Hello, everyone! Welcome to the Restorative Health Solutions blog!
Many of you know that I follow much of the work of Dr. Datis Kharrazian (whom I will call Dr. K for the rest of the article). I am very happy to announce that Dr. K has recently published a brand new book titled Why isn’t my Brain Working? I do not think I’ve ever told my story of how I met and began to follow Dr. K’s work, so I will briefly tell that story and why we highly recommend everyone go onto Amazon or Barnes & Noble and get a copy of his new book.
When I first Met Dr. K
In early 2008, I was attending some post graduate education on nutrition and hormone balancing where I first heard about Dr. K. He was (and still is) teaching doctors at that time, and he was teaching courses on understanding blood chemistry and also hormones. Having already learned quite a bit on those two topics I went to my first Dr. K seminar hoping to pick up “a few new things”. What I got completely blew me away. Nutrition, physiology, and just plain understand how stuff works has always been a huge passion of mine. Luckily for me, Dr. K shares that insatiable appetite for understanding how things work and especially how they work together.
This is the biggest strength of how Dr. K thinks and how he teaches other doctors to approach health problems. In order to solve a health problem, you must understand the problem directly and how other processes affect the problem. Let me share an example. To work on someone who has a thyroid problem I must understand the thyroid. However that is not enough! I must also understand how the adrenals, anemia, inflammation, autoimmunity, blood sugar, etc affect the thyroid. Only by putting these things together can I truly take care of the thyroid. Dr. Kharrazian’s first book Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms When My Lab Tests Are Normal is a great example of this type of thinking. (If you haven’t read that book I strongly recommend picking it up if anyone you know has a thyroid problem.) In it he describes what causes thyroid problems, and how the immune system, blood sugar, leaky gut, adrenals, hormones, and brain function can all affect the thyroid. Dr. Kharrazian’s new book takes that same thinking and applies it to brain health.
Dr. K and the Brain. A Revolution FAR Overdue.
I believe the first brain seminar I went to with Dr. K was back in 2009. What I want to stress about this was how dramatically new it was and still is. Up until this point, I had learned about liver detoxification, heavy metals, hormones, adrenals, leaky gut, anemias, acid/base balancing, but surprisingly there is next to nothing as far as education on functional brain health. Before Dr. K started teaching this stuff our concept of brain health consisted of some fish oils, gingko, and St. John’s Wort. Not a very thorough understand of brain physiology nor addressing a patient with a malfunctioning brain to say the least. Take a look at the 6 modules required by the institute of functional medicine as taken from their website www.functionalmedicine.org.
- Gastro-Intestinal
- Detoxification
- Immune system
- Hormones
- CardioMetabolic
- Energy
I love the Institute of Functional Medicine as they have been and continue to be an elite organization in training health care professionals in functional healthcare. However, did you notice there is nothing about the brain in their certification courses? This is extremely common! In chiropractic school and even naturopathic school there is a complete lack of education on what your brain needs in order to be healthy.
While Dr. Kharrazian has been teaching doctors about the brain for years now, I am so excited he has published a book for the general public! It is time we started thinking about the health and function of ours brains as central to our health! Many patients come into my office and nod their head in agreement when I talk about how their hormones, or detoxification, or gut are involved with their health problem because they’ve already read something about those topics. However, when I tell them the malfunction of their brain is part of their problem most patients look at me like I’m from Mars. That is because evaluation and truly caring for someone’s brain is something that is still lacking in most practitioners care for their patients!
Below are two links to posts Dr. K has put up concerning the new book.
http://thyroidbook.com/blog/ Article titled “Brain not working? Read my new book” posted June 6th, 2013.
I highly encourage everyone picks up a copy of Dr. K’s new book to learn how central brain function is to your health, and what your brain requires to function. Happy reading everyone!
One more quick point before I sign off. If you think you already know about the brain because you know about neurotransmitters like serotonin or GABA believe me when I tell you that is only the surface. Dr. K does a great job of educating you on those neurotransmitters, but also encompassing how blood flow, circulation, gluten sensitivity, inflammation, hormone therapies, toxins, stimulation, insulin, and blood sugar all contribute to the function of your brain.
At Restorative Health Solutions, we provide a unique approach to your health. We take on a personalized/individualized approach to each patient’s case. We pride ourselves on figuring out the “why” and are determined to find the underlying cause of dysfunction in our patients’ health and, therefore, help them heal. If you are interested in what functional neurology can do for you, please give us a call at 952-479-7801 for a free 15-minute phone consultation!
