Back Clinic Functional Medicine Team. Functional medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms.
Practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
By changing the disease-centered focus of medical practice to this patient-centered approach, our physicians are able to support the healing process by viewing health and illness as part of a cycle in which all components of the human biological system interact dynamically with the environment. This process helps to seek and identify genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may shift a person’s health from illness to well-being.
Most of us have heard the adage connected with physicians’ medical advice: “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Imagine a scenario in which, instead of offering a fast cure, the doctor sat down with you and inquired about the elements of your lifestyle. That’s what physicians who exercise functional medicine do. They are also medical doctors. What they have in common is that they take a holistic approach to your well-being.
What is Patient-Centered Healthcare?
The term “patient-centered healthcare” is becoming popular in the last decade. You might ask yourself, shouldn’t healthcare always center on the individual? This concept, which is an integral value in functional medicine, means physicians focus on the entire person rather than on a disease or disease. Rather than finding the way to eradicate symptoms, the functional medicine doctor searches for the origin of the individual’s problem. These doctors recognize each patient’s identity rather than taking a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Mind, Body and Spirit in Functional Medicine
Functional medicine physicians probe deeper than just finding out what is going on physically with their own patients. They can ask you about your spiritual and emotional health, and want to learn about your relationships with loved ones and partners. They aim to make the most of your overall health and wellness.
Cost Effective Disease Prevention
Preventing a disorder is significantly more cost effective than treating one. By minimizing damage done by poor nutrition, stress and exposure to environmental toxins and preserving your well-being, functional medicine doctors can save you money altogether. In all this, where does chiropractic fit in?
Chiropractic care is one aspect of comprehensive functional medicine, since it helps patients achieve optimum health. Furthermore, concepts of medication fit into chiropractors’ clinics, since they optimize their tools to treat patients.
Some chiropractors chiefly focus on conventional spinal adjustments and manipulations. However, others have included these elements to the chiropractic practice that they offer, in accordance with the fundamentals of medicine. These may include counseling and lifestyle interventions. This integrated approach is especially popular with complex but common disorders, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Functional medicine chiropractors work together with other practitioners to maximize patients’ health. For instance, a chiropractor may refer a patient to an acupuncturist for additional help. The acupuncturist may send the chiropractor their patients. They work with each other, focusing on the patient’s best interests.
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Things to Expect From a Functional Medicine Chiropractor
Patients are often surprised by how long a practical medicine chiropractor spends with them. Expect a much longer visit than you’d get from your typical MD. The staff will probably ask you to complete questionnaires about your diet history, exposure to symptoms, past illnesses and toxins. Your functional medicine doctor might order lab tests too.
The individual has an active role in functional medicine. You may work with your physician to boost your health, frequently by altering your diet and lifestyle, rather than passively taking medications to relieve existing symptoms.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .�
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Functional medicine is a personalized, systems-oriented model that enables patients and practitioners to reach the highest expression of well-being by working together to address the underlying causes of disease.
However, how does functional medicine address underlying disease?
Functional medicine addresses these underlying causes of disease using a systems-oriented strategy that engages both patient and practitioner in a healing partnership.
As a matter of fact, it is a development in the practice of medicine that addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. Functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated group of symptoms by shifting medical practice’s traditional focus to some more patient-centered approach.
Functional medicine practitioners spend time adhering to their histories and taking a look at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can affect chronic disease and well-being. Functional medicine supports health and vitality’s special expression for each person.
What is the Significance of Functional Medicine?
Our society is currently undergoing a sharp increase in the amount of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental disease, and autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
The system of medicine practiced by the majority of doctors is oriented toward acute care, the diagnosis and treatment for injury or illness that’s of short duration and needing urgent care, like a broken leg or a heart attack. Physicians apply specific remedies such as surgery or drugs that aim to treat the symptom or the problem. Unfortunately, the approach to medicine is ill equipped to deal with complex disease.
Typically, the model does not take into consideration the distinctive genetic makeup of every individual and doesn’t allow time for exploring the aspects of the lifestyle that have an immediate influence on the development in chronic illness in modern Western society; crucial environmental factors such as stress, diet, and exposure to toxins. Because of this, most doctors are not adequately trained to estimate the causes of complex, chronic illness, nor to employ strategies like nutrition, diet, and exercise to cure and prevent these disorders. The old addage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” really sums up a much better approach.
Functional Medicine IS that distinct approach, with methodology and tools that are specifically designed to treat and prevent chronic ailments. It incorporates the latest in genetic science, systems biology, and understanding of lifestyle and environmental factors influence the emergence and development of disease. It empowers patients to take an active part in their health and enables doctors and other caregivers to practice proactive, predictive medication.
How Functional Medicine Can Treat Chronic Disease
Since the prevalence of chronic conditions continues to grow, the percentage of Americans with mental health conditions has now followed. Anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions often occur in tandem with physical ones. In fact, compared to patients with no mental health diagnosis, patients with mental illness may be more likely to visit the clinician’s office complaining about minor illnesses. Furthermore, patients with mental illness that visit the Emergency Room are not as likely to receive adequate screening or therapy for diabetes, blood pressure, cancer, and other conditions.
Nutritional and fitness changes associated with functional medicine treatment can simultaneously address both bodily concerns and psychological health difficulties. For instance, nourishment is known to affect melancholy; both its severity and duration can be modified by dietary influences. A connection between GI microbiota, that in turn are heavily influenced by diet, and mental health was demonstrated for stress, metabolic syndrome, and mood disorders, and stress management, amongst others.
Additionally, studies have linked poor nutrition to greater incidence of mental illness in adolescents and preschoolers, while a better diet was correlated with greater mental health in children and teens. In that vein, psychiatrists are also increasingly recognizing the primacy of nutrition, as well as fitness and sleep, in treating mental illness.
Giving patients effective tools to adopt new dietary habits and improve their nutrition, along with a well planned fitness program, can improve outcomes for both physical and mental disorders. Lifestyle changes can seem challenging to many patients, especially those with mental health difficulties, however functional medicine practitioners can help you implement strategies that are practical with these patients that will lead to results and compliance.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .�
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Research suggests that illness recovery and prevention improve when supported by proper nutrition and supplementation. Nevertheless, clinicians don’t often get extensive training in nutrition and nutrient supplements in osteopathic and medical school, a study of pediatric residency interns that were incoming showed.
What’s the importance of nutrition towards health and wellness?
Unsurprisingly, many patients are malnourished, are experiencing record levels of disease, and therefore are likely being treated without learning about other, less invasive but exceptionally effective treatment options.
The Power of Nutrition
When high-quality nutrition is used consistently and efficiently, it may prevent potential chronic disease, enhance cognition in people with dementia, and improve outcomes in patients getting GI and colorectal oncological surgeries, to mention a few. In addition, nutrition support is associated with length of stays and infectious complications.
Integrative and functional medicine practitioners, specialists of any discipline certified in integrative and functional medicine, are educated healthcare providers, qualified and experienced on how best to use functional nutrition to effectively prevent and even reverse chronic illness, such as fibromyalgia, as well as to support general health and wellness. Functional nutrition aims at addressing the imbalances in the body by restoring proper function through food, lifestyle and supplement interventions, restoring a patients’ health and improving the patients’ outcomes.
To get started learning about functional nutrition, many healthcare professionals learn the basics of the way functional nutrition helps their patients through an extended series of specialized courses and training. Some integrative and functional medicine resources may contains over 10 food programs which could be personalized depending on the individual condition and the patient, to provide a personalized treatment experience.
When Standard Diets Don’t Work
Despite recent improvements in nutrigenomics, the thought that a given food is going to have precisely the same impact for all individuals is still widespread. A recent study found that after ingesting identical foods, blood sugar levels could vary by up to 20 percent in the exact same person and up to 25 percent across individuals.
Likewise, another study demonstrated that individuals may have radically different sugar responses to the exact same meal. Using continuous glucose monitoring and meals that were standardized, the investigators found that identical meals led to physiologic outcomes. As a result, any strategy that grades dietary components either “good” or “poor” based on their typical postprandial glycemic responses (PPGRs) will be of small use to the respective patient.
In contrast, the exciting and relatively new field of metabolomics is now being applied in nutrigenomics research. Because the molecules which vary between meals are identified by metabolomics, researchers guess it could be utilized to determine biomarkers of disease risk and also to track effects of foods for more efficient treatment.
In an era in which more personalized data is accessible than ever before, healthcare professionals can attain incredible outcomes by using this emerging study to evaluate and treat patients according to their individual needs. But how do you develop a framework for customizing therapy programs that takes into consideration all data that is applicable?
The Institute for Functional Medicine’s foundational five-day course, Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice (AFMCP), for example, joins practitioners to personalized tests and clinical instruments which can be tailored to each individual’s particular physiology, including genetics, lifestyle, and readiness to change. A variety of specialized integrative and functional medicine training programs provides healthcare professionals the tools to prescribe effective treatment programs customized to individual patients’ needs across the spectrum.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Patients visit their clinicians for all kinds of reasons�from the absurd to the mundane�but the chief complaint tends to be one of only a handful of non-acute conditions. In a study of more than 140,000 Minnesotan patients, researchers found the most common clinical complaints included:
Skin disorders
Osteoarthritis and joint disorders
Cholesterol problems
Upper respiratory conditions, excluding asthma
High blood pressure
Headaches and migraines1
Surprisingly, the researchers discovered the most prevalent complaints affected all sexes and age groups and were not conditions related to aging, such as diabetes and heart disease.1
Knowing how to effectively and efficiently address these common complaints can significantly improve patient compliance and patient outcomes. For instance, in the following video clip, Robert Rountree, MD, offers a clinical strategy for migraines, which are the third highest cause of disability worldwide.2-4 Dr. Rountree explains how to use lifestyle and nutrition to relieve migraine symptoms and address their underlying causes.
Robert Rountree, MD, explores how lifestyle and nutrition can support migraine treatment.
At IFM�s Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice (AFMCP), our educators will teach you strategies to find the underlying causes of migraines, as well as many other common complaints you tend to see in your practice. Using a case-based, collaborative format, you will learn about Functional Medicine strategies to treat various hormonal, gastrointestinal, and cardiometabolic conditions. AFMCP provides the tools you need to build upon your current clinical skills and improve your outcomes with all types of non-acute conditions.
St. Sauver JL, Warner DO, Yawn BP, et al. Why patients visit their doctors: assessing the most prevalent conditions in a defined American population.�Mayo Clin Proc. 2013;88(1):56-67. doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2012.08.020.
Lipton RB, Bigal ME. Ten lessons on the epidemiology of migraine. Headache. 2007;47(Suppl 1):S2-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1526-4610.2007.00671.x.
Rasmussen BK, Jensen R, Schroll M, Olesen J. Epidemiology of headache in a general population�a prevalence study. J Clin Epidemiol. 1991;44(11):1147-57.
Steiner TJ, Birbeck GL, Jensen RH, Katsarava Z, Stovner LJ, Martelletti P. Headache disorders are third cause of disability worldwide. J Headache Pain. 2015;16:58. doi: 10.1186/s10194-015-0544-2.
If you’re the kind of person who values optimal health, or simply if you don’t feel good and you wish to find the cause of the problem of while not being dependent on drugs and preventing chronic disease instead of just treating the symptoms, functional medicine is a perfect match for you.
What are functional medicine practitioners?
Functional medicine practitioners or doctors are trained to find the cause of medical issues. Functional medicine uses an in depth history as well as state of the art, cutting edge, innovative testing, along with an in depth understanding of human physiology, to uncover what has gone wrong in the individual’s body.
A functional medicine practitioner may be physician of any discipline. It is possible to find Naturopathic, Medical, Osteopathic and Chiropractic functional medicine doctors. These doctors are the type who aren’t happy with conventional treatment methods used to treat injuries or other types of conditions. Functional medicine doctors possess a passion to find the origin of the patients’ disease to provide overall health and wellness.
Understanding Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is a specialty which requires an unbelievable amount of advanced training. These doctors need to have a firm grasp on the basics of anatomy, biochemistry. Ongoing training is necessary to keep up with the ever-advancing testing. Instead of prescribing drugs for symptoms, these doctors work to get their patients well by repairing and discovering the cause of the issue.
Certified functional medicine training is available to physicians of all disciplines. A certified medication doctor must first pass a series of examinations and must complete about 200 hours of functional medicine training. Licensed functional medication doctors are current on the newest testing and therapy procedures. It you have a choice, get good care of a certified medicine practitioner to receive the best form of care and treatment.
Functional medicine treatment can be essential when treating a common problem like diabetes. When a patient goes to a standard physician, at best, they are given lifestyle and diet education and medication. Together with the disease every case of diabetes is treated exactly the same. The dilemma is that no two people are exactly the same. If everyone is different shouldn’t the treatment be unique for each individual?
After a comprehensive medical history of a patient with diabetes, for example, a testing strategy to figure out what was wrong and how to repair it so this patient could get well may be performed by the functional medicine practitioner. Doctors may often have to check just about every bodily fluid for a broad array of problems.
Functional medicine practitioner or doctors can help patients replenish their body together with the things it is deficient in and rid his body of toxins. How do you believe these health problems would have responded to the standard disease based therapy strategy of a prescription medicine? Drugs do not tackle toxicities and deficiencies, and too often they add toxicity and side effects that are unpleasant as well.
The biggest objection to functional medication is that insurance does not cover a lot of the treatment or testing. It’s true that functional medicine doctors can sometimes cost you more in the start. However, the standard medical approach is more costly in the end. Consider a patient in the setting of the above example. What happens to their kidneys or heart with medical therapy. How expensive is a heart attack, stroke, kidney dialysis or substitute, cancer, or Crohn’s disease?Healthcare specialists know it is always better and cheaper to correct a problem early on, and the sooner the better.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Over the past five decades, many experienced and holistically experienced professionals have embraced “functional medicine” treatment concepts in dealing with the management of many commonly encountered chronic illnesses, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis.
What are the functional medicine concepts for treatment?
This guide is an attempt to introduce, simplify, and summarize many of these seemingly complicated concepts for professionals who have just begun to use these notions, and for those professionals who have been hearing about this radical strategy and have been considering integrating these therapeutic approaches into their practices.
Integrating Functional Medicine Treatment Concepts
The medicine approach to the treatment of chronic disease is one that is based not on a single agent or modality as the solution that is palliative or curative. It’s holistically centered upon the principle that restoration of proper cell metabolism, through decreasing accumulative toxic load and oxidative stress to your system, enables normalization of mitochodrial respiration, cellular energy production, and ultimately causing a decrease in the signs and symptoms of chronic illness. More severe cases often require a broader functional approach, while many nutritionally-oriented physicians realize that supplements alone are beneficial for cases of chronic disease.
This functional medication philosophy and approach was initially developed for clinical use in chronic fatigue patients with excellent outcomes, and because of the commonality observed in many chronic conditions, it’s been used through the past few years in other disorders with great success, such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, along with auto-immune disorders. The seminal work of many in treating chronic fatigue syndrome has served as a template that is successful, and this method is currently utilized in the treatment of a broad range of chronic diseases.
Functional Medicine Treatment Explained
The functional medicine philosophy relies on the premise that a breakdown of the intestinal mucosa by the chronic intake of meals and lactic acid, and the usage of common over-the-counter and prescription drugs (such as antibiotics and NSAIDS), can result in dysbiosis and also a hyperpermeable intestinal mucosa, or leaky gut syndrome.
This hyperpermeablility can lead to the mucosa neglecting to act as a barrier, resulting in the crossing of radicals and partly digested food proteins through the intestinal mucosa and in the systemic blood source. The result is a rise in increased toxic loading and food allergies. This increased toxic load can lead to greater strain on the liver and its ability to adequately detoxify these substances. This may result in systemic tissue degeneration.
Greater tissue toxicity is thought to be a major cause for thyroid dysfunction, which results in a breakdown of the body’s cells, including the muscle cells, to dependant pathways. This accounts for the vast majority of ATP production. Reduced cellular ATP production may account for many (if not all) of the symptoms and signs associated with many chronic disease conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FMS).
Increased intestinal permeability can result in partially digested substances entering the blood supply and behaving as antigens. The consequent antigen-antibody complexes seem to have an affinity for the synovium of articulations, This results in an inflammatory reaction in the joint linings commonly found in arthritidies like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The main therapeutic agents used initially by standard medical physicians in the treatment of RA are (ironically) NSAIDs. NSAIDs, according to the PDR, result in increased intestinal permeability. Might it be possible that the traditional treatment for arthritidies has led to palliating the patient’s symptoms, while exacerbating the illness?
Focus of Functional Medicine Treatment Concepts
The functional medicine therapeutic approach is centered around correcting any intestinal dysbiosis fixing the mucosa, providing chemicals to the body reducing stress, and boosting a return of normal metabolism. Assessment begins by discovering intestinal health and also the functional reserve of the liver and its detoxification abilities.
This is commonly done with the help of individual symptom studies, like the a metabolic screening questionnaire and practical laboratory studies, such as the lactulose/mannitol challenge for assessing intestinal permeability, along with the entire digestive stool analysis (CDSA) for detecting markers of digestion, absorption, and colonic flora. Detoxification ability of the liver can be assessed through caffeine clearance and conjugation metabolite challenge test.. Conventional laboratories don’t perform these evaluations, but are available through specialized labs who offer functional testing.
Once the information is collected, a treatment system is chosen, which may consist of specific nutrients to fix any intestinal hyperpermeability (leaky gut syndrome). Individual nutrients like inulin, refined hypoallergenic rice proteins, pantothenic acid, and antioxidants can be utilized as a formulary medicinal food, which is usually much simpler and more practical to utilize scientifically. Digestion and absorption difficulties suggested on the CDSA can be treated together with all the temporary use of pancreatic enzymes and HCL (if indicated) in patients without gastritis or ulcers. Dysbiosis, a phrase used to describe an imbalance of colonic flora, can be addressed by the management of lactobacillus acidophilus and probiotics such as fructooligosaccharides (FOS).
In conclusion, any pathogenic bacteria, yeast, or parasites discovered on the CDSA should be treated with the prescription (or organic) agents suggested by the sensitivity tests on the CDSA. These could include nonprescription substances like garlic, citrus seed extract, berberine, artemisia, uva ursi, and others. Functional medicine approaches strive to holistically improve an individual’s overall health and wellness, which is why these treatment modalities have been applied to modern medical practices. Consult a professional regarding the best form of treatment for you.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Even though the effects of overweight and obesity on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality, and other health outcomes are widely known, there is less awareness that overweight, obesity, and weight gain are associated with an increased risk of certain cancers. A recent review of more than 1000 studies concluded that sufficient evidence existed to link weight gain, overweight, and obesity with 13 cancers, including adenocarcinoma of the esophagus; cancers of the gastric cardia, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, corpus uteri, ovary, kidney, and thyroid; postmenopausal female breast cancer; meningioma; and multiple myeloma.1�An 18-year follow-up of almost 93?000 women in the Nurses� Health Study revealed a dose-response association of weight gain and obesity with several cancers.2
Obesity Increase
The prevalence of obesity in the United States has been increasing for almost 50 years. Currently, more than two-thirds of adults and almost one-third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. Youths who are obese are more likely to be obese as adults, compounding their risk for health consequences such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Trends in many of the health consequences of overweight and obesity (such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease) also are increasing, coinciding with prior trends in rates of obesity. Furthermore, the sequelae of these diseases are related to the severity of obesity in a dose-response fashion.2�It is therefore not surprising that obesity accounts for a significant portion of health care costs.
Cancers
A report released on October 3, 2017, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assessed the incidence of the 13 cancers associated with overweight and obesity in 2014 and the trends in these cancers over the 10-year period from 2005 to 2014.3�In 2014, more than 630?000 people were diagnosed as having a cancer associated with overweight and obesity, comprising more than 55% of all cancers diagnosed among women and 24% of cancers among men. Most notable was the finding that cancers related to overweight and obesity were increasingly diagnosed among younger people.
From 2005 to 2014, there was a 1.4% annual increase in cancers related to overweight and obesity among individuals aged 20 to 49 years and a 0.4% increase in these cancers among individuals aged 50 to 64 years. For example, if cancer rates had stayed the same in 2014 as they were in 2005, there would have been 43?000 fewer cases of colorectal cancer but 33?000 more cases of other cancers related to overweight and obesity. Nearly half of all cancers in people younger than 65 years were associated with overweight and obesity. Overweight and obesity among younger people may exact a toll on individuals� health earlier in their lifetimes.2�Given the time lag between exposure to cancer risk factors and cancer diagnosis, the high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults, children, and adolescents may forecast additional increases in the incidence of cancers related to overweight and obesity.
Clinical Intervention
Since the release of the landmark 1964 surgeon general�s report on the health consequences of smoking, clinicians have counseled their patients to avoid tobacco and on methods to quit and provided referrals to effective programs to reduce their risk of chronic diseases including cancer. These efforts, coupled with comprehensive public health and policy approaches to reduce tobacco use, have been effective�cigarette smoking is at an all-time low. Similar efforts are warranted to prevent excessive weight gain and treat children, adolescents, and adults who are overweight or obese. Clinician referral to intense, multicomponent behavioral intervention programs to help patients with obesity lose weight can be an important starting point in improving a patient�s health and preventing diseases associatedwith obesity. The benefits of maintaining a healthy weight throughout life include improvements in a wide variety of health outcomes, including cancer. There is emerging but very preliminary data that some of these cancer benefits may be achieved following weight loss among people with overweight or obesity.4
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening for obesity and intensive behavioral interventions delivered over 12 to 16 visits for adults and 26 or more visits for children and adolescents with obesity.5,6�Measuring patients� weight, height, and body mass index (BMI), consistent with USPSTF recommendations, and counseling patients about maintaining a healthy weight can establish a foundation for preventive care in clinical care settings. Scientific data continue to emerge about the negative health effects of weight gain, including an increased risk of cancer.1�Tracking patients� weight over time can identify those who could benefit from counseling and referral early and help them avoid additional weight gain. Yet less than half of primary care physicians regularly assess the BMI of their adult, child, and adolescent patients. Encouraging discussions about weight management in multiple health care settings, including physicians� offices, clinics, emergency departments, and hospitals, can provide multiple opportunities for patients and reinforce messages across contexts and care environments.
Weight Loss Programs
Implementation of clinical interventions, including screening, counseling, and referral, has major challenges. Since 2011, Medicare has covered behavioral counseling sessions for weight loss in primary care settings. However, the benefit has not been widely utilized.7�Whether the lack of utilization is a consequence of lack of clinician or patient knowledge or for other reasons remains uncertain. Few medical schools and residency programs provide adequate training in prevention and management of obesity or in understanding how to make referrals to such services. Obesity is a highly stigmatized condition; many clinicians find it difficult to initiate a conversation about obesity with patients, and some may inadvertently use alienating language when they do. Studies indicate that patients with obesity prefer the use of terms such as�unhealthy weight�or�increased BMI�rather than�overweight�or�obesity�and�improved nutrition and physical activity�rather than�diet and exercise.8�However, it is unknown if switching to these terms will lead to more effective behavioral counseling. Effective clinical decision support tools to measure BMI and guide physicians through referral and counseling interventions can provide clinicians needed support within the patient-clinician encounter. Inclusion of recently developed competencies for prevention and management of obesity into the curricula of health care professionals may improve their ability to deliver effective care. Because few primary care clinicians are trained in behavior change strategies like cognitive behavioral therapy or motivational interviewing, other trained health care professionals, such as nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, and dietitians could assist by providing counseling and appropriate referrals and help people manage their own health.
Achieving sustainable weight loss requires comprehensive strategies that support patients� efforts to make significant lifestyle changes. The availability of clinical and community programs and services to which to refer patients is critically important. Although such programs are available in some communities, there are gaps in availability. Furthermore, even when these programs are available, enhancing linkages between clinical and community care could improve patients� access. Linking community obesity prevention, weight management, and physical activity programs with clinical services can connect people to valuable prevention and intervention resources in the communities where they live, work, and play. Such linkages can give individuals the encouragement they need for the lifestyle changes that maintain or improve their health.
The high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States will continue to contribute to increases in health consequences related to obesity, including cancer. Nonetheless, cancer is not inevitable; it is possible that many cancers related to overweight and obesity could be prevented, and physicians have an important responsibility in educating patients and supporting patients� efforts to lead healthy lifestyles. It is important for all health care professionals to emphasize that along with quitting or avoiding tobacco, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight are also important for reducing the risk of cancer.
Corresponding Author:�Greta M. Massetti, PhD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Atlanta, GA 30341 (gmassetti@cdc.gov).
Conflict of Interest Disclosures:�All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interest. Dr Dietz reports receipt of scientific advisory board fees from Weight Watchers and consulting fees from RTI. No other disclosures were reported.
Disclaimer:�The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and not necessarily the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
References
1. Lauby-Secretan B, Scoccianti C, Loomis D, Grosse Y, Bianchini F, Straif K; International Agency for Research on Cancer Handbook Working Group. Body fatness and cancer�viewpoint of the IARC Working Group. N Engl J Med. 2016;375(8):794-798. PubMedArticle
2. Zheng Y, Manson JE, Yuan C, et al. Associations of weight gain from early to middle adulthood with major health outcomes later in life. JAMA. 2017;318(3):255-269. PubMedArticle
4. Byers T, Sedjo RL. Does intentional weight loss reduce cancer risk? Diabetes Obes Metab. 2011;13(12):1063-1072. PubMedArticle
5. Grossman DC, Bibbins-Domingo K, Curry SJ, et al; US Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for obesity in children and adolescents: US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. JAMA. 2017;317(23):2417-2426. PubMedArticle
7. Batsis JA, Bynum JPW. Uptake of the centers for Medicare and Medicaid obesity benefit: 2012-2013. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2016;24(9):1983-1988. PubMedArticle
8. Puhl R, Peterson JL, Luedicke J. Motivating or stigmatizing? public perceptions of weight-related language used by health providers. Int J Obes (Lond). 2013;37(4):612-619. PubMedArticle
IFM's Find A Practitioner tool is the largest referral network in Functional Medicine, created to help patients locate Functional Medicine practitioners anywhere in the world. IFM Certified Practitioners are listed first in the search results, given their extensive education in Functional Medicine
The prevalence of obesity in the United States has been increasing for almost 50 years. Currently, more than two-thirds of adults and almost one-third of children and adolescents are 
From 2005 to 2014, there was a 1.4% annual increase in cancers related to overweight and obesity among individuals aged 20 to 49 years and a 0.4% increase in these cancers among individuals aged 50 to 64 years. For example, if cancer rates had stayed the same in 2014 as they were in 2005, there would have been 43?000 fewer cases of colorectal cancer but 33?000 more cases of other cancers related to overweight and obesity. Nearly half of all cancers in people younger than 65 years were associated with overweight and obesity. Overweight and obesity among younger people may exact a toll on individuals� health earlier in their lifetimes.
The 
Implementation of clinical interventions, including screening, counseling, and referral, has major challenges. Since 2011, Medicare has covered behavioral counseling sessions for weight loss in primary care settings. However, the benefit has not been widely utilized.
Achieving sustainable weight loss requires comprehensive strategies that support patients� efforts to make significant lifestyle changes. The availability of clinical and community programs and services to which to refer patients is critically important. Although such programs are available in some communities, there are gaps in availability. Furthermore, even when these programs are available, enhancing linkages between clinical and community care could improve patients� access. Linking community obesity prevention, weight management, and physical activity programs with clinical services can connect people to valuable prevention and intervention resources in the communities where they live, work, and play. Such linkages can give individuals the encouragement they need for the lifestyle changes that maintain or improve their health.
The high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States will continue to contribute to increases in health consequences related to obesity, including cancer. Nonetheless, cancer is not inevitable; it is possible that many cancers related to overweight and obesity could be prevented, and physicians have an important responsibility in educating patients and supporting patients� efforts to lead healthy lifestyles. It is important for all health care professionals to emphasize that along with quitting or avoiding tobacco, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight are also important for reducing the risk of cancer.
