The Foundation of Health with Jeffrey Bland, PhD

[00:00:00] Dr, Melinda Ring: This is Next Level Health. I'm your host, Dr. Melinda Ring, Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University. On this show, we explore ways to take actionable steps towards optimizing our health with leaders in the integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine fields who believe in science backed and time tested approaches to well being. Let's take your health to the next level. Today's guest, Dr. Jeffrey Bland, has left an indelible mark on the world of healthcare. As the founder of the functional medicine movement, he's recognized for bringing personal lifestyle medicine into mainstream medical practice. An expert in science based nutrition, Dr. Bland is also a trailblazer in the natural products industry.

[00:01:09] Dr. Melinda Ring: He's founder of both the Institute for Functional Medicine and the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute, shaping the way we think about health from the ground up. Today, We'll dive into his ongoing mission to uncover the root causes of chronic disease, explore how functional medicine can become more accessible to all, and discover hopefully some practical tips to help you take your health to the next level. Dr. Bland, welcome to the show.

[00:01:37] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Oh what a treat. Thank you. And I really look forward to diving into the topic.

[00:01:43] Dr. Melinda Ring: Getting to know your history and your career journey is fascinating because You've transformed the practice of medicine for thousands of healthcare professionals and then all of the patients that they've seen. Yeah, in learning more about you, you started as a professor of chemistry and environmental science. So, can you tell me a little bit about what catalyzed that shift into healthcare and ultimately the development of functional medicine?

[00:02:14] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yes, it's, you know, all of our paths in life are non linear. I think that we go through all interesting topography as we develop our identity. And that's certainly an example in my life because I am I went to medical school for a couple of years and then made the decision that for me, the science part of it, the asking the question why, was really, the thing that was driving my interest. Why did people get sick? What was the origin of chronic illness? And I recognize that the best way maybe of exploring that And this was in the 1960s, was to, uh, transition over into a PhD program, which is, is what I did. And I think it was the right decision for me at that point. That then led me into ultimately, as you mentioned, my first academic job, uh, at the University of Puget Sound in Washington State, uh, which in 1970 was just starting, um, its first program in environmental science.  I was given the opportunity to kind of start an environmental science studies program and major within the, uh, the Department of Chemistry, which gave me a broad reach because now if you think about environmental science, and environmental science. It's more than just earth science. It's um, it's also the science of biology. It's how organisms live, how they thrive on our planet, what are the various factors that influence their function. And so that kind of, I think, opened the door for me to To be on a constant, lifelong learning process, uh, in which I had the opportunity to invite speakers like Buckminster Fuller to the university, and, and, uh, I was learning from all of them over the course of the 13 years that I, I was a professor. And then I went on, on sabbatical. And I had this extraordinary opportunity on invitation to go to the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. Dr. Linus Pauling, two time Nobel Prize winner, asked me because of the research that we were doing at the time, it was on vitamin E actually, if I'd be interested in coming down on sabbatical and spending a couple of years at his institute in Stanford.overseeing nutrition, nutrition research, which I did. I had the chance then to visit with many Nobel prize winners and, and illuminary thinkers, writers, artists, and so forth.So that was a really powerful, uh, connection. A few years on sabbatical, actually it was two and a half years. And when I left to go back to my university job, I had my kids in the car with my wife and was gonna head back to Washington State from Palo Alto. The last thing he said to me, he said, Jeff, it's been wonderful to have you here.I hope we'll continue to collaborate. And I just wondered, do you think your classroom is big enough? And as I, as I, I drove home. I had 1, 100 or 1, 200 miles to think about that. What did that really mean? It was obviously a pretty powerful statement. By the time I got back to Seattle, Washington, I kind of recognized what he was asking me. And that is, where did I want to take my career? Where did I want to take my interest? And maybe just interacting with my students and my research team was not broad enough to fully exploring the opportunities that were ahead. So I made the decision to give up my tenure faculty position and to, um, be engaged in the start of an exercise to teach doctors how to do, um, medical nutrition in their practices. That was my business plan.When I think back, it was kind of crazy because I gave up tenure and, and all that. I had the largest research group in the department and so forth. But, uh, I was driven and I was also young and probably somewhat naive. But over time, uh, in my willingness to travel and, and to meet and speak to people around the world, I have traveled over 6 million miles, um, over my lifetime. and visited all sorts of interesting places, meeting interesting people, and learning all sorts of things I never thought I would learn, uh, ultimately then leading me in, um, in 19, guess it would be 19, 87, 88. My wife said, Jeff, you know, you've done all this traveling, you met all these people, you always talk about what health care might be if we were to redefine it and use the basis of science that's emerging that you keep talking about, this concept of systems biology. Um, maybe you, we need to put together a meeting and bring these thought leaders in and just sit down and talk about this. So, with her guidance, we, uh, we had a meeting in Victoria, British Columbia on Vancouver Island in 1989, brought in, um, a group of people from different disciplines that I had great respect for. They were willing to come in for the weekend. And that conversation was really powerful. And it was so, um, engaging, then everyone said, let's do this again. So we scheduled a meeting for the next year, same place, and it was at that time in 1990 that I had this concept that what we've been talking about over these two years was the development of a system that was defining health around function, and that was physical function, metabolic function, cognitive function, and behavioral function, and that if you could define function quantitatively in those four quadrants and you could roll them up, you would form a new way of defining health. So we founded the Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991,

[00:07:23] Dr. Melinda Ring: so clearly you've been successful over the past 30 years in doing that with functional medicine and evolving it, because it's changed from when I was first introduced to it many years ago. What I hear often times people associate, like when they say functional medicine, a lot of times the, the, I guess, buzz is like root cause medicine is maybe like the really elevator pitch simple way to say it. Is, is there a different way that you would define or how would you describe what functional medicine is, you know, maybe what the guiding principles are in it? And then I'm also interested as somebody who first trained in integrative medicine and, and how you see the intersection between these related fields.

[00:08:10] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: The functional medicine model, as I and my colleagues originally perceived it, was a model in which we were wanting to look at the body, as a system, not as a collection of individual organs. As we looked at what was emerging out of what I think the biological sciences of the early, late 20th, early 21st century was that, uh, we were starting to see that there were these intersecting communications among all organs, that they didn't work in isolation. When we first formalized, uh, the functional medicine model, We asked ourselves , what are the fundamental physiological processes that associate themselves with these downstream effects that we call disease? And when we take any, any single disease, let's use one that is in the news quite a bit recently, and that's type 2 diabetes. We looked at type 2 diabetes and we said, is that a single disease? Or is it multiple functional, uh, changes that occur in different individuals that then tend to map against the symptoms and signs of what we call type 2 diabetes? So it's really multiple things underlying a single definition. And of course, now it's very clear that there is not just one type 2 diabetes.There are many, many different sub variants. in which people then bring different parts of their physiology, different parts of disturbance and systems of their function, which then leads us to say, well, should we treat all of these disorders with one single approach, or should we be personalizing the approach? And should we ask in the personalization what the origin is upstream, the root cause? So all of these things, I believe, have emerged to kind of support the functional medicine model, uh, over the last now 30 years. Then we say, well, how does this differ from integrative medicine? And I've been a proponent and a, and certainly a supporter of the concept of integrative medicine since, um, Andy Weil kind of coined the term and, and made it a consumer, uh, friendly term. So, I think that integrative medicine If I could be so, um, maybe simplistic in my understanding is to say it's a collection of tools that have tremendous historical, uh, support and value that is then, uh, can be delivered within the functional medicine operating system, which is a way of understanding the uniqueness of need that patient has based upon the system biological, uh, nature of their dysfunctions.So that's, that's how I kind of. combine these all into a universal kind of thought process for a health care system. By the way, you notice I've been talking here really about improving function, which is really improving health, resilience, and metabolic flexibility. I haven't talked really that much about specific treatment of a disease because I think if you get the function right, the disease remediation will follow. That's kind of how I vision this whole system.

[00:11:05] Dr. Melinda Ring: That's so interesting because I, you know, I've trained in both. Now I'm certified in functional medicine. I'm board certified in integrative medicine. And I will say my view of what integrative medicine is, it is very different from, um, your description of it. And I do think that integrative medicine and functional medicine have come much more, they're, they're much more closely linked, you know, as a Venn diagram than maybe they used to be. When I come at it from my integrative medicine lens, I see integrative medicine as really that philosophy of how we care for the patient, how lifestyle comes first, how we personalize the care for the individual. And, uh, and then to me, functional medicine is one of the tools in that. that I use if necessary to help identify when something might need to go in a certain direction or not. I absolutely agree with what you just said, by the way, that we don't have any difference of opinion on that.

[00:12:15] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: I think the distinction between, you know, what's in this Venn diagram. superseding one over the other is really a moot point. It's really a hologram in which they're all found within each other.

[00:12:25] Dr. Melinda Ring: I agree, you know, and I, I think that so many of these fields that are really more in that preventive whole person focus. Um, compared to the bigger machine of Western or biomedicine, we're such a small part, we need to be working together to promote that same proactive, preventive vision, that personalized approach. Lots of Ps in there. Um, and we are going to be stronger together than we are apart, trying to, you know, work say like, well, this is better than that. I think there, the reason I do still bring it up is because I see patients are really confused about the difference in these different terms. And they're not always sure where to go and who's the right person for them to see. You know, anybody can hang A shingle that says, I'm an integrative medicine provider or I'm a functional medicine provider. And now there's more certifications like through the IFM, there's the board certification for physicians in integrative medicine. I think that just compounds some of the confusion that patients have when they are seeking out this type of approach, but don't necessarily know. what direction they should go. Can you talk a little bit about what the certification process is? Like, who's eligible for this? Like, how, how intense is it to become, uh, an Institute for Functional Medicine trained provider? Mm 

[00:14:02] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Well, that's a really great question, I think, for 2024 25, because the Institute for Functional Medicine has just kind of modified its certification credentialing. program as we speak, because we recognize that there really are two kinds of providers that follow through with functional medicine training. One are those providers who are licensed, and this would be medical doctors and osteopaths, to use certain therapeutic agents, also physicians assistants, nurse practitioners, so they have access to the prescription pad for specific types of prescribed therapeutic agents. And so that kind of training that they would get in functional medicine would take into account the background and, and training they have in the, in the world of new to nature molecules and pharmaceuticals and, and, and bring that story into their training. The other part Types of practitioners or those that are, um, coming up with a licensure and, and a background or a certification in their discipline that, um, is, is not, uh, uh, allowing them to use, uh, prescribed drugs, uh, in, in the same way. But they have, uh, training, deep training, obviously in specific aspects of whole body health. This could be physical medicine like chiropractor, osteopathy, uh, or, uh, even, even going into this. such things as people that have deep therapeutic medical nutrition training. And so what kind of background do they need for certification in functional medicine and in terms of their credentialing? So the IFM has now got two tracks that differentiate those two bodies of knowledge and two skills. And each one of those tracks has a very exhaustive and I think intensive. training program that, you know, goes through a whole series of advanced training modules around this system's thinking of what we call the seven physiological core processes that are the upstream root cause origins of many downstream problems that we call disease. So they both get the same heretical Training, uh, in both, both tracks. But, uh, there would be in the, uh, MDDO track, uh, the, the additional kind of com components of training as it relates to the, uh, uh, the integration of, uh, of, prescriptive substances that might not be utilized in the, uh, uh, purveyors of the other track.

[00:16:32] Dr. Melinda Ring: You mentioned these seven Pillars are sort of like the seven core root causes that as a whole can contribute to disease. Do you mind, uh, because I took the exam, but off the top of my head, I might forget one or two. Do you mind mentioning what those are? Because I think they're so interesting to start to reframe, you know, that, that tree of how we look at disease, looking at things at the root level, those seven core possible areas of dysfunction, and then how those give rise in the tree to all of the things like heart disease, diabetes, and Dementia, any, you know, etc. So let's see if you can get all seven.

[00:17:20] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yeah, I thank you for bringing that up because I think that is a core feature of the IFM curriculum and body of knowledge. We can talk about, first, uh, digestive function. We call it gut restoration or, or, or digestive, uh, physiology that really relates to, uh, the gut as more than just a piece of plumbing. Uh, the intestinal tract as a functional determinant of, uh, not only breaking large things to small in terms of digestion, but also having the seat of the body's immune system, some 60 percent or more, clustered around the digestive system. So we were, I think, the first groups to really start talking seriously about terms like leaky gut and dysbiosis and, and kind of introducing the concepts of what now everybody talks about, the microbiome. Um, when we first did this in the 1990s, uh, we were There's a lot of finger pointing and saying, what in the world are you talking about by many people in traditional medicine that felt that this was, we were either exaggerating or this really was not that important. I think that has changed considerably. Uh, and I think we won that battle over the last 30 some years. So that was one. Um, the second is we then ask, okay, once things come out of the, um, the gut, what are they, where did it go to? They travel through the portal blood system and the first organ that they, um, they arrive at is the liver. And so we then started saying, well, what do we know about liver function? And what do we know about its multiple ways that it plays roles in the outcome of health and disease? And that then led us into, and the liver has many functions, I won't go through, of course, in hepatology here, but one of those functions that we found to be extraordinarily important. It was not really being discussed. So much in, uh, in medicine at the time was the ability of the liver to convert potential toxic substances into non toxic materials before they had access to the rest of the body. And so this we term metabolic detoxification. And so we said, well, that's another really important, uh, part of the body's function that has been kind of overlooked. And maybe people have these systems overloaded. Maybe they're not functionally effective. Maybe, uh, there are ways that we could improve the body's ability to convert toxic substances to non toxic substances. So they could be eliminated in the stool or in the urine or in sweat and, and not accumulate. And that led into the whole kind of interface between endotoxemia And, uh, detoxification process and exploring what we call phase 1, 2, and 3 detoxification and how diet plays roles in that. So that became another of our core physiological processes. That, that then led to asking, okay, now what happens, uh, once you have The things that travel into the body, uh, and they affect, um, cellular physiology. Where does our energy come from? And, um, of course we propose, and I'm, I'm again, kind of proud of this. We were the first group, I think, that really started to talk about the clinical implications of mitochondrial bioenergetics. This energy powerhouse resides within. cells, this organelle that converts, uh, food materials to energy. And so we, uh, we said bioenergetics is a really important, uh, fundamental physiological process. Uh, and maybe we need to understand a lot more about how to modify that and how to functionally repair that. And, um, That led us into studying chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia. Uh, I could go on in the list,

[00:21:16] Dr. Melinda Ring: And now long COVID, right?

[00:21:18] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yeah, exactly, long COVID for sure. And then, then we, uh, from that we said, well, how does a body signal from one organ to another? So, uh, we know that, uh, the nervous system certainly plays a role, uh, in innervation of, of organs, but also through systemic circulation, we have these messenger molecules that, uh, things like hormones, um, and things like interleukins and prostaglandins, and the list goes on and on, cytokines. So we started to say we ought to be looking at how the body communicates, processes from one organ to another, because, uh, these signals can play a role. play big roles in determining how a person ends up with multiple symptoms. It's not just one symptom. Maybe they have headaches, joint pain, and gut pain. And how, how did they all get interconnected to some fundamental physiological process? So that, uh, that concept of intercellular communication became another one of our core physiological processes. That then led us in to say, what system in our body is found in every other system. And so we don't have the lungs and the heart. We don't have the brain and the kidneys, but we have the immune system in every organ. Every organ has it. a part of the immune system. So we said, oh my word, there is a unifying principle. So if you had something that was wrong with your immune system, if it was imbalanced, either hyperactive or hypoactive, imbalanced of either the innate or the adaptive, uh, or the T lymphocyte systems, now suddenly, um, you have a functional impairment that may have multiple sites of impact on many different organs, which then. Maps against many diseases, not just autoimmune disease, but many, many different diseases. And we now recognize that the immune system, when aggravated, produces a series of messenger molecules that are associated with inflammation. So now we introduce the concept of the origin of inflammation through immune imbalance. And so the immune system and its function became a major core physiological process. Then we started to say, well, what is that that holds us all together? Well, you know, we stand upright against the force of gravity. We do so by our connective tissues, our musculoskeletal function. And, and so we started to talk about how does that structural integrity play a role? And then as we got into that, we started talking about the skeleton. When we look at the, uh, the bones, the skeleton, actually it's a very dynamic part of our physiology because internal to those bones is the bone marrow from which is born every immune cell and every red blood cell that our body has. So it's, uh, extraordinarily metabolically active tissue. And so maybe we ought to be looking at skeletal integrity. Maybe we ought to be looking at musculoskeletal, the integumentary, the functional process of holding us up and holding us together becomes a very important core physiological process. And of course, that also then ties us into physical medicine, into structural medicine, into manipulative medicine, uh, as a, as a core therapeutic tool. So that became another one of the core physiological processes. Then we started, you notice I'm, I've got six of them now, if you were

[00:24:38] Dr. Melinda Ring: Right, right. One, one more, one more big one.

[00:24:40] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yeah. And so then the last one is we started to recognize that if we were really, looking at how, how we as, as organisms respond to our outside environment, it, um, it is the nature of, um, the ability of our Our nervous system, uh, all the components of the nervous system, including the vagus nerve that brings communications to multiple tissues from the central nervous system, that, that the, uh, the nervous system, a neurological system, is more than just a thinking organ. Uh, it is an organ that Translates information from the outside world to the inside function through a whole communication system like the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, gonadal axis. So now we start talking about a systems approach that interconnects all these organs together. And how it responds to outside signals, stress factors, environmental chemicals, uh, uh, circadian rhythms, uh, light dark cycles, gravity, all these various, uh, things that influence that system, uh, become also part and, and then tied to things that we now talk about with what's the origin of, Pre senile dementia, what's the origin of cognitive dysfunction, of depression, all these things that are patterns that are associated with these systems interfaces with our central and peripheral nervous system. So that then kind of rounds out our core physiological processes.

[00:26:15] Dr. Melinda Ring: one of the strengths and criticisms in functional medicine is like, well, okay, how do you diagnose those? different dysfunctions. And I would say maybe one of the criticisms is that it often involves extensive and specialized tests. They may not be covered by insurance. Um, they sometimes lead to, you know, extensive protocols of, uh, dietary supplements, et cetera. And some questions about, um, the, you know, are those tests scientifically valid? Like, are they clinically relevant? Have they been studied? Um, you know, I have my own approach to how I address those, but I'm, I'm just wondering how, how do you think about that? Is that really how a functional medicine practitioner diagnoses where the dysfunction is? Are they necessary? Like, Is there a hierarchy going about using functional medicine tests? I'd just love to hear your take as the lead and leader of this field.

[00:27:23] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yeah, this is a really, um, thorny, area that has probably engendered most of the concerns or criticisms about functional medicine, so I'm going to give you my view of it. My view is that functional medicine is a way of thinking about the patient. This functional integrative medical, and you said it beautifully earlier, when it was about the relationship. between the provider and the patient, and what is the nature of the patient centered focus that you bring into that very sentient moment where you, as a provider, are having that intimate discussion with the patient about one of the most principally important things in their life, which is their health.And, and functional medicine is a contextual way of defining or determining how that relationship is established, the functional integrative medical approach. And it's different than just driving to understand the disease and giving a name to it and Defining a billing code through an ICD 10, uh, it, it, it's a contextual, um, process of the interrogative relationship you have to that patient with trying to find a solution to their problem. So, to me, um, functional medicine is a way of thinking. It's not a collection of protocols. It's not a collection of, you do this from that. However, it does lead to ultimate doing, so I don't want to be naive to that. But the first thing is how you think with and about the patient. And that in itself, as the first level requires no testing, It requires no supplements. It is the basis of really working with that patient to try to understand the timeline of their dysfunction and to try to help guide the conversation in such a way as the patient becomes knowledgeable about their body in such a way that they can actually do something about it. They're not a victim.They're a participant in their process of healing. And, uh, that is, from the wisdom of a good clinician who understands this method of, of thinking, the functional system thinking. So I haven't talked about a single test nor a single interventional tool like a supplement. Now we go to the next level. After that we say, Okay, so we've identified some things and we want to know a little bit more. It's like Sherlock Holmes. You've got clues. How do you take these clues, which are a hypothesis, um, in the uncertainty of understanding? How do we make it less uncertain and more certain? And so then we say, maybe I need to understand certain things. And I don't use the word diagnosis. I use the word prognosis, because we're not driving for an endpoint of a diagnosis. We're driving for an understanding of the upstream root cause. That's a prognosis. And so what are the tools that we might add, might use to help us more Clearly defined with less uncertainty, the prognosis, the conditions that are contributing to their downstream, uh, functional signs and symptoms of different duration, frequency, and intensity. And that then leads us to the laundry list of potential prognostic, uh, evaluative tools. Maybe we want to know more about their intestinal function. So we do a gut microbiome evaluation, or maybe we want to know is, do they have a leaky gut with dysbiosis? Then we would use a different maybe set of assessment tools. Maybe we want to know something about their relative ability to detoxify, so we would use a different set of assessment tools. Maybe we want to know something about the, uh, symphonic orchestration of their hormones, and so we would use a different set of assessment tools. So, based upon our first level of understanding the patient, we then might define what we need as a clinician to better help that patient understand exactly how they're going to go to navigate to better health. Then, Once we've got that information in hand, the question is, what do we do? And maybe we will find that, uh, there are certain dietary, uh, modifications that would be valuable for the person. Maybe we find certain stress patterns, sleep patterns, activity patterns. Maybe they're exposed to certain kinds of toxins. Maybe they have toxic relationships. So all these things become the therapeutic inputs that we're going to design for their personalized program. Or maybe we find there are gaps in their specific nutrients that are related to functions. Maybe they need more prebiotics to help their friendly bacteria be able to reconstruct their microbiome to give a healthy gut function. Uh, maybe we need more, um, immune supportive nutrients to help their innate immune system to be more active and ready to do work, uh, macrophages and monocytes, and so forth and so on. So then we start saying, um, What are the therapeutic tools that are the missing links? And that leads us into selective use of medical nutrition therapies of which dietary supplements could be, but are not required, uh, as therapeutic tools. And I, I think that, um, when you start looking at this as a differential learning system, uh, it leads you down this, this pathway of, Layering on different ways that you would think about helping that patient. You don't just start off with a battery of tests and a whole laundry shopping bag of supplements. You do this in a very intelligent, uh, pro programmatic way, and that's what the functional medicine model teaches is how to do that, successfully.

[00:32:45] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you for sharing your thoughtful approach to, again, it's always starting with the patient and what their goals are, what their needs are, and establishing that trusting relationship. What I often see, even in my practice, is that patients come in and they just think they know what tests they need. You know, they've read about it. They think like this. And so we always have to step back and say like, well, let's, let's start with your story. Let's start with your goals. And, um, and then decide what's most appropriate. I think it's also really interesting when I look at some of the tests. even when we think about some of the common functional medicine stool tests that show things like calprotectin, some of the cardiovascular tests, that have tested, you know, for years like ApoB and other C reactive protein, that they're in many cases ahead of their time in terms of now many of those things are part of standard western biomedical protocols, you know, in terms of testing and risk management and, and prognosis, as you say. Um, I also think that there are some tests that I question, their reliability, validity, um, you know, and, and then personally, I tend to stay away from those in my practice just because I don't feel like they're enough for me to hang my hat on when it comes to giving people, uh, um, the support that they need. And I think one risk that, that I see in patients having these tests is that they, they take it, As you, as a diagnosis, because they become the chronic Lyme person, or they come, become the, the person with chronic mold toxicity, instead of it being, as you said, a tool for regaining their health and addressing those root causes.

[00:34:41] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Yeah, I, I look at a lot of these, uh, therapeutic adjunctive that we're talking about, dietary supplements, sometimes what people call these, as really, interventional agents for the short term. Uh, once we get the function, uh, back to where it'd be, we're filling gaps. And once we get the gaps filled, uh, if that person has kind of learned about themselves, uh, so they're more intelligent in how they're managing their body and their uniqueness, knowing that every person is a facet on the diamond of life uniquely, uh, then the need for these therapeutic agents is diminished or eliminated.

[00:35:15] Dr. Melinda Ring: as somebody who, you know, has so clearly shaped the way that we think about health and wellness. What piece of personal wisdom would you like to share with our listeners to help them achieve their own next level of health?

[00:35:29] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: Well, thank you. I think I would want to say exactly what I'm sure you say in one way or another to every one of your patients, and that is a person can own their health if they are willing to invest some of their time and energy into it. And, you know, you have, there's this concept called practicing good health. Now, what does that really mean? To be good at anything, I believe in life, you got to practice it to get to be an expert. That's really true about health as well, that, uh, we maybe take it for granted often, and we just assume that our body will be healthy. We don't need to do anything about it, but, but actually, as we've learned, health is an active process. It requires our participation. First of all, it requires our understanding, which is what we hopefully have been talking about with the functional medicine model, how to understand our body's function and, and healthy outcome, but then our own participation in it. And I would just encourage anyone who starts down this path. With whatever the model, the Integrated Functional Medicine Model, that what they're going to learn is how to become the owner of their own body, and how to be able to navigate their own uniqueness in such a way that it'll produce a healthy, century long outcome. And I think that, to me, is, you know, at 78 years of age, is where I am in my lifestream now. I start to recognize that every day is an opportunity to learn more about ourselves to, to be better at our practice of health and to, uh, to recognize that, uh, this is a gift that we have within our genes, the, the potential for extraordinary, uh, health throughout the course of our, uh, life expectancy and, and to, um, to never take it for granted. I think if, if we start with that premise, then, uh, the functional medicine, integrative functional medicine provider can provide the tools that will really help us achieve that, that outcome of long, healthy, uh, life. Good life.

[00:37:20] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you. That's so beautifully said. And yes, it's, it's the partnership. It's the supporting the patient and, um, optimizing what is already an inherent, your ability of the body to heal, but then. It takes some work, too.So, yeah. Well, thank you again so much for spending this time with me. I really enjoyed it.I look forward to seeing you at upcoming functional medicine events and thanks again.

[00:37:52] Dr. Jeffrey Bland: the same to you and it's just such a pleasure and I so appreciate what you're doing to get this information out to so many people. Thank you.

[00:37:58] Dr, Melinda Ring: Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Health. I hope you found some inspiration and practical insights to enhance your wellness journey. Don't forget to leave a comment on YouTube or review on Apple Podcasts. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future topics or speakers. Be sure to follow Next Level Health with me, Dr. Melinda Ring, as we continue exploring the path to healthier, happier lives, together.