Functional Medicine Journal » Functional Medicine in the News

Childhood Obesity Functional Medicine

FM Editor — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:21:04 +0000

In this article Dr. Michael Lyon, medical director of the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine, discusses treating childhood obesity with a functional medicine approach. The article continues discuss the founding of new weightloss camp in Squamish this spring. The camp is the first of it’s kind located in Canada and will be open to youth between 11 and 18 who are at least 20 pounds overweight. Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: Helping obese youth shed pounds

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Similar to a traditional ‘Fat Camp’ The Wellspring Camp also limits calories, but clinical director Kirschenbaum claims it offers a more scientific approach that uses psychology, activity and a low-fat diet.

“By emphasizing fat reduction over calories, Kirschenbaum says the campers don’t leave the table hungry.”

“We try to prevent a feeling of deprivation,” he says. “If they feel hungry and deprived, it’s not going to last. Our approach is designed to increase satiety, increase satisfaction with kid-friendly foods.”

Each morning, they walk five kilometres before breakfast. In Squamish, they will also kayak, hike and river raft, and play team sports such as basketball, soccer and field hockey.

“If you just diet and don’t increase activity, your body actually becomes metabolically more efficient,” he says.

The third tier of Wellspring’s approach is to use cognitive behaviour therapy to help youngsters change behaviours and develop what Kirschenbaum calls a healthy obsession.

Functional Medicine and Women’s Sleep

FM Editor — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:05:32 +0000

In this article Dr, Weymouth, a practitioner of Functional Medicine discusses the connection between the need need for Women to stay well fed and thus get optimal sleep. She discusses some of her experiences with patients. In specific situations in which the patient claims to not feel feel hungry but on a nutritional level they are lacking fuel to create the cortisol needed by the body. Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: Why Can’t Women Sleep? Part I: Building Better Sleep Basics

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“Feed Your Brain

Dr. Weymouth, a chiropractor and ex-insomniac, practices “Functional Medicine” whose aim is to answer the why’s, what’s and how’s of health. When a woman appears in her office complaining of poor sleep - and most do - she asks what they’re eating.

“If you’re not sleeping well at night, you’re probably not eating as well as you think you are,” she says.

Women who wake during the night may not feel hungry. But they may well be starved for nourishment their brain needs to make it calmly through the night.

“If we don’t have enough fuel, the body asks the adrenal glands to make cortisol,” Dr. Weymouth explains. Which, as I understand it, is like making fight-or-flight in a bottle that just happens to be your trying-to-sleep body.

To up your odds of sleeping well, Dr. Weymouth suggests eating breakfast within an hour of waking, have lunch within four hours of breakfast (and if you can’t, have a snack, and then your meal).

If three to four hours pass between dinner and bedtime, eat a snack before bed made up of fat, protein and carbohydrate - part of an apple with a small amount of nut butter, cheese and crackers, a fork-or-two of dinner leftovers.

Orgasms can be a great natural sleep aid for women who find them relaxing. (”If you want to run around cleaning your closet afterward, then you have your sex in the morning,” Weymouth says.)

Lemon balm, lavender and linden teas can have a calming effect on the nervous system, as can 2-3 minute rounds of slow deep breathing.

Insomnia, of course, is very real. So, where is the line between sleeping badly and sleep disorders?”

Lack of Sleep May be Connected to Belly Fat

FM Editor — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:27:49 +0000

Here is an interesting article which draws a connection between lack of sleep and belly fat. The Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine in Vancouver has run several clinical trials in which several of the participants have reported sleeping better after weight-loss. In specific the article discusses how dramatic fluctuations in their blood sugar throughout the night can effect one’s sleep.

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Belly fat may keep you up at night
Author: Kerry Benjoe

“Having sleep trouble?

It could be your belly fat keeping you awake, says one researcher.

Kate Rheaume-Bleue has discovered a link between excess abdominal fat and insomnia.

“This is really a serendipitous finding coming out of weight loss trials dealing with a combination of fibres that’s developed at the University of Toronto,” explained Rheaume-Bleue. “There are clinical trials being done on this PGX combination at the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine in Vancouver. Many of the participants in the weight-loss trial were reporting that they were sleeping better.”

Rheaume-Bleue, a naturopathic physician, said she’s become interested in keeping on top of research in into insomnia and weight loss because it’s new and interesting information. She shared some of her insights with people who attended the Total Health Show at Evraz Place on the weekend.

She said in the most recent trials researchers have begun monitoring glucose levels and their connection to belly fat and insomnia.

“What was shown in these weight-loss trials is that many people who were overweight but with abdominal fat in particular because that fat is actually different from fat in the rest of the body, those people would suffer with quite dramatic fluctuations in their blood sugar throughout the night,” explained Rheaume-Bleue.

She said those types of changes don’t happen in average or generally healthy people.

“When the blood sugar drops at night time, especially at 3 a.m., that could wake them up,” said Rheaume-Bleue.

She explained that fibres have a very stabilizing affect on blood sugar so it was noticed very early in the trials the affect fibre was having on participants.”

Read Full Article…

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Originally Published: Canada.com
Title: Belly fat may keep you up at night
Author: Kerry Benjoe