In this final episode of 2022, James reviews key topics from the year of growth and provides a sneak peek of what is to come in 2023, the year of connection.

The Evolution of Medicine community has experienced impressive growth and witnessed significant shifts in 2022. We learned about deprescribing to help patients escape the polypharmacy public health disaster. We have applied functional medicine principles to help patients who experience long COVID and other post-viral syndromes.

Increasingly, we are also seeing signs that the mainstream is moving in our direction, and we must position ourselves to be ready when more patients come our way. Functional medicine needs to scale up, in part to help address the mental health crisis that exploded during the COVID era. More patients are also seeking support from functional medicine providers for vaccine injuries, such as myocarditis.

Healthcare systems are now adopting functional medicine and building integrative care into their hospital and insurance systems. Group care is being delivered on a larger scale as well, which increases access to functional medicine.

While the Evolution of Medicine is apolitical, James also discusses how medicine has been impacted by the economic and political climates in the US and UK.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of James’ reflections about:

• Long COVID, controversies regarding its prevalence and why our community is able to provide the best help for patients
• Signs that mainstream medicine is moving in our direction
• Censorship, authoritarianism and technology
• The effects of the pandemic on mental health, especially for children
• Upcoming 2023 initiatives well-worth anticipating 

In this episode of the Business of Functional Medicine series, our guest, Erwin Raphael McManus, is a pastor, author, filmmaker and thought leader at the intersection of entrepreneurship, spirituality and psychology. He joins this podcast to share his model of communication archetypes called The 7 Frequencies and how understanding them can help practitioners work and communicate more effectively with patients.

Erwin also talks through the frequencies most often adopted by practitioners and offers insights on how to better support and motivate patients to get healthy before they get sick.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• Erwin’s thoughts on the theory of quantum entanglement
• Descriptions of the frequencies, including the Challenger, Seer and Maven
• How healthcare providers benefit from understanding their communication style
• The importance of interpersonal relationships and interactions between patients and clinicians
• And much more

Erwin McManus is also the host of The Genius Of podcast and the founder of McManus Gallery and Mosaic, a church movement based in the heart of Hollywood, CA. Visit his website to learn more about The 7 Frequencies along with his other work.

Dysautonomia is a condition where the nervous system becomes dysregulated, causing disruption in the functions of various organ systems. Common symptoms include fluctuations in blood pressure, fatigue and anxiety. The condition seems to be increasingly common in the post-COVID era, and conventional medicine is unable to resolve the causes of this condition for patients.

Shilpa P. Saxena, MD, an expert in cardiometabolic health and regular guest on the podcast, joins us to explore why functional medicine clinicians are uniquely positioned to support patients experiencing dysautonomia.

Listen to the full conversation to learn more about:

• The importance of polyvagal theory for understanding dysautonomia 
• How vagal tone impacts multiple organ systems
• How to regulate and improve vagal tone
• Functional medicine tools that help heal dysautonomia

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD is the founder and CEO of Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. As a leader in the field of integrative psychiatry, she joins James to speak about the advantages of leveraging a group coaching model for mental health services.

For many reasons—from the current shortage of licensed clinical psychologists to improved patient compliance—mental health group coaching offers compelling advantages. Patients often feel more comfortable being honest and open with coaches they can relate to more as peers. Because traditional therapy still carries a cultural stigma, shame is a common barrier that prevents people from seeking support. Coaches, on the other hand, can be more approachable and provide a friendly dynamic that builds trust with patients.

There is also a strong economic rationale behind practitioners adopting a coaching model: demand for mental health care is increasing, while the supply of licensed therapists is limited. Dr. Scheinbaum shares ample evidence of the benefits group coaching offers both patients and mental health practitioners. We also encourage more people who are interested in supporting their community to either employ coaches or consider becoming a coach via the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• The data on the effectiveness of health coaching
• Conditions that often co-occur with mental health challenges
• The downsides to patients over-identifying with mental health diagnoses
• Issues with and opportunities for billing coaching sessions to insurance

We are all familiar with functional medicine and perhaps even functional fitness, but have you heard of functional joy? Our guest for this podcast episode is Radha Agrawal, a successful entrepreneur and the author of the book Belong. Radha joins us to discuss her organization, Daybreaker, which spans 28 cities and five continents with a mission to foster joy and community.

Daybreaker’s very first events in 2013 were community dance meetups held early in the morning that aimed to replicate the positive aspects of nightlife while excluding alcohol. The scope of their work continues to expand nine years on, but dance is still their primary tool. Radha is now writing another book and developing a curriculum to teach clinicians and others to systematically foster joy in their communities. Community is a factor critical to chronic disease prevention and reversal, so we invited Radha to share her extensive experience with this powerful predictor of health outcomes often overlooked by healthcare institutions.

Download the episode to learn about:

• Consciously building communities
• How to foster joy for yourself and your patients
• The importance of hospitality and designing welcoming spaces in medicine
• The biochemistry of joy (D.O.S.E.)
• And much more!

If this episode uplifts and inspires you, we encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues and community.

EvoMed listeners have access to a 25% discount off the Dose membership with code "EVOMED."  http://dose.daybreaker.com?code=evomed

Patrick Holford is the author of 46 books on nutrition and lifestyle factors for wellness. He is also the founder of a charity, Food for the Brain Foundation, and the voluntary director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Project.

He joins James on this episode to showcase the foundation’s resources for reversing cognitive decline and preventing Alzheimer’s disease. They discussed targeted nutrition approaches and other tools available to patients and practitioners on the foundation’s website.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• Which nutrient deficiencies correlate with poorer cognitive function
• How to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease through supplementation
• The success rates of targeted nutrition therapy for reversing cognitive decline—and how nutrition therapy can be more successful than pharmaceuticals
• Cognitive function data collected from 377,000 participants via the foundation's test

Discover more valuable resources on the Food for the Brain Foundation’s website, where you can also register for their virtual Masterclass on Alzheimer’s prevention. Registrants will have access to a recording if they cannot attend the live event on November 1, 2022.

This episode features Leo Galland, MD, who outlines a systems biology approach to understanding and treating post-COVID syndrome.

Dr. Galland created the graphic below to model factors and biological repercussions of long COVID. In the interview, Dr. Galland walks us through each element in the web of long COVID.

During the pandemic, he also created and published two hour-long videos—one for patients and one for providers—containing research and recommendations on addressing long COVID. The information he shares is intended to empower and educate both health care providers and patients.

Download and listen to this episode to learn more about:

• The deficiency that both contributes to and results from long COVID
• Key information about what causes long covid
• How to prevent severe infection and address symptoms
• Downstream effects of viral damage that should be addressed by functional medicine providers

Episode assets:

• Understanding Long Covid: a comprehensive presentation for health professionals
• ACE2 in Immune Resilience, Presentation to American Nutrition Association
• Healing Long Covid, video presentation for patients

Julie Funt is the CEO of Juliet Funt Group and author of A Minute to Think, which describes the importance of metaphoric white space in everyone’s regular schedule. Her firm provides efficiency training to change the way we work, making it more sane, more human, and a more positive experience for all. In this Business of Functional Medicine episode, Kristen Brokaw speaks with Juliet about how this concept applies to the medical field, and we learn from the author some practical habit adjustments that can create more productive “white space.”

Download and listen to the full conversation to learn more about:

• Why we need white space to be creative, productive and decisive
• Studies showing how small breaks improve performance
• Why pushing harder does NOT always equal better results
• Practical tips to conquer busyness and communicate efficiently
• And much more!

Our guest in this episode, Greg Leyer, PhD, has an academic background in deadly pathogenic bacteria, such as botulism and other foodborne illnesses. Now, he focuses on healthy bacteria and joins James to discuss benefits of probiotics for the vaginal microbiome.

While gastrointestinal health is thought to depend on microbiome diversity, the vaginal cavity requires a more homogenous population of Lactobacillus species. By producing organic acids—mainly lactic acid—lactobacilli help maintain a pH below 4, which prevents bacterial vaginosis.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• How and why taking oral probiotics affects the vaginal microbiome
• Forms of microbiome supplementation, like probiotics, spores and heat-inactivated bacteria
• Efficacy of probiotic supplementation in different geographic locations and ethnicity

And check out Dr. Leyer’s ongoing work:

• Your Health - Our Science
• UREX™ – The world’s most documented probiotics for women’s urogenital health
• Women's Health | The Probiotics Institute by Chr. Hansen