Root Causes of Disease

Give you a breakdown of just about all of the causes of disease and if you listen to the end , I'll explain to you how all health problems fall down to four fundamental causes . I hope you enjoy the show .

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If you've been with us for a bit , you're familiar with the term . Functional medicine is defined as a system-spiology approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of disease . Today's show gets at the heart of the matter and that we're going to be discussing the underlying root causes of disease .

It has been an interesting challenge for me over the years to put together this list , and it is something that I actually use on a clinical basis day-to-day when I was seeing patients . When some complicated patient presented to me , I would use this list to uncover what might be the root cause of the patient's problems .

Sometimes it's created a breakthrough in the patient's care plan and improved their outcomes . So I'm excited to share this list with you today and hope you enjoy it . Before we get going , we have a couple of brief housekeeping duties to take care of . Our podcast remains commercial-free , so you won't be bothered by those annoying and sometimes disingenuous commercials .

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Again , we're going to be discussing the root causes of disease in the context of a functional root cause approach to our health problems . I call functional medicine why medicine ? Because we're always asking the question why ? Why did the patient get the problem ? What's the root cause ? When you are a functional medicine doctor , you revert to being a three-year-old .

I remember when my kids were about that age and they would always ask daddy , why is the sky blue ? Or daddy , why is the moon so bright or whatever . I have to be honest , sometimes the questions challenge me . Even when I did come up with what I thought was a pretty good answer , they would follow up with another why question .

The kids were just trying to better understand the world around them , how things worked . Similarly , as a functional medicine doctor , when I go beyond the standard symptom pill medicine approach to more of a functional why medicine approach , then I can better understand what's going on with the patient .

Hopefully , this allows me to develop a better treatment plan and to have better outcomes . It even allows me to have success with difficult patients where other what I call regular doctors have failed .

Now , before I became a functional medicine doctor , I was on the regular medicine side of the fence for 20 years , both in the emergency room and in academics at various medical schools . So I've seen it from both sides . And let me be clear there's a time and a place for both kinds of medicine .

It's not either or both have their place , and the point of this discussion is not to bash regular doctors . On the contrary , I have great respect for them .

However , I'm just pointing out that there is another new , exciting way of practicing medicine , called functional medicine , where we're trained to , as Apple says , think different , to peel back the layers of the onion as we get to the root cause of the problem , rather than taking what sometimes to turn out to be a bandaid symptom pill approach .

In regular medicine , the emphasis is coming up with the diagnosis and then the doctor's mind immediately turns to treatment , which is usually in the form of drugs or surgery . This is the way that doctors are taught to think what drug can I use to treat this diagnosis . Let's use a real patient example to illustrate this . I will call this patient Mrs Jane Doe .

She came to see me with a main complaint of diarrhea . She had already been seen and worked up for the diarrhea and was found to have C diff colitis . C diff is an infectious colitis that often comes about after the use of antibiotics . These infections can actually be quite severe , difficult to treat and in some cases even deadly .

The classic treatment for this is to give even more and different antibiotics . So in this case , the doctors did what they were trained to do they came up with the diagnosis and they treated her with drugs . But what I want to focus on is the why of the matter .

That's the premier question in functional medicine that we always come back to why did the patient get the problem I E ? What are the underlying root causes ? So in Mrs Doe's case , let's put on our functional medicine hat for a moment and then ask the question , just like a three-year-old why did the patient come see me ? She has chronic diarrhea .

Why does she have diarrhea ? She has C diff colitis . Then why does she have C diff colitis ? Because she has been on chronic antibiotic therapy . But why was she on chronic antibiotic therapy ? Because she had chronic UTIs , urinary tract infections . Now , let's keep going . Why does she have chronic urinary tract infections ?

Because she had poor vaginal health in the form of dryness and atrophy , which made her much more prone to UTIs . But don't stop there , let's keep going . Why did she have poor vaginal health ? Because she had almost no hormones on board . Why did she have low hormones ?

Well , that can vary from woman to woman , but in Mrs Doe's case she had outlived her ovaries , ie she went through menopause . For some women it could be something like a hysterectomy . And finally , why did she go through menopause ?

Because of the aging process and here's the kicker to me and because she did not have a doctor who believed in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy .

If Mrs Doe had taken bioidentical hormone replacement therapy properly , then she would not have had the dryness or atrophy , would not have had the UTIs , would not have taken the chronic antibiotics and would not have acquired seed of colitis and the resulting diarrhea .

So in this case , as in many cases , peeling back the layers of the onion step by step and connecting the dots allows us to get to the root cause of her problem . In some cases you can treat the root cause and prevent further damage . In other cases the damage has already been done due to ignoring the root cause for many years .

So , for instance , ignoring cardiometabolic dysfunction may result in a stroke . So if you treat cardiometabolic dysfunction early in the process , then you may be able to prevent the stroke . However , once the stroke has happened , then it's obviously too late . You've already missed your window of opportunity and you can't do a take two on this .

In Mrs Doe's case it was too late to take away the damage that was done due to the lack of attention to her initial concerns . But we did do our best to help her with the diarrhea and certainly we made some progress there for her . Please allow me just to take a couple of seconds to do a mini rant about vaginal rise in naturopathy .

These are problems that affect women's lives in many ways and for the most part they are entirely preventable with a proper front-end preventive care treatment plan . As I've said on other podcasts , the medical community shamefully ignores women's vaginal health .

If men's penises were undergoing atrophy like women's vaginas , we would declare a national emergency , call-out to the National Guard and pour millions of dollars into finding a cure . I'm just saying Okay , I'm done ranting . However , you want to learn more about this , then check out my podcast number 27 , which is about vaginal dryness .

So now , without further ado , let's dig into our list of causes of disease , with a few comments about age along the way . These are listed in no particular order . At the end , we're going to tie it all together with an interesting concept and I'm going to summarize for you what I think are the four fundamental root causes of just about every disease .

Let's start with genetics and epigenetics . Genetics can play a major role in health and disease . It goes without saying that if you are born with a major genetic problem , then that can affect if you live and how well you live and how long you live . However , epigenetics also plays a major role .

Let me take just a minute to briefly explain to you the difference between genetics and epigenetics . Genetics has to do with the actual genetic code that you are born with . However , epigenetics has more to do with gene expression . Genes can be turned on or off like a switch .

For instance , two identical twin females may have the exact same genetic risk for breast cancer . However , one may get it and one may not . Why is that ? Well , for one woman , the genes lie dormant and for the other they got switched into the on position .

The main factors that turn genes on or off are things like diet , physical activity , toxins , stress , working night shifts , obesity , just to name a few . For instance , the twin who becomes obese has a much greater chance of that gene for breast cancer getting turned on than her normal weight twin .

Another interesting factor that changes epigenetic expression is intrauterine exposure . For instance , if mom was mega stressed out or ate a terrible diet or was exposed to toxins during pregnancy , then this can affect the epigenetic expression of the offspring , resulting in real disease .

In his wonderful book the Biology of Belief , dr Bruce Lipton , phd cell biologist , describes the genetic code as just what I call a dumb blueprint . It really doesn't make any active decisions about your health . It is the epigenome that really controls expression of genes . So you may not have control over the genes that you were handed down .

However , you have major control over how those genes are expressed via your epigenome by optimizing your basic life habits such as diet , sleep , stress , toxins and movement . For more information about lifestyle medicine , please check our podcast number 34 .

The next cause of disease that we'll discuss is iatrogenic , which is what happens when health problems are caused by medical errors or unwanted complications of what are thought to be proper medical treatment , such as , for instance , an allergy to drugs .

It may be the proper treatment , but that particular patient just has a terrible allergy and can end up with some badness due to that . An example would be surgery complications Like nicking an artery or post-op sepsis . Diagnostic procedures like colonoscopies can also cause problems .

A recent article in the National Institutes of Health , published in 2017 , estimated that medical errors account for as many as 251,000 deaths in the US annually , making medical errors the third leading cause of death .

Wow , that's kind of scary and , to be clear , we're talking about death here and this statistic does not reflect the non-fatal problems , some of which , although can be quite severe , that come from iatrogenic causes . For example , the experts tell us older folks to get regular colonoscopies .

However , about 1.6% of colonoscopies result in complications , and the list of potential complications includes death , as well as some other serious problems . Now , that sounds like a fairly low number at 1.6% , but let's crunch some numbers . In the US , about 15 million people get colonoscopy each year .

So 1.6% of 15 million people comes to about 240,000 people who run into iatrogenic problems due to colonoscopy each year , so it becomes a big deal if you or your loved one happens to be one of those people .

So , at the end of the day , each doctor and patient has to do what they call a risk-benefit analysis to make the decision as to whether that scope is going to benefit them or not .

It's worth noting that in a recent study in 2022 published in the New England Journal of Medicine , they found that colonoscopies do reduce the rate of getting cancer , however , not as much as they previously thought , but they also found that colonoscopies do not reduce the risk of death from colorectal cancer . So let me be clear .

I'm not saying to do scope or not to do scope . I'm just using this as an example of a seemingly benign diagnostic screening procedure that can have major or even fatal iatrogenic complications . One thing I learned early on as a medical student was to never , ever , take surgery lightly . I've seen young people die from complications from surgery .

Simple surgery Stuff happens in the OR that we cannot predict , even under the best of circumstances . Again , to be clear I'm not anti-surgery . It's a miracle of modern medicine and it saves countless lives every day .

In fact , it saved my life years ago , and so I'm just saying there's always a risk involved that must be considered and mitigated , and we have to do that risk-benefit analysis . And now let's move on to our next cause , which is sedentary lifestyle .

In Dr Peter Adia's new book called Outlive , he points out that exercise is the number one factor that results in improved health span . By the way , let's differentiate health span from lifespan . Lifespan has to do with how many years you live , whereas health span is all about how long you are healthy .

Interestingly , there is sort of a Goldilocks sweet spot when it comes to exercise Too little is bad for you and too much is bad for you . Over exercises have an increased morbidity and mortality . That means they get more health problems and they die younger .

The negative health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle requires a whole podcast onto its own , so I won't go into it in great detail , but just to summarize that this is a huge issue for overall health . Fish got to swim , birds got to fly and people got to move . If we stop moving , the game's over . Next we'll talk about aging .

As I journeyed through my 20 years on the front lines in the emergency room , there were a few what are called Macminisms that came about . One of them was that bad things happen to old people .

The reason I always kind of kept that in my mind was when an old person came in with a problem , you always have to give it a more thorough look because it was more likely that it was due to some really bad underlying condition . You just didn't want to miss it .

Now I must admit that in my retirement I have entered that old person category myself and I could feel that I'm not as surprised as I used to be . But the bottom line is that as we age we can expect more badness of various sorts to visit us . However , there's an interesting concept of chronological age versus physiologic age .

Chronological age is measured how many years you've been alive , but physiologic age is a reflection of the structure and processes of the body's tissues , organs and systems over time . I've known some 70-year-old people who seem to be fitter and healthier than some 25-year-old people , and there are a lot of other factors that lead to that equation .

Certainly , for most of us , the fundamentals of how you live your life , ie lifestyle medicine , can play a major role in your health span curve .

So bottom line , you can't control your chronological age , but you have major control of your physiologic age by paying attention to the fundamentals of lifestyle medicine , and for more about that , just check out our podcast number 34 , where we go into that in great detail .

Now let's move on to gut dysfunction , and subsets of this topic would include things like diet , digestion , motility , gut microbiome , intestinal permeability , which is also known as leaky gut , and things like food sensitivities and parasites and all that kind of stuff .

There's an old saying that I think holds some truth , which goes like this good health starts in the gut . There's also a gut everything connection gut brain connection , gut bone connection , gut immune connection , gut skin connection , gut hormones , gut everything you name it .

Every cell in the body is dependent on the gut to get the nutrients that it needs to be healthy . Therefore , no organ or cell is healthy if the gut is not healthy . We did an entire gut health series , so I won't go into this any further on this podcast , but to learn more about this , check out our podcast number three through seven .

The next topic is nutrition . There are a couple ways you can think about this . First would be an actual nutritional deficiency , for instance , scurvy , which the old time sailors used to get because of lack of vitamin C . This list goes on and on . Diseases caused by lack of certain nutrients .

Another factor is just poor nutrition , such as in the context of a processed food-laden diet , which the studies have shown contribute to obesity , diabetes , high blood pressure , heart disease , strokes , cancer , early death and more . Foods also have a direct effect on your epigenetic expression that we discussed earlier . Foods are not just calories .

They are genetic information for your cells . We already did a podcast on nutrition , so check that out if you wish to learn more about this important topic . It's podcast number 10 . So let's turn now to stress . It has been estimated that 75 to 90% of visits to primary care doctors are in some way related to stress . Wow , that's huge .

Sounds like we need to chill out as a society , like with exercise . There's a sweet spot with stress , and this may be different for each person . Some stress in your life may be good for you , but too much stress can be disastrous . Again , stress is a major trigger for the epigenome .

Too much stress is associated with many diseases , such as gut problems , anxiety , headaches , insomnia , high blood pressure , obesity , depression , heart disease , skin problems , low libido , drug and alcohol misuse , brain fog , fatigue , diabetes , accelerated aging , cognitive decline and premature death , just to name a few .

We did a dedicated podcast on stress , which is number 11 , so if you want to learn more about this , then just go back and check out that podcast . However , let me say I've always felt it was a cop out for doctors just to say well , you're stressed out , go home and reduce stress . We need to tell people how to reduce stress .

So I put together the McMinn Stress Plan and the McMinn Stress Management Toolbox for you , which you can find at McMinnMDcom in the Documents section . You might want to check those out . And now let's move on to sleep . This is another biggie .

This includes good old insomnia , as well as other concerns like night shift work or swing shift work , rim sleep disorder and just being out of sync with circadian rhythms , like those folks who want to stay up all night and then sleep until noon the next day . I have a confession to make .

When I was a young man , I thought that sleep was a waste of time and I tried to cheat sleep and get as little as possible so that I could , overall , be more productive . On the surface of it , I seemed to survive okay , but I did recall at one point when I was working a lot of night shifts in the ER .

I finally realized that the loss of sleep was taking a toll on me and I was taking years off my life . That's when I decided to make a change . The list of diseases that emerge from sleep disorder is lengthy . It especially includes a lot of neurodegenerative diseases , including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease .

I call sleep the magic elixir because it can help so many things . Proper sleep hygiene is the key for most of us , but the bottom line is to place a super high priority on getting restorative sleep . It is hugely important for your overall health . My motto when it comes to sleep is 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 a listen to that if you'd like to learn more about sleep . I also have a couple of documents on the subject at McMinnMDcom under the document section called McMinn Sleep , therapeutic Options and Sleep Hygiene .

The next root cause of disease that we'll talk about is social isolation , another underestimated cause of morbidity and mortality . An article from Harvard Health states that people who are lonely or feel isolated have an increased risk of many chronic diseases , cognitive decline , an inability to perform daily tasks and even premature death all just from social isolation .

Unfortunately , in our modern day society , people are on the move , families are fragmented , so about 50% of Americans report being lonely . So do what you can to stay connected . Also , reach out to your neighbors , friends , family and those in need to keep everyone in the loop .

Moving on now to infections , these include bacterial , viral fungal parasites and infections such as Lyme disease . Often these infections are obvious , and sometimes even deadly , or they can also be a cult , such as a smoldering infection in the urine , sinuses , gums or an endocarditis of the heart . These two can create many problems .

Another serious and underestimated problem is the emergence of resistance to many of our previously tried and true antibiotics . Much of this comes from the overuse of these antibiotics in humans and in animals . Patients used to call me all the time saying Dr , I got the sniffles . Can you call me in a Z-PAC ?

We hand out Z-PACs like they were candy and the bugs are getting smart to these drugs . I'll never forget the infectious disease expert who once said that the road to hell is paved with Z-PACs , and I think he was right . Our next cause of disease is alterations in the microbiome .

Recognition of the microbiome as a major player in health and disease has been one of the most exciting developments in medicine in the last 10 to 20 years . The human microbiome consists of about 100 trillion microbial cells , as well as about a thousand different species . We can really no longer think of the human being as just made up of human cells .

We are really a what I call a super organism made up of many types of cells , including human cells , but also microbial cells , and the microbial cells far outnumber the human cells and they're absolutely necessary for life as we know it . These bugs help us in many ways , including digestion .

They help to destroy harmful bacteria and they are fundamental for the health of the immune system . And when we get unwanted alterations of the microbiome , such as with the C diff infection , as I discussed earlier , this can wreak havoc on our health , even causing death .

In and on our bodies we have a skin microbiome , sinus microbiome , oral microbiome , gut microbiome and genital microbiome . New frontiers in microbiome science are also looking at eye microbiome , uterine microbiome , brain microbiome and other areas of the body that in the past were thought to be sterile .

This is truly an exciting and cutting edge area of scientific discovery . We tend to take our microbiome for granted . We wash our skin with antibacterial soaps which destroy our skin microbiome . We rinse our mouth with antibacterial mouthwash which destroys our oral microbiome .

We take way more broad spectrum antibiotics than we should , which wipes out our gut microbiome . We can take that Cipro for UTI , for instance . It's like a bomb going off in your microbiome . It may take a long time to recover and some experts say that your gut never fully recovers .

We did an entire podcast on the gut microbiome , which is the podcast number five . So if you want to learn more about that , I encourage you to go check that one out . We also did a podcast on the vaginal microbiome , which is number 28 . So also there for your listening pleasure . Moving on now to systemic inflammation , another huge cause of disease .

Inflammation is actually a protective response by your body's immune system against harmful insults like pathogens or other irritants . Unfortunately , with chronic inflammation , the insult is long gone , but but the inflammatory response persists . This lingering inflammation contributes to disease by disrupting normal tissue function and promoting tissue damage .

Symptoms of chronic inflammation can vary widely . It may be hard to measure inflammation , but labs like C-rate protein and sedimentation rate and certain cytokines may provide an objective measurement . In some patients .

Chronic inflammation has been implicated in many diseases , including autoimmune disease , arthritis , metabolic disease like diabetes , cardiovascular disease and some gut diseases like Crohn's and certain cancers . We did an entire podcast on inflammation , which is number 33 . If you'd like to learn more about this , next we'll take a look at immune dysfunction .

The classic examples of this are various autoimmune diseases . Some common ones that you may be familiar with would be lupus , psoriasis , rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis . However , there are really almost a hundred autoimmune diseases that we know of .

I recall an interesting analysis on this issue by a Harvard researcher who stated that three things must be present for any autoimmune disease to develop . Number one is a genetic predisposition . That doesn't necessarily mean that mama had the disease , but the genes are hiding in you somewhere .

Number two , there needs to be some sort of a trigger that turns the gene on . And third , there has to be some degree of what I call increased intestinal permeability , which we used to call leaky gut . And here we go again with that gut immune connection .

Some of the potential triggers of autoimmune disease include food sensitivities , allergies , toxins , infections , poor diet , stress , nervous system imbalance , chronic sleep deprivation , chronic inflammation , trauma , parasites , excessive alcohol , medications , surgery and radiation . There are many new , fancy and expensive drugs on the market these days for autoimmune disease .

However , from a functional point of view , I have found that removing triggers and improving the gut function can be powerful healers . I have seen near miracle cures with this approach in some patients . I've not done a podcast on autoimmune disease yet , but I have it on my list In the meantime .

My favorite book on the subject is called the Immune System Recovery Plan by Dr Bloom . I'll have that listed for you in the references section of the home page of McMinnMDcom . Dr Bloom does a great job on the subject . You might want to check that out .

One word of caution , however , is that when you finish the book you might think , oh my gosh , it's just too complicated . You might feel overwhelmed , but that's when you need to work with your functional medicine provider to customize and simplify the program for you . The next cause of disease that we'll mention is toxins , another underestimated factor .

The economic burden from the health effects of toxins is estimated to be about $63 billion annually in the United States alone . Wow , that's just staggering . The various broad categories of toxins that we are exposed to include heavy metals like lead , mercury , arsenic , etc . Organics like pesticides , and then mycotoxins from mold .

I was just talking to a friend just the other day and he said he didn't have any significant toxin exposure . My reply to him was that unfortunately , we live in a world full of toxins . They're everywhere . We're all exposed all the time . In fact , we're born with toxins .

Studies have demonstrated that organic forever chemicals PCBs , mercury , lead and pesticides and phthalates from plastics have been found in the umbilical cord blood of most babies . Even penguins on the South Pole have elevated levels of mercury . Toxins are in the air we breathe , the food we eat and even in the water we drink .

As you know , bottled water is everywhere these days . Studies are unequivocal that bottled water contains significantly more microplastics .

These microplastics make their way into the bloodstream and we find them in the blood , the lungs , the breast and even the milk of humans , and they cause many health problems , including metabolic disruption , immune dysfunction , neurodigital disease , chronic inflammation , cardiovascular risk and endocrine and reproductive problems .

Another true story I had a patient years ago who came in with debilitating neuropathies . She was miserable . She had seen three neurologists who treated her with drugs , but nothing had helped . As with many of my patients , I was her last hope . Now here is another classic example of what I call regular medicine versus functional medicine .

My excellent and I mean that excellent neurologic colleagues did what they were trained to do . They made the diagnosis , which was diffuse neuropathy , and they prescribed drugs to treat it . The functional approach , however , was quite different . I put my thinking cap on and asked why ? Why did the patient have the neuropathy ?

For instance , if you google causes of neuropathy , you'll see a list from Mayo Clinic the Big Shots that clearly states that exposure to toxins , especially heavy metals like lead and mercury , can cause neuropathy . Now here's the disconnect to me . Here we have one of the top medical centers in the world clearly stating that lead and mercury caused neuropathies .

Yet three excellent , highly trained neurologists evaluated with this patient and not one of them ever thought about or checked for heavy metals . It's just not on their radar screen . Medical students are not taught about toxins in their training . Why not ? I really don't know , but I don't get it . Maybe it's because there's no billion dollar blockbuster drug for it .

I'm just saying so anyway . In this patient we did check the heavy metals and she was loaded . We did collision therapy , got the metals down to normal and , poof , the neuropathies went away completely . It was like magic . I was thrilled , and so was the patient .

And , by the way , this has been about 10 years ago and the neuropathies have not come back and she's experiencing a great quality of life these days , as opposed to the misery that beset her before our therapy . The proof is always in pudding . It's all about outcomes . In this case , illustrates the power of a why or functional medicine approach .

Now we did a whole podcast on toxins , so I won't repeat all the details on this topic . It's a really interesting subject , so if you want to learn more about that , then check out podcast number 22 . However , I do think it's worth pointing out here the best defense against toxins is avoidance . So here are some simple tips Get a good water filter .

I don't claim to be an expert in this area , but I have done some homework on this and I recommend the Berkey filter . It's a simple carbon block filter dirty water in and pure water out . It's very simple , efficient and cost effective and , for your information , I have no financial interest in Berkey filters .

When it comes to food , google the dirty dozen foods and get these particular foods in your organic form . Also , be careful what you put on your body . Toxins and lotions , shampoos , conditioners and makeup go right through your skin and into your bloodstream and into your tissues . So get good quality , clean products .

So let me wrap up the toxin issue and leave you with just a few take home points . Number one toxins are everywhere in our modern day world . Number two toxins contribute to many diseases . Number three avoid them when you can .

Number four , lastly , when you have some sort of disease , like a patient with neuropathy above , and you're trying to figure out why , at least have toxins on your list of possibilities . Now let's move on to our next cause of disease , which is trauma . There are many types of trauma and they're all important .

These would include things like physical trauma , emotional trauma , psychological trauma and sexual trauma . To get more information on the emotional trauma issue , then check out our recent podcast on emotional wellness , which are podcast number 40 and 41 .

As an old ER doc , I've seen my share of physical trauma and I would urge each of you just to be smart in the way you live your life . Every time I see someone riding a motorcycle , for instance , without a helmet , it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me as an ER doctor . But that's a values decision that each rider has to make on his or her own .

The next cause of disease is obesity . The data are clear that obesity is linked to increased rates of cancer , heart disease , high blood pressure , dementia , cholesterol abnormalities , diabetes , stroke , gallbladder disease and increased all-cause mortality . Obesity and overweightness is a complicated and controversial topic .

Perhaps we'll circle back around to that one day and do a dedicated podcast on it , but certainly any discussion about this subject has to at least start with diet and exercise . That certainly counts for a major part of the problem .

However , it is admittedly much more complicated than that and it is unfair in some patients to blame their diet when in fact , other factors may play a significant role . It's up to the functional provider to rule out some of these other causes .

So some of the other contributing factors to obesity might include a hypothyroid state , insulin resistance , metabolic syndrome , neurotransmitter imbalance , fluid retention , systemic inflammation , polycystic ovary syndrome , leptin resistance syndrome , toxins . Many of these toxins are what we call obesity genes and they act through a number of different mechanisms to increase weight .

An unhealthy gut microbiome can also 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 as gluten or dairy , artificial sweeteners , drugs such as steroids , occult infections that can cause inflammation , thus leading to weight gain . Interestingly , people born by C-section are at higher risk of obesity as an adult . Bottle-fed instead of breast-fed babies tend to have more obesity later in life .

Early childhood antibiotics can increase the risk of obesity later in life In utero and early developmental exposure to chemicals such as pesticides and heavy metals , etc . During critical periods of development , even at low doses , can alter programming and can result in increased susceptibility to diseases later in life , including obesity .

Common household disinfectants may be linked to childhood obesity . Sleeping with lights on may increase the risk of obesity in women . And finally , genetics may play a major role . According to one expert in the field , there are about 5,000 genes associated with obesity and about 30 hormones associated with obesity .

So again , the discussion starts with diet and exercise , but in reality it's not that simple . So a general functional approach may be , in order at least to consider some of these other causes that I have mentioned . The next cause of disease that I'll mention is hormone dysregulation .

This would include hormones such as estrogen , progesterone , testosterone , thyroid cortisol , dhea , insulin , parathyroid hormone and many more . Neurotransmitter imbalance could be considered to be a subset of this discussion . Hormone optimization and balance are hugely impactful to our overall health and quality of life .

If there's any concern about your hormones , I would encourage you to work with a provider who has trained and experienced in testing and optimizing hormones , especially with bio-identical hormones . It can make a world of difference in many ways . For instance , let's take the average 50-ish-year-old pyramidopausal woman who comes in 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 course and no libido . With a good bio-identical hormone replacement regimen , all of these problems could become a thing of the past and she could feel fantastic . I'm just saying I've seen it over and over is like magic .

So check out podcast number 13 for 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 at it . It's a condition that appears when your antioxidant levels are low , antioxidants being substances that remove damaging oxidizing chemicals from your body .

So when your antioxidants are low , this can contribute to diseases like Parkinson's , alzheimer's , multiple sclerosis , depression , memory loss , cancer , diabetes , hypertension , heartache of the arteries , lung disease and premature aging , just to name a few . The best way to combat oxidative stress is with lifestyle medicine , especially diet .

The diet should be balanced and within abundance of fruits and vegetables and a limited intake of sugar and processed food . Regular exercise can also be helpful . Supplements should never take the place of diet , but in some situations specific supplements may be helpful .

Some of the major antioxidant supplements include vitamin C , vitamin D , vitamin E , coq10 , zinc , solenium , glutathione , green tea , resveratrol and the flavonoids , which include quercetin , rutin , luteolin and phycetin , just to name a few . Sometimes you can keep it simple and find a good antioxidant formula that contains most of these substances .

The next cause of disease is allergies and sensitivities . The difference between an allergy and a sensitivity is that an allergy is truly an immune , mediated response , whereas a sensitivity is a substance that you don't tolerate well . It might , for instance , cause some gastric upset , but it's not a true allergic , immune , mediated response .

As you know , allergies can be of many types . We can have allergies to foods , pets , pollen , latex , drugs and all sorts of things . If you have food allergies , it may be difficult to figure out what foods might be involved , and your provider or your allergy can help you sort that out . One of the best strategies is to start with avoidance .

Immunization with an elemental diet or an autoimmune-paleotype diet might be helpful . There are also many drugs for allergies and some of these can be quite helpful , and there are also some natural therapies that have been helpful for many of my patients .

These include curcumin , boswellia , willowbark , quercetin , especially for the skin , bromelain , especially for sinuses , and evening primrose oil . Next , let me mention mitochondria dysfunction . The mitochondria are the parts of the cells that transform the food you eat into a usable form of energy called ATP . Many diseases are caused by mitochondria dysfunction .

Most of the ones that I saw more frequently were chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia . More recently , solid evidence has emerged that suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction may be a root cause of long COVID . I'll just mention electrolyte imbalance and acibase imbalance as another cause of disease .

And the last cause of disease that I'll mention is mind body spirit dysfunction . We addressed that to some degree on our podcast number 32 on mind body medicine , so I won't go through that in great detail . And that completes the list that I have accumulated over the years of the causes of disease .

I have used this many times as I've taken a functional approach to the patient's problems , figuring out the why to her condition , so that I could take a root cause therapeutic approach to her recovery . However , I also realized that many of these causes of disease are related to one another .

For instance , mitochondrial dysfunction might be due to things like oxidative stress or toxins . So as I boiled it down to its very basics , it occurred to me that there are really just about four fundamental causes of disease . I've created a VIN diagram to illustrate this concept that you can find at McMinnMDcom in the documents section labeled as causes of disease .

The four fundamental causes of disease are number one , the 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 factors intersect in the middle is where diseases emerge .

It's really profound . If you take a minute to think about it , it's an entirely new and different , exciting approach to health and disease than we have been taught in the past . And again , this is not just a thought exercise .

I actually used this list as a practical tool when a difficult patient presented to me and I was trying to connect the dots and figure out what was going on with her . So I hope that this has helped you in some way maybe to figure out your own situation and to get better , or to help you avoid disease until of a long , heavy life .

Well , that will about do it for this episode of Wellness Connection MD . Don't forget to check us out at McMinnMDcom , where you can find the Wellness MD blog as well as lots of other great health and wellness information . Also , please help the podcast grow by telling your friends and family about us , and please take a moment to review us on iTunes .

These reviews really do help us out . If you want to reach out to me by email , you can do so at drmcminnatyahoocom . You can also find me on Facebook , at facebookcom . I'll have all those links for you 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 .

Take care and be well .