Down the Rabbit Hole Pt 2
Leaky Gut and Functional Medicine
If you haven’t read Part 1, I suggest reading that first. I wanted to add to part one with something new I had found. People promoting leaky gut as a disease and cause of pretty much everything, rather than a symptom of specific diseases, tend to give a test called ELISA. This is supposed to measure for zonulin protein, which many, even top doctors at research hospitals who have credibility claim is a biomarker for leaky gut.
Here’s another article you should read on why leaky gut syndrome isn’t a thing. LGS
Let’s actually pause for a minute and talk about how these “credible” sources such as Harvard educated researchers and Mark Hyman, a doctor known well in functional medicine and with his affiliation with the Cleveland clinic. Seems they should have the right info, right? Not necessarily. More irony is how the wellness and functional medicine industries talk about how “regular doctors are controlled by pharmaceuticals and money” when you look at these names and realize they are making WAY more money and have way more ways of doing it with very flimsy evidence behind them. But that’s because of their names, their affiliations. But, even other researchers and doctors who work in those same institutions don’t agree with them and criticize them.
Let’s take for instance, a Harvard study that zonulin is the biomarker for all leaky gut which then causes “all diseases”. Well, the study is basically a lot of theories that haven’t actually been proven and have not been reproduced. So why is it now widely “known” in both medical spaces and wellness spaces? Because these people also want a name for themselves and if they can get others to push out this info, they will create a buzz around it. The irony is that “conventional medicine” is blamed for this ALL the time. And I’m sure they do it. Or, I’ll say, I’d blame individuals and media more (but also researchers themselves) for putting out info linking to studies that are actually not valid. ANYONE can publish a study. And most of us were not taught HOW to read studies for accuracy or to be able to tell if the evidence is truly there for the claims. In 2021, this came out as a caution about the beliefs about, zonulin. as a biomarker.
There are lines being blurred between what wellness people called “allopathic medicine” and what they refer to as “holistic, integrative, natural or functional medicine” The truth is that this is just marketing. But many MDs (though still a small percentage) have jumped on the bandwagon, have crossed over to be “functional and integrative doctors” which generally just means you are making more money and more prone to sharing theory as opposed to strong evidence. Mark Hyman regularly and purposely misrepresents the science in his content. I have seen many posts and clips of his where he talks about a specific study. I wilt hen go and find that exact study (which of course, he never links to bc most that follow him will take his word for it) and the study will be different from what he says. He cherrypicks what parts will validate claims he makes and only uses that, often missing crucial pieces to the studies that show that, in fact, he is not correct. He’s not the only one. I’ve watched over the years since I exited from that world and started to actually look for the info being shared by so many popular “wellness doctors” (Ruscio, Dr Axe, Will Cole, etc etc). And they all do the same thing.
Functional medicine also claims to find the “root cause”. And oh, I believed this fully to my core for so long. I believed “western medicine was not concerned with the roots of disease and only cared about symptom relief and “making more money” by giving us more pills. I believed that doctor didn’t care and pharmaceutical companies were evil. Now, let me say, I DO think our FOR PROFIT medical system needs to be overhauled, has it’s issues: pharmaceuticals costing way too much, underfunded areas of research and inaccessibility and racism/sexism, doctors and health care professionals who get burnt out and overwhelmed and/or lose or don’t have a good bedside manner (though I think that’s good for some people). Doctors don’t have enough time to see every patient (but I also think this is not just an administrative issue, but also a lack of health professionals for the populations we have). Doctors aren’t making the decision to only have a short time with you, they’d like to have more time, they do truly want to help (most). Because of this, they may not have time to truly go over all the things they’d like to discuss and those things are more rushed or missed (i.e. checking on lifestyle choices, mental health care, etc).
A few things I thought and what I now know to be true once I was able to pull back and look at the whole picture:
That “western medicine” doesn’t care about root cause. Not true. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have vaccines that have wiped out diseases and help prevent severe illness (can we talk about that amazing news about how well the hpv vaccine has worked!). Knowing a root cause is how we get antibiotics, antivirals, gene therapy and immunotherapies. But, sometimes, it would be much harder to find a root cause than to focus more on treatments and managing symtpoms. The truth is, we are WAY more complex than a simple “root cause” answer. Where functional medicine tries to claim that “all disease starts in the gut” and come up with oversimplified “root causes” that completely take out and ignore a whole lot of biological/genetic, accessibility and so many other factors. See, disease and our bodies aren’t that simple. They are complex. There are many times, many root causes for one thing and it’s very hard to pinpoint. Therefore, finding the ways the body is reacting to the disease, is where the research goes, to give people more relief as they continue seeing if there is a limited number of root causes that they can treat at that level.
That somehow doctors and scientists wanted to gatekeep information and somehow FD’s know more. Most Functional Doctors were NOT medical doctors to start. I actually looked into programs for functional nutrition and was privy to mutliple highly sought after FM programs thanks to the people I knew who were practicing FM MD’s and other areas. Compared to a MD education, FM education is laughable. It is not based in evidence and gives practitioners the idea that they are experts in all aspects of health. MDs, dieticians, etc have to study very rigorous content for many years, work in clinical settings and pass a difficult test before they can be licensed. If they want to specialize in a specific area, that is all increased. When I look at it now, I trust someone who has to go through all of that more than someone who can pretty much walk in off the street and get a certification in a short time. Many are between 6 months to 2 years. The Institute of Functional Medicine is a bit better as it required you to be a licensed MD first, but then comes making sure these people still share evidenced based information, which sadly doesn’t always happen once they’re in those FM circles. The curriculum is also not evidenced based but more based on anecdote and theory. MANY FM programs also teach how to PRICE. The price out of pocket, usually, to see a Functional Doctor is can range from $300 to $1500 for the initial visit. ONE VISIT for 60-90 minutes. That’s why they have the “time” to spend with you. Then, come the follow ups, the lists of supplements (that they make money off of- ironic since they blame doctors for making money of pharmaceuticals and they actually do NOT- they get free lunch sometimes, pens, etc). Remember I worked for a functional MD and had a family member who was one. The tests are also expensive. And most have no evidence to back them up. Plus, they, again, may have an affiliation agreement so they make a percentage of those tests as well.
That supplements are better than medications. MOST supplements have no studies done on them. You know all those “side effects” pharmaceutical companies are required to put in commercials, on paper when given to you, etc etc? Supplements most likely have a lot of side effects as well, only we don’t actually know what they are because no one is making those companies put them out and there’s no actual studies done. It mostly anecdotal. All of those supplements you see lining the shelves of CVS have the potential to do harm or nothing at all. Supplements that have been studied more for safety and efficacy exist but those make up a small fraction of total supplements. The supplement industry alone is worth $152 Billion (USD) (in total, the “wellness industry” is worth 5.6 TRILLION as opposed to the pharmaceutical which is worth 1.6 Trillion. And we can all agree that the pharmaceutical industry does charge too much for medications and such, but they also have rigorous oversight on those medications. There are medications that have allowed people to live longer and thrive where, before medications (when there was only “natural medicine), they would die. Medical technology and medications have helped make our lifespan much longer (as opposed to when it was just plant medicine and lifestyle). Babies and children used to die from things that are now no big deal to most of them, thanks to medicine. I also always heard and still hear about how we should only use “natural medicine”, Did you know most medications are actually made from plants and other “natural” things? Or, thanks to science, we’ve been able to take a plant medicine such as salicin from willow trees, which caused severe stomach upset and create what we now know as aspirin, which is gentler than the original isolated plan part. By using science and medicine to create a synthetic version of this natural thing, we don’t need to harvest willow trees to get it which means, it’s actually better for the environment and for us.
That Food is medicine. While I think that yes, of course, what we consume is important and can have an impact on our health, food isn’t medicine. This is another fallacy of the claim that “natural is better”. I wont’ go into the misinformation on organic and pesticides. A great person to check out is Foodsciencebabe on IG and TT (not to be confused with the horrible Food babe. (also a great book, Food Isn’t Medicine by Dr Josheua Wolrich) Wellness is full of privilege, racism and overall, ignores and is not accessible without some level of wealth. It promotes only foods that will put a major dent in your wallet and your stress levels), creates anxiety around “chemicals and toxins” that is full of misinformation and heavily relies on old bs diet culture rhetoric and beliefs. Did you know that a famous quote about “let food be thy medicine” said to be by Hippocrates has actually never resulted in a single document that says he said that? I found that out a while back and recently found this article that actually talks about that but also is a great look at why food is NOT medicine. I share other articles and blogs because while I am knowledgable from my own experience about these things, I am no expert and leave explaining more thoroughly to those who are. So, take a moment and read Food is Not Medicine.
That is about as much as I can handle for this post. more to come getting back to my own personal story and experience in the next one.