As a clinician interested in participating in research, it’s very exciting to see others jumping into the research conversation, too. Today I talk to Dr. Erik Lundquist, who heads a large, integrative clinic out in Southern California. Erik recently completed a clinical pilot study looking at the use of SPMs (just 2 gelcaps per day) in patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia (Dr. Lundquist reports that the bulk of these patients have underlying mold exposure or Lyme as the primary etiology for FMS)...
Jul 08, 2019•39 min
Once upon a time, in a pre-antibiotic world, bacteriophages were a hot research topic in this country and elsewhere. In the 1940’s, Eli Lilly had seven OTC bacteriophage products available – good for everything from abscesses to URIs and mastoiditis. However, with the advent of antibiotics, the research into and use of phages ceased in the US. But in the age of antibiotic resistance, we’re back at phage research, and its wildly interesting and extremely important to explore. Phages are bacterial...
Jun 14, 2019•1 hr 13 min
Compounding pharmacies: SO essential to the FxMed clinician’s toolkit. Compounding individualized prescriptions are at the heart of what we do, and on this podcast of New Frontiers, I am delighted to talk to Michelle Violi, Pharm. D, of Women’s International Pharmacy. Located in Wisconsin and Arizona, but serving clinicians and patients everywhere, WIP has been compounding bioidentical hormones for decades. Join our conversation, where we cover the background of WIP, their commitment to educatio...
Jun 12, 2019•50 min
In this episode of New Frontiers, Dr. Fitzgerald talks with Dr. Perlmutter about the best strategies for preventing and slowing cognitive decline, and how his thinking about preventive lifestyle strategies has evolved since he published his first book Grain Brain.
May 16, 2019•1 hr 9 min
I enjoy discussing all things nutritional biochemistry, and few minds are more engaging to chat with than David Quig, PhD, VP of Scientific Support at Doctor’s Data. In this NFFM podcast, we’re drilling down into the laboratory assessment of methylation and sulfuration. As Dr. Quig makes clear (yet again)--- while we might make some *basic* inferences around methylation activity by looking at a person’s SNPs, SNPs are not our destiny (thank God!). Ultimately, SNP assessment doesn’t hold a candle...
May 06, 2019•46 min
A huge, constant question we get from clinicians and patients is: what to do about refractory SIBO? Patients want hope, clinicians want to successfully resolve… Listen to my podcast to discover what one of the greatest minds thinks about all this and more. Dr. Steven Sandberg-Lewis, co-founder with Dr. Allison Siebecker of the National University of Natural Medicine SIBO Center – one of only four centers in the US dedicated to diagnosis, treatment, education and research, is a longtime naturopat...
Apr 23, 2019•1 hr 4 min
What’s the best way to test hormones? That is the key question that drove Mark Newman to create the DUTCH test. DUTCH stands for Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones and it gives clinicians a robust picture of a patient’s hormone levels and functioning. DUTCH tests are used by many leading functional medicine practitioners, including hormone expert Sara Gottfried, MD. Here, Dr. Kara Fitzgerald talks with Mark Newman about the advantages of using the DUTCH test, the strengths and limitatio...
Apr 19, 2019•39 min
One of the bright lights in the naturopathic/FxMed world, Dr. Lyn Patrick has devoted much of her career to training physicians in environmental medicine. She’s got loads of exquisitely valuable information, and I spent every inch of our hour together mining as much as I can for you. Take a listen and let me know what you think.
Mar 25, 2019•59 min
Lyme disease (and co-infections) can be tough to treat. The Lyme spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, has adopted loads of devilishly clever cloaking devices – from thriving in biofilm to existing in pleomorphic forms – to ensure survival despite aggressive treatment. Enter botanical therapy. With or without concurrent antibiotics, botanical combinations are an essential component of the FxMed clinician’s toolkit.
Mar 04, 2019•45 min
DSL’s GI-MAP stool test is, as CEO Tony Hoffman states, “a clinician diagnostic tool;” it’s not a microbiome test. Yes, of course the GI-MAP looks at the microbiome, but it's not a broad sweep of the myriad of bugs taking up residence. Rather, it’s a carefully curated investigation of organisms with demonstrated imbalance potential, be it pathogenic or dysbiotic in nature. The test is designed to be user-friendly, interpreted rapidly, logically, providing clearly actionable data that, when addre...
Feb 13, 2019•1 hr 17 min
A wide body of research—not to mention centuries of use in Chinese medicine—has shown the power of medicinal mushrooms in promoting health, and no one knows more about the cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of supplemental mushrooms in modern integrative health care than Jeff Chilton. The president of Nammex, one of the biggest medicinal mushroom extract companies in the nutritional supplement industry, Jeff talks with Dr. Fitzgerald in this episode of New Frontiers about how mushrooms a...
Feb 13, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Dr. Deanna Minich preaches: Eat a rainbow. Why? There are over 700 carotenoids found in plants – all bioactive, and generally pleotropic (ie: they do more than one thing in the body). We don’t need tons of any single carotenoid, and indeed – if anyone recalls the beta carotene smoker study from the early 2000’s, too much of a single compound could arguably be toxic. But variety is essential. And amazingly, certain groups of carotenoid colors favor certain organs. Think “orange for ovaries”; blue...
Jan 09, 2019•1 hr 5 min
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is an urgent, often unrecognized concern. It’s the hepatic pandemic of the 21stcentury, and there is NO approved pharmaceutical therapy (the race is on, however…). Fortunately for us, there is MUCH we can do in functional medicine – indeed, our toolkit is powerfully effective in turning around NAFLD and even NASH – the next step progression. Listen to my conversation with my good friend and longtime colleague Dr. Robert Rountree (finally on NFFM!). Bob outlines ...
Jan 03, 2019•1 hr 7 min
Dr. Joel Evans – you probably know him as long-time IFM faculty teaching in the Advanced Practice Hormone Module. He’s also donned a newish hat as KBMO’s Medical Director. Dr. Evans loves the FIT test for delayed hypersensitivities to foods, and states that the addition of complement fragment C3d to their test significantly reduced the incidence of false positive results found on standard IgG testing. Listen to our convo on the FIT test, how he’s using it in practice, who he uses the test on, an...
Dec 07, 2018•47 min
The centrality of gut health in overall health cannot be overstated, and for many years researchers and practitioners have encouraged probiotic use to promote gut health. But their recommendations have been based on early and inchoate research. Today, several decades after the emergence of gut health as the ground zero of overall health, science has been able to correlate specific bacterial strains with specific health outcomes—and one man has spent years anthologizing all that research and maki...
Dec 05, 2018•58 min
In my Tour de Force conversation with the brilliant Dr. Theoharis Theoharides, we covered all things mast cells, from “bench to bedside.” In case you have not yet encountered his work yet, he is one of the most highly decorated, well-published clinician researchers in the world. The focus of his life’s work has been on all things mast cells, and mast cell associated conditions. Given the meteoric rise in said conditions (and our improved understanding of the role of mast cells in most chronic di...
Nov 20, 2018•1 hr 42 min
Some of our most popular podcasts have been with Dr. Corey Schuler: he’s down-to-earth, practical in his approach to patient care, and very evidence-informed. And today is no exception! Join me and Corey as he talks through his “4 Pillar” approach to treating anxiety and depression. He discusses the multifactorial biochemical underpinnings of both conditions, his assessment tools (including labs), treatment (for acute presentations, chronic and co-managing those on pharma) and expectations of ou...
Nov 16, 2018•57 min
It’s not often that I get to spend an hour chatting with a busy clinician on pearls learned over years of practice. In today’s podcast, I’m talking with long time integrative medical clinician and anti-aging expert Lynne Mielke, MD about her approach to bioidentical hormones and why the Precision Analytical DUTCH is her preferred test for assessing HRT response. It’s her experience that the “gold standard” blood tests often lead to over-prescribing, and she commonly finds herself initiating tape...
Oct 29, 2018•57 min
Dr. Mona Morstein has focused the bulk of her career on treating all types of diabetes (DM). In late 2017, she published the a superb 500+ page very well-referenced book on the topic, titled Master Your Diabetes: A Comprehensive, Integrative Approach for Both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. Despite written in layman language, clinicians will find it meaty enough to be useful in practice – I especially like the sections on DM complications. In our conversation, we look at the four main types of diabe...
Oct 01, 2018•1 hr 10 min
If you’ve listened to my podcasts, you surely know that I love what I do. And my podcast with Dr. Stephen Sinatra is no exception. One of my most inspiring conversations to date, Dr. Sinatra is, as you know, a pioneer in the field of integrative cardiology. Hear about his remarkable, very early transition to integrative cardiology, including pivotal encounters with patients and scientists that shaped his thinking; his gutsy, hospital grand rounds presentations on the use of CoQ10 for heart failu...
Sep 04, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Endotoxemia. A fundamental driver of chronic disease. What is it? And more importantly, what do we do to address it? In my podcast with Dr. Jill Carnahan this month, she unleashes a torrent of compelling science and clinical savvy on all things endotoxemia. From heart disease and diabetes to autoimmunity (genetic or acquired) and mast cell activation, Dr. Carnahan is clear that pathological intestinal permeability (she discusses testing, but at this point in her career believes most everyone who...
Jul 25, 2018•38 min
Anxiety can get in the way of patients achieving their health goals—especially when a practitioner recommends significant lifestyle and nutrition changes. Patients may feel suffocated by the new regimen and then make changes for a while but revert back—or they may not make them at all. The Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as tapping, can help patients ease anxiety and better achieve their health goals. It can also help with the subjective experience of pain or be used in service of a spec...
Jul 24, 2018•51 min
After suffering through a lengthy Lyme infection himself (with classic presentation), which initially responded to antibiotics but didn’t resolve the infection, Dr. Darin Ingels went on a years-long quest to recover, returning to naturopathic principles and discovering essential less-used protocols. The results are in his book: The Lyme Solution: A 5-Part Plan to Fish the Inflammatory Autoimmune Response and Beat Lyme Disease (Penguin Random House), and he has been treating patients with Lyme an...
Jun 28, 2018•1 hr 4 min
Wow! What a great conversation with Dr. Valter Longo, director of USC’s Longevity Institute. It’s always exciting to talk to someone in the trenches of bench and clinical research, especially a rock-star like Valter Longo! You can hear my nerves as we begin ☺, yet there’s much to learn about Dr. Longo’s journey from a Blue Zone upbringing in Italy to music major to biochemisty major to leading expert in articulating the biochemical and genetic underpinnings of the aging process. Dr. Longo was a ...
Jun 08, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Yes, hemp & marijuana are major providers of cannabinoids, and in the FxMed space, we are extremely excited about this potent family of bioactive molecules. In particular, we are looking at CBD for indications ranging from pain to mood, inflammation, memory and more. Turns out the endocannabinoid system (ECS) extends body-wide, and similarly, phytocannabinoid sources extend far beyond hemp and marijuana. Listen to my conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Jacques, Senior VP with THORNE – and tour ...
May 16, 2018•56 min
In my conversation with Mark Hyman on his new NYT best seller, Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?, we discuss the myriad challenges consumers face in figuring out the correct diet, but also, what WE as clinicians caring for patients – what do we prescribe? What do the data show? Are grains really verboten? Is dairy completely off-the-plate? What about meat? And fats/cholesterol and the APOE4 patient? Mark enlightens me to the new “regenerative agriculture” movement; going far beyond organic, rege...
May 06, 2018•44 min
I am thrilled and honored to podcast with Dr. Randy Jirtle. The field of epigenetics has exploded in the last decade, initiated almost exclusively by the groundbreaking research of Randy and his colleague Robert Waterland. Their 2003 study on the effects of nutrition on epigenetic gene regulation in agouti mice is the most cited paper in the history of science, and his trailblazing discoveries have expanded our understanding of human health and the etiology of disease. Listen to my fascinating c...
Apr 12, 2018•1 hr 15 min
A lot of scientific discoveries are borne out of serendipitous moments where a brilliant idea and unmet need collide. Such is the case with one of my all-time favorite “workhorse” botanical combination products, Biocidin. Listen to Dr. Rachel Fresco, founder and president of Bio-Botanical Research, talk about the story of Biocidin, the decades of interesting and on-going in-vivo and in-vitro research, and loads of clinical reports demonstrating efficacy. Also hear about Bio-Botanical’s suite of ...
Apr 06, 2018•50 min
Why would Precision Analytical, the laboratory famous for the ground-breaking DUTCH test (Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones) and Cortisol Awakening Response test, decide to offer a handful of key organic acids on their panel (incidentally, at no extra charge)? The answers will wow you in this terrific podcast with Dr. Carrie Jones, Medical Director at PA. Turns out, looking at compounds such as homovanillic acid, vanillmadilic acid, 5HIAA, pyroglutamate, 8OH2DG and xanthurenate have LO...
Mar 21, 2018•46 min
Join me for an interesting, clinician-friendly conversation on the gut/thyroid axis with Dr. Mike Ruscio. Dr. Ruscio challenges both conventional understanding (where the gut/thyroid relationship isn’t recognized outside the research setting) and in the functional medicine world, where he argues we are often over-treating and over-testing thyroid function. What is the thyroid adrenal relationship? What should we expect with regard to thyroid antibodies and successful treatment? What should we be...
Mar 16, 2018•1 hr 5 min
