Ep. 55: Dr. Denia Tapscott - How Does Your Life Story Influence Your Health? - NIHA
Dr. Denias Tapscott’s story began in 2014 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After a traditional medial approach, she shifted and ultimately found her cure at the Institute of Functional Medicine. This process forever changed her career -- and her world view.
Dr. Tapscott specializes in functional medicine, adult holistic primary care and obesity medicine. She believes that it's not enough to diagnose a disease or to treat a symptom without understanding the root cause. Testing beyond the conventional labs helps her to address nutritional, metabolic, genetic and hormonal optimization. Tapscott believes that everyone has a life story that influences their health.
The functional medicine approach is used for chronic conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, gastrointestinal conditions, cancers, and autoimmune diseases. It doesn’t treat the symptoms with medicine, it looks even deeper to find the root cause of disease.
For example, sometimes the root cause of depression can be related to nutritional deficiencies which affect the gut microbiome, which in turn affects the ability to make neurotransmitters. It also might be a sleep problem, too much nutrients or hormonal imbalances.
If you want to learn about Omega 3’s, which fish to eat, inflammation, nutrigenomics, the rage over the microbiome, vitamin D, integrative medicine and what the intake form looks like the first time you visit a functional medicine doctor, listen in. Dr. Tapscott is generous with her wisdom. She explains, “Too often we rely on someone else or something else to fix us. What we try to emphasize in functional medicine is that you're in control. You just need the knowledge to create your optimal wellness.”
More From Dr. Denia Tapscott
Dr. Denia Tapscott at NIHA: NIHA Profile
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Books Mentioned in the Podcast
Food: What the Heck Should I Cook?: More than 100 Delicious Recipes--Pegan, Vegan, Paleo, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, and More--For Lifelong Health by Dr. Mark Hyman MD
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Show Notes
[00:56] My story sort of begins in 2014, and that's when I was unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time I was healthy, I didn't have any risk factors. So I started to question, well, why? Why do I have breast cancer? It makes no sense. I was practicing conventional medicine at the time, so I went through some conventional treatments, surgery and chemotherapy. But along the way, I continued to ask why. And it ultimately led me to the Institute of Functional Medicine. Through my interactions with that educational process, I better understood what was actually going on with my health. It sort of explained why I ended up with breast cancer. And it's not that conventional. A lot of it is sort of the stress and some estrogen issues. So after being with Institute of Functional Medicine, I learned that this is how I should be practicing. It made sense this way of approaching patient care. And so like The Matrix, the movie with Keanu Reeves, I said, you know, once I stepped out of the matrix, I couldn't go back. And so from that point on, I went into the functional medicine space.
[2:03] What is functional medicine? Functional medicine is a way of taking care of chronic conditions. So we think about, you know, one in two Americans has actually a chronic condition. So things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, things like dementia, even gastrointestinal conditions, cancers, of course, autoimmune diseases - these are chronic conditions. The approach we take in functional medicine is very root cause we look for the underlying cause or causes of conditions as opposed to the sort of the conventional medicine, which is -- If you have a symptom, we treat it with the medication. Functional medicine dives deeper. We look at the whole patient’s optimal wellness as opposed to just being disease free.
[03:03] With a medication it is very linear. Here's your symptom. Here's your pill. Functional medicine says, why do you have these symptoms of depression? Maybe it's related to nutritional deficiencies which affect the gut microbiome, which affects the ability to make neurotransmitters. All of this is related to mood disorders. Or maybe it's a sleep problem. Maybe it's too much nutrients, maybe it's related to hormonal imbalances. So functional medicine delves deeper and tries to understand what are the real root causes of these conditions.
[04:13] The majority of your condition is related to lifestyle factors. And so we call them personal modifiable lifestyle factors like, are you getting enough sleep? Is it adequate? What's your nutrient status? Are you getting too much of something? Not enough. What is your stress level? Are you sleeping well? And then, what are your relationships like? These are things that happen once they leave the office.
[10:19] Actually, there is no perfect diet, which is why there's so much controversy. It's sort of eating what your grandmother and great grandmother, eight eating real food, whole food, grass fed animals, making sure getting in good, healthy fats, which are sort of the avocados and nuts and seeds, you know, making sure getting a lot of colorful vegetables, because that's where the nutrients come in.
[11:42] Some of our behaviors are actually in some part determined by what's going on in our microbiome. The gut microbiome, we're learning a lot about that. It's an ecosystem in and of itself. And so some things that we think about as some of our behaviors actually are determined by what is living there and not living there. So if we have what they call gut dysbiosis, which is an abnormality, it's not the right type of bacteria. There's an imbalance there that can play a role there. It's called the gut brain connection. And so maybe that behavior is driven by some of the things that are growing.
[12:34] It can be the ecosystem that runs the show. There's trillions of bacteria, worms, protozoa, even fungi and yeast. They live there and they talk to each other. They talk to us. And so through it’s communication, they can actually dictate a lot of our behaviors.
[13:16] The microbiome, it's a fairly new field that we're learning a lot about because there's just a lot that we can do to manipulate the microbiome, which then in turn can affect our health as a whole.
[13:29] How do you get rid of the bacteria you don't want in your gut?
[13:54] A lot of the microbiome, is determined by what we feed them. So if we're feeding these bacteria and organisms, good stuff. If we feed them probiotics and vegetables, then they're going to grow the way they're supposed to. Creating that better balance is very comprehensive, but a lot of it is dictated by what we feed them.
[14:56] Adding color to your diet is going to be important. And there's actually a field called Nutrigenomics.
[15:23] Inflammation is basically the underlying cause of most chronic conditions. So food talks to ourselves, which changes what happens with our bodies, things like seaweed, which my kids do like seaweed has things like vitamin C, it has iodine in it. This seaweed actually has been shown in research to help fight cancer, improve the immune system so we can use food and we should use food as medicine as opposed to using medicines, at least as a first line seaweed salad.
[16:29] The research now supports the fact that fat, number one, does not make you fat. Fat is not a contributing factor to cardiovascular disease. It's sugar. Sugar is the enemy.
[17:49] Vitamin D is important because many of us have deficiencies.
[18:03] Omega 3 is important. Once again, it's an anti inflammatory
[20:35] Too often we rely on someone else or something else to fix us. What we try to emphasize in functional medicine is that you're in control. You just need the knowledge to create the optimal wellness.
[21:39] Everything happens as it's supposed to. There are no mistakes. You may not understand it at the time, because if you had asked me in 2014, what's the good in this? I would not be able to answer it. But now and in retrospect, I would not have gotten to functional medicine. I would not have found this love if I had not been diagnosed with breast cancer. So it happened for a reason. And now I know why.
Thank you for joining us on HealthGig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com.
“Fat does not make you fat. Fat is not a contributing factor to cardiovascular disease. It's sugar. Sugar is the enemy” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
“Inflammation is the underlying cause of most chronic conditions.” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
“Some of our behaviors are actually in some part determined by what's going on in our microbiome.” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
“Once I stepped out of the matrix, I couldn't go back. From that point on, I went into the functional medicine space.” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
“Functional medicine dives deeper. We look at the whole patient’s optimal wellness as opposed to just being disease free.” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
“With a medication it is very linear. Here's your symptom. Here's your pill. Functional medicine says, why do you have these symptoms” - Dr. Denia Tapscott
Keywords
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