why does she have C diffcolitis?
Because she has been on chronicantibiotic therapy.
(06:39):
But why was she on chronicantibiotic therapy?
Because she had chronic UTIs,urinary tract infections.
Now, let's keep going.
Why does she have chronicurinary tract infections?
Because she had poor vaginalhealth in the form of dryness
and atrophy, which made her muchmore prone to UTIs.
But don't stop there, let'skeep going.
Why did she have poor vaginalhealth?
(07:01):
Because she had almost nohormones on board.
Why did she have low hormones?
Well, that can vary from womanto woman, but in Mrs Doe's case
she had outlived her ovaries, ieshe went through menopause.
For some women it could besomething like a hysterectomy.
And finally, why did she gothrough menopause?
Because of the aging processand here's the kicker to me and
because she did not have adoctor who believed in
(07:22):
bioidentical hormone replacementtherapy.
If Mrs Doe had takenbioidentical hormone replacement
therapy properly, then shewould not have had the dryness
or atrophy, would not have hadthe UTIs, would not have taken
the chronic antibiotics andwould not have acquired seed of
colitis and the resultingdiarrhea.
So in this case, as in manycases, peeling back the layers
(07:44):
of the onion step by step andconnecting the dots allows us to
get to the root cause of herproblem.
In some cases you can treat theroot cause and prevent further
damage.
In other cases the damage hasalready been done due to
ignoring the root cause for manyyears.
So, for instance, ignoringcardiometabolic dysfunction may
result in a stroke.
So if you treat cardiometabolicdysfunction early in the
(08:04):
process, then you may be able toprevent the stroke.
However, once the stroke hashappened, then it's obviously
too late.
You've already missed yourwindow of opportunity and you
can't do a take two on this.
In Mrs Doe's case it was toolate to take away the damage
that was done due to the lack ofattention to her initial
concerns.
But we did do our best to helpher with the diarrhea and
certainly we made some progressthere for her.
(08:26):
Please allow me just to take acouple of seconds to do a mini
rant about vaginal rise innaturopathy.
These are problems that affectwomen's lives in many ways and
for the most part they areentirely preventable with a
proper front-end preventive caretreatment plan.
As I've said on other podcasts,the medical community
shamefully ignores women'svaginal health.
If men's penises wereundergoing atrophy like women's
(08:46):
vaginas, we would declare anational emergency, call-out to
the National Guard and pourmillions of dollars into finding
a cure.
I'm just saying Okay, I'm doneranting.
However, you want to learn moreabout this, then check out my
podcast number 27, which isabout vaginal dryness.
So now, without further ado,let's dig into our list of
causes of disease, with a fewcomments about age along the way
.
These are listed in noparticular order.
(09:08):
At the end, we're going to tieit all together with an
interesting concept and I'mgoing to summarize for you what
I think are the four fundamentalroot causes of just about every
disease.
Let's start with genetics andepigenetics.
Genetics can play a major rolein health and disease.
It goes without saying that ifyou are born with a major
genetic problem, then that canaffect if you live and how well
(09:30):
you live and how long you live.
However, epigenetics also playsa major role.
Let me take just a minute tobriefly explain to you the
difference between genetics andepigenetics.
Genetics has to do with theactual genetic code that you are
born with.
However, epigenetics has moreto do with gene expression.
Genes can be turned on or offlike a switch.
(09:50):
For instance, two identicaltwin females may have the exact
same genetic risk for breastcancer.
However, one may get it and onemay not.
Why is that?
Well, for one woman, the geneslie dormant and for the other
they got switched into the onposition.
The main factors that turngenes on or off are things like
diet, physical activity, toxins,stress, working night shifts,
(10:12):
obesity, just to name a few.
For instance, the twin whobecomes obese has a much greater
chance of that gene for breastcancer getting turned on than
her normal weight twin.
Another interesting factor thatchanges epigenetic expression
is intrauterine exposure.
For instance, if mom was megastressed out or ate a terrible
diet or was exposed to toxinsduring pregnancy, then this can
affect the epigenetic expressionof the offspring, resulting in
(10:35):
real disease.
In his wonderful book theBiology of Belief, dr Bruce
Lipton, phd cell biologist,describes the genetic code as
just what I call a dumbblueprint.
It really doesn't make anyactive decisions about your
health.
It is the epigenome that reallycontrols expression of genes.
So you may not have controlover the genes that you were
handed down.
However, you have major controlover how those genes are
(10:58):
expressed via your epigenome byoptimizing your basic life
habits such as diet, sleep,stress, toxins and movement.
For more information aboutlifestyle medicine, please check
our podcast number 34.
The next cause of disease thatwe'll discuss is iatrogenic,
which is what happens whenhealth problems are caused by
medical errors or unwantedcomplications of what are
(11:21):
thought to be proper medicaltreatment, such as, for instance
, an allergy to drugs.
It may be the proper treatment,but that particular patient
just has a terrible allergy andcan end up with some badness due
to that.
An example would be surgerycomplications Like nicking an
artery or post-op sepsis.
Diagnostic procedures likecolonoscopies can also cause
problems.
A recent article in theNational Institutes of Health,
(11:44):
published in 2017, estimatedthat medical errors account for
as many as 251,000 deaths in theUS annually, making medical
errors the third leading causeof death.
Wow, that's kind of scary and,to be clear, we're talking about
death here and this statisticdoes not reflect the non-fatal
problems, some of which,although can be quite severe,
(12:05):
that come from iatrogenic causes.
For example, the experts tell usolder folks to get regular
colonoscopies.
However, about 1.6% ofcolonoscopies result in
complications, and the list ofpotential complications includes
death, as well as some otherserious problems.
Now, that sounds like a fairlylow number at 1.6%, but let's
crunch some numbers.
In the US, about 15 millionpeople get colonoscopy each year
(12:28):
.
So 1.6% of 15 million peoplecomes to about 240,000 people
who run into iatrogenic problemsdue to colonoscopy each year,
so it becomes a big deal if youor your loved one happens to be
one of those people.
So, at the end of the day, eachdoctor and patient has to do
what they call a risk-benefitanalysis to make the decision as
to whether that scope is goingto benefit them or not.
(12:49):
It's worth noting that in arecent study in 2022 published
in the New England Journal ofMedicine, they found that
colonoscopies do reduce the rateof getting cancer, however, not
as much as they previouslythought, but they also found
that colonoscopies do not reducethe risk of death from
colorectal cancer.
So let me be clear.
I'm not saying to do scope ornot to do scope.
I'm just using this as anexample of a seemingly benign
(13:11):
diagnostic screening procedurethat can have major or even
fatal iatrogenic complications.
One thing I learned early on asa medical student was to never,
ever, take surgery lightly.
I've seen young people die fromcomplications from surgery.
Simple surgery Stuff happens inthe OR that we cannot predict,
even under the best ofcircumstances.
Again, to be clear I'm notanti-surgery.
(13:32):
It's a miracle of modernmedicine and it saves countless
lives every day.
In fact, it saved my life yearsago, and so I'm just saying
there's always a risk involvedthat must be considered and
mitigated, and we have to dothat risk-benefit analysis.
And now let's move on to ournext cause, which is sedentary
lifestyle.
In Dr Peter Adia's new bookcalled Outlive, he points out
(13:52):
that exercise is the number onefactor that results in improved
health span.
By the way, let's differentiatehealth span from lifespan.
Lifespan has to do with howmany years you live, whereas
health span is all about howlong you are healthy.
Interestingly, there is sort ofa Goldilocks sweet spot when it
comes to exercise Too little isbad for you and too much is bad
(14:13):
for you.
Over exercises have anincreased morbidity and
mortality.
That means they get more healthproblems and they die younger.
The negative healthconsequences of a sedentary
lifestyle requires a wholepodcast onto its own, so I won't
go into it in great detail, butjust to summarize that this is
a huge issue for overall health.
Fish got to swim, birds got tofly and people got to move.
(14:33):
If we stop moving, the game'sover.
Next we'll talk about aging.
As I journeyed through my 20years on the front lines in the
emergency room, there were a fewwhat are called Macminisms that
came about.
One of them was that bad thingshappen to old people.
The reason I always kind ofkept that in my mind was when an
old person came in with aproblem, you always have to give
it a more thorough look becauseit was more likely that it was
(14:56):
due to some really badunderlying condition.
You just didn't want to miss it.
Now I must admit that in myretirement I have entered that
old person category myself and Icould feel that I'm not as
surprised as I used to be.
But the bottom line is that aswe age we can expect more
badness of various sorts tovisit us.
However, there's an interestingconcept of chronological age
versus physiologic age.
Chronological age is measuredhow many years you've been alive
(15:18):
, but physiologic age is areflection of the structure and
processes of the body's tissues,organs and systems over time.
I've known some 70-year-oldpeople who seem to be fitter and
healthier than some 25-year-oldpeople, and there are a lot of
other factors that lead to thatequation.
Certainly, for most of us, thefundamentals of how you live
your life, ie lifestyle medicine, can play a major role in your
(15:39):
health span curve.
So bottom line, you can'tcontrol your chronological age,
but you have major control ofyour physiologic age by paying
attention to the fundamentals oflifestyle medicine, and for
more about that, just check outour podcast number 34, where we
go into that in great detail.
Now let's move on to gutdysfunction, and subsets of this
topic would include things likediet, digestion, motility, gut
(16:01):
microbiome, intestinalpermeability, which is also
known as leaky gut, and thingslike food sensitivities and
parasites and all that kind ofstuff.
There's an old saying that Ithink holds some truth, which
goes like this good healthstarts in the gut.
There's also a gut everythingconnection gut brain connection,
gut bone connection, gut immuneconnection, gut skin connection
, gut hormones, gut everythingyou name it.
Every cell in the body isdependent on the gut to get the
(16:24):
nutrients that it needs to behealthy.
Therefore, no organ or cell ishealthy if the gut is not
healthy.
We did an entire gut healthseries, so I won't go into this
any further on this podcast, butto learn more about this, check
out our podcast number threethrough seven.
The next topic is nutrition.
There are a couple ways you canthink about this.
First would be an actualnutritional deficiency, for
instance, scurvy, which the oldtime sailors used to get because
(16:46):
of lack of vitamin C.
This list goes on and on.
Diseases caused by lack ofcertain nutrients.
Another factor is just poornutrition, such as in the
context of a processedfood-laden diet, which the
studies have shown contribute toobesity, diabetes, high blood
pressure, heart disease, strokes, cancer, early death and more.
Foods also have a direct effecton your epigenetic expression
(17:07):
that we discussed earlier.
Foods are not just calories.
They are genetic informationfor your cells.
We already did a podcast onnutrition, so check that out if
you wish to learn more aboutthis important topic.
It's podcast number 10.
So let's turn now to stress.
It has been estimated that 75to 90% of visits to primary care
doctors are in some way relatedto stress.
Wow, that's huge.
(17:27):
Sounds like we need to chillout as a society, like with
exercise.
There's a sweet spot withstress, and this may be
different for each person.
Some stress in your life may begood for you, but too much
stress can be disastrous.
Again, stress is a majortrigger for the epigenome.
Too much stress is associatedwith many diseases, such as gut
problems, anxiety, headaches,insomnia, high blood pressure,
(17:49):
obesity, depression, heartdisease, skin problems, low
libido, drug and alcohol misuse,brain fog, fatigue, diabetes,
accelerated aging, cognitivedecline and premature death,
just to name a few.
We did a dedicated podcast onstress, which is number 11, so
if you want to learn more aboutthis, then just go back and
check out that podcast.
However, let me say I've alwaysfelt it was a cop out for
(18:10):
doctors just to say well, you'restressed out, go home and
reduce stress.
We need to tell people how toreduce stress.
So I put together the McMinnStress Plan and the McMinn
Stress Management Toolbox foryou, which you can find at
McMinnMDcom in the Documentssection.
You might want to check thoseout.
And now let's move on to sleep.
This is another biggie.
This includes good old insomnia, as well as other concerns like
(18:31):
night shift work or swing shiftwork, rim sleep disorder and
just being out of sync withcircadian rhythms, like those
folks who want to stay up allnight and then sleep until noon
the next day.
I have a confession to make.
When I was a young man, Ithought that sleep was a waste
of time and I tried to cheatsleep and get as little as
possible so that I could,overall, be more productive.
On the surface of it, I seemedto survive okay, but I did
(18:52):
recall at one point when I wasworking a lot of night shifts in
the ER.
I finally realized that theloss of sleep was taking a toll
on me and I was taking years offmy life.
That's when I decided to make achange.
The list of diseases that emergefrom sleep disorder is lengthy.
It especially includes a lot ofneurodegenerative diseases,
including Parkinson's diseaseand Alzheimer's disease.
I call sleep the magic elixirbecause it can help so many
(19:15):
things.
Proper sleep hygiene is the keyfor most of us, but the bottom
line is to place a super highpriority on getting restorative
sleep.
It is hugely important for youroverall health.
My motto when it comes to sleepis whatever it takes, it's just
that important.
We did a podcast on sleep,which is number 14, so you might
want to go back and take alisten to that if you'd like to
learn more about sleep.
I also have a couple ofdocuments on the subject at
(19:35):
McMinnMDcom under the documentsection called McMinn Sleep,
therapeutic Options and SleepHygiene.
The next root cause of diseasethat we'll talk about is social
isolation, anotherunderestimated cause of
morbidity and mortality.
An article from Harvard Healthstates that people who are
lonely or feel isolated have anincreased risk of many chronic
diseases, cognitive decline, aninability to perform daily tasks
(19:57):
and even premature death alljust from social isolation.
Unfortunately, in our modernday society, people are on the
move, families are fragmented,so about 50% of Americans report
being lonely.
So do what you can to stayconnected.
Also, reach out to yourneighbors, friends, family and
those in need to keep everyonein the loop.
Moving on now to infections,these include bacterial, viral
(20:19):
fungal parasites and infectionssuch as Lyme disease.
Often these infections areobvious, and sometimes even
deadly, or they can also be acult, such as a smoldering
infection in the urine, sinuses,gums or an endocarditis of the
heart.
These two can create manyproblems.
Another serious andunderestimated problem is the
emergence of resistance to manyof our previously tried and true
(20:41):
antibiotics.
Much of this comes from theoveruse of these antibiotics in
humans and in animals.
Patients used to call me allthe time saying Dr, I got the
sniffles.
Can you call me in a Z-PAC?
We hand out Z-PACs like theywere candy and the bugs are
getting smart to these drugs.
I'll never forget theinfectious disease expert who
once said that the road to hellis paved with Z-PACs, and I
think he was right.
(21:01):
Our next cause of disease isalterations in the microbiome.
Recognition of the microbiomeas a major player in health and
disease has been one of the mostexciting developments in
medicine in the last 10 to 20years.
The human microbiome consistsof about 100 trillion microbial
cells, as well as about athousand different species.
We can really no longer thinkof the human being as just made
up of human cells.
We are really a what I call asuper organism made up of many
(21:25):
types of cells, including humancells, but also microbial cells,
and the microbial cells faroutnumber the human cells and
they're absolutely necessary forlife as we know it.
These bugs help us in many ways, including digestion.
They help to destroy harmfulbacteria and they are
fundamental for the health ofthe immune system.
And when we get unwantedalterations of the microbiome,
such as with the C diffinfection, as I discussed
(21:47):
earlier, this can wreak havoc onour health, even causing death.
In and on our bodies we have askin microbiome, sinus
microbiome, oral microbiome, gutmicrobiome and genital
microbiome.
New frontiers in microbiomescience are also looking at eye
microbiome, uterine microbiome,brain microbiome and other areas
of the body that in the pastwere thought to be sterile.
(22:07):
This is truly an exciting andcutting edge area of scientific
discovery.
We tend to take our microbiomefor granted.
We wash our skin withantibacterial soaps which
destroy our skin microbiome.
We rinse our mouth withantibacterial mouthwash which
destroys our oral microbiome.
We take way more broad spectrumantibiotics than we should,
which wipes out our gutmicrobiome.
(22:27):
We can take that Cipro for UTI,for instance.
It's like a bomb going off inyour microbiome.
It may take a long time torecover and some experts say
that your gut never fullyrecovers.
We did an entire podcast on thegut microbiome, which is the
podcast number five.
So if you want to learn moreabout that, I encourage you to
go check that one out.
We also did a podcast on thevaginal microbiome, which is
number 28.
So also there for yourlistening pleasure.
(22:50):
Moving on now to systemicinflammation, another huge cause
of disease.
Inflammation is actually aprotective response by your
body's immune system againstharmful insults like pathogens
or other irritants.
Unfortunately, with chronicinflammation, the insult is long
gone, but but the inflammatoryresponse persists.
This lingering inflammationcontributes to disease by
disrupting normal tissuefunction and promoting tissue
(23:12):
damage.
Symptoms of chronicinflammation can vary widely.
It may be hard to measureinflammation, but labs like
C-rate protein and sedimentationrate and certain cytokines may
provide an objective measurement.
In some patients.
Chronic inflammation has beenimplicated in many diseases,
including autoimmune disease,arthritis, metabolic disease
like diabetes, cardiovasculardisease and some gut diseases
like Crohn's and certain cancers.
(23:33):
We did an entire podcast oninflammation, which is number 33
.
If you'd like to learn moreabout this, next we'll take a
look at immune dysfunction.
The classic examples of thisare various autoimmune diseases.
Some common ones that you maybe familiar with would be lupus,
psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritisand multiple sclerosis.
However, there are reallyalmost a hundred autoimmune
(23:54):
diseases that we know of.
I recall an interestinganalysis on this issue by a
Harvard researcher who statedthat three things must be
present for any autoimmunedisease to develop.
Number one is a geneticpredisposition.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat mama had the disease, but
the genes are hiding in yousomewhere.
Number two, there needs to besome sort of a trigger that
turns the gene on.
(24:15):
And third, there has to be somedegree of what I call increased
intestinal permeability, whichwe used to call leaky gut.
And here we go again with thatgut immune connection.
Some of the potential triggersof autoimmune disease include
food sensitivities, allergies,toxins, infections, poor diet,
stress, nervous system imbalance, chronic sleep deprivation,
(24:37):
chronic inflammation, trauma,parasites, excessive alcohol,
medications, surgery andradiation.
There are many new, fancy andexpensive drugs on the market
these days for autoimmunedisease.
However, from a functionalpoint of view, I have found that
removing triggers and improvingthe gut function can be
powerful healers.
I have seen near miracle cureswith this approach in some
(24:58):
patients.
I've not done a podcast onautoimmune disease yet, but I
have it on my list In themeantime.
My favorite book on the subjectis called the Immune System
Recovery Plan by Dr Bloom.
I'll have that listed for youin the references section of the
home page of McMinnMDcom.
Dr Bloom does a great job onthe subject.
You might want to check thatout.
One word of caution, however,is that when you finish the book
you might think, oh my gosh,it's just too complicated.
(25:19):
You might feel overwhelmed, butthat's when you need to work
with your functional medicineprovider to customize and
simplify the program for you.
The next cause of disease thatwe'll mention is toxins, another
underestimated factor.
The economic burden from thehealth effects of toxins is
estimated to be about $63billion annually in the United
States alone.
(25:39):
Wow, that's just staggering.
The various broad categories oftoxins that we are exposed to
include heavy metals like lead,mercury, arsenic, etc.
Organics like pesticides, andthen mycotoxins from mold.
I was just talking to a friendjust the other day and he said
he didn't have any significanttoxin exposure.
My reply to him was thatunfortunately, we live in a
(25:59):
world full of toxins.
They're everywhere.
We're all exposed all the time.
In fact, we're born with toxins.
Studies have demonstrated thatorganic forever chemicals PCBs,
mercury, lead and pesticides andphthalates from plastics have
been found in the umbilical cordblood of most babies.
Even penguins on the South Polehave elevated levels of mercury
.
Toxins are in the air webreathe, the food we eat and
(26:22):
even in the water we drink.
As you know, bottled water iseverywhere these days.
Studies are unequivocal thatbottled water contains
significantly more microplastics.
These microplastics make theirway into the bloodstream and we
find them in the blood, thelungs, the breast and even the
milk of humans, and they causemany health problems, including
metabolic disruption, immunedysfunction, neurodigital
(26:43):
disease, chronic inflammation,cardiovascular risk and
endocrine and reproductiveproblems.
Another true story I had apatient years ago who came in
with debilitating neuropathies.
She was miserable.
She had seen three neurologistswho treated her with drugs, but
nothing had helped.
As with many of my patients, Iwas her last hope.
Now here is another classicexample of what I call regular
(27:04):
medicine versus functionalmedicine.
My excellent and I mean thatexcellent neurologic colleagues
did what they were trained to do.
They made the diagnosis, whichwas diffuse neuropathy, and they
prescribed drugs to treat it.
The functional approach,however, was quite different.
I put my thinking cap on andasked why?
Why did the patient have theneuropathy?
For instance, if you googlecauses of neuropathy, you'll see
(27:26):
a list from Mayo Clinic the BigShots that clearly states that
exposure to toxins, especiallyheavy metals like lead and
mercury, can cause neuropathy.
Now here's the disconnect to me.
Here we have one of the topmedical centers in the world
clearly stating that lead andmercury caused neuropathies.
Yet three excellent, highlytrained neurologists evaluated
(27:47):
with this patient and not one ofthem ever thought about or
checked for heavy metals.
It's just not on their radarscreen.
Medical students are not taughtabout toxins in their training.
Why not?
I really don't know, but Idon't get it.
Maybe it's because there's nobillion dollar blockbuster drug
for it.
I'm just saying so anyway.
In this patient we did check theheavy metals and she was loaded
(28:08):
.
We did collision therapy, gotthe metals down to normal and,
poof, the neuropathies went awaycompletely.
It was like magic.
I was thrilled, and so was thepatient.
And, by the way, this has beenabout 10 years ago and the
neuropathies have not come backand she's experiencing a great
quality of life these days, asopposed to the misery that beset
her before our therapy.
The proof is always in pudding.
(28:29):
It's all about outcomes.
In this case, illustrates thepower of a why or functional
medicine approach.
Now we did a whole podcast ontoxins, so I won't repeat all
the details on this topic.
It's a really interestingsubject, so if you want to learn
more about that, then check outpodcast number 22.
However, I do think it's worthpointing out here the best
defense against toxins isavoidance.
So here are some simple tipsGet a good water filter.
(28:51):
I don't claim to be an expertin this area, but I have done
some homework on this and Irecommend the Berkey filter.
It's a simple carbon blockfilter dirty water in and pure
water out.
It's very simple, efficient andcost effective and, for your
information, I have no financialinterest in Berkey filters.
When it comes to food, googlethe dirty dozen foods and get
these particular foods in yourorganic form.
Also, be careful what you puton your body.
(29:13):
Toxins and lotions, shampoos,conditioners and makeup go right
through your skin and into yourbloodstream and into your
tissues.
So get good quality, cleanproducts.
So let me wrap up the toxinissue and leave you with just a
few take home points.
Number one toxins areeverywhere in our modern day
world.
Number two toxins contribute tomany diseases.
Number three avoid them whenyou can.
(29:34):
Number four, lastly, when youhave some sort of disease, like
a patient with neuropathy above,and you're trying to figure out
why, at least have toxins onyour list of possibilities.
Now let's move on to our nextcause of disease, which is
trauma.
There are many types of traumaand they're all important.
These would include things likephysical trauma, emotional
trauma, psychological trauma andsexual trauma.
(29:55):
To get more information on theemotional trauma issue, then
check out our recent podcast onemotional wellness, which are
podcast number 40 and 41.
As an old ER doc, I've seen myshare of physical trauma and I
would urge each of you just tobe smart in the way you live
your life.
Every time I see someone ridinga motorcycle, for instance,
without a helmet, it's likefingernails on a chalkboard to
me as an ER doctor.
But that's a values decisionthat each rider has to make on
(30:17):
his or her own.
The next cause of disease isobesity.
The data are clear that obesityis linked to increased rates of
cancer, heart disease, highblood pressure, dementia,
cholesterol abnormalities,diabetes, stroke, gallbladder
disease and increased all-causemortality.
Obesity and overweightness is acomplicated and controversial
topic.
Perhaps we'll circle backaround to that one day and do a
(30:39):
dedicated podcast on it, butcertainly any discussion about
this subject has to at leaststart with diet and exercise.
That certainly counts for amajor part of the problem.
However, it is admittedly muchmore complicated than that and
it is unfair in some patients toblame their diet when in fact,
other factors may play asignificant role.
It's up to the functionalprovider to rule out some of
these other causes.
So some of the othercontributing factors to obesity
(31:02):
might include a hypothyroidstate, insulin resistance,
metabolic syndrome,neurotransmitter imbalance,
fluid retention, systemicinflammation, polycystic ovary
syndrome, leptin resistancesyndrome, toxins.
Many of these toxins are whatwe call obesity genes and they
act through a number ofdifferent mechanisms to increase
(31:22):
weight.
An unhealthy gut microbiome canalso contribute to weight.
Acetylcarta team deficiencies,stress, lack of sleep being out
of sync with circadian rhythms,health nurses tend to weigh more
than day-shed nurses.
Isn't that interesting?
Food intolerance, such asgluten or dairy, artificial
sweeteners, drugs such assteroids, occult infections that
can cause inflammation, thusleading to weight gain.
(31:45):
Interestingly, people born byC-section are at higher risk of
obesity as an adult.
Bottle-fed instead ofbreast-fed babies tend to have
more obesity later in life.
Early childhood antibiotics canincrease the risk of obesity
later in life In utero and earlydevelopmental exposure to
chemicals such as pesticides andheavy metals, etc.
During critical periods ofdevelopment, even at low doses,
(32:05):
can alter programming and canresult in increased
susceptibility to diseases laterin life, including obesity.
Common household disinfectantsmay be linked to childhood
obesity.
Sleeping with lights on mayincrease the risk of obesity in
women.
And finally, genetics may playa major role.
According to one expert in thefield, there are about 5,000
genes associated with obesityand about 30 hormones associated
with obesity.
(32:26):
So again, the discussion startswith diet and exercise, but in
reality it's not that simple.
So a general functionalapproach may be, in order at
least to consider some of theseother causes that I have
mentioned.
The next cause of disease thatI'll mention is hormone
dysregulation.
This would include hormonessuch as estrogen, progesterone,
testosterone, thyroid cortisol,dhea, insulin, parathyroid
(32:47):
hormone and many more.
Neurotransmitter imbalancecould be considered to be a
subset of this discussion.
Hormone optimization andbalance are hugely impactful to
our overall health and qualityof life.
If there's any concern aboutyour hormones, I would encourage
you to work with a provider whohas trained and experienced in
testing and optimizing hormones,especially with bio-identical
hormones.
It can make a world ofdifference in many ways.
(33:08):
For instance, let's take theaverage 50-ish-year-old
pyramidopausal woman who comesin feeling miserable.
She has no energy, can't sleep,anxiety, low mood, headaches,
brain fog, aches all over,irritable emotional vaginal
dryness, pain within the courseand no libido.
With a good bio-identicalhormone replacement regimen, all
of these problems could becomea thing of the past and she
(33:28):
could feel fantastic.
I'm just saying I've seen itover and over is like magic.
So check out podcast number 13for more in-depth information
about hormones.
Moving on to oxidative stress,this is somewhat hard to
describe in layman's terms.
However, I'll take a crack atit.
It's a condition that appearswhen your antioxidant levels are
low, antioxidants beingsubstances that remove damaging
(33:49):
oxidizing chemicals from yourbody.
So when your antioxidants arelow, this can contribute to
diseases like Parkinson's,alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis,
depression, memory loss, cancer, diabetes, hypertension,
heartache of the arteries, lungdisease and premature aging,
just to name a few.
The best way to combat oxidativestress is with lifestyle
medicine, especially diet.
(34:09):
The diet should be balanced andwithin abundance of fruits and
vegetables and a limited intakeof sugar and processed food.
Regular exercise can also behelpful.
Supplements should never takethe place of diet, but in some
situations specific supplementsmay be helpful.
Some of the major antioxidantsupplements include vitamin C,
vitamin D, vitamin E, coq10,zinc, solenium, glutathione,
(34:30):
green tea, resveratrol and theflavonoids, which include
quercetin, rutin, luteolin andphycetin, just to name a few.
Sometimes you can keep itsimple and find a good
antioxidant formula thatcontains most of these
substances.
The next cause of disease isallergies and sensitivities.
The difference between anallergy and a sensitivity is
that an allergy is truly animmune, mediated response,
(34:51):
whereas a sensitivity is asubstance that you don't
tolerate well.
It might, for instance, causesome gastric upset, but it's not
a true allergic, immune,mediated response.
As you know, allergies can beof many types.
We can have allergies to foods,pets, pollen, latex, drugs and
all sorts of things.
If you have food allergies, itmay be difficult to figure out
what foods might be involved,and your provider or your
(35:12):
allergy can help you sort thatout.
One of the best strategies isto start with avoidance.
Immunization with an elementaldiet or an autoimmune-paleotype
diet might be helpful.
There are also many drugs forallergies and some of these can
be quite helpful, and there arealso some natural therapies that
have been helpful for many ofmy patients.
These include curcumin,boswellia, willowbark, quercetin
(35:32):
, especially for the skin,bromelain, especially for
sinuses, and evening primroseoil.
Next, let me mentionmitochondria dysfunction.
The mitochondria are the partsof the cells that transform the
food you eat into a usable formof energy called ATP.
Many diseases are caused bymitochondria dysfunction.
Most of the ones that I sawmore frequently were chronic
fatigue syndrome andfibromyalgia.
(35:53):
More recently, solid evidencehas emerged that suggests that
mitochondrial dysfunction may bea root cause of long COVID.
I'll just mention electrolyteimbalance and acibase imbalance
as another cause of disease.
And the last cause of diseasethat I'll mention is mind body
spirit dysfunction.
We addressed that to somedegree on our podcast number 32
on mind body medicine, so Iwon't go through that in great
(36:13):
detail.
And that completes the listthat I have accumulated over the
years of the causes of disease.
I have used this many times asI've taken a functional approach
to the patient's problems,figuring out the why to her
condition, so that I could takea root cause therapeutic
approach to her recovery.
However, I also realized thatmany of these causes of disease
are related to one another.
For instance, mitochondrialdysfunction might be due to
(36:34):
things like oxidative stress ortoxins.
So as I boiled it down to itsvery basics, it occurred to me
that there are really just aboutfour fundamental causes of
disease.
I've created a VIN diagram toillustrate this concept that you
can find at McMinnMDcom in thedocuments section labeled as
causes of disease.
The four fundamental causes ofdisease are number one, the
(36:55):
genome.
Number two, the microbiome.
Number three, the exposome,which means that what our bodies
are exposed to, such as toxins,certain foods, socioeconomic
factors, stress, lack of sleep,et cetera.
And number four, the mind.
And where these four factorsintersect in the middle is where
diseases emerge.
(37:15):
It's really profound.
If you take a minute to thinkabout it, it's an entirely new
and different, exciting approachto health and disease than we
have been taught in the past.
And again, this is not just athought exercise.
I actually used this list as apractical tool when a difficult
patient presented to me and Iwas trying to connect the dots
and figure out what was going onwith her.
So I hope that this has helpedyou in some way maybe to figure
(37:37):
out your own situation and toget better, or to help you avoid
disease until of a long, heavylife.
Well, that will about do it forthis episode of Wellness
Connection MD.
Don't forget to check us out atMcMinnMDcom, where you can find
the Wellness MD blog as well aslots of other great health and
wellness information.
Also, please help the podcastgrow by telling your friends and
family about us, and pleasetake a moment to review us on
(37:57):
iTunes.
These reviews really do help usout.
If you want to reach out to meby email, you can do so at
drmcminnatyahoocom.
You can also find me onFacebook, at facebookcom.
I'll have all those links foryou at the bottom of page one on
the homepage of the website,which again is McMinnMDcom.
Thanks so much for listening.
This is Dr McMahon signing out.
(38:17):
Take care and be well.
Hello, this is Dr McMahon and welcome to Wellness
Connection MD.
Have you ever wondered what arethe root causes of disease?
Well, that's what we're goingto talk about on the show today.
Give you a breakdown of justabout all of the causes of
disease and if you listen to theend, I'll explain to you how
all health problems fall down tofour fundamental causes.
I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast
with Dr McMahon and CoachLindsey, where we bring you the
latest up-to-date,evidence-based information on a
wide variety of health andwellness topics, along with
practical take-home solutions.
Dr McMahon is an integrated andfunctional MD and Lindsey
Matthews is a registered nurseand IIN certified health coach.
(00:48):
Together, our goal is to helpyou optimize your health and
wellness in mind, body andspirit.
To see a list of all of ourpodcasts, visit wwwmdcom and to
stay up to date on the latesttopics, be sure to subscribe to
our podcast on your favoritepodcast player so that you'll be
notified when future episodescome out.
The discussions continue.
(01:08):
These podcasts for educationalpurposes only and are not
intended to diagnose or treatany disease.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without approval
from your personal doctor.
And now on to the show with DrMcMahon and Coach Lindsey.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Hello and welcome to Wellness Connection MD, the
evidence-based podcast on allthings wellness.
We thank you so much forjoining us today.
I'm Dr Jim McMahon and I'mflying solo today.
Coach Lindsey has amuch-deserved day off and we'll
jolly miss her, but we'll lookforward to having her back next
time on the show.
As always, we come to you tobring you commercial-free,
honest, unbiased, up-to-date,evidence-based,
(01:44):
outcomes-oriented information,along with practical solutions
in order to empower you toovercome your health care
concerns and to optimize yourwellness in mind, body and
spirit, and to become a greatcaptain of your ship when it
comes to your health andwellness.
If you've been with us for a bit, you're familiar with the term.
Functional medicine is definedas a system-spiology approach
(02:05):
that focuses on identifying andaddressing the root causes of
disease.
Today's show gets at the heartof the matter and that we're
going to be discussing theunderlying root causes of
disease.
It has been an interestingchallenge for me over the years
to put together this list, andit is something that I actually
use on a clinical basisday-to-day when I was seeing
patients.
When some complicated patientpresented to me, I would use
(02:27):
this list to uncover what mightbe the root cause of the
patient's problems.
Sometimes it's created abreakthrough in the patient's
care plan and improved theiroutcomes.
So I'm excited to share thislist with you today and hope you
enjoy it.
Before we get going, we have acouple of brief housekeeping
duties to take care of.
Our podcast remainscommercial-free, so you won't be
bothered by those annoying andsometimes disingenuous
(02:50):
commercials.
However, it does cost us moneyto produce these podcasts, so
think of us like public radioand consider making a
contribution to help us keep itcoming to you.
There are a couple ways you cancontribute.
First, if you buy nutritionalsupplements and I'm not asking
you to buy anything you don'talready buy but if you buy
nutritional supplements, thenconsider purchasing these
physician-grade supplements fromour full script dispensary at a
(03:10):
10% discount.
You can see the link to fullscript below in the show notes.
Or you can go to McMinnMDcomand the link will also appear
there at the bottom of thehomepage under helpful links.
It's quite simple Just click onthe link and they'll guide you
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It's a win-win you get thehigh-quality supplements at a
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(03:30):
very grateful.
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link which is in the show notes,and please don't forget to
subscribe to the show and pleasetell your friends and family
about us so that we can keep itgrowing.
Thank you so much.
And now on to the show.
Again, we're going to bediscussing the root causes of
(03:51):
disease in the context of afunctional root cause approach
to our health problems.
I call functional medicine whymedicine?
Because we're always asking thequestion why?
Why did the patient get theproblem?
What's the root cause?
When you are a functionalmedicine doctor, you revert to
being a three-year-old.
I remember when my kids wereabout that age and they would
always ask daddy, why is the skyblue?
(04:11):
Or daddy, why is the moon sobright or whatever.
I have to be honest, sometimesthe questions challenge me.
Even when I did come up withwhat I thought was a pretty good
answer, they would follow upwith another why question.
The kids were just trying tobetter understand the world
around them, how things worked.
Similarly, as a functionalmedicine doctor, when I go
beyond the standard symptom pillmedicine approach to more of a
(04:31):
functional why medicine approach, then I can better understand
what's going on with the patient.
Hopefully, this allows me todevelop a better treatment plan
and to have better outcomes.
It even allows me to havesuccess with difficult patients
where other what I call regulardoctors have failed.
Now, before I became afunctional medicine doctor, I
was on the regular medicine sideof the fence for 20 years, both
in the emergency room and inacademics at various medical
(04:53):
schools.
So I've seen it from both sides.
And let me be clear there's atime and a place for both kinds
of medicine.
It's not either or both havetheir place, and the point of
this discussion is not to bashregular doctors.
On the contrary, I have greatrespect for them.
However, I'm just pointing outthat there is another new,
exciting way of practicingmedicine, called functional
medicine, where we're trained to, as Apple says, think different
(05:16):
, to peel back the layers of theonion as we get to the root
cause of the problem, ratherthan taking what sometimes to
turn out to be a bandaid symptompill approach.
In regular medicine, theemphasis is coming up with the
diagnosis and then the doctor'smind immediately turns to
treatment, which is usually inthe form of drugs or surgery.
This is the way that doctorsare taught to think what drug
can I use to treat thisdiagnosis.
(05:37):
Let's use a real patientexample to illustrate this.
I will call this patient MrsJane Doe.
She came to see me with a maincomplaint of diarrhea.
She had already been seen andworked up for the diarrhea and
was found to have C diff colitis.
C diff is an infectious colitisthat often comes about after
the use of antibiotics.
These infections can actuallybe quite severe, difficult to
treat and in some cases evendeadly.
(05:58):
The classic treatment for thisis to give even more and
different antibiotics.
So in this case, the doctorsdid what they were trained to do
they came up with the diagnosisand they treated her with drugs
.
But what I want to focus on isthe why of the matter.
That's the premier question infunctional medicine that we
always come back to why did thepatient get the problem I E?
(06:19):
What are the underlying rootcauses?
So in Mrs Doe's case, let's puton our functional medicine hat
for a moment and then ask thequestion, just like a
three-year-old why did thepatient come see me?
She has chronic diarrhea.
Why does she have diarrhea?
She has C diff colitis.
Then why does she have C diffcolitis?
Because she has been on chronicantibiotic therapy.
(06:39):
But why was she on chronicantibiotic therapy?
Because she had chronic UTIs,urinary tract infections.
Now, let's keep going.
Why does she have chronicurinary tract infections?
Because she had poor vaginalhealth in the form of dryness
and atrophy, which made her muchmore prone to UTIs.
But don't stop there, let'skeep going.
Why did she have poor vaginalhealth?
(07:01):
Because she had almost nohormones on board.
Why did she have low hormones?
Well, that can vary from womanto woman, but in Mrs Doe's case
she had outlived her ovaries, ieshe went through menopause.
For some women it could besomething like a hysterectomy.
And finally, why did she gothrough menopause?
Because of the aging processand here's the kicker to me and
because she did not have adoctor who believed in
(07:22):
bioidentical hormone replacementtherapy.
If Mrs Doe had takenbioidentical hormone replacement
therapy properly, then shewould not have had the dryness
or atrophy, would not have hadthe UTIs, would not have taken
the chronic antibiotics andwould not have acquired seed of
colitis and the resultingdiarrhea.
So in this case, as in manycases, peeling back the layers
(07:44):
of the onion step by step andconnecting the dots allows us to
get to the root cause of herproblem.
In some cases you can treat theroot cause and prevent further
damage.
In other cases the damage hasalready been done due to
ignoring the root cause for manyyears.
So, for instance, ignoringcardiometabolic dysfunction may
result in a stroke.
So if you treat cardiometabolicdysfunction early in the
(08:04):
process, then you may be able toprevent the stroke.
However, once the stroke hashappened, then it's obviously
too late.
You've already missed yourwindow of opportunity and you
can't do a take two on this.
In Mrs Doe's case it was toolate to take away the damage
that was done due to the lack ofattention to her initial
concerns.
But we did do our best to helpher with the diarrhea and
certainly we made some progressthere for her.
(08:26):
Please allow me just to take acouple of seconds to do a mini
rant about vaginal rise innaturopathy.
These are problems that affectwomen's lives in many ways and
for the most part they areentirely preventable with a
proper front-end preventive caretreatment plan.
As I've said on other podcasts,the medical community
shamefully ignores women'svaginal health.
If men's penises wereundergoing atrophy like women's
(08:46):
vaginas, we would declare anational emergency, call-out to
the National Guard and pourmillions of dollars into finding
a cure.
I'm just saying Okay, I'm doneranting.
However, you want to learn moreabout this, then check out my
podcast number 27, which isabout vaginal dryness.
So now, without further ado,let's dig into our list of
causes of disease, with a fewcomments about age along the way
.
These are listed in noparticular order.
(09:08):
At the end, we're going to tieit all together with an
interesting concept and I'mgoing to summarize for you what
I think are the four fundamentalroot causes of just about every
disease.
Let's start with genetics andepigenetics.
Genetics can play a major rolein health and disease.
It goes without saying that ifyou are born with a major
genetic problem, then that canaffect if you live and how well
(09:30):
you live and how long you live.
However, epigenetics also playsa major role.
Let me take just a minute tobriefly explain to you the
difference between genetics andepigenetics.
Genetics has to do with theactual genetic code that you are
born with.
However, epigenetics has moreto do with gene expression.
Genes can be turned on or offlike a switch.
(09:50):
For instance, two identicaltwin females may have the exact
same genetic risk for breastcancer.
However, one may get it and onemay not.
Why is that?
Well, for one woman, the geneslie dormant and for the other
they got switched into the onposition.
The main factors that turngenes on or off are things like
diet, physical activity, toxins,stress, working night shifts,
(10:12):
obesity, just to name a few.
For instance, the twin whobecomes obese has a much greater
chance of that gene for breastcancer getting turned on than
her normal weight twin.
Another interesting factor thatchanges epigenetic expression
is intrauterine exposure.
For instance, if mom was megastressed out or ate a terrible
diet or was exposed to toxinsduring pregnancy, then this can
affect the epigenetic expressionof the offspring, resulting in
(10:35):
real disease.
In his wonderful book theBiology of Belief, dr Bruce
Lipton, phd cell biologist,describes the genetic code as
just what I call a dumbblueprint.
It really doesn't make anyactive decisions about your
health.
It is the epigenome that reallycontrols expression of genes.
So you may not have controlover the genes that you were
handed down.
However, you have major controlover how those genes are
(10:58):
expressed via your epigenome byoptimizing your basic life
habits such as diet, sleep,stress, toxins and movement.
For more information aboutlifestyle medicine, please check
our podcast number 34.
The next cause of disease thatwe'll discuss is iatrogenic,
which is what happens whenhealth problems are caused by
medical errors or unwantedcomplications of what are
(11:21):
thought to be proper medicaltreatment, such as, for instance
, an allergy to drugs.
It may be the proper treatment,but that particular patient
just has a terrible allergy andcan end up with some badness due
to that.
An example would be surgerycomplications Like nicking an
artery or post-op sepsis.
Diagnostic procedures likecolonoscopies can also cause
problems.
A recent article in theNational Institutes of Health,
(11:44):
published in 2017, estimatedthat medical errors account for
as many as 251,000 deaths in theUS annually, making medical
errors the third leading causeof death.
Wow, that's kind of scary and,to be clear, we're talking about
death here and this statisticdoes not reflect the non-fatal
problems, some of which,although can be quite severe,
(12:05):
that come from iatrogenic causes.
For example, the experts tell usolder folks to get regular
colonoscopies.
However, about 1.6% ofcolonoscopies result in
complications, and the list ofpotential complications includes
death, as well as some otherserious problems.
Now, that sounds like a fairlylow number at 1.6%, but let's
crunch some numbers.
In the US, about 15 millionpeople get colonoscopy each year
(12:28):
.
So 1.6% of 15 million peoplecomes to about 240,000 people
who run into iatrogenic problemsdue to colonoscopy each year,
so it becomes a big deal if youor your loved one happens to be
one of those people.
So, at the end of the day, eachdoctor and patient has to do
what they call a risk-benefitanalysis to make the decision as
to whether that scope is goingto benefit them or not.
(12:49):
It's worth noting that in arecent study in 2022 published
in the New England Journal ofMedicine, they found that
colonoscopies do reduce the rateof getting cancer, however, not
as much as they previouslythought, but they also found
that colonoscopies do not reducethe risk of death from
colorectal cancer.
So let me be clear.
I'm not saying to do scope ornot to do scope.
I'm just using this as anexample of a seemingly benign
(13:11):
diagnostic screening procedurethat can have major or even
fatal iatrogenic complications.
One thing I learned early on asa medical student was to never,
ever, take surgery lightly.
I've seen young people die fromcomplications from surgery.
Simple surgery Stuff happens inthe OR that we cannot predict,
even under the best ofcircumstances.
Again, to be clear I'm notanti-surgery.
(13:32):
It's a miracle of modernmedicine and it saves countless
lives every day.
In fact, it saved my life yearsago, and so I'm just saying
there's always a risk involvedthat must be considered and
mitigated, and we have to dothat risk-benefit analysis.
And now let's move on to ournext cause, which is sedentary
lifestyle.
In Dr Peter Adia's new bookcalled Outlive, he points out
(13:52):
that exercise is the number onefactor that results in improved
health span.
By the way, let's differentiatehealth span from lifespan.
Lifespan has to do with howmany years you live, whereas
health span is all about howlong you are healthy.
Interestingly, there is sort ofa Goldilocks sweet spot when it
comes to exercise Too little isbad for you and too much is bad
(14:13):
for you.
Over exercises have anincreased morbidity and
mortality.
That means they get more healthproblems and they die younger.
The negative healthconsequences of a sedentary
lifestyle requires a wholepodcast onto its own, so I won't
go into it in great detail, butjust to summarize that this is
a huge issue for overall health.
Fish got to swim, birds got tofly and people got to move.
(14:33):
If we stop moving, the game'sover.
Next we'll talk about aging.
As I journeyed through my 20years on the front lines in the
emergency room, there were a fewwhat are called Macminisms that
came about.
One of them was that bad thingshappen to old people.
The reason I always kind ofkept that in my mind was when an
old person came in with aproblem, you always have to give
it a more thorough look becauseit was more likely that it was
(14:56):
due to some really badunderlying condition.
You just didn't want to miss it.
Now I must admit that in myretirement I have entered that
old person category myself and Icould feel that I'm not as
surprised as I used to be.
But the bottom line is that aswe age we can expect more
badness of various sorts tovisit us.
However, there's an interestingconcept of chronological age
versus physiologic age.
Chronological age is measuredhow many years you've been alive
(15:18):
, but physiologic age is areflection of the structure and
processes of the body's tissues,organs and systems over time.
I've known some 70-year-oldpeople who seem to be fitter and
healthier than some 25-year-oldpeople, and there are a lot of
other factors that lead to thatequation.
Certainly, for most of us, thefundamentals of how you live
your life, ie lifestyle medicine, can play a major role in your
(15:39):
health span curve.
So bottom line, you can'tcontrol your chronological age,
but you have major control ofyour physiologic age by paying
attention to the fundamentals oflifestyle medicine, and for
more about that, just check outour podcast number 34, where we
go into that in great detail.
Now let's move on to gutdysfunction, and subsets of this
topic would include things likediet, digestion, motility, gut
(16:01):
microbiome, intestinalpermeability, which is also
known as leaky gut, and thingslike food sensitivities and
parasites and all that kind ofstuff.
There's an old saying that Ithink holds some truth, which
goes like this good healthstarts in the gut.
There's also a gut everythingconnection gut brain connection,
gut bone connection, gut immuneconnection, gut skin connection
, gut hormones, gut everythingyou name it.
Every cell in the body isdependent on the gut to get the
(16:24):
nutrients that it needs to behealthy.
Therefore, no organ or cell ishealthy if the gut is not
healthy.
We did an entire gut healthseries, so I won't go into this
any further on this podcast, butto learn more about this, check
out our podcast number threethrough seven.
The next topic is nutrition.
There are a couple ways you canthink about this.
First would be an actualnutritional deficiency, for
instance, scurvy, which the oldtime sailors used to get because
(16:46):
of lack of vitamin C.
This list goes on and on.
Diseases caused by lack ofcertain nutrients.
Another factor is just poornutrition, such as in the
context of a processedfood-laden diet, which the
studies have shown contribute toobesity, diabetes, high blood
pressure, heart disease, strokes, cancer, early death and more.
Foods also have a direct effecton your epigenetic expression
(17:07):
that we discussed earlier.
Foods are not just calories.
They are genetic informationfor your cells.
We already did a podcast onnutrition, so check that out if
you wish to learn more aboutthis important topic.
It's podcast number 10.
So let's turn now to stress.
It has been estimated that 75to 90% of visits to primary care
doctors are in some way relatedto stress.
Wow, that's huge.
(17:27):
Sounds like we need to chillout as a society, like with
exercise.
There's a sweet spot withstress, and this may be
different for each person.
Some stress in your life may begood for you, but too much
stress can be disastrous.
Again, stress is a majortrigger for the epigenome.
Too much stress is associatedwith many diseases, such as gut
problems, anxiety, headaches,insomnia, high blood pressure,
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obesity, depression, heartdisease, skin problems, low
libido, drug and alcohol misuse,brain fog, fatigue, diabetes,
accelerated aging, cognitivedecline and premature death,
just to name a few.
We did a dedicated podcast onstress, which is number 11, so
if you want to learn more aboutthis, then just go back and
check out that podcast.
However, let me say I've alwaysfelt it was a cop out for
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doctors just to say well, you'restressed out, go home and
reduce stress.
We need to tell people how toreduce stress.
So I put together the McMinnStress Plan and the McMinn
Stress Management Toolbox foryou, which you can find at
McMinnMDcom in the Documentssection.
You might want to check thoseout.
And now let's move on to sleep.
This is another biggie.
This includes good old insomnia, as well as other concerns like
(18:31):
night shift work or swing shiftwork, rim sleep disorder and
just being out of sync withcircadian rhythms, like those
folks who want to stay up allnight and then sleep until noon
the next day.
I have a confession to make.
When I was a young man, Ithought that sleep was a waste
of time and I tried to cheatsleep and get as little as
possible so that I could,overall, be more productive.
On the surface of it, I seemedto survive okay, but I did
(18:52):
recall at one point when I wasworking a lot of night shifts in
the ER.
I finally realized that theloss of sleep was taking a toll
on me and I was taking years offmy life.
That's when I decided to make achange.
The list of diseases that emergefrom sleep disorder is lengthy.
It especially includes a lot ofneurodegenerative diseases,
including Parkinson's diseaseand Alzheimer's disease.
I call sleep the magic elixirbecause it can help so many
(19:15):
things.
Proper sleep hygiene is the keyfor most of us, but the bottom
line is to place a super highpriority on getting restorative
sleep.
It is hugely important for youroverall health.
My motto when it comes to sleepis whatever it takes, it's just
that important.
We did a podcast on sleep,which is number 14, so you might
want to go back and take alisten to that if you'd like to
learn more about sleep.
I also have a couple ofdocuments on the subject at
(19:35):
McMinnMDcom under the documentsection called McMinn Sleep,
therapeutic Options and SleepHygiene.
The next root cause of diseasethat we'll talk about is social
isolation, anotherunderestimated cause of
morbidity and mortality.
An article from Harvard Healthstates that people who are
lonely or feel isolated have anincreased risk of many chronic
diseases, cognitive decline, aninability to perform daily tasks
(19:57):
and even premature death alljust from social isolation.
Unfortunately, in our modernday society, people are on the
move, families are fragmented,so about 50% of Americans report
being lonely.
So do what you can to stayconnected.
Also, reach out to yourneighbors, friends, family and
those in need to keep everyonein the loop.
Moving on now to infections,these include bacterial, viral
(20:19):
fungal parasites and infectionssuch as Lyme disease.
Often these infections areobvious, and sometimes even
deadly, or they can also be acult, such as a smoldering
infection in the urine, sinuses,gums or an endocarditis of the
heart.
These two can create manyproblems.
Another serious andunderestimated problem is the
emergence of resistance to manyof our previously tried and true
(20:41):
antibiotics.
Much of this comes from theoveruse of these antibiotics in
humans and in animals.
Patients used to call me allthe time saying Dr, I got the
sniffles.
Can you call me in a Z-PAC?
We hand out Z-PACs like theywere candy and the bugs are
getting smart to these drugs.
I'll never forget theinfectious disease expert who
once said that the road to hellis paved with Z-PACs, and I
think he was right.
(21:01):
Our next cause of disease isalterations in the microbiome.
Recognition of the microbiomeas a major player in health and
disease has been one of the mostexciting developments in
medicine in the last 10 to 20years.
The human microbiome consistsof about 100 trillion microbial
cells, as well as about athousand different species.
We can really no longer thinkof the human being as just made
up of human cells.
We are really a what I call asuper organism made up of many
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types of cells, including humancells, but also microbial cells,
and the microbial cells faroutnumber the human cells and
they're absolutely necessary forlife as we know it.
These bugs help us in many ways, including digestion.
They help to destroy harmfulbacteria and they are
fundamental for the health ofthe immune system.
And when we get unwantedalterations of the microbiome,
such as with the C diffinfection, as I discussed
(21:47):
earlier, this can wreak havoc onour health, even causing death.
In and on our bodies we have askin microbiome, sinus
microbiome, oral microbiome, gutmicrobiome and genital
microbiome.
New frontiers in microbiomescience are also looking at eye
microbiome, uterine microbiome,brain microbiome and other areas
of the body that in the pastwere thought to be sterile.
(22:07):
This is truly an exciting andcutting edge area of scientific
discovery.
We tend to take our microbiomefor granted.
We wash our skin withantibacterial soaps which
destroy our skin microbiome.
We rinse our mouth withantibacterial mouthwash which
destroys our oral microbiome.
We take way more broad spectrumantibiotics than we should,
which wipes out our gutmicrobiome.
(22:27):
We can take that Cipro for UTI,for instance.
It's like a bomb going off inyour microbiome.
It may take a long time torecover and some experts say
that your gut never fullyrecovers.
We did an entire podcast on thegut microbiome, which is the
podcast number five.
So if you want to learn moreabout that, I encourage you to
go check that one out.
We also did a podcast on thevaginal microbiome, which is
number 28.
So also there for yourlistening pleasure.
(22:50):
Moving on now to systemicinflammation, another huge cause
of disease.
Inflammation is actually aprotective response by your
body's immune system againstharmful insults like pathogens
or other irritants.
Unfortunately, with chronicinflammation, the insult is long
gone, but but the inflammatoryresponse persists.
This lingering inflammationcontributes to disease by
disrupting normal tissuefunction and promoting tissue
(23:12):
damage.
Symptoms of chronicinflammation can vary widely.
It may be hard to measureinflammation, but labs like
C-rate protein and sedimentationrate and certain cytokines may
provide an objective measurement.
In some patients.
Chronic inflammation has beenimplicated in many diseases,
including autoimmune disease,arthritis, metabolic disease
like diabetes, cardiovasculardisease and some gut diseases
like Crohn's and certain cancers.
(23:33):
We did an entire podcast oninflammation, which is number 33
.
If you'd like to learn moreabout this, next we'll take a
look at immune dysfunction.
The classic examples of thisare various autoimmune diseases.
Some common ones that you maybe familiar with would be lupus,
psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritisand multiple sclerosis.
However, there are reallyalmost a hundred autoimmune
(23:54):
diseases that we know of.
I recall an interestinganalysis on this issue by a
Harvard researcher who statedthat three things must be
present for any autoimmunedisease to develop.
Number one is a geneticpredisposition.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat mama had the disease, but
the genes are hiding in yousomewhere.
Number two, there needs to besome sort of a trigger that
turns the gene on.
(24:15):
And third, there has to be somedegree of what I call increased
intestinal permeability, whichwe used to call leaky gut.
And here we go again with thatgut immune connection.
Some of the potential triggersof autoimmune disease include
food sensitivities, allergies,toxins, infections, poor diet,
stress, nervous system imbalance, chronic sleep deprivation,
(24:37):
chronic inflammation, trauma,parasites, excessive alcohol,
medications, surgery andradiation.
There are many new, fancy andexpensive drugs on the market
these days for autoimmunedisease.
However, from a functionalpoint of view, I have found that
removing triggers and improvingthe gut function can be
powerful healers.
I have seen near miracle cureswith this approach in some
(24:58):
patients.
I've not done a podcast onautoimmune disease yet, but I
have it on my list In themeantime.
My favorite book on the subjectis called the Immune System
Recovery Plan by Dr Bloom.
I'll have that listed for youin the references section of the
home page of McMinnMDcom.
Dr Bloom does a great job onthe subject.
You might want to check thatout.
One word of caution, however,is that when you finish the book
you might think, oh my gosh,it's just too complicated.
(25:19):
You might feel overwhelmed, butthat's when you need to work
with your functional medicineprovider to customize and
simplify the program for you.
The next cause of disease thatwe'll mention is toxins, another
underestimated factor.
The economic burden from thehealth effects of toxins is
estimated to be about $63billion annually in the United
States alone.
(25:39):
Wow, that's just staggering.
The various broad categories oftoxins that we are exposed to
include heavy metals like lead,mercury, arsenic, etc.
Organics like pesticides, andthen mycotoxins from mold.
I was just talking to a friendjust the other day and he said
he didn't have any significanttoxin exposure.
My reply to him was thatunfortunately, we live in a
(25:59):
world full of toxins.
They're everywhere.
We're all exposed all the time.
In fact, we're born with toxins.
Studies have demonstrated thatorganic forever chemicals PCBs,
mercury, lead and pesticides andphthalates from plastics have
been found in the umbilical cordblood of most babies.
Even penguins on the South Polehave elevated levels of mercury
.
Toxins are in the air webreathe, the food we eat and
(26:22):
even in the water we drink.
As you know, bottled water iseverywhere these days.
Studies are unequivocal thatbottled water contains
significantly more microplastics.
These microplastics make theirway into the bloodstream and we
find them in the blood, thelungs, the breast and even the
milk of humans, and they causemany health problems, including
metabolic disruption, immunedysfunction, neurodigital
(26:43):
disease, chronic inflammation,cardiovascular risk and
endocrine and reproductiveproblems.
Another true story I had apatient years ago who came in
with debilitating neuropathies.
She was miserable.
She had seen three neurologistswho treated her with drugs, but
nothing had helped.
As with many of my patients, Iwas her last hope.
Now here is another classicexample of what I call regular
(27:04):
medicine versus functionalmedicine.
My excellent and I mean thatexcellent neurologic colleagues
did what they were trained to do.
They made the diagnosis, whichwas diffuse neuropathy, and they
prescribed drugs to treat it.
The functional approach,however, was quite different.
I put my thinking cap on andasked why?
Why did the patient have theneuropathy?
For instance, if you googlecauses of neuropathy, you'll see
(27:26):
a list from Mayo Clinic the BigShots that clearly states that
exposure to toxins, especiallyheavy metals like lead and
mercury, can cause neuropathy.
Now here's the disconnect to me.
Here we have one of the topmedical centers in the world
clearly stating that lead andmercury caused neuropathies.
Yet three excellent, highlytrained neurologists evaluated
(27:47):
with this patient and not one ofthem ever thought about or
checked for heavy metals.
It's just not on their radarscreen.
Medical students are not taughtabout toxins in their training.
Why not?
I really don't know, but Idon't get it.
Maybe it's because there's nobillion dollar blockbuster drug
for it.
I'm just saying so anyway.
In this patient we did check theheavy metals and she was loaded
(28:08):
.
We did collision therapy, gotthe metals down to normal and,
poof, the neuropathies went awaycompletely.
It was like magic.
I was thrilled, and so was thepatient.
And, by the way, this has beenabout 10 years ago and the
neuropathies have not come backand she's experiencing a great
quality of life these days, asopposed to the misery that beset
her before our therapy.
The proof is always in pudding.
(28:29):
It's all about outcomes.
In this case, illustrates thepower of a why or functional
medicine approach.
Now we did a whole podcast ontoxins, so I won't repeat all
the details on this topic.
It's a really interestingsubject, so if you want to learn
more about that, then check outpodcast number 22.
However, I do think it's worthpointing out here the best
defense against toxins isavoidance.
So here are some simple tipsGet a good water filter.
(28:51):
I don't claim to be an expertin this area, but I have done
some homework on this and Irecommend the Berkey filter.
It's a simple carbon blockfilter dirty water in and pure
water out.
It's very simple, efficient andcost effective and, for your
information, I have no financialinterest in Berkey filters.
When it comes to food, googlethe dirty dozen foods and get
these particular foods in yourorganic form.
Also, be careful what you puton your body.
(29:13):
Toxins and lotions, shampoos,conditioners and makeup go right
through your skin and into yourbloodstream and into your
tissues.
So get good quality, cleanproducts.
So let me wrap up the toxinissue and leave you with just a
few take home points.
Number one toxins areeverywhere in our modern day
world.
Number two toxins contribute tomany diseases.
Number three avoid them whenyou can.
(29:34):
Number four, lastly, when youhave some sort of disease, like
a patient with neuropathy above,and you're trying to figure out
why, at least have toxins onyour list of possibilities.
Now let's move on to our nextcause of disease, which is
trauma.
There are many types of traumaand they're all important.
These would include things likephysical trauma, emotional
trauma, psychological trauma andsexual trauma.
(29:55):
To get more information on theemotional trauma issue, then
check out our recent podcast onemotional wellness, which are
podcast number 40 and 41.
As an old ER doc, I've seen myshare of physical trauma and I
would urge each of you just tobe smart in the way you live
your life.
Every time I see someone ridinga motorcycle, for instance,
without a helmet, it's likefingernails on a chalkboard to
me as an ER doctor.
But that's a values decisionthat each rider has to make on
(30:17):
his or her own.
The next cause of disease isobesity.
The data are clear that obesityis linked to increased rates of
cancer, heart disease, highblood pressure, dementia,
cholesterol abnormalities,diabetes, stroke, gallbladder
disease and increased all-causemortality.
Obesity and overweightness is acomplicated and controversial
topic.
Perhaps we'll circle backaround to that one day and do a
(30:39):
dedicated podcast on it, butcertainly any discussion about
this subject has to at leaststart with diet and exercise.
That certainly counts for amajor part of the problem.
However, it is admittedly muchmore complicated than that and
it is unfair in some patients toblame their diet when in fact,
other factors may play asignificant role.
It's up to the functionalprovider to rule out some of
these other causes.
So some of the othercontributing factors to obesity
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might include a hypothyroidstate, insulin resistance,
metabolic syndrome,neurotransmitter imbalance,
fluid retention, systemicinflammation, polycystic ovary
syndrome, leptin resistancesyndrome, toxins.
Many of these toxins are whatwe call obesity genes and they
act through a number ofdifferent mechanisms to increase
(31:22):
weight.
An unhealthy gut microbiome canalso contribute to weight.
Acetylcarta team deficiencies,stress, lack of sleep being out
of sync with circadian rhythms,health nurses tend to weigh more
than day-shed nurses.
Isn't that interesting?
Food intolerance, such asgluten or dairy, artificial
sweeteners, drugs such assteroids, occult infections that
can cause inflammation, thusleading to weight gain.
(31:45):
Interestingly, people born byC-section are at higher risk of
obesity as an adult.
Bottle-fed instead ofbreast-fed babies tend to have
more obesity later in life.
Early childhood antibiotics canincrease the risk of obesity
later in life In utero and earlydevelopmental exposure to
chemicals such as pesticides andheavy metals, etc.
During critical periods ofdevelopment, even at low doses,
(32:05):
can alter programming and canresult in increased
susceptibility to diseases laterin life, including obesity.
Common household disinfectantsmay be linked to childhood
obesity.
Sleeping with lights on mayincrease the risk of obesity in
women.
And finally, genetics may playa major role.
According to one expert in thefield, there are about 5,000
genes associated with obesityand about 30 hormones associated
with obesity.
(32:26):
So again, the discussion startswith diet and exercise, but in
reality it's not that simple.
So a general functionalapproach may be, in order at
least to consider some of theseother causes that I have
mentioned.
The next cause of disease thatI'll mention is hormone
dysregulation.
This would include hormonessuch as estrogen, progesterone,
testosterone, thyroid cortisol,dhea, insulin, parathyroid
(32:47):
hormone and many more.
Neurotransmitter imbalancecould be considered to be a
subset of this discussion.
Hormone optimization andbalance are hugely impactful to
our overall health and qualityof life.
If there's any concern aboutyour hormones, I would encourage
you to work with a provider whohas trained and experienced in
testing and optimizing hormones,especially with bio-identical
hormones.
It can make a world ofdifference in many ways.
(33:08):
For instance, let's take theaverage 50-ish-year-old
pyramidopausal woman who comesin feeling miserable.
She has no energy, can't sleep,anxiety, low mood, headaches,
brain fog, aches all over,irritable emotional vaginal
dryness, pain within the courseand no libido.
With a good bio-identicalhormone replacement regimen, all
of these problems could becomea thing of the past and she
(33:28):
could feel fantastic.
I'm just saying I've seen itover and over is like magic.
So check out podcast number 13for more in-depth information
about hormones.
Moving on to oxidative stress,this is somewhat hard to
describe in layman's terms.
However, I'll take a crack atit.
It's a condition that appearswhen your antioxidant levels are
low, antioxidants beingsubstances that remove damaging
(33:49):
oxidizing chemicals from yourbody.
So when your antioxidants arelow, this can contribute to
diseases like Parkinson's,alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis,
depression, memory loss, cancer, diabetes, hypertension,
heartache of the arteries, lungdisease and premature aging,
just to name a few.
The best way to combat oxidativestress is with lifestyle
medicine, especially diet.
(34:09):
The diet should be balanced andwithin abundance of fruits and
vegetables and a limited intakeof sugar and processed food.
Regular exercise can also behelpful.
Supplements should never takethe place of diet, but in some
situations specific supplementsmay be helpful.
Some of the major antioxidantsupplements include vitamin C,
vitamin D, vitamin E, coq10,zinc, solenium, glutathione,
(34:30):
green tea, resveratrol and theflavonoids, which include
quercetin, rutin, luteolin andphycetin, just to name a few.
Sometimes you can keep itsimple and find a good
antioxidant formula thatcontains most of these
substances.
The next cause of disease isallergies and sensitivities.
The difference between anallergy and a sensitivity is
that an allergy is truly animmune, mediated response,
(34:51):
whereas a sensitivity is asubstance that you don't
tolerate well.
It might, for instance, causesome gastric upset, but it's not
a true allergic, immune,mediated response.
As you know, allergies can beof many types.
We can have allergies to foods,pets, pollen, latex, drugs and
all sorts of things.
If you have food allergies, itmay be difficult to figure out
what foods might be involved,and your provider or your
(35:12):
allergy can help you sort thatout.
One of the best strategies isto start with avoidance.
Immunization with an elementaldiet or an autoimmune-paleotype
diet might be helpful.
There are also many drugs forallergies and some of these can
be quite helpful, and there arealso some natural therapies that
have been helpful for many ofmy patients.
These include curcumin,boswellia, willowbark, quercetin
(35:32):
, especially for the skin,bromelain, especially for
sinuses, and evening primroseoil.
Next, let me mentionmitochondria dysfunction.
The mitochondria are the partsof the cells that transform the
food you eat into a usable formof energy called ATP.
Many diseases are caused bymitochondria dysfunction.
Most of the ones that I sawmore frequently were chronic
fatigue syndrome andfibromyalgia.
(35:53):
More recently, solid evidencehas emerged that suggests that
mitochondrial dysfunction may bea root cause of long COVID.
I'll just mention electrolyteimbalance and acibase imbalance
as another cause of disease.
And the last cause of diseasethat I'll mention is mind body
spirit dysfunction.
We addressed that to somedegree on our podcast number 32
on mind body medicine, so Iwon't go through that in great
(36:13):
detail.
And that completes the listthat I have accumulated over the
years of the causes of disease.
I have used this many times asI've taken a functional approach
to the patient's problems,figuring out the why to her
condition, so that I could takea root cause therapeutic
approach to her recovery.
However, I also realized thatmany of these causes of disease
are related to one another.
For instance, mitochondrialdysfunction might be due to
(36:34):
things like oxidative stress ortoxins.
So as I boiled it down to itsvery basics, it occurred to me
that there are really just aboutfour fundamental causes of
disease.
I've created a VIN diagram toillustrate this concept that you
can find at McMinnMDcom in thedocuments section labeled as
causes of disease.
The four fundamental causes ofdisease are number one, the
(36:55):
genome.
Number two, the microbiome.
Number three, the exposome,which means that what our bodies
are exposed to, such as toxins,certain foods, socioeconomic
factors, stress, lack of sleep,et cetera.
And number four, the mind.
And where these four factorsintersect in the middle is where
diseases emerge.
(37:15):
It's really profound.
If you take a minute to thinkabout it, it's an entirely new
and different, exciting approachto health and disease than we
have been taught in the past.
And again, this is not just athought exercise.
I actually used this list as apractical tool when a difficult
patient presented to me and Iwas trying to connect the dots
and figure out what was going onwith her.
So I hope that this has helpedyou in some way maybe to figure
(37:37):
out your own situation and toget better, or to help you avoid
disease until of a long, heavylife.
Well, that will about do it forthis episode of Wellness
Connection MD.
Don't forget to check us out atMcMinnMDcom, where you can find
the Wellness MD blog as well aslots of other great health and
wellness information.
Also, please help the podcastgrow by telling your friends and
family about us, and pleasetake a moment to review us on
(37:57):
iTunes.
These reviews really do help usout.
If you want to reach out to meby email, you can do so at
drmcminnatyahoocom.
You can also find me onFacebook, at facebookcom.
I'll have all those links foryou at the bottom of page one on
the homepage of the website,which again is McMinnMDcom.
Thanks so much for listening.
This is Dr McMahon signing out.
(38:17):
Take care and be well.
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