Treating the root causes of allergy: Our gut microbiome health!

Chinese Medicine & Functional Medicine:

Treating the ROOT cause of illnesses

When I started my study in Functional medicine, I was amazed on how modern medicine can be connected to ancient medicine.

In Chinese medicine, we talked about constitution, environment & seasonal changes, and the pathogenic changes that can stem from external and internal factors.

One of the unique qualities of Functional medicine is not about using supplements to treat, but to look at the patient’s life in a new perspective. It’s a patient centered care that focuses on the map of life, the patterns, connections, and the root cause of imbalance, not the diseases.

Conventional medicine has its values in treating “illness and diseases” when in an acute onset.

I appreciate that we have access to pharmaceuticals that are effective, but when it comes to inflammation and chronic illness, there are many ways to really get to the root of the cause.

It’s more than a Band Aid approach.

Most of the allergies are Type 1 hypersensitivity which indicates an overreaction of our immune system. But what causes the overreaction in the first place?

Our Gut Microbiome & Allergies:

When we talk about treating allergies, we can’t overlook gut health.

What role does gut play in our immune system?

Our gut has more than 50 trillion friends that we might know we have! These friends play a critical role in many functions related to our immune system.

However the microbiome can be modified by diet, medications (especially antibiotics), stress, and chemicals. The damage, or unfavorable change of our gut microbiome is called dysbiosis, which leads to increased intestinal permeability. (link to research)

Our gut plays a role of absorption and digestion, it also functions as a barrier. When dysbiosis occurs, we can see an increase in production of proinflammatory cytokines, which leads to systemic inflammation. This alteration leads to gut brain axis dysfunction, and later affects the neural functions and hypersensitive reaction of the immune system.

Thus when treating allergies, we always start from the gut.

When starting with the gut, we start from asking the 5 basic questions:

What does this patient need to have Removed?
What does this patient need to have Replaced?
What does this patient need to Reinoculate the gut for a healthy optimal gut function?
What does this patient need in order to Repair their gut lining?
What does this patient need to do to Rebalance their lifestyle, diet, and stress?

As you can see, Functional medicine is more than medicine. It’s to bring mindfulness and awareness to the patient on what to eat, how to balance stress and how to minimize the chemical exposure.

Treating allergies is more than just using medication. To really get to the root cause , we can’t forget the health of the gut.

If you are interested in our 5R Gut Repair Program for allergy treatment, or if you know someone who may benefit from repairing the gut, let us help!

Book your free discovery call here!