Novis Health Centennial

The Journey Back to a Healthy Nation

How Healthcare Warriors are Born

In our Collective 25+ year careers we have witnessed first hand the damaging impact that a Healthcare system that was not well equipped to handle the Chronic disease epidemic has left in its wake. From a system that is focused on the management of disease and not in the discovery and treatment of root cause of disease, to a pill for every ill approach, that although effective during the era of acute illness and infection has resulted to be most devastating for current and future generations. In the last 15 years, before the shift of Functional Medicine and Regenerative Medicine into the spotlight of Health and Medicine, there had been minimal improvement in patient outcomes in most of the chronic illnesses experienced by our fellow Americans. From the 92% of Diabetic complications in “controlled” diabetics reported by the DECODE(1) study, to the Report from Clinical Thyroidology (2) for the Public demonstrating that the #1 Selling Medication in the US Synthroid fails to improve quality of life for patients who take it. Even more devastating to see the rising epidemic of Dementia and Cognitive impairment, increasing by 160% since 2001 (3), and the obsession that the one magic drug would somehow make it all better failing time and time again resulting in placing the lives of millions in harms way. To make matters worse, major surgical interventions like knee replacement surgery increases 20% every nine years a Staggering number in comparison to all other developed countries(4). What is so wrong at the core of our nations healthcare that results in placing us at the TOP of MONEY SPENT ON HEALTHCARE and makes us rank LAST IN POPULATION HEALTH FOM all the developed countries.

I can assure you, it has nothing to do with with Healthcare Reform, or Medicare, or one insurance or the other. No! Those are just distractions to keep us blind from the real core issue. The root cause problem is THE WAY THAT WE APPROACH HEALTH as a Nation. You see the current model of “Healthcare” only profits when individuals are ill, in pain, in decline or at risk of complications. In other words the sicker the population is the more money the “Healthcare” Industry makes. To make matters worse, we are one of the only countries in the world where the same agency that regulates the practice of medicine (The FDA) also regulates our food supply and what is allowed to come into the market to feed our population. It seems to many of us that even the slightest degree of financial conflict of interest within an agency with so much power would be catastrophic for our nation’s health. Put another way how would our world be different, if for example Food was regulated by an independent agency and drugs and the practice of medicine by a separate independent agency. What would that potentially look like? What would it look like if we had agencies responsible for diligently looking at the practices of major insurance companies who walk away with absurd profits every single year at the expense of denying necessary and useful exams and procedures to patients in need. All under the song of “Standard of Care” a noble thought born in the late 90’s intended to create general solutions for ailments in the population. However the last 10 years of research has been telling us a very different story, that many have decided to look away from. That is the story of personalized medicine.

Advancements in Medicine have shown us that every single one of us is absolutely unique in our health fingerprint. From a unique genome, epigenome, metabolome, microbiome and a unique set of lifestyle factors and environmental exposures that result in either optimal or declining health (For more information visit www.ifm.org). What we have learned is that health is the result of complex interactions between our genes and our environment and as you might expect, to become adept at testing, diagnosing and intervening these complex interactions a doctor wanting to really help patients suffering from chronic illness heal must posses elements that are rarely found in today’s healthcare arena. These are:

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