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In this 2nd blog on environmental toxins, we are going to take an abbreviated look at toxins in our environment from polluted living spaces, beauty products, medications, and plastics. Find out how to improve health outcomes.

 

The study of environmental medicine and the impact our surroundings have on our body’s ability to perform optimally is a growing field revealing more and more about the toxic world facing the human race. Toxins can be in the food we eat and in the places we live. This blog will be on the toxins we face in the food we eat while the subsequent blog will focus on toxins in our environment.

Newer medical therapies recognize that chronic diseases usually have many years of development and offer better laboratory testing to identify contributing factors for disease, which includes interventions centered on lifestyle choices (better nutrition, fitness, stress management, relationships, etc.) and latent nutrient deficiencies that may contribute to cellular dysfunction. The goal is to reverse or delay the disease process.

In the United States, health care is mainly for acute issues and patients must get ill or start to have symptoms before receiving treatment, which is usually extreme. Examples include surgery, powerful drugs, or end-of-life interventions.

Some of the therapies for chronic diseases fall within the categories of complementary, alternative, integrative, or functional. The terms can erroneously be interchanged or meld into one another. Consider their distinctions...

Medical events can be traumatizing to patients, and it is important to recognize contributing factors and treat the whole patient. What is medical trauma? Essentially, any medical-related event in which the patient perceives trauma, and it impacts other areas of their life can constitute medical trauma. As medical trauma becomes a more common term and enters medical conversations more and more, we can each consider if we are part of the problem or solution. How can each of our interactions with patients, clients, their family, and friends be empathetic, supportive, intuitive, and move the needle away from medical trauma?

The first bariatric surgery was performed in the 1950’s, but it was quite different from the type of surgery performed today. Some aspects of bariatric surgery have persisted – for better or for worse. According to Melissa Majumdar, MS, RD, CSOWM, LDN, co-author of the Academy’s Pocket Guide to Bariatric Surgery, 3^rd edition in a personal interview, one of the positive changes for the field is in the name. Bariatric surgery is now called Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery to show a broader scope of practice than just concern about a patient’s weight.