Dr Rashel's 9 Essentials to Advance Health

The 9 Essentials to Advance Health are core principles that drive health and disease that I address in my patients to support health and healing from the root causes

I address the 9 essentials to advance health in my patients. By addressing these 9 core principles we address both their symptoms, root causes of any disease processes and support their body in the ways needed to prevent future disease.

I wish I could tell you that health and healing is as easy as taking a few synthetic pharmaceutical drugs or undergoing the latest fad expensive treatment advertised as alternative therapy but the truth is that the only way to arrive at true health and rid your body of disease is to do the work it and address the root causes and core principles of health.

The great news is once you do that you will get better, and stay better in every respect when it comes to your long-term health and well-being takes and we are here to partner with you in that rewarding process.

Dr Rashel's 9 Essentials To Advance Health

The 9 Essential Pillars to Advance Health

There are 9 essentials to advance health that I use to help me investigate and navigate through to the root causes of my patients’ health ailments and ultimately help my patients AdvanceHealth.

Through the core principles of Functional medicine founded upon the core principles of our human biochemistry, physiology, molecular biology, genetics and epigenetics and our cellular world’s interplay with our environment and our universe I have implemented the 9 core areas of focus that are the foundation to Advance Health in my practice. Reading about these eight areas will introduce you to these principles and the areas we will focus on together to Advance Health.

Environmental Interplay

First, we must understand that everything in our environment interacts with our cells and our genes to create health or disease, especially our diet and nutrition.

The air we breathe, water we drink, our lifestyle, the microorganisms we come into contact with, any emotional trauma that we encounter, environmental toxins all affect our health from a cellular level and affect our genes.

Second, we must understand that our digestive system is the gateway to our health and the gateway to almost all disease.

Our digestive or gastrointestinal system is the core of our health. We must understand how and why barriers in this integral part of our health can break down, and how to repair it to avoid and heal chronic disease.

Third, we must understand how toxins from our environment and disturbances in our physiological detoxification systems or waste management systems that can result from nutrient deficiencies or genetic glitches can lead to chronic health problems and how to identify these problems and optimize our detoxification system.

Fourth we must understand that our immune system is the guardian of our health, and how most of us have hidden inflammation and immune dysregulation in our body, we must identify sources of inflammation and imbalance, control inflammation and modulate the immune system to a healthy balance as inflammation fuels disease and kills and immune dysregulation lets it happen.

Fifth we must understand how our hormones and brain chemistry influence nearly every aspect of our health, why they get out of balance, and how to get them back in balance.
Sixth we must understand what factors play a role in our cardio-metabolic health and how to prevent and reverse metabolic and heart disease and how these diseases are caused by toxins, infections, poor nutrition, genes, and their interplay.

Lastly we must understand the importance of energy–that we are energetic beings, both in the sense of our cellular energy and our energetic interaction with everything in our surrounding, people, the planet and the universe ultimately. We must understand that our mitochondria are the energy powerhouses of our cells, how they function to create energy, how the energy production process can be disturbed and what factors cause those disturbances and how to correct them so we can make more energy.

And finally, we must understand how the mind interacts with the body and how the body interacts with the mind to influence and affect each of our other systems and understand that these are not separate systems. They are part of a web of function and physiology that is at the root of both health and disease.

This revolutionary new way of thinking about health and disease will guide you toward something many people have given up on, the actual experience of wellbeing and achieving Advance Health.

Digestion and Assimilation

Gastrointestinal disorders have become increasingly common in the United States.  Today more than 70 million people suffer some form of digestive disorder.

Our gastrointestinal system is literally the gateway to our health, the way in which all nutrients enter the body to get assimilated to make energy and the pay in which toxins and waste exit the body. Clearly any dysfunction in our GI tract compromises our health.

The relationship between gastrointestinal dysfunction and chronic disease is multifaceted, compelling, and complex. Most chronic disease has its roots in gastrointestinal dysfunction. When the normal integrity of the GI tract is compromised, resulting in leaky gut, this can result in distant systemic complaints even in the absence of obvious GI symptoms.

Today on the cutting edge if modern science it’s been studied and proven that the core of our immune system lies in our GI tract as well as much of its integrity.  Recent research by Dr. Faisano has isolated the molecule responsible for leaky gut named Zonulin and it is clear that the GI tract has a central role in most chronic and systemic disease. From intestinal pathogens and allergens, to intestinal permeability and imbalances in colonic bacteria, gut dysfunction compromises your health and diminishes vitality.

For this reason this is the place Dr. Rashel usually starts treatment in the healing process, restoring gut integrity and health. 

Detoxification and Biotransformation

In our modern times in the 21st century two things have become increasingly clear, first, we are exposed to both more and more complex array of toxins in our air, water, and food than ever in history and Second, science has recognized that an our individual ability to detoxify or bio-transform (the process to get rid of toxins out of our body) and excrete toxic substances is critically important to overall health.

In recent years we have learned a great deal about how toxins affect our body, where they come from, and we can improve our ability to detoxify in a toxic world. The concept that toxins accumulate in the body and are the cause of many health problems has long been a fundamental principle of healthcare systems traditionally around the world. 

Understanding, diagnosing and addressing toxicity and taking steps to improve biotransformation and detoxification are essential to the successful treatment of most health ailments and diseases and a critical piece in any integrative approach to your health and wellbeing.

There is persuasive research based evidence that even low-level toxic exposures contribute to the development of a variety of chronic health conditions, including fatigue, endocrine disruption and hormonal abnormalities such as female hormone imbalance, male testosterone deficiency, thyroid dysfunction, infertility, and many chronic degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s.

Dr. Rashel recognizes and addresses toxic exposure and burden in her patients and implements appropriate safe detoxification treatment plans as part of her integrative approach to treating her patients. Bottom line: Toxins in your environment cause disease and to cure disease we need to identify and detoxify the toxin.  Pharmaceutical drugs, are often an added burden on the body and add a layer of toxicity when used to mask symptoms, unfortunately they do not address the root cause or offer any ope of cure.  

Healthy detoxification by first eliminating and decreasing toxic load and body burden and supporting the body’s innate detoxification systems through the liver, skin, gastrointestinal systems by targeted support with nutrients and if needed chelating agents will help restore health.

 

Immune Defense and Repair

More than 23 million Americans suffer from autoimmune diseases. Over 100 different diseases have been classified as autoimmune in nature. Conventional medicine views these diseases as separate entities however the Functional Medicine approach uses a broader perspective. Current research reveals that all of the autoimmune diseases share the same underlying mechanisms. It is clear that environmental factors have important parts to play in the underlying etiology that drives these disease processes fueling the fire.

A few common autoimmune diseases are Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ulcerative Colitis, Hashimoto’s Thyroid Disease, Grave’s, Lupus, Ulcerative Colitis, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Psoriasis, Eczema, Sjogren’s, IGA nephropathy.

In Conventional medicine if you suffer from these maladies you are labeled with the disease name, ‘diagnosed’, told treatment is limited or given hope when at best conventional doctors and rheumatologists can offer immune suppressants and steroids to suffocate the immune system that only minimally and at its best temporarily may slow the process and unfortunately results in multiple very serious side effects including serious infections that may cause death.

After all however, we do need our immune system and suppressing it is not a good idea, very simply put it’s worthy to remember that it is our immune system that at every second fights for us in face of insults from the environment, infections, and cancer cells that a healthy immune system routinely kills and wards off. 

Although there is a genetic component to some autoimmune disease meaning that individuals may have a genetic predisposition toward certain disease processes, it s environmental triggers that set those genes off. It is environmental factors—and the interactions of our genes with our environment that does play a significant role in the disease process.

Despite this understanding, less attention has been focused on determining these important causal factors.  At Advance Health Integrative and Functional Medicine Dr. Rashel recognizes that immune imbalance, while can involve a genetic predisposition, will generally arise in the context of certain controllable factors. 

These factors include consumption of a pro-inflammatory diet, food intolerances and food allergies, microbial and viral infections, exposure to synthetic pharmaceuticals, hormonal imbalances, nutritional insufficiencies, and xenobiotic exposure (xenobiotics being chemical compounds foreign to the human body which can include drugs, pharmaceuticals, environmental toxins).

Dr. Rashel’s treatment approach to autoimmune maladies focuses on identifying the root causes and triggers that are fueling the inflammatory fire that is triggering the immune system, chronic inflammation and all systemic influences on the immune system thereby treating the problems from the root cause without weakening the immune system as in conventional medicine but rather

Cardio-Metabolic Status

We are living in exciting and promising times as over the past decade convincing evidence has accumulated regarding the true underlying factors driving heart disease.

However we are also living in confusing times as all the new research surfaces many and most conventional physicians are not yet aware and familiar with the current research, this is not new in the dogma of medicine as studies have shown that on average it takes about 70 years for the average physician to get up to date and utilize current research in practice.

Over the past decade convincing evidence has accumulated and contemporary functional medicine practitioners know that conquering heart disease is not simply a matter of driving serum cholesterol to lower and lower levels, this is in fact comical when we pay attention to biochemistry and physiology. In fact, half the people who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol.

Newer research has thrown into question the primacy of elevated LDL cholesterol as the primary driver of heart disease. It appears that cholesterol, while an important signpost, is but one of a variety of markers that indicate cardiovascular risk. It’s is critical to pay attention to all the underlying driving factors that trigger and drive heart disease. 

You do not want to fall victim to the transitional era we are living in and as always we advocate that you take control of your health and wellbeing and assure that you benefit from the new understanding of the early diagnosis and underlying treatment of cardio-metabolic disease which includes obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, even dementia. Dr. Rashel uses a

Functional medicine approach to addressing and treating and the early diagnosis of the underlying triggers and driving factors of cardio metabolic disease which include looking at the numerous other metabolic markers that can signal or be risk factors for heart disease besides LDL and addressing core imbalances that may have a hand in fueling abdominal obesity, and high blood pressure, like infections and blood sugar and insulin dysregulation, nutritional deficiencies, thereby addressing the root cause preventing and reversing heart disease and cultivating greater overall health and well being.

Hormone Balance and Neurotransmitter Communication

Hormones are the messengers in our body that govern virtually every single aspect of our health from reproduction to sexuality, to youthfulness, sleep, blood sugar metabolism, to energy.

When hormones are deficient or out of balance you may suffer from fatigue, weight gain, depression, anxiety, erectile dysfunction, low libido, menstrual irregularities, menopausal symptoms, hair loss, insomnia or just may feel like you’ve lost your vigor, vitality and zest for life.

In recent years bio-identical hormone replacement therapy has helped improve the quality of life especially for menopausal, peri- menopausal women and men in andropause. Thyroid dysfunction, low thyroid hormones can also be treated by combinations of thyroid replacement.

However we must not cease to ask what is the root cause of the imbalance in the hormones and aim to address and treat the root causes of these imbalances. Although hormone replacement therapy can provide relief from the symptoms of hormone imbalance and some advertise that hormones are the fountain of youth, we must use them very cautiously as there may be risks and replacing the hormones does not address the underlying cause of why they were imbalanced or why the symptoms were so severe as in the case of menopause. 

Although it may be difficult and confusing at times to try to decipher what is the best way to address and treat your symptoms, especially when you don’t feel well, I encourage you to always aim to address the root cause.

As conventional doctors may ignore how you are feeling completely and some contemporary doctors may advertise that everything your feeling from your weight to your energy can be fixed if they give you hormones whether it be thyroid or female hormones or male hormones.

You may see advertisements that encourage you to think what you are feeling has nothing to do with you per se it’s just your hormones, or your thyroid.

Actually all hormones imbalance including thyroid dysfunction has underlying triggers.  This means that if you are hypothyroid or have imbalanced female hormones, menopausal symptoms,  weight gain, your hormones are involved but your hormones are not the underlying cause of your symptoms, they are just a symptom. 

The hormone imbalance has underlying causes such as toxicity, intestinal microbial imbalance, yeast overgrowth, heavy metals, xenobiotics, emotional or physical stress, adrenal dysfunction, lifestyle factors and if the actual underlying reasons are not identified and addressed they will go on to create bigger health problems.

Dr. Rashel’s approach always includes first and foremost listening to and hearing her patients. When necessary Bio-identical hormones and hormone replacement therapy do have a role to improve quality of life however looking upstream to decipher the root cause of the imbalances is an integral part of our treatment approach including identifying nutritional deficiencies, toxic body burden, dietary modifications, identifying emotional and physical stressors, appropriate lifestyle management, nutraceutical supplementation to optimize function which many times address and treat the symptoms successfully without added potential risk

 

Energy Regulation

We know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, one of the fundamental principles of physics that is at the core of each and every one of our cells, governs us and our world.

Energy drives ALL biologic activity, from individual atoms and molecules, to cellular physiology, through organ-system and whole-person functioning, and ultimately to the biosphere. The energy spectrum is comprised not only of light, electricity, radiation, sound, movement, heat, and transformation, but also, for us humans, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and healing energy. Although clinicians don’t normally think of their patients as suffering from energy dysregulation, every time you suffer with headaches, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, brain fog, or neurodegenerative conditions, chronic pain, this is a decline in optimal mitochondrial function (the energy powerhouse of each of your cells) and cellular vitality is part of the picture.

The science of mitochondrial function and dysfunction literally runs our physiological energy state and must be addressed as part of any treatment plan to address health and disease.

The health of Mitochondria and our cellular energy can be negatively affected by toxins wether environmental, infectious or emotional as well as by nutrient deficiency and other factors

Emotional Health and Spiritual Connection

We are energy beings and all aspects of our health are continuously affected by our energetic state. Our energetic state is governed by our thought processes and perceptual patterns, our emotional states and emotional regulation, and our spiritual beliefs such as of our meaning and purpose in life and our relationship with our universe and something greater than ourselves.

Our emotional, mental and spiritual state and beliefs can positively or negatively affect all other essential pillars and our cellular functioning. For example stress, negativity and lower emotional states such as anger and sadness can impact our gut health as our gut health can impact our emotional status.

Our cellular processes are also affected by our psychological and spiritual awareness and history of emotional trauma and for optimal health and energy those must be addressed as well. Therefore we can not have a true state of health without addressing the emotional, mental and spiritual factors in our life.

Finding meaning and purpose in our lives and a connection to something greater is an important factor that positively affects well being as is compassion for ourselves and others.

Compassion and connection between you and your physician and the therapeutic relationship can also be an integral part of healing. Dr. Rashel uses Functional treatment modalities to affect energy dysfunction through the use of clinical nutrition, dietary modifications, and nutraceuticals, trauma identification, as well as reference for therapeutic modalities such as Emotional Freedom Technique, Neurobiofeedback, and Matrix Reimprinting.

Chronic Infection Status

Throughout most of human history we have been at war with bacteria and microbes.

Today this no longer holds true, a new view and understanding of the human body has emerged. We now know that humans and microbes are co-evolved systems for their mutual benefit.

Metaphors like, the only good bug is a dead bug, are no longer appropriate. Another longstanding view has been that microbes are germs and one can ask how can we benefit from them if they are germs? In fact, most of the microbes we come in contact with are not germs, they are in actuality beneficial microbes that aid many aspects of our physiology including digestion of our diet, like vegetables, that we could not digest without microbial enzymes, provide energy for our metabolism, make essential vitamins, and act as a first line of defense against potential pathogens, or germs.

Humans receive their first inoculum of microbes from their mother during natural childbirth that in many ways sets the stage for health or can be a so called first strike if the child could not benefit from this important passage through the birth canal due to Cesarean Section. Our immune systems depend on these early inoculations to develop appropriately, and distinguish themselves from future microbe encounters.

Each region of our body has its own set of microbes.

It’s thought that what we eat, combined with our hormones, bodily fluids, skin oils, genetic makeup, where we live, and many other factors, contribute to the colonization and growth of these microbes. Bathing, washing your hair, washing your hands, and brushing your teeth remove some microbes, but they eventually grow back. And it’s thought that each of us has our own personal group of microbial species and strains (meaning microbial subspecies) that make our bodies their only homes. In other words, each of us supports a unique group of microbes that are ours and ours alone. How do you feel about having your own “personal” microbes?

Routine practices, including the use of antibiotics, may alter the human microbiome by reducing non-targeted bacteria and creating antibiotic resistant strains.

It’s fundamental to understand that we are essentially made up, not only of our own cells and genes, but each of us have bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa whose cells and genes and make up our biology.

In fact it’s the diversity of the bacteria that live in and on the human body, that we are inoculated with first through the vaginal canal of a normal healthy delivery at birth, that makes up our microbiome and dictates most of our health or lack there off.

The Human Microbiome Project established that there are over 10,000 different species of different organisms meaning over 100 Trillion individual bugs that share our bodies.

It is these bacteria that play an integral role in maintaining our immune system, contributing to the digestion of our food, and acting as first line of defense against potential pathogens. Many of these species are known pathogens that certainly can and do cause illness if and when the circumstances permit. Their main role in a healthy state is their integral role for the health of our bodies and most importantly our immune system.

In fact many or most diseases including most chronic infections that potentially contribute to feeling ill are the result of disturbed and reduction in microbiomes. Unfortunately this reduction is directly caused by ‘medical’ interventions, starting before birth continuing through birth and thereafter throughout childhood and adulthood that damage and limit the diversity of these microorganisms living within us, on us and around us.

When our immune system gets weakened from chronic stress, emotional or physical and or wrong food intake, pharmaceutical drugs like antibiotics, birth control pills, antacids, steroids, there is a reduction in number and diversity of our microbiome and we are at an increased risk of infection with fungi, bacteria and viruses.

Candida, Epstein Barr, CMV, Herpes, H Pylori, and Lyme Disease are some great examples. For example, not everyone infected with the bacteria that can cause Lyme Disease has symptoms or develops the sequelae that some patients suffer from known as Lyme Disease Many people are completely asymptomatic and live normal lives. In those who are severely symptomatic we must always ask what else can be going on and address all aspects of their health.

Lyme disease is a classic example of a condition that can result in aggressive and lengthy series of medical interventions that severely damage and destroy the microbiome. The overuse of antibiotics, antivirals, anti-fungals obviously have tremendous further negative impact from systemic depletion and causes autoimmune and allergic conditions and other health ailments seen in the later stages of Lyme disease.

One of the best ways to approach chronic infections is to address them just as we address any of the other 9 pillars of health and disease outlined in The Philosophy to AdvanceHealth. They are seldom the sole cause of why one is not feeling well and approaching them in this way almost never leads to long term success or overall health and well being. That’s why I address chronic infections as part of the overall health status along with addressing all other factors that if not addressed appropriately make it harder and maybe impossible to rid the body of chronic infections. 

Once all aspects are addressed we use targeted formulas and treatment plans particularly to help eradicate and lower antibody levels of chronic infections and in this approach we always see long-term beneficial outcomes in all aspects of health and well-being.