• Store
Member Portal

Blog

Gastrointestinal Health
Foods and nutrients for liver detoxification
Gastrointestinal Health

Detox or Die: How to Help Your Patients Detoxify in a Modern World

Detoxification is a multi-step process that occurs in multiple organ systems but especially in the liver. Support your patients' liver detoxification pathways and hormone balance with these foods and nutrients.

Vincent Pedre, MD | December 13, 2023

Gastrointestinal Health
Food Prebiotics
Gastrointestinal Health

Polyphenols: The New Prebiotic Frontier

Prebiotics are nutrients that induce the growth or activity of beneficial bacteria in the gut, and there are options available beyond traditional fiber.

Vincent Pedre, MD | November 22, 2023

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

8 Best Practices for Healthy Detoxification

In this follow-up post to last week's blog on supporting Phase I and Phase II liver detoxification, we're going over the important considerations when creating a detox treatment plan for your patients.

Vincent Pedre, MD | December 28, 2022

Gastrointestinal Health
Milk lactose image
Gastrointestinal Health

Dairy Sensitivities and Intolerances: Using the Right Digestive Enzymes

Patients with IBS or IBD often have a dairy intolerance, sensitivity or combination of both. An effective dairy enzyme blend is a great adjunct to the care to help patients manage uncomfortable GI symptoms associated with dairy intolerance and sensitivity.

Vincent Pedre, MD | May 2, 2022

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

The What, When and Why of Using Probiotics as Targeted Therapies

For any practitioner who uses probiotics in their practice, there isn't a clear-cut guide on the what, when and why of using probiotics for different conditions. Worldwide, over-the-counter consumption of probiotic supplements has increased in recent years. Notwithstanding, clinical studies for many probiotic strains and formulations have had conflicting results. New stool testing modalities, like 16s-RNA PCR and whole-genome sequencing, have helped assess gut colonization by probiotics, strain-level activity, interactions with resident flora, effects on the host, and the potential useful medical indications of specific strains. Regardless, trying to design test-guided probiotic formulations based on shot-gun sequencing of a stool specimen is still not exact science, as I have seen in patients who have tried customized probiotics through companies, like Sun Genomics, not achieve the intended results one would expect through "customization."

Vincent Pedre, MD | November 16, 2019

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

Implications of Cytolethal Distending Toxins Bring New Perspective for Natural SIBO Treatment

For the functional medicine practitioner, it is not a rare occurrence when a patient presents to your office with uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea and/or constipation. These are common complaints that present across most GI cases. But what happens when the patient doesn't show improvement, and even small diet changes still present with gas, bloating, diarrhea and food intolerances? Patients like these are frustrating, especially if you have tried numerous approaches, like an elimination diet, with unsuccessful results, and you cannot pinpoint the cause of their symptoms. If this is the case, you may want to consider small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).

Vincent Pedre, MD | April 16, 2019

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

The 3 I's of Building a Strong Gut-Immune Axis

In practice, it can be a challenge to break down complex medical concepts and articulate them simply to our patients. This is especially true when we begin to talk about the connection between gut and immune function. In the world of functional medicine, we find our patients to be a lot more engaged and wanting to learn these complex concepts in a more digestible way. And so, to provide quality information in smaller bites, I often speak about the 3 I's of building gut-immune health as a way to understand the importance of the types of nutrients we use together in order to enhance this synergistic relationship After all, 70% of our immune system is found within the digestive tract. In this post, I will lay out the 3 I's and include corresponding solutions to glue it all together.

Vincent Pedre, MD | February 16, 2017

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

Simplifying SIBO: Case Study + Treatment Plan

You have a new patient coming in to see you. As you peruse her intake forms, you see she has already been treated for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (or SIBO, for short) several times, and she comes in complaining of recurring symptoms.

Vincent Pedre, MD | October 16, 2014

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

Treat the Patient, Not the Disease: Advancing the Patient-Centered, Functional Medicine Approach to GI Dysfunction

When it comes to functional medicine, no other organ system exemplifies this patient-centered approach better than the gastrointestinal system.

Vincent Pedre, MD | February 16, 2014

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

Setting Successful Treatment Expectations for Your Patients in the New Year

You've created an amazing A-Z plan for your patient. You're excited to apply all your functional medicine knowledge. They walk out the door with pamphlets, instructions, and a bag of supplements you're sure will alter the course of their chronic illness. The patient gets home and realizes, "Oh, oh...I can't do all this!" Two to four weeks later at follow-up, the patient tells you they only did one or two things on the list of 10 perfectly planned interventions for their condition. You feel like you failed, but really, you set your patient up for failure.

Vincent Pedre, MD | March 16, 2013

Gastrointestinal Health
Gastrointestinal Health

The Challenges and Pitfalls of PPI Withdrawal

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are among the most widely prescribed drugs worldwide, accounting for a profit in the billions for the pharmaceutical industry. They are the leading Western treatment for GERD, dyspepsia, and peptic ulcer disease. But the problem is that PPIs are not used judiciously for the short-term, such as healing a gastric ulcer; instead, patients are prescribed PPIs, then kept on them indefinitely without regard to the long-term potential harm of these medications.

Vincent Pedre, MD | January 16, 2013

Looking for More?

 
LMRC Logo
linkedin-icon linkedin-icon linkedin-icon CONNECT WITH US
540 W. Northwest Hwy, Suite 200
Barrington, IL 60010
1.855.771.5672 | Fax: 1.800.476.4664
540 W. Northwest Hwy, Suite 200
Barrington, IL 60010
1.800.332.2351 | Fax: 1.800.476.4664 [email protected]

© Lifestyle Matrix Resource Center

Your Privacy Choices California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Opt-Out Icon