Sachin Patel on RogersTV discussing Functional Medicine

Welcome back to the local View health and wellness. And today we have Satchin Patel here with us in studio. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here because we're talking about functional medicine. So we had a little bit of a chat on the phone a little bit a while ago, and I thought this was such an awesome topic. And I think that you have so much information that I want you to share, but I want you to kind of give our viewers a little bit of a background as to where you came from, from as a chiropractor and what you do now.

Sure, absolutely. So my original journey in functional medicine started unintentionally. I was on the news in 2006, and we were actually helping people with elbow pain. I was working in a sports practice, and we were helping people tennis elbow, golfer's elbow. And one of my clients was a news anchor and wanted us to get the message out there because we helped her tremendously. And as a result of that, we had so many people calling in, but only one of them had elbow pain, and it was because of rheumatoid arthritis. The other patients that called in actually had chronic diseases like fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders. And after you start interviewing a few patients that you really can't help, you start to question your own existence and your own purpose. And you really don't know where to send these people, because they've already been to every specialist under the sun. They've tried every drug, they have had every procedure done to them. So what do you do? And I treat my patients like my family. So it's almost like telling a child or a family member that there's nothing that you can do for them and there's nowhere that you can send them. So around the same time, I started learning about functional medicine because I didn't have anyone to refer these patients to, and clearly no one was helping them, so I wanted to become that person. And so we were helping a lot of athletes and professional and Olympic athletes, helping people run faster, throw harder. But at the end of the day, if you can't help people that need it the most, then it's a really gut wrenching feeling. So in 2006, I embarked on my own journey to learn about functional medicine, mainly for myself first. And then once I learned it, I realized it was unethical for me not to really share this and get it out into my community as much as I can. So in 2011, we started our institute, the Living Proof Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. And we actually have a location now in Mississauga. We've been here for about two and a half years now.

That's so exciting.

So two locations, our brand and our mission and our message is really expanding. So I appreciate you having me on the show today.

Yes. Well, I'm so glad you're here because I think this is something that people need to hear about. What exactly is functional medicine?

So functional medicine and lifestyle medicine, because it's really. They go part and parcel together, is the understanding that the body has certain requirements, and it requires a certain environment for it to thrive in. It requires certain nutrition for it to thrive in. It requires a certain thought process for it to thrive in. So think of your fish in a fish tank, right? If the fish die, we usually don't blame the fish. We blame the environment. We don't blame their genetics. Maybe you don't feed them, or maybe you feed them too much, but the fish itself is not at fault, typically. So when it comes to the human body, we tend to blame the body, which is the most magnificent thing that's ever been designed or created, whatever you believe in. And we tend to blame it, which disempowers the patient. Instead of helping the patient realize how brilliant their body is and how amazing it is to coordinate the function of 60 trillion cells simultaneously. 24. 7. So instead of celebrating that and embracing that, we somehow try to find flaws in it. And so functional medicine helps patients understand what they can do through lifestyle, through nutrition, through environment, through changing our mindset, through changing our belief systems, through changing our stressors, and empowers them to take control. So instead of disempowering them, telling them it's genetic or family history or there's nothing they can do about it, and micromanaging the body with medications under the assumption and the presumption that the body doesn't know what it's doing, that's a very faulty path to go down. And that's what our current medical system has done, is it's disempowered the patient, taken away and stripped away their ability to heal and get better and basically change that patient's internal dialogue by making them feel like they're broken in some way. So we embrace the individuality of each patient, understand that each of them has genetic individualities, environmental individualities, unique upbringings, unique circumstances that brought them into our office. And instead of focusing on the diagnosis, we focus on how do we get this human being as healthy as possible given their circumstances, and how do we correct the path that they're going down.

I love that. So we are like the fish. So we have to remember, guys, we are like the fish. Because isn't it funny how we don't blame the fish, but how can we always, you know, talk negative about ourselves or our body or etc. Yeah. It's such a good analogy.

Oh, thank you.

I'm going to tell my kids this, even though this is what I preach in my house as well. But I love that analogy because it's so easy for us to understand.

Right. We focus on six pillars. These pillars are universal to health. The first pillar is mitochondria. This is how our body makes energy. Energy is the currency of life. So this is what allows healing to take place, repair to take place. Every function in our body requires ATP. So when we eat food, our body has to take that food, completely, digest it, assimilate it, absorb it, and then take those macronutrients, fats, carbohydrates, amino acids, and then convert them into energy. Just like the gas in your car doesn't do anything unless it's combusted through the engine. So mitochondria are pivotal and foundational in health. The cool thing is that we use a test like this called an organic acid test. It's a urine test that helps identify the function of the mitochondria. And so if somebody's mitochondria isn't functioning optimally, the beautiful thing is we can identify specifically what nutrients are required to get them working optimally again. But also, the mitochondria are found in virtually every cell in your body except red blood cells. So when you identify imbalances in the mitochondria, you're able to get a global benefit by correcting this problem. So if somebody comes in with a diagnosis, we don't just focus on that diagnosis. That's actually the worst thing I could do. The best thing I can do is find out the underlying mechanisms and address those, because whatever the underlying mechanism is, is likely leading down and causing other issues that maybe haven't manifested or haven't received the diagnosis yet. The second pillar is detoxification. So our liver is designed to detoxify us, right?

Yes.

Not the entire world. And so we live in very toxic times. And we, you know, women especially, tend to be more exposed to chemicals because of hairsprays and makeups and lotions and potions and all the other things. So our body has to eliminate those things. Right. We also get exposed to toxicity like we never have been before through pesticides, fungicides, larvicides herbicides, which, again, put stress on these detoxification pathways. So how we eliminate these waste products is very critical because that helps maintain balance and reduce inflammation and helps us maintain healthy weight and all these other areas of our life. The other pillar is brain health. So chemically, we want to support brain health. So again, the test helps us identify neurotransmitter balance, and so we can see what type of chemistry this patient has. Does this patient have a chemistry that leads to low motivation or decreased happiness? Do they have excessive stress production, which is catecholamine production? And that's important, which we'll get to in a second. The other pillar is diet and digestion. Not just what you eat, but how you eat it. You know, they've been working with healthcare practitioners. They eat really clean, really healthy. And the first question is, how do you eat? Not what do you eat, but how do you eat? Are you eating under stress? Are you actually chewing your food? Are you assimilating it? Are you checking your email? Are you present? Are you tasting your food? All of these things make a difference. So, for example, if you and I ate the exact same food, imagine it's a perfectly organic, healthy meal, perfectly balanced. Micronutrition, everything's balanced. But you don't chew it, you inhale it, you drink lots of fluids. You're checking your email, right? And I'm eating it, I'm mindful, I'm tasting it, I'm doing all these other things. I'm going to digest that food much better. So our digestive fire in Ayurvedic medicine is called agni, which is fire, literally. And our undigested food is referred to as amma. So it's like a sludge. So even healthy food rots, right, if it doesn't get digested. So this creates stress on our detoxification and digestive and elimination systems. And this is what often leads to chronic GI issues. And so it's not just what you eat, but it's how you eat it, how you eat it. So we do stool testing, and that testing helps us identify step by step if that digestive process is taking place. Think of digestion like a car wash. So every step in the car wash is unique and requires that the previous step is done. So if you go through a car wash backwards, you're in trouble, or if you skip a step, you're in trouble as well. Also, think of digestion like a car wash in the sense that when you put your car into the car wash, you put it into neutral Right. So we have to kind of put our mindset into neutral and go from what we call a sympathetic response, which is our fight or flight, and a go, go, go response, into a parasympathetic response. So our action has to match our state. So just like if you're running, you want to have the physiology of a runner, if you're sitting and having a meal, you want to have the physiology of somebody who's gonna have a meal, not somebody who's running a marathon.

That makes sense.

So our body sends blood to the digestive system when we're in a parasympathetic state. But when we're in a fight or flight state, our bowel becomes ischemic because blood goes to the arms and legs for the fight or flight response. So again, how we digest is very critical to what we're gonna assimilate from that food.

Okay, very good.

The fifth one is stress hormones and inflammation. So stress is huge. Right. So stress changes our physiology. So, for example, when somebody's under chronic stress or acute stress, every function of every single cell changes its activity. And so when we're under stress, the brain doesn't get blood flow to the frontal cortex. It goes to the reptilian brain. So our ability to think and concentrate and focus becomes compromised. Our pupils dilate, so we become sensitive to light. Our saliva production decreases because we're not going to eat the lion if it's chasing us. Our digestive function decreases because our body has to shunt blood from the digestive system to the arms and legs. Can't make more blood. It has to divert it elsewhere.

Maybe. If you can, because this is really good information. I need another half an hour with you. So this is what I want to ask you is where can people find you?

Sure, sure. So the best thing to do is actually go to www.iamproof iamproof.com. and what that does is people can opt in their emails and it actually sends them a complete new patient packet.

Thank you so much for being here with us. We'll be right back after the break.