Lifestyle and Diet - the Miracles of Functional Medicine

Imagine if you will that people were aware of the fact that food was their best medicine and much in the way of prevention would occur from a healthful diet and lifestyle. Imagine too that drugs were reserved for very serious conditions and even then used with the purpose of acting as a temporary measure until the true root cause was identified and treated.

What would this world be like? I have a dream. This dream involves everyone being aware of the option of sane health care. I’m not so idealistic as to dream that everyone would utilize such a product, but that they knew that it was available and the benefits of it, would be a dream come true for me and it is that dream that drives me to do what I do each and every day.

A friend of mine just visited Tokyo, Japan. He loved his visit and one of the aspects that struck him most was how incredibly clean the city was. He commented: “I’d have eaten off the subway floor!” No doubt a bit of an exaggeration but he makes his point. Add this almost unbelievable cleanliness to the fact that this city positively teems with citizens and you begin to ponder how it happens. I asked him if he saw a lot of people who were responsible for keeping the city clean. (I was thinking of Disneyland where one constantly sees an employee sweeping and cleaning.) His response was no, but rather it seemed an ingrained habit of the people to maintain cleanliness. It’s a bit amazing when you think of it.

My friend continued to say that when he returned to his home in San Francisco he was almost sickened by the dirt of the city in comparison to Tokyo.

Of course this conversation had me quickly leaping to my favorite topic of healthcare and I began to dream my favorite dream – what would happen if we could alter our culture of health along the lines of Japanese cleanliness. While it’s overwhelming to think of “cleaning up” downtown San Francisco, what if everyone suddenly got the idea of keeping their surroundings clean? How long would it take to have a clean city?

Similarly if everyone got the idea of natural healthcare and the importance of lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise, how long would it take to have a healthier society? Fortunately this is not a rhetorical question. Some of my personal heroes from the field of Functional Medicine have some very exciting statistics to support my “dream”.

Listen to this from the following clinicians who posted this article a few months ago:

Rescuing Health Reform: Why Doctors Should Practice Lifestyle Medicine
September 15, 2009
Mark Hyman, MD, Dean Ornish, MD, and Mike Roizen, MD

Mark Hyman is Vice Chair of The Institute for Functional Medicine, Dean Ornish is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Mike Roizen is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic

Recently, at a small gathering in Martha’s Vineyard, the economist Larry Summers spoke about the nation’s narrow escape from economic depression. Dr. Summers addressed the even larger impending risks to our economy if the costs of health care are not successfully addressed now.
He was asked how we could control these costs without tackling the root causes of the problem. The chronic diseases that affect 160 million Americans account for 78% of our $2.1 trillion in annual health care costs. Lifestyle and environmental factors –our diet, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, and chronic stress—are the most important underlying causes of these diseases.
But most believe that doctors don’t “do” lifestyle. Dr. Summers dismissed “lifestyle” as a community and public health issue that was already included in the current plan. He didn’t understand that physicians can and must do lifestyle medicine to effectively treat disease and dramatically reduce health care costs. Lifestyle factors leading to chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer are the domain of doctors and not merely a “public health problem.”

Lifestyle medicine is not just about preventing chronic diseases but also about treating them, often more effectively and less expensively than relying only on drugs and surgery. Nearly all the major medical societies recently joined in publishing a review of the scientific evidence for lifestyle medicine both for the prevention and TREATMENT of chronic disease. http://www.acpm.org/LifestyleMedicine.htm. There is strong evidence that this approach works and saves money. Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t usually pay for it. No one profits from lifestyle medicine, so it is not part of medical education or practice. It should be the foundation of our health care system.

For example, the recent “EPIC” study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine studied 23,000 people’s adherence to 4 simple behaviors (not smoking, exercising 3.5 hours a week, eating a healthy diet [fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and low meat consumption], and keeping a healthy weight [BMI <30]). In those adhering, 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes and 36% of all cancers were prevented.

“Prevention” therapies as written into current health care bills are public health and community based wellness initiatives, or payment for early detection of disease with mammograms, colonoscopies and other screening tests. As the Congressional Budget Office recently indicated, early detection without treating the major underlying causes of chronic diseases—our lifestyle choices—may actually add to costs.

While health insurance reform is important, it is insufficient. We must not only change who is covered but also what is covered to include personalized lifestyle medicine if we are to make current treatments more effective and less costly.

When the underlying lifestyle causes are not addressed, medications to treat chronic diseases usually have to be taken for a lifetime. If the causes are addressed, patients are usually able to reduce or stop taking these medications and often avoid surgery (under their doctor’s supervision).

Personalized lifestyle medicine is a high-science, high-touch, low-tech, low-cost treatment that is more effective for the top five chronic diseases than our current approaches. If lifestyle treatments were applied to all patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome (obesity), prostate cancer, and breast cancer, then net health care expenditures could be reduced by $930 billion over 5 years, according to analysts from the Cleveland Clinic. This will result in dramatically better health and quality of life.

On August 6, 2009, Senator Ron Wyden [D-OR] introduced new legislation, the “Take Back Your Health” Act (S. 1640) that includes payment for intensive lifestyle medicine as treatments, not just prevention. This legislation has bipartisan co-sponsorship by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA).


So as you can see, not only is this dream shared by others, but it’s a dream that’s validity is already substantiated by research.

Please show your support for this in any way that you see fit, and as always, let me know how I can assist you in any way.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

It Takes Time to Heal from Gluten Damage

I’ve always been a believer in simplicity. I’ve found that most things that seem overly complicated usually have something inherently wrong with them.

But is “simple” the same as “fast”? No. And the reason I bring this up is that we are currently living in a “one pill” for “one symptom” society. Take a pill and feel better. It’s one of the many reasons so many continue to suffer a multitude of health problems due to gluten – the concept of changing their diet seems unconfrontable to them. They’re waiting for that “pill” that they can swallow which will allow them to continue to eat gluten. Not that I’m adverse to the advancement of science, but what about in the meantime? How many are suffering needlessly because they are swept up in the mentality?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday a friend was speaking to me of her teenage daughter. Her daughter is a very talented young lady who is not in the best of health. She has a skin condition, amongst other issues, that sounded like hives as her mother described it to me. Despite having spent a little time under my care, her mother asked me what her daughter could “take” for the problem.

In my mind this translates as follows: “What chemical can I put into my daughter’s body such that the outward symptomatic manifestation is masked while absolutely nothing is benefited as regards the root cause of the problem?”

I’m not trying to be harsh, nor am I trying to say that there is never a place for a palliative “band-aid”. But at least while you’re applying the band-aid it would be great if you appreciated the temporary nature of it and simultaneously strived to truly unravel why your body was expressing that particular symptom. Because know this, there’s always a reason underlying the body’s symptoms.

Does this make sense?

Is it a surprise to learn that drugs don’t correct, but rather, mask symptoms?

Here are the facts: The human body is an amazing machine capable of an incredible amount of self-healing when given the correct raw materials to do so. When you realize that gene expression can be altered depending on the nutrients present in your body, you should be very impressed with the body’s ability to heal itself.

Is getting to the root cause of a symptom a complicated issue? No, not at all. Is it fast? Sorry but the answer is again “No”. Now when you take a patient who has been suffering for decades and in several months turn their health around, that may very well be considered “fast” in some people’s minds. So that’s not what I’m referring to. What I’m trying to address is the “take a pill” and feel different in a few hours mentality. That, in my opinion, is what’s getting us into trouble and creating the tremendous numbers of degenerative diseases we have in this country.

It has been estimated that we could save 78% of what we pay for health care if we could just start making healthy lifestyle changes. Is it “complex” to change your diet? No. There are some simple rules and you simply need to follow them. Is it “fast”? No again. It’s something you need to embrace as a lifestyle choice and do every day.

We are always amazed here at the clinic at the number of patients who are simply astounded to discover that what they eat can make them feel so much better. And they usually exclaim: “This is so simple. I never would have believed it!”

So whether you are removing gluten and dairy from your diet (a great start!) or simply beginning to eat “real” food like whole grains (start with the gluten-free ones please), fruit, vegetables, and shunning the artificial sweeteners, colors, refined starches and sugar – give it some time. Three weeks is the minimum amount of time required to change you taste buds and the cells lining your intestine.

So be patient and remember – big health changes can come in easy, uncomplicated (but not fast) packages. And if you’re a parent it’s not too soon to start teaching these lessons to your children. Such lifestyle changes can impact our future generation’s health in a very positive way.

Please let met know if I can answer any further questions.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Gluten Sensitivity and the Flu

(and why I don’t recommend the use of antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers)

If you’ve been off gluten for a while, your vitamin D status is optimum (>50) and your small intestine is well healed, you’re probably going to sail through the flu season with no problems. A healthy immune system (and remember 70% of your immune system is housed in your intestines) should stand you in good stead despite the presence of inhospitable viruses.

However if you have been recently diagnosed (less than 1 to 2 years ago) or are just beginning to make changes in your diet due to a suspicion of gluten sensitivity then there are some important steps to take to optimize your immune system as quickly as possible.

First, do get your vitamin D status evaluated and begin supplementing with vitamin D3. As mentioned previously, vitamin D3 is superior to vitamin D2 for normalizing D status so ensure that you use the correct form when supplementing.

Second, begin taking a good probiotic. Probiotics help support the immune system, are best taken with meals and are quite safe. Rarely, patients feel worse on a probiotic and in those cases we perform a stool analysis to evaluate for the presence of pathogenic organisms. A good probiotic will provide billions of organisms per capsule and be a blend of such species as Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Saccharomyces boulardii.

Third, I like to recommend that you don’t stock up on antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers. The major ingredient in such items is a chemical called triclosan which has been accused of creating antibiotic-resistant germs. Not only that but recent research (Environmental Science and Technology 2006) shows it to be responsible for speeding the transition of tadpoles into adult frogs. I understand that you may be thinking, that’s nice but I’m not a frog… Read on please.

Triclosan has the ability to disrupt the balance of hormones in animals as well as humans. In addition is has been found to contaminate mothers’ breast milk.

Some researchers postulate that triclosan causes thyroid hormones to be more potent as it appears that it requires the presence of thyroid hormones to cause its negative actions. Others are stating that it’s acting as a xenoestrogen, a proposed cause of such conditions as thyroid disease, endometriosis, early onset of the menstrual cycle in young girls, breast cancer and infertility to name a few.

While it’s definitely important to wash your hands and keep good hygiene to prevent the spread of disease, antibacterials are likely posing more problems than benefits and I’m very concerned about the increasing numbers of xenoestrogens in our environment.

Lastly, especially with the holiday season upon us, ensure that you get adequate rest, be vigilant on your diet, take a good vitamin C, A and zinc, and stay hydrated.

Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Gluten Intolerance and Probiotics

A very exciting new discovery has been made regarding the population of probiotics (also known as the microbiome) in your intestine and how it affects your risk of gluten sensitivity and leaky gut.

Just as an aside, I’ve had a few people ask me if “leaky gut” is a real phenomena. Also known as “increased intestinal permeability”, leaky gut is not only real but a quick internet search will show that such respected journals as the Journal of Hepatology, Gastroenterology, the British Medical Journal, the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Digestive and Liver Disease and the Journal of Pediatrics, to name a few, have multiple scientific studies focusing on the importance and effects of a leaky gut on health. There are literally hundreds of articles that focus on this issue. Okay, sorry for the digression.

What are probiotics? A major constituent of the intestinal immune system consisting of 100s of trillions of organisms. You have more (at least you should have) of these organisms in your gut than you have cells in your body!

It’s estimated that 70 - 80% of your immune system is housed in your gut. This is why we spend as much time as we do ensuring that our patients’ digestive systems are working optimally. More and more research is supporting the premise that without a healthy digestive tract, good health is all but impossible.

Not only do these good bacteria help defend you against infection but the new research that was just released shows that they have an ability to modify gene expression.

What does this mean? The researcher was evaluating why certain people “turn on” celiac disease and gluten sensitivity at different ages. If it’s genetic, as we know it to be, then why doesn’t that first teething biscuit or gold fish cracker begin the symptoms of gluten sensitivity? It does in some of course but for many the symptoms begin in later decades of life.

Dr Alessio Fasano believes that it’s not enough to have the gene and have the presence of gluten, but there must be a third factor, an initiator, that creates an insult to the gut enough for gluten to then be able to cause its inflammation and subsequent damage.

It’s like the spark that begins the forest fire. You can have a windy day and dry tinder but you need the spark to begin the decimation.

Dr Fasano believes that the “spark” is an unhealthy balance of good and bad probiotics in the gut. The good ones are protectors, but the bad ones are initiators. The make-up of probiotic populations actually have the ability to turn on and off genes at will.

This is terribly exciting and at the very least should have you interested in “who” is being housed in your intestines! There is a simple lab test that provides the data and treatment is similarly easy but very beneficial.

I hope this helps.

p.s. New Discovery - Appendix Provides an Important Function!

Did you think it was unlikely that you possessed a body part that had no function? I know I did. Well after a very long wait the reason why we have an appendix has been discovered.

It turns out that the appendix houses probiotics. Don’t worry if your appendix was removed. You can still restore health to your intestines.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Gluten Sensitivity & Vitamin D, an Update on Supplementation

As I’ve said before, if you don’t like change then the field of clinical nutrition will not be a happy place for you. Fortunately I love the evolution that my field goes through and I am happy to share the changes with you.

So here’s the latest update on vitamin D supplementation.

A deficiency of vitamin D is a serious condition that affects not only those with gluten sensitivity but as well the general population. Bone density and increased cancer risk are just two of the dangers posed by a deficiency of this important nutrient.

Due to the damage suffered by the small intestine in those sensitive to gluten, absorption of fat soluble vitamins such as D is inhibited.

The “normal” that we should strive for in the blood has consistently risen as the importance of vitamin D has been revealed. Currently it is thought that a level of 60 ng/mL is optimal. Just several months ago I believe we were citing that a value of 40 was adequate with 50 being the target when there was a prior history of cancer.

The treatment options have similarly been refined with the publishing of an article in a French medical journal specializing in internal medicine. While it was previously thought that severely deficient levels of vitamin D would respond beneficially to high doses of vitamin D2 (50,000 IU) taken once per week for about 3 months, that protocol was dismissed with this research. The scientists revealed that D2 is much less effective than D3 due to its shorter half-life and lowered affinity for the vitamin D receptor, making vitamin D3 the recommended form for supplementation.

Here at the clinic we use a liquid form of D3 that’s more bio-available for enhanced absorption. Typically a dose of 5,000 IU in a deficient patient will improve their profile over the course of several months.

Needless to say adherence to a gluten-free (and likely dairy-free) diet is also needed to ensure absorption occurs.

I heartily recommend a blood test to discover your serum vitamin D levels. It’s simple but extremely important.

Please let me know if I can answer any questions in this area.

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”