Empowering Your Health With Integrative Medicine

Dr. Melinda Ring

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Integrative Medicine Program aims to transform healthcare through research, education and community partnerships.  Dr. Ring’s presentation centered around the importance of considering the whole person - body, mind, and spirit when addressing health concerns. She discussed the differences between integrative and functional medicine and the potential benefits of using natural and complementary approaches to health. Dr. Ring emphasized the importance for clear communication between health care providers and patients, and the importance of individualized approaches to nutrition and health. Dr. Ring discussed the potential of nutri genomic tests and the importance of accepting one’s body and its natural healing capacity.

Mental, Emotional and Physical Health 

1. Emphasizes getting to the root causes of disease, rather than just treating symptoms.  

2. Conventional medicine with complementary therapies that have evidence to support them, considering the whole person- physical, emotional, mental and spiritual

3. People who led healthier lifestyles in mid-life had a significantly higher survival rate of diseases

4. There is not one size fits all approach to exercise and health, as each individual is unique and different. Many guidelines for exercise are often misleading and do not take in account individual differences. 

Nutrition is Important Impact on Health 

1. Most people trust doctors for nutrition advice, despite lack of training in medical school 

2. Microbiome is important and changes in gut health can contribute to autoimmune diseases.  

3. Recommends elimination diet to identify individual food sensitivities and reduce inflammation in the body. 

4. Importance of metabolic health and nutrition in preventing chronic diseases, citing data on the prevalence of these conditions and their economic burden.  

Personalized nutrition and health trends 

1. Advocate for plant forward diet, emphasizing whole foods and minimizing processed and ultra-processed foods. 

2. Important to teach culinary medicine, teaching people how to cook and prepare meals. 

3. Important to have an individual nutrition plan, citing the potential of nutri genomic tests to help understand the body's unique needs and respond to dietary interventions more effectively. 

4. Important to identify the root causes of disease, such as inflammation, immune deficiencies, in order to prevent and treat illness effectively.   

5. Warns of unqualified providers offering controversial tests for chronic disease. 

6. It is possible to get enough protein through plant based diet 

Gut Health, Probiotics and Intermittent Fasting 

1. Recommendation for children to take probiotics for anxiety and digestive issues, and suggests alternating different strains to maintain diversity. 

2. Talk to pediatrician about gut health for child who has been on a lot of antibiotics 

3. Benefits of intermittent fasting include compression of body’s restoration time, improving blood sugar markers, blood pressure and cholesterol. 

4. Fasting diet created by Valter Longo, can be helpful option for people providing reset for health
    https://www.valterlongo.com/fasting-mimicking-program-and-longevity/

Questions answered 

1. Most people who come to integrated medicine center have a primary care doctor 

2. The American Board of Integrative Medicine is a reliable source for finding physicians with integrated medicine training. 

3. There is a concern for the lack of regulation in integrated medicine which leads to unethical practices 

Action Items

1. Review Oscher website  
   https://www.oshercollaborative.org