SoundBites November 2022, Aging, Systems Medicine, Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy, Vaginal Microbiome
Adam Rinde, ND
Naturopathic Doctor. Gut Health Expert. Clinical Educator. Medical Director. Podcast Host. I help people with holistic strategies and solutions for complex chronic illness and health.
Welcome to the Sound Bite Newsletter of November, 2022 . This is a monthly newsletter to communicate with patrons, friends, and supporters of my practice and work. Its an internal and more intimate conversation with those I have a relationship with either through Social Media or through my practice.
In this edition , I am taking a bit of detour and talking primarily about aging related issues. I did not have typical month. I spent the majority of it helping my Father in the hospital and eventually seeing him take his last breath. The profound experience took all of me physically, emotionally, and spiritually so this issue is largely dedicated to this process.
Its another major loss of my life. Having lost a son, parent, and all my grandparents: I guess I have experienced a wide variety of grief and loss. Like everyone, a piece of you will never be the same with each goodbye, yet a piece of you will never change even without the physical presence of our loved ones. We lose yet we forever are enriched and we carry the inspirations and treasures left behind.
In case you are new here; my name is Dr. Adam Rinde and I am licensed Naturopathic Physician practicing in the Seattle area with over 17 years of experience helping people address complex and common health conditions with integrative, naturopathic, and functional medicine approaches. I also host a podcast called The One Thing Podcast with Adam Rinde.
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Now for the newsletter.
Pairing Organ Systems
What role are naturopathic, integrative, and functional medicine; playing in the larger health care arena.
In a sense these fields are addressing systems based medicine. Whereas conventional/western medicine is largely focused on organ-based medicine.
Meaning, If you have a heart problem; then you go to the Cardiologist. A Gastrointestinal problem?; then you go to the Gastroenterologist.
This straightforward organ system approach has its advantages and has allowed for deep research, diagnostic studies, and technological advances in the chosen fields.
Yet, the body is much more integrative then a "siloed" approach allows.. When organ systems start to fail ; they usually bring another system of the body with it.
For example, when the cardiovascular system develops atherosclerosis; it can also contribute to vascular changes in the brain such as narrowing of blood flow. This may lead to vascular dementia . So all efforts leading to detect, reduce, or reverse atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease are likely also beneficial in preventing dementia/cognitive decline. There are some excellent technologies out there to detect atherosclerosis such as CIMT and Coronary Calcium Scoring and endothelial dysfunction such as the ENDOPAT test.
Also in Cardiovascular Disease there is often shared overlap between cardiovascular dysfunction and pulmonary dysfunction (ie. COPD)
In Cardiovascular disease we can see decreased exercise tolerance, shortness of breath, and inflammation that can impact lung function and lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In addition patients with COPD experience hypoxemia , inflammation, pulmonary gas dysfunction, which can lead to arterial stiffness, exercise intolerance, and eventual deconditioning which can set one up for Cardiovascular disease.
It is fairly obvious to me that aerobic exercise is such a key component for maintaining the Brain, Lung, Heart interconnections. That is why I love calling exercise POLYPILL.
In the world of Gastroenterology; we see that addressing the Gastrointestinal tract is often interrelated to the liver, spleen, pancreas, and gallbladder. This is seen through the connection of the hepatic portal system which is a venous system that ties all of these organs together. So system breakdown of these symptoms can be related to gut dysbiosis, toxin exposure and overload, ischemia, and intestinal permeability.
A toxic load or imbalance in the Gut often spills over into these other organs.
Of course in Functional Medicine this is expanded even further to the interconnections like the Gut-Brain axis, Gut-Skin axis , Gut-Endocrine axis, etc.
So much of disease can be prevented by sleeping well, pooping well, managing stress, exercising well, and eating right for your body. It literally isn't brain surgery; but it seems like these principles get washed ashore in the midst of competing values.
It seems the older we get; the more we are faced with budgeting time to accomplish increasing demands. It isn't as though we don't know sleep, diet, exercise, digestive heath, and stress management are important; its more of "how much can I get away with with the least amount of time and effort". This a bit like triaging through life.
Seeing someone at there end of their life; changes everything. At that moment the values we chose for ourselves often are at their final accounting. It is there that we see that we are an accumulation of our choices and our genetics.
If we are lucky to avoid early death due to addiction, mental health disease, cancer, infection, genetic disease, or accidents; and we are fortunate to live to old age; then we will all face our accounting at some point.
How do we know how are overall systems are doing? I would suggest every quarter or every six; completing this metabolic screening questionnaire and talking it through with your provider.
From Healthy Aging To Frailty
How often do you hear people say; "I am getting old". Think about it; every person on this planet is "getting old". I would love to change the terminology but introducing the differences between aging and frailty . Aging is inevitable. We can do our best to slow it, condense it, make it more graceful, but we cannot stop aging.
Yet the key discussion we should be having is how to prevent frailty. This is the stage of getting older where quality life and quantity of life is dramatically reduced.
Frailty looks like this;
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t begins with weakness, slowing walking speed and progresses to reduced fitness.
This, my friends, is the real stage of concern for dramatic reduced quality of life and reduced quantity of life.
Can we reverse engineer this? To stay ahead of this stage?
I think so.
Sarcopenia is probably the earliest and most obvious precursor to this. Sarcopenia is when our muscle mass starts to decline and we are getting weaker and our body composition is changing.
Also bone health (osteopenia), is another early stage of this. When the bones are getting weaker and we becoming more at risk for hip fractures then that is a concern.
How else can we reverse engineer it? What comes before muscle and bone changes? The exposure to chronic inflammation through poor diet, alcohol abuse, smoking, environmental toxins, poor sleep and excess stress.
We are learning new ways to prevent frailty. Including even significant weight training into old age.
We can be stewards for preventing frailty more then we can prevent getting older. The fight should not be against getting older but more about preventing getting frail.
After losing my father this past month; I admired that he fought frailty until the end. He went to the gym every day; and finally his body failed over a two week stretch when his frailty took over. His body two strokes, chronic pain, and many other hardships; largely because he forced himself to be active everyday. His end of his life was difficult and abrupt and very sad for all of us; yet I marveled how he stayed in front of frailty until the very end. Rest in peace Dad you taught me a life full of lessons and gave enough inspiration to last me years and years.
Gut directed Hypnotherapy
In case you missed it. I recently had a a great chat on my podcast on Gut-Directed hypnotherapy with Linda Stelluti.
I was intrigued by this topic when I learned that mind/body therapies in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) have a number needed to treat (NNT) of 4. Meaning 1 out of 4 people, experience statistically significant benefit when using mind body therapies to address their IBS. 1 out of 4 might not sound much to you but realize that even the best drugs earn a Number Needed To Treat of about 13.
Plus mind/body therapies are often empowering, have no side-effects, and are very affordable.
So I started learning more about Gut-Directed clinical hypnotherapy and then encouraged my patients to get on board.
So, I reached out to an expert in the field of Gut-directed hypnotherapy , Linda Stelluti , CHt to help demystify hypnotherapy .
In the episode, you'll learn that it is not some circus act and it taps into the deep underlying blocks to healing and the subconscious mind . It helps heals limiting thought patterns, anxiety, and stress patterns that perpetuate chronic illness.
We had a delightful conversation about what its like to have hypnotherapy performed, how it helps the brain/gut axis, and much more.
Enjoy and please make sure to see Linda's programs she is running for Gut-Directed hypnotherapy. click here to listen:
Vaginal Microbiome
So many people are dealing with Vulvovaginal issues such as vulvodynia and vaginitis. I wanted to bring an expert on to share some insights on these conditions. So I reached out to Beth DuPriest, PhD the Chief Science Officer over at Vaginal Biome Science. Her insight on this topic is deep and she is so committed to helping people that suffer with vulvovaginal disorders
Our discussion covered:
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Published by: Adam Rinde, ND all content is copyrighted by Sound Integrative Health, PLLC.