Blog - Page 2 of 5 - Riobe Institute of Integrative Medicine

There’s no doubt about it - modern life has many conveniences and advantages. Despite these modern conveniences, many of us already feel wiped out before the day even starts. Do you feel like you can’t keep up or focus because you’re tired? Fatigue is the most common complaint that I hear from my new patients. Did you know that your energy levels say a lot about your personal risk of cancer? In this article, I will explain the indirect, but critical link between your energy level and the development of cancer.

Few people are aware of how an investment in their HEALTH is actually the most important and lucrative investment they can make. While 401Ks and retirement plans are great investment tools, staying healthy is an even better one!

Cancer is an extreme metabolic disorder whose end point is the mutation of critical genes that lead to a cell that doesn’t die. This cell slowly divides for many years until it’s diagnosed as a larger mass, often too late for effective treatments. The reason that causes of cancer are so hard to isolate is because multiple factors are involved, each inching the cells closer to developing into a cancer cell. One critical cause that you won’t hear about is the injudicious use of antibiotics. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics gets a lot of attention while an equally important and possibly more insidious adverse event associated with antibiotics use is rarely discussed: CANCER.

Primary Glioblastoma multiforme (PGB) has once again grabbed the headlines now that another beloved American congressman, John McCain, has been plagued with this aggressive and destructive form of cancer. When taken on the surface, PGM seems like a chaotic mess of multiple genetic mutations leading to erratic behavior of cancer cells and what essentially amounts to warfare in the brain and eventually throughout the body.

Western medicine tends to be a little less personal than Functional Medicine, addressing symptoms and diseases and focused on alleviating and treating these things as separate entities. Functional Medicine, on the other hand, focuses the patient as a whole. It is patient-centered rather than ailment-centered. Practitioners spend more time with their patients, learning about their lifestyle and personal history and delving into genetic and environmental factors. Functional Medicine also differs from Western in that it is directed toward the underlying causes of disease – in essence, preventing a spark from becoming a flame as opposed to stepping in with a fire hose after the fire has already started.

Practiced for over 2,500 years, acupuncture is an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine and involves inserting needles at strategic points along the patient’s body, depending on what condition is being treated. The traditional concept is based on the idea of unblocking the body’s energy (“qi”) along its natural pathways, or meridians, thus re-balancing the patient’s energy and providing pain relief and optimal health. Western practitioners view acupuncture as an effective method used to increase blood flow and stimulate the body’s natural analgesic functions by energizing muscles, nerves, and connective tissue.

February is National Cancer Prevention Month, an important reminder with cancer rates continuing to climb globally. According to the American Cancer Society, by 2030 the number of newly diagnosed cases (21.6 million) will be comparable to every single person in Australia getting cancer every year!

People often feel that the cost of healthcare is excessive. And while that’s true of insurance premiums, I’d like to challenge the status quo by saying it’s a whole lot more expensive to be sick! Did you know that a chronic disease will cost you $7,900 per year despite your insurance coverage?

My answer is “That depends on what you call prevention”. The gynecology check-up is an examination that looks for diseases in their early stages. By definition, prevention is the avoidance or prevention of a disease. So by definition, the gynecology examination is not preventive in nature. It does, however, prevent death from diseases. For example, the mammogram is a radiological study of the breasts that seeks out masses or other radiological signs of breast cancer. A mammogram can detect breast cancer in its early stages for women who follow the recommended screening. So a mammogram can detect cancer early so it can be successfully treated to prevent death from breast cancer.