How to Embrace a Root Cause Approach to Your Health and Longevity

In this energetic podcast Dr. Rodney and Karen talk about how Functional Medicine takes a root cause approach to reversing disease and aging backwards.

It's important to look at the main systems in your body and how they interact rather than focusing solely on isolated symptoms.

Which systems are the most important then?
1. Digestive system

• Most complex and important system
• Breaks down and digests food
• Assimilates life-giving compounds
• Keeps out microbes and undigested food

HOW? Eat real food; avoid processed food and environmental toxins.

2. Immune system

• Defense and repair system
• Fight infections and cancer 
• Maintain balance without creating low-level inflammation or inflammaging

HOW? Food that is anti-inflammatory; Optimal levels of vitamins/minerals; exercise; good sleep; restorative practices like prayer, meditation, etc.

3. Energy system

• The mitochondria in each cell must convert food and oxygen into ATP
• Must handle the ROS or reactive oxygen species
• Keeping the engine clean and tuned-up

HOW? Intermittent fasting; exercise; red light laser, hot-cold therapy

4. Detoxification

• Detoxification processes are ongoing: liver, kidneys, lungs, skin, digestive and lymph
• Liver - bile; Kidney-flushes waste; Lungs-discard carbon dioxide; skin sweats out toxins; Digestive-waste;

HOW? Process, poop, pee, perspire

5. Endocrine system (Neurotransmitters, hormones and peptides)

• Feedback loops for communication
•  Hormones like a symphony - work together - 
• Support optimal hormone interaction

HOW? Diet;exercise; reduce stress; phytochemicals, herbs; adrenal support

6. Circulation and lymphatic system

• Heart and blood vessels - lymphatic-parallel system to get rid of waste
• Lymphatic flow depends on drinking water and movement

HOW? Lifestyle; for lymphatic: hydration; deep breathing; cold exposure and sauna; dry brushing;

7. Musculoskeletal system

• Bones - Strength
• Muscles- metabolism 
• Strength training

HOW? Great food (building blocks); weight training; gentle movement with purpose

Functional Medicine works in every system to get you to your healthiest and to boost your longevity.

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Transcript

[00:50] Karen: Welcome to Stance for Health. We're going to talk today about a root cause approach, something that's going to help us with our longevity.

[01:01] And I've been reading a lot of Mark Hyman's book Forever Young and he talks about the same seven systems that you've talked about all along, ever since I've met you.

[01:12] But I love the way he approaches it. So we're kind of working off of that. And I'm going to just mention the seven systems real quick. Digestive, immune, energy, detoxification, neurotransmitters and hormones and peptides and basically we'll call those feedback loops circulation and lymphatic and muscular skeletal.

[01:35] Those are seven.

[01:36] Dr. Rodney: Well, that's seven things. You could easily spend 20 minutes on each of those.

[01:41] Karen: Oh, absolutely. And we'll go back. I know that one of our best watched podcast is the one on the lymphatic system because it's often very neglected. So we're going to talk first about the digestive.

[01:53] And like we said, we'll probably do a deep dive on each of these systems. But the digestive system, probably one of the most complex and important systems. Why would that be, Dr.

[02:04] Rodney?

[02:05] Dr. Rodney: It's very simple. You open your mouth and immediately you have an entrance into the internal part of your body.

[02:12] So then you have only one cell separating you between your bloodstream and the outside environment.

[02:19] Karen: What? Okay, so tell me. I put stuff in my stomach and then it just disperses it to the rest of my body and everything's okay, Right?

[02:28] Dr. Rodney: Right. Well, you actually have about 35 to 40ft of small and large intestine that go through not to mention stomach and jejunum as well as esophagus. I kind of did that in reverse.

[02:40] Karen: Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. So we're breaking down and digesting our food. But what happens when we can assimilate those life giving components?

[02:49] Dr. Rodney: Well, you. It's a direct connection to the immune system. So you have two. You have so many systems that are so interrelated and good. 80% or more of your immune systems found in the digestive tract.

[03:03] But.

[03:03] Karen: Well, you're kind of getting. Jumping ahead to the next one. But you're right.

[03:06] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[03:07] Karen: Are. So these seven systems are so important, so interconnected.

[03:10] Dr. Rodney: And, and the reason why I'm saying this is because as I was walking down the hall, I was thinking about digestion. Yeah. To the bathroom.

[03:20] And if you don't have good borders, you don't have good neighbors, you don't have good. You don't have a good immune system.

[03:29] Karen: Yeah. We are so right. Because the bad stuff gets through. And that's basically what happens with. People have autoimmune diseases.

[03:38] Dr. Rodney: And so we talked about the foods that you eat has a lot to do with how. What gut flora you're feeding. In other words, what good bacteria are you feeding, or bad bacteria in some cases.

[03:49] But also we. We gave you the analogy of.

[03:52] Karen: They have not heard that one.

[03:54] Dr. Rodney: Oh, we haven't.

[03:55] Karen: Okay, so let's talk about this again. So here we are.

[03:57] Dr. Rodney: We're situated very closely together, and let's say we're both cells, you know.

[04:02] Karen: Okay.

[04:03] Dr. Rodney: Okay. And cells aren't male and female. They're just cells, but they're kind of microcosm of who you are.

[04:09] And when you're close together, that gap is. Is a place where larger food particles can get through digested food macromolecules, that's. That are digested at least partially by the pepsin in the stomach.

[04:25] Now we're talking about being in the small intestine.

[04:29] Karen: Either the jejunum between there should be this really thick mucosa.

[04:35] Dr. Rodney: Well, that's on the surface inside of the lumen, the hole that the tube is passing through. You're actually talking about the microvilli. And then above that is this layer of mucus.

[04:48] Yeah.

[04:48] Karen: Okay, so what happens then? If we have what we're later going to talk about, which is leaky gut, what happens then is the wrong stuff gets through.

[04:58] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. And you lose not only the mucosal layer, but. But also you lose that. That. That gap that holds them together, they actually call gap junctions. And they have pro. The names.

[05:10] Those proteins, those connectors have names. It's an occludin and zonulin.

[05:16] Karen: Wow. So we're going to do a whole podcast just on that.

[05:19] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[05:20] Karen: What is all this business about having holes in leaky gut?

[05:23] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[05:24] Karen: Now, how are we going to help the digestive system? The main thing that we want you to get out of the podcast today is. Is eat Real food. Food is medicine.

[05:33] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. Eating real food means if, if it didn't, if you can't pick it from the ground or you didn't grow it, or you didn't kill it, drag it home and eat it, it's most likely not going to be fresh enough and it's going to be full of chemicals.

[05:47] Karen: And if you went to the store and you looked at the ingredients and it had this many ingredients instead of three or four, if it has things in it you can't pronounce, throw it in the trash.

[05:58] So it's basically something your heart apologize to the trash can and basically the poisons, the pollutants from plastics, from all kinds of things. Wow. All right, immune system. You've already alluded to that.

[06:12] This is your defense and repair system. Your body is continually seeking to repair itself and defend against the bad guys.

[06:21] Dr. Rodney: Right. So you have, you know, basically a couple different forms of immune system. You have the innate immune system. In other words, it's kind of passive. It just sort of rests there, sits there and that's a border.

[06:33] And then you've got your generalized white blood cells, macrophages, astrocytes. They're basically white blood cells in the, in a star shape that stand guard in those, in those gaps and make sure stuff, you know, that doesn't belong in the inside in the bloodstream keeps it on the inside in the lumen.

[06:52] Karen: Now, as far as aging goes, what we have to have here is a balance. Because you want that immune system to fight the infections and cancer, but you don't want to have inflammation, which is if it's a false alarm, the inflammation ends up everywhere.

[07:11] Dr. Rodney: And that's where those gaps have gotten bigger and pried open in the occluding and. Or zonulin has degraded. And now you have this pathway between cells that's too big and it starts allowing different food particles that start becoming recognized as invaders because they're not supposed to be that big.

[07:30] You're supposed. And so the, those, those white blood cells that are standing guard go, oh, problem?

[07:36] Karen: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[07:37] Dr. Rodney: And they start firing off all kinds of alarms in the form of what are called cytokines.

[07:42] Karen: So now we can probably do, like we said, another podcast just on this. But how top level, how is eat anti inflammatory foods. In other words, avoid those omega 6 as those seed oils and make sure that your vitamins and minerals are at the optimal level.

[08:00] Dr. Rodney: That way the. What you're talking about on the next level, the energy system, if that's okay to start talking.

[08:06] Karen: Yeah, because we want to talk about what else your immune system needs. What about sleep?

[08:10] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. This. This sleep. In other words, being able to.

[08:16] A whole other system that we can talk about too. That during. That only happens while you're sleeping. Recently discovered in 2015.

[08:24] Karen: Yeah.

[08:25] Dr. Rodney: It's the glymphatic.

[08:26] Karen: Right. A whole other system that I didn't put in here because it hasn't been talked about as much as these seven.

[08:31] Dr. Rodney: Because it's recently discovered. Yeah.

[08:33] Karen: Systems. And then because stress affects your immune system. Have you noticed that when people are stressed, they will end up getting a cold or something because their immune system was down.

[08:45] So things that you could do that could reduce that stress. All right, you're raring to go to that next energy system. Oh, that's the one that we talk about when we talk about the laser.

[08:56] Because it's the mitochondria in the middle of each cell has to be able to take the food and oxygen and convert it or assimilate ATP. Adenosine. Yeah.

[09:07] Dr. Rodney: And is it Adenosine triphosphate.

[09:08] Karen: Thank you. Thank you. I always. My tongue tumbles over that.

[09:12] Dr. Rodney: Well, and there's some debate as to, you know, what. What the photons actually are, is helping to take adp, which is adenosine diphosphate, and convert it to triphosphate.

[09:23] Karen: Okay.

[09:24] Dr. Rodney: So those. Those particles or waves that are at the surface of the mitochondria waiting to get in.

[09:33] Those. Those are actually produced in part by the. By the light.

[09:39] Karen: So that's like getting out in the sun doing. Yeah, getting that. But you also have to balance. We're talking about balance again because you have to handle the reactive oxygen species.

[09:49] So the ros. The. The. Too much of that can also the.

[09:56] What a. The byproduct of. As you do, the cell converts it.

[10:02] Dr. Rodney: I see what you're saying. So you're talking about what happens. It's basically like rust. So.

[10:07] Karen: Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sure.

[10:09] Dr. Rodney: Sure.

[10:09] Karen: I was wondering about that.

[10:10] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. Let's just say in a general way that. That the process of production inside the cell ends up rust.

[10:18] Karen: Okay.

[10:19] Dr. Rodney: Garbage.

[10:19] Karen: Okay. So you want to keep that engine clean and tuned up. Of course, one of the most important things you can do for that is intermittent fasting, which is something we do.

[10:28] Regular movement and exercise, hot and cold therapy.

[10:34] And if you have access to one like we do, come see us. We have a laser, a cold laser. It's red light laser. And that actually goes to those cells and penetrates the cell and heals the mitochondria.

[10:49] So it can make the ATP okay. Fourth system detoxification, ongoing process.

[10:55] Dr. Rodney: Well, there's some, there's something too that you're talking about borrowing off of systems. And if you're not taking full breaths, one of the front lines of defense for detoxification is your breath.

[11:07] And so, yes, you're breathing most of this stuff off in exhalation.

[11:13] It comes out of your body and into the. Basically into your. Not just CO2, but also some of the toxins are breathed off. And so if you're not taking a big enough breath in the first place, ergo, diaphragmatic breaths, then you're not shallow.

[11:30] Karen: Breathing, which that also then ties back to the stress.

[11:33] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[11:33] Karen: So your liver, it is detoxing through the bile and the gallbladder is involved there somehow.

[11:40] Dr. Rodney: Right.

[11:40] Karen: And then you've got the kidneys that are flushing out the waste.

[11:44] Dr. Rodney: And also you'd actually have to say that as a buddy system. The lymphatics are much the same.

[11:49] Karen: Coming right up. Your skins are sweating out the toxins and your digestive system is pooping it out.

[11:57] So the way Mark Hyman says it in this book Forever Young, he says, how's the process? How does this detoxification work? The first one is process the liver, poop, pee and perspire.

[12:08] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. And so let's not forget that the other front line of defense is either proper oxygen containing breaths, but also think of your body as a bucket, mostly water. Right. So you have to get enough food that has water in it or drink enough water.

[12:25] Karen: Yes. Okay. Number five, the communication, feedback loops, neurotransmitters, hormones, peptides, and there's more. But it's basically how the hormones are all working together in Symphony. Isn't that a beautiful thought?

[12:43] Dr. Rodney: It is a beautiful thought. So you have the father system and the mother system working together. Basically you think of men as, you know, you can easily.

[12:51] There's this easy sense of strong and let's go fast, let's get going. Almost the man. Men are aroused easier than women and women tend to be slower. Well, that's the blood.

[13:04] Right. So you think of men as being like the father system. It gets the message across quickly. And then the endocrine system, which is basically a slow messenger of endocrine system, is flowing through the blood, sending these endocrine organs, these glands, sending that information in and through the bloodstream to its target tissue.

[13:25] Karen: So that's another name for this. This is the endocrine system.

[13:29] Dr. Rodney: Right. You could say that all your hormones, neurotransmitters, and hormones. Yeah.

[13:33] Karen: So how are you going to support optimal hormone interaction?

[13:37] Dr. Rodney: Well, it's very simple. When you think about those two systems that I, that you want to care for is you want to care for your, obviously, your nervous system as, as though it needed practice.

[13:52] Right. So you go to your chiropractor, you get the, the proper stimulation, you open up proper nerve flow in your brain and spinal cord. And then, you know, obviously in the endocrine system, if you're eating back to another system, if you're eating horrible food, you're.

[14:06] Yes, you're gonna, you're going to. And then also that is a toxin unto itself.

[14:11] Karen: So if you're stress eating, right, you'll.

[14:14] Dr. Rodney: You'll basically, you'll taint what's called the hypothalamic or the pituitary axis along with the, the thyroid and the adrenal glands. And all of a sudden, now you're, you're affecting your, your male and female hormones.

[14:26] Karen: Wow.

[14:26] Dr. Rodney: Right.

[14:27] Karen: Yes. And the beautiful thing that we have now with our functional medicine opportunity with the questionnaire is, is that as you fill that out, and I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but this is something that we're offering now, a questionnaire where you can enter on all your symptoms, and it's going to say which of these need additional testing, which of these need additional supplementation with herbs and different things.

[14:52] And we are excited to offer that. But like I said, I got ahead of myself.

[14:56] Dr. Rodney: Well, yeah, and usually we only spend about 20 minutes on these, on these podcasts, and we're only about three quarters of the way through.

[15:04] Karen: We got two more to go. We're doing good.

[15:06] Dr. Rodney: Okay.

[15:07] Karen: Okay. The next one is circulation and lymphatic.

[15:11] Dr. Rodney: Okay. So circulation is simply. They're. They're a buddy system. Again, you've got your cardiovascular system. And so let's think of it as leaky tubes intentionally as. And so the, so then the lymphatic system has a big job to pick up the, the debris from that circulatory system.

[15:33] Karen: And the beautiful part of the circulatory is it's very measurable because it's your heart. That's where you get your blood pressure and your blood, you know, you get that tested a lot.

[15:43] But the lymphatic doesn't have a pump. So how do you get that going, Doc?

[15:49] Dr. Rodney: Well, you, you basically, you have to move. In other words, your muscles will actually help propel that, that extracellular fluid, also known as lymph, in some cases, lymph it's hard to tell which is which.

[16:03] Karen: Yeah.

[16:03] Dr. Rodney: But it's also hard to tell if you're talking about when you. When you bleed. What are you bleeding more of? Lymph? Are you bleeding more blood? They're mixing together because you've got five times the number of lymph vessels than you do, basically.

[16:22] Blood vessels.

[16:23] Karen: Wow, that is so cool. And, you know, one of the practices that we have is to go at least three times. We try to go four or five times to a sauna at our health club.

[16:33] And I have become known as the lymphatic lady because they walk in there and before I start sweating, I'm doing my lymphatic massages. So you have four or five women in there, all us all going like this, tapping and padding, because we want that lymphatic system to get rid of those toxins.

[16:53] Dr. Rodney: Well, so then if you're not moving enough, basically you're not being the secondary heart or the propeller of the lymphatic system.

[17:00] Karen: Is that what we're saying as you move? Yes. But also just the massage of that and being in the sauna, you also get those.

[17:07] Dr. Rodney: So, you could actually look at some of the symptoms of not having a healthy lymphatic system as just like skin breaking out. Yeah. And swelling in some of your extremities, even.

[17:19] Karen: Yeah.

[17:20] Dr. Rodney: Particularly around your.

[17:21] Karen: Yes. Dry brushing also works. And I've become a semi expert on this because I have the fat zapper, which is a powerful laser, cold laser that targets the fat around the tummy and the visceral fat in the dangerous spot. And we have to work with the lymphatic system to get rid of it. So if you want information on that type of fat zapper in the notes.

[17:47] Last one, Musculoskeletal.

[17:50] Dr. Rodney: Well, and that's. And much of what you think of when you think of a chiropractor or massage therapist or the neurologist.

[17:56] Karen: One system.

[17:57] Dr. Rodney: Yeah, we're really right.

[17:59] Karen: Yeah.

[17:59] Dr. Rodney: And so you.

[18:01] And yet you. You actually kind of have to marry the, the. The. The nervous system and the musculoskeletal system and the fascia system together, all of them.

[18:10] And think of musculoskeletal and as married to fascia because you cannot. It's really hard to separate a joint.

[18:17] Karen: So it's the bones, the muscles, the.

[18:19] Dr. Rodney: Fascia, the tendons, the nervous system, everything is all so tied together and so intimately connected.

[18:25] Karen: Wow.

[18:26] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[18:27] Karen: So one of the best ways to work with that, once again, is what are your building Blocks. What food are you giving your bones? What food? And most people think, particularly women, if they've had told they have osteopenia or osteoporosis, they just want to bulk up on, get a ton of calcium.

[18:46] But that doesn't work because you're taking it and you're taking it through your stomach. Doesn't mean you're getting it to your bones, are you, Doc?

[18:53] Dr. Rodney: Well, and that goes back to, you know, proper chewing in the first place. Oh, yes. Almost like, you know, Bible says, chew your food, but while. While you're chewing your food, you're also giving it lots of amylase.

[19:05] And. And then you obviously got to have the proper amount of stomach acid.

[19:09] Karen: Yeah.

[19:10] Dr. Rodney: You know, and the ph.

[19:12] So that you're getting the. The proper amount of digestion of the protein or the. Just the raw protein that. So that it can become the amino acids that you want it to be.

[19:23] Not only that, but also the. The carbohydrates that you've consumed as well. So.

[19:28] Karen: And I think some of the misinformation that we want to shine a light on is the fact that a lot of the things that you've been told to take may be harming you.

[19:39] And we'll go into more detail on that when it comes to building your bones. But the best thing, like you said, great food, weight training, gentle movement with purpose.

[19:49] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. And it really doesn't take being a, you know, someone who's a weight specialist, someone that, you know, or a marathon runner. Bodybuilder. Yeah. You don't have to be into extremes.

[20:01] And in fact, it's somewhere right between. In the middle.

[20:03] Karen: Yes.

[20:04] Dr. Rodney: You know, you think of sedentary. Well, no, it's not sedentary. It's just walking. Well, it's not quite walking. It might be walking briskly, and that. That would be considered purpose. Exactly.

[20:13] Karen: You're getting somewhere.

[20:15] So we're talking here about functional medicine that will be working with every single one of your systems. And you'll have, as you come on board with that, if that is an interest that you have, then beyond the podcast, we would be happy to help you and get you started on this journey because all seven and actually eight of these systems all need to work in conjunction, in harmony.

[20:40] And it's like. It truly is like a symphony.

[20:43] Dr. Rodney: And you wouldn't. Ideally, you could see us face to face, but it could be something like this. You wouldn't even have to be in the same room with us. We can.

[20:50] We can work with you that way.

[20:51] Karen: Yes, we can do telehealth with you. So we are so excited for this new venture as we are starting 2025 or we don't. Not sure when this is even going to go out, but we are starting this journey of getting healthier de aging.

[21:07] Just what's happened to me in the last nine years that I feel healthier, younger, more vibrant than I ever have in my life. And you can too.

[21:17] Dr. Rodney: And it's because you've taken your stance for health.

[21:19] Karen: So join us as we take our stance for health.