Time to go into the light...
Microbiome Medicine Summit
Dr. Mark Hyman
Dr Mark Hyman is a practicing family physician, a nine-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in his field. He is the Director the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. He is also the founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center, chairman of the board of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a medical editor of The Huffington Post, and was a regular medical contributor on many television shows including CBS This Morning, Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and The View, Katie and The Dr. Oz Show. Source
During his interview with Dr. Kellman their discussion focused on Dr. Hyman’s 5R approach.
Remove
Replace
Reinoculate
Repair
Relax
Removal is the part of the program where you address the bad bugs living within your individual body’s microbiome. The second thing needed is to remove the foods and allergens that are creating an immune response and the inflammation that follows.
From the interview Dr. Hyman believes our human genome is 1/100 of our entirety. Bacteria genomes outnumber ours by 100 to 1. He discusses the important communication and integral symbiosis between us and our bugs. Strangely enough we see ourselves as the host, yet when we try to reduce the numbers of bacteria we change our body functions. We see this in the upset that antibiotics can cause, by creating a perfect environment for not so nice bugs like yeast to grow and spread. Add to that environmental toxins like pesticides, heavy metal exposures, carcinogenics and mycotoxins .
Other influential factors were discussed, (GMO’s) Genetically modified organisms and altered genetics have created products that are not part of our ancestral DNA genome and don’t fit inside our bodies. Yet we continue to ingest food like substances and are surprised by our body’s negative reaction and rejection to them. This is much the same for the use and misuse of pharmaceuticals. Chemical reactions alter more than just the targeted bacteria or virus. Dr Hyman notes however helpful cesareans might be then also change a new infants exposure to the vaginal canals biome and much needed contact with the bacteria living there.
Dr Hyman coined the phrase “tend your inner garden”. As an amateur gardener I really understood the concept of tending to your inner garden, that it is not by ripping out everything and starting over in the spring, it is about nurturing it with healthy soil and compost that gives the existing plants a great environment to blossom and grow. It is by understanding that somethings take longer to come up, to start to show growth. And each item has a value and purpose. Make sure you obtain the right fats and get the right bacteria from hopefully very local fresh unprocessed foods. This keeps you and your microbiome in tune with the world around you, foods rich with probiotics. This is step #3 Reinoculate, or re-habitate your gut with digestive enzymes that are important to our health.
Repair is Step #4. Which means putting the things in you need to heal the gut, like fish oils and Zinc, he mentions primrose oil as well as vitamin A, glutamine, glutathione and curcumin. Things that will help your gut heal by providing an anti-inflammatory environment.
Dr Hymans 5th R is for Relax. He feels that stress and increased stress responses are responsible for the increasing a good environment for bad bacteria to move in. Learning to take over and manage your life, find the things that feed your heart and soul as well as your body. That participating in relaxation and exercise it reduces stress responses and provides a fertile environment for good bacteria to grow and flourish and help your body heal. The importance of any program is to make sure that you do it so select activities that suit you and are of interest to you. You don’t want to stress over relaxing.
Summit review written by Diane Quigley-Lyme Warrior extraordinairre lol