Lifestyle Focused Family Medicine and Traditional Osteopathy I ask and support my patients to increase the good in their life.
I am a board-certified family medicine physician who looks for and addresses cause rather than merely treating symptoms. The Standard American Diet (SAD) subsisting of 60% processed foods, 30% animal products and a mere 10% vegetables, fruits and whole grains will create chronic disease. To increase the essential foods that help the body to heal: Plants! I emphasize a nutrient dense, low fat, oil
free, whole food plant-based diet. This is the foundation towards healing. Without this we will always be playing damage control and simply creating and ‘managing’ chronic disease. I didn’t go into medicine to just manage disease. Our goal is to prevent and reverse. As a traditional osteopathic physician board certified in Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine, I also use my hands to address the neuromusculoskeletal system. This system makes up 70% of our body and if not moving appropriately can have a profound negative impact on our well being. If you are not in the area, I hope you can find the website resources useful and welcome you to take the journey towards your optimal health with a whole food plant-based diet as your foundation.
11/08/2025
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SET YOUR FOUNDATION OF PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH BY SETTING YOUR CORTISOL RHYTHM •
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Everyone would like to wake up feeling energized, in a good mood and able to focus on their activities for the day, including push back on stress as needed, and then relax into a terrific nights sleep. These are the hallmarks of excellent physical and mental health. Cortisol is really at the foundation of all of it.
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Everyone has a natural 24 hour circadian rhythm in cortisol whereby their levels of cortisol vary dramatically across the 24 hour cycle. This is independent of stress.
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There’s an abundance of data showing that when your cortisol levels are elevated significantly in the morning and lower in the afternoon and at night, it supports robust daytime energy and focus, improved mood, ability to combat infections, and excellent sleep.
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There are numerous ways to increase morning cortisol, especially in the 2hrs after waking. Some are listed on the slide and the details are on the Huberman lab podcast out now.
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It’s advantageous to keep your cortisol low in the evening and at night. Even if you exercise at night, that is possible. I explain the protocols for lowering cortisol at night in the episode as well.
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It’s important to know that many people do the right things but at the wrong times with respect to cortisol.
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It’s also critical to point out that women’s and men’s cortisol rhythms (even pregnant women), are remarkably similar in overall 24hr pattern. This has been looked at many times. However, during the luteal phase of their cycle & menopause, there is a tendency for women’s cortisol rhythms to flatten: lower in the morning and higher in the pm. This can be offset using the tools listed on these slides. There are others as well. Discussed in the episode.
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*NOTE: licorice root potently increases cortisol. Avoid at night and approach with caution! Licorice can raise blood pressure and is contraindicated with some meds.
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Put any questions you have in the comment section below this post and as always, thank you for your interest in science!
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Stanford UniversitycienceStanford University
06/08/2025
Is this why your family is gluten intolerant?
01/08/2025
Join Dr. Paul and infant massage therapist Dee Dee for a first visit with baby. Learn feeding tips, calming techniques, sleep posture, bodywork, and more to ...
11/07/2025
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American children are now sicker, heavier, and more likely to die young than kids in other wealthy countries.
A major new study published in JAMA confirms what many parents and practitioners have been sensing: something is deeply wrong with how we’re raising and protecting our children’s health.
From 2007 to 2022, U.S. children and teens were 1.8 times more likely to die than those in peer nations. Chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, asthma, and anxiety are sharply on the rise. And for the first time in generations, our kids may not outlive us.
This is an environmental, nutritional, and societal crisis.
Start small: cook one more meal at home. Swap the soda for water. Replace toxic products with safer ones. Your home is the frontline of your child’s health, and every choice matters.
We owe it to the next generation to do better. When millions of families start making different choices the system has to follow.
Swipe through for tips on how you can take action now, both at home and societally. What’s one change you’ve made or can commit to making today to protect your child’s health? Share below and tag a friend who needs to see this.
doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.9855
25/05/2025
03/05/2025
01/05/2025
First day back at camp!
30/04/2025
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Believe it or not, I didn’t start strength training or doing HIIT until I was 59.
I told myself yoga was enough. I was intimidated by gyms—and honestly, I didn’t know where to begin. But once I started building muscle, everything changed. My energy, my balance, even my brain felt sharper.
And this study backs it up. A two-year randomized controlled study found that high-intensity interval training in sedentary adults in their 50s reversed heart aging by 20 years. Not slowed it. Reversed it.
Not slowed. Reversed.
These weren’t lifelong athletes. They were people who had been inactive for decades. Their protocol was simple: two days of HIIT, two days of moderate cardio, one day of strength training. After two years, their heart and blood vessels functioned like they were two decades younger!
That’s the power of hormesis—a little bit of the right kind of stress signals your body to grow stronger. Whether it’s HIIT, strength training, a cold plunge, or a hard bike ride in the woods—these are the practices that activate your body’s built-in longevity pathways.
If I can start at 59, it’s never too late for you.
Cause of the autism pandemic.Endogenous, ExogenousSociological / psychologicalFoodEnvironmental toxinIatrogenic, drugs, vaccinationsCocktail effect‘Autism Ep...
19/04/2025
In the end, saying the autism epidemic isn’t real is simply a lie, and it’s a lie that extends the suffering of so many children.
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I am board-certified family medicine physician who looks for and addresses cause rather than merely treating symptoms. The Standard American Diet (SAD) subsisting of 60% processed foods, 30% animal products and a mere 10% vegetables, fruits and whole grains will create chronic disease.
I ask and support my patients to increase the good in their life. To increase the essential foods that help the body to heal: Plants! I emphasize a nutrient dense, low fat, oil free, whole food plant-based diet. This is the foundation towards healing. Without this we will always be playing damage control and simply creating and ‘managing’ chronic disease. I didn’t go into medicine to just manage disease. Our goal is to prevent and reverse.
As a traditional osteopathic physician board certified in Osteopathic Manual Medicine, I also use my hands when indicated to address the neuromusculoskeletal system. This system makes up 70% of our body and if not moving appropriately can have a profound negative impact on our well being.
There are many paths to healing as there are many causes of imbalance and disease processes. It can be an extraordinarily difficult yet extraordinary and beautiful journey figuring this all out and implementing a treatment plan. I know we need community, we need listeners. We need connection, inward to our deepest self, to our planet and to each other. We recognize the often causal role that previous trauma can play in our personal and communal health. To the best of our ability we look to help our patients in their healing journey through the assistance of at times medication but also meditation! Movement therapy, health navigation and coaching with free lifestyle change implementation community classes and connection with qualified mental health professionals. We would be honored to partner with you on your journey towards optimal health. We encourage you to visualize what your optimal health would look and feel like. We encourage you to journal, to start thinking about what may be the cause, what are your constant barriers to health promoting choices. We honor you and respect that you are the expert of your own body and life. We welcome you where it feels practical and safe to make simple daily choices that reconnect you to earth. That bring your closer to your divine birthright of fully embodiment, to be fully human. Perhaps a few minutes a day observing your breath, a few moments barefoot on untreated grass or soil. A short walk where you practice observing nature and the sensations in your body. When thoughts or emotions arise, where do you feel them in your body. Endeavor to get out of 'the control tower' of the mind into your body. Can you remember back to a time where you felt whole and alive? What was different for you then. Remember the feeling. Be in your body in everything you do. Practice the power of presence. Observe. Breathe. Consider reading the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Eat to live by Joel Fuhrman, MD. Watch the documentary films Forks Over Knives and Crazywise.
Patient testimonials:
"My personal experience with OMT is that it has relieved pain and discomfort from decades-old injuries and helped me reach levels of activity I had thought were "past" for me. I routinely walk 8-12 miles, can hike like I did when I was a teenager, and have regained amazing flexibility (in way more than the physical sense... :-) ). Thank you Dr. Kyle, for providing a level of care that goes so far beyond "healthcare" that it can much more accurately be called "life care"—and for extending that care to all life. As I said in my letter: "My doctor is not only an excellent, intuitive physician; he is a very important teacher, mentor, and friend." - N.
"I think he is the best doctor I have ever known. He actually cares about making people healthy, from the inside out. He is the only doctor I have ever met who actually knows that diet is the key to a healthy life. We all have to start making healthier choices in our lives, and he is a great role model. He is always kind, and goes way out of his way to help me be healthier. He is the best!" - KW
"I have lived lots of different places, so I have had lots of different Doctors. Dr Homertgen is the best. I trust him, to take good care of me. He really listens and figures things out." - FD
"Dr. Homertgen is awesome. He spends time with his patients and really seems to be about their overall health. His staff was wonderful and I am so grateful to have found their clinic." - CM
If you are in the area, you can find me at the Monroe Health Center, a part of Community Health Centers of Benton and Linn Counties (541) 766-6000 · 610 Dragon Dr, Monroe, OR 97456 I work at this clinic because they do not turn anyone away. They take all insurance. If you work and do not have insurance they will charge on a sliding scale. If you are unemployed and without insurance, there is no cost to you. I think that is pretty cool. If you are not in the area, I hope you can find the website resources useful and welcome you to take the journey towards your optimal health with a whole food plant-based diet as your foundation.
"Let food be thy medicine and medicine by thy food." -- Hippocrates
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” -- Rumi
