Yeast Overgrowth Syndrome

Posted on January 2, 2013 by mcminnclinic

“I never got better until they treated the yeast.” I have heard this statement many times from patients suffering from various maladies such as headaches, brain fog, depression, irritable bowel, chronic sinusitis, weight gain, and fatigue. Due to the modern day world that we live in I am seeing more and more people suffering with yeast overgrowth. Old fashioned doctors used to say that “good health starts in the gut.” I think that they were right.

Poor gut health can manifest itself in many ways. Ideally we have a perfect balance in our guts with good bacteria, bad bacteria, and yeast. It is a symbiotic relationship. We can not live without our friends the “good bacteria.” Yet the modern American lifestyle tends to promote poor gut health. The standard American diet (or SAD diet) is full of sugar, simple carbs, and processed food, which is not good for the body, but which is ideal for the overgrowth of yeast. Yeast loves to feed off of sugar. When you combine this with the overuse of antibiotics in our society, it makes for a toxic environment in our guts, and that is often the beginning of a slippery slope to worsening health.

Chronic sinusitis is a classic example. We go to the doctor with a stuffy nose, and the standard response is to start antibiotics. However, according to the Mayo Clinic “fungus (yeast) is the likely cause of nearly all of these problems.” So in the long run, if we don’t treat the yeast, the antibiotics kill the bacteria, promote more yeast overgrowth and they can actually make the problem worse.

At McMinn Clinic we have Yeast Overgrowth Syndrome on our radar screen, and when appropriate we treat yeast overgrowth with a comprehensive and robust anti-fungal protocol. We have been blessed with many testimonials from our patients with stories of recovery, often after suffering with symptoms of yeast overgrowth for many years.

Call McMinn Clinic at 868-1313 and set up your appointment for a thorough evaluation for yeast overgrowth syndrome.

“Good Health Starts in the Gut.”

Posted on August 20, 2012 by mcminnclinic

As I reviewed the long list of initial symptoms, I was happy to hear the patient say that everything was “better, better, gone.”

Dr. McMinn: “How is the fatigue?”

Patient: “It’s much better doctor.”

Dr. McMinn: “How is the brain fog and anxiety?”

Patient: “They’re also much better.”

Dr. McMinn: “How is the diarrhea?”

Patient: “It’s gone.”

This patient had been to doctor after doctor for her various symptoms, but it wasn’t until we addressed her gut issues that she got better.

Old fashioned country doctors used to say that “good health starts in the gut,” and as I have become an older and perhaps wiser physician, I have become abundantly convinced that they were right all along.

Other organs may be “sexier” but the gut is where wellness begins. We marvel at the processing ability of the incredible human brain, and the heart amazes us with it heroic pumping marathon. We manicure our nails, and fuss over our hair. However, we take the lowly gut for granted, as if we’d rather not acknowledge, much less to glorify, a mere poop factory. Yet the oft-ignored gut frequently holds the key to good health, and likewise poor gut heath may manifest in all sorts of bodily havoc. I have seen miracle cures for many different maladies by attending to gut issues. Seemingly unrelated diseases and symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, headaches, rashes, asthma, arthritis, autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, ADD, autism, sinusitis and many more health problems may be linked back to poor gut health.

Let’s take a look at some of the issues affecting gut health:

*Diet: Let’s begin with what we put in our mouths. Certainly the MAD diet (Modern American Diet) has not helped the situation. It’s amazing to me that our bodies can survive the daily onslaught of junk food, processed food, transfats, sugar, and toxins as well as it does. The term “garbage in garbage out” frequently applies to computers. However, the same principle is applicable to the human body. We feed our bodies garbage, and yet we expect this to miraculously turn into healthy cells. Instead, our junk diets wreak a heavy toll on gut health, which then dominoes onto other bodily parts and functions.

*Stress: This is one of the main fundamental causes of disease. Stress can take its toll on just about any body part and the gut is no exception. Stress is often associated with issues such as Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel disease, and chronic diarrhea. Ulcers, leaky gut, cramps, poor digestion, and stomach upset.

Food Allergies and Sensitivities: The gut has the daunting challenge sifting through every single molecule we eat and of deciding what to let in, and what keep out. That’s one reason that we call the gut “the second brain.” To meet this challenge, approximately 70% of our immune system lies in the gut.

For millions of years our ancestors ate a “natural” diet of berries, fruits, vegetables, roots, and leaves. They killed critters and ate fish for lean protein. Now let’s fast forward to the modern American grocery store. Most of the food we might find in the center isles may rightfully be considered by our bodies to be like a foreign body, and thus generate an immune response. This untoward immune response may express itself in all sorts of clinical symptoms. Our food has changed drastically in a relatively short period of time, but our immune system is genetically the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Poor Digestion: Next time you find yourself at the drug store, take a moment to walk down the isles and look at the over-the- counter medications. You’ll find that by far, the number one item is the digestive and gastrointestinal aids. Year after year, Nexium and its acid blocking cousins are at the top of the charts in terms of prescriptions sold. These powerful acid blockers, as well as the seemingly benign antacids like Tums, interfere with our natural digestive ability. As such, we may not get the nutrients form our food that we need to maintain healthy cells.

Bacterial Imbalance (Dysbiosis): The human body exists in an amazing state of synergistic balance with our gut flora. Perhaps an oversimplification, but this mainly consists of “good bacteria,” “bad bacteria,” and yeast. We cannot survive without our “good bacteria.” Unfortunately, we frequently kill off the good bacteria with the antibiotics that we take. Also, with the sugar ladened diets we frequently find our guts in a miserable state of yeast overgrowth. This can result in bowel wall inflammation, and eventually “leaky gut syndrome.” A cascade of inflammatory and immune reactions then take place which can affect the far reaches of the body, including brain, bones, skin, auto-immune disease, etc.

Similarly, parasites may add another twist to the complex milieu of bacterial flora.

A simple plan for gut health recovery involves the 4R program: Remove, Repair, Restore, and Replace. This program is available in the integrative medical literature, and I have had great success by adopting it in my practice.

Step One: Remove the stressors on the gut such as the drugs, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, tobacco, and other poor food choices that we find in the modern American diet. A gut detoxification program may be helpful in this regard.

Step Two: Repair the damage with optimal nutrition, stress reduction, etc. Targeted nutritionals may help such as aloe vera juice, quercitin, licorice root, garlic, tumeric, digestive enzymes, and fish oils.

Step Three: Restore a healthy bacterial balance with high quality probiotics. Cutting out unnecessary antibiotics, treating yeast, and reducing the sugar in the diet may also help.

Step Four: Replace the deficient elements such as digestive enzymes, which can have a major impact on digestion and utilization of nutrients.

In summary, continue to ignore and abuse the gut and you will reap the unhealthy consequences. Give the gut the respect it’s due, and you will enjoy the many benefits in the years to come. Start today with the 4R program; remove, repair, restore, and replace gut health program in order to achieve optimal overall wellness.

The Power of “Why” A Functional Medicine Approach by James McMinn, MD

Posted on April 12, 2011 by mcminnclinic

Her eyes sparkled. Her smile was radiant. It almost brought tears to my eyes when she told me how much better she felt, and that her migraine headaches were completely gone. She had suffered from intense migraines every single day of her life for the past twenty years. She had been to doctor after doctor, and had been placed on the usual litany of pills, none of which had given any significant relief. Instead of getting out my prescription pad and prescribing yet another pill in order to band aid her symptoms, I asked a simple question. It’s a powerful question you’ll often hear from a three year old, and yet it’s a question that you’ll rarely hear from your doctor. That powerful question is “why.” Why did she have migraines? Further history-taking revealed to me that her migraines were hormone related, as migraines often are. Appropriate lab tests confirmed my suspicion. Evidence based treatment was started with a balanced regimen of bioidentical hormones in order to correct her deficiencies. “Bioidentical” means that the hormones we use to treat her imbalances are exactly the same as the hormones already in her body. The results of this course of treatment were nothing less than miraculous. After twenty years of torture, her headaches, which had invaded every aspect of her life, stopped completely. For the first time in her adult life, free of the oppressive shackles of constant pain, she could be the wife, mother, and person she had always wanted to be.

We as physicians and healers have a lot to learn from three year olds who ask the question “why.” Our focus seems to be misplaced on labeling patients. Like a detective, our training instructs us to search for a suitable diagnosis (preferably something that’s codable and billable), and then to start the patient on a drug to relieve their symptoms. We rarely ask “why” they got the problem in the first place. Although, it is only by asking this simple and profound question that we can get at the root of the problem, and treat the underlying cause rather than putting a patch on the symptoms. Because if we don’t’ treat the cause, the disease will probably rear its ugly head again, and the patient will continue to suffer.

This search for the cause of disease represents a rapidly growing genre of medical practice called “Functional Medicine.” As described in “The Textbook of Functional Medicine” it is “a dynamic approach to assessing, preventing, and treating complex chronic disease.” At its core functional medicine is a search for, and treatment of, the cause of disease. The textbook further states that chronic disease is usually preceded by an extended period of declining function in one or more bodily systems. Such declining functions are caused by lifelong interactions with our environment (such as nutrition and toxins), and lifestyle (such as stress) superimposed upon our genetic predispositions.

Such a philosophy of medicine is also founded on the principle of “biochemical individuality.” Each patient is unique and complex in relation to the stage they have set for the development of disease or the maintenance of optimal health. Therefore a cookie-cutter, one size fits all, “here, take this pill” approach to health care frequently does not work for the individual, especially those with chronic and complex problems, like fatigue. Because of biochemical individuality, health care for these complex problems must be patient centered, not disease centered. Mrs. Jones and Mr. Smith may have the same diagnosis, but the physician may find that what works for Mrs. Jones does not work for Mr. Smith, and vice versa. The challenge of the healer and the patient is to find the healing modality that works for that particular patient, in order to treat disease and to optimize health.

Once we embark upon the journey of “why” we find that the patient’s dysfunction is often due to causes such as hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances, inflammation, immune dysregulation, stress, poor sleep, trauma, emotional issues, toxins, allergies, occult infections, or problems with poor nutrition, digestion, or absorption. These are the common denominators of many symptoms and diseases. The search for these underlying causes may require a “leave no stone unturned” approach to the patient’s problem. However, by taking the time to identify and correct these underlying imbalances, we often find that the symptoms improve dramatically. As we have seen with our migraine patient above, such an approach can literally give the patient her life back. And nothing brings me greater joy as a healer than to relieve pain and suffering, and to start the patient on the path to optimal health and vibrant living.