FAQ's On Personalized Nutrition and Functional Health
Hello, I am Julie Donaldson and I am a clinical nutritionist with functional health training. I specialize in restoring balance in complex, chronic and acute health conditions. I welcome you to peruse other articles that may be of interest to you in your health investigation!
“I have been working with Julie for just under a year and have very much appreciated her approach to functional medicine. She relies on more thorough testing than other practitioners I have seen and therefore has been able to dig further into my issues. In addition, she is able to weed through the multitude of results to get to the heart of the issues and start addressing them. I also appreciate her emphasis on the importance of food and nutrition in healing. Proper diet for my body type was most certainly missing from my healing journey a year ago, as I had been relying heavily on an elimination diet and anecdotal observations of how certain foods made me feel. I just didn’t realize that I was probably starving myself and denying my body the things it needed to stay healthy.”
There are a number of topics that are very commonly discussed in nutrition and functional health care. As the “FAQ’s” of our industry, it is important to cover them in one place and continue to edit/add as things change. There is such a plethora of information and misinformation on the internet in these arenas and as a holistic health practitioner in personalized nutrition and functional health, I am constantly committed to providing my community with research-based education.
FAQ #1: Isn’t it just best to eat by “how you feel” and isn’t MT® just another nutritional idea?
I am 100% in alignment with eating by intuition and how one feels - it is a cornerstone of the MT® approach. But success is limited when it’s the only approach. Many people have high intuition and awareness about how food affects their bodies, and the truth is that the MT® process encourages expansion of this. But, I’ve also found that many people are quite close (but just not spot on) when following their feelings alone. Those who are very close are often eating near to what is needed when their MT® is identified. But there are frequently some misfires in the mix as well - once the MT® is identified, fine-tuning into the best practices and away from the interfering ones is easy.
The other issue with eating by how you feel is that many diets can feel good for a while, as the body appreciates some change/hormetic stress. But then the long-term changes in microbiome, metabolic function and other important body systems begin to set in and create problems. Research also shows that the short term changes do not last.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Ketogenic diet. Many people have latched onto the ketogenic diet, mostly for reasons pertaining to weight loss and blood sugar. But with long-term use, the diet can cause issues with NRLP3 activation. This inflammasome activates in macrophages in the immune system and can also be associated with the loss of pancreatic beta cells which make insulin. (Note: Oral ketone supplementation is even more dangerous than the diet in its ability to over-activate the NLRP3 pathway.) Over time, diminished insulin output yields hyperglycemia and the following cascade ensues:
Hyperglycemia > overfueling of mitochondria > ROS & advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) > NFkB upregulation > Body & CNS inflammation > downregulation of insulin receptor sensitivity > insulin resistance > hyperglycemia (loop
Vegetarian diet. Multiple nutrient deficiencies are associated with vegetarian diets, including B vitamins, calcium, zinc, and amino acids. All of these can contribute to compromised hormone production (lower adrenal output). Many of them are also detoxification cofactors and their absence can diminish adequate clearance.
Low fat or low carbohydrate diets. Once again, research shows us that neither of these is positive over a long haul. Yet, many people use such diets believing that they are “healthy” (and may experience a short term improvement). The DASH diet is currently ranking in the diet world as a top choice. It is low fat, and a majority of Americans believe this is necessary for weight loss. Remember that your nervous system and your eyes are 60 and 70% fat - they need fat to perform.
In the end, MT® solves the mystery. Every type in MT® has its own balance, and clearly, balance is what shows up as best, time after time - why not have the exact right balance for your own needs? Any other “but I felt good” when dieting is a hormetic response and it will end and/or become a stress response. Finally, no, MT® is not just “another nutritional idea”. It is based upon decades of study of individualized responses to food and how it is metabolized.
FAQ #2: What is the truth about cholesterol?
The biggest truth about cholesterol is that it is complex and highly misunderstood. Many people go on vegetarian or vegan diets to “reduce” their cholesterol, only to watch it soar upward. The tie that conventional medicine makes to diet and cholesterol is erroneous. I’ve seen vegans with extremely high cholesterol and I’ve seen people go on high protein & fat diets whose cholesterol numbers normalized. In the nutritional sense, we must always return to a personalized approach. That being said, sometimes during healing, cholesterol will increase anyway. Why is this? Because cholesterol is the #1 steroidal hormone in the body. If you have high inflammation, your cholesterol is going up. If your adrenal glands have suffered and need to be rejuvenated, your cholesterol will go up (it is the base hormone for all adrenal hormones). If your cortisol is high, your cholesterol will go up. If your thyroid is malfunctioning, your cholesterol will go up. If your vitamin D levels are low, your cholesterol will go up.
Bottom line…some of the best research shows that cholesterol around 240-250 is the most supportive for reducing “all-cause” morbidity. The most direct correlation with cardiovascular disease, pancreatitis, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and liver disease is with elevated triglycerides, not with total cholesterol.
It is important to understand that the medical tie of high cholesterol to heart disease does not take individual factors into account. We have no idea what a person’s inflammatory status is, nor their diet (if wrong for their own needs), what their glandular function is, nor what their toxic or immune statuses are. All of these factors must be considered when evaluating cholesterol levels because each contributes to poor health - and many roads lead back to cardiovascular disease.
(For anyone wishing to have a “deep dive” on this topic, a great read is “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz. There are 13 pages of scientific references at the end of the book!)
FAQ #3: What’s wrong with bio-identical hormone replacement? isn’t it made naturally just for me?
Yes, it’s made for you and it’s much better than synthetic hormone replacement. It’s okay to use as a bridge for a short duration. But any/all hormone replacement is temporary in its effect and is just a panacea for underlying problems. You will require more and more to achieve an effect and ultimately it will just stop working. We’re in similar territory here as the cholesterol territory. There are reasons that things are malfunctioning and you want to get to the root causes of poor hormone production. A few of these are: low amino acids (proteins) that feed the liver where enzymes are made for hormone production; low cholesterol; imbalances between cortisol & DHEA and/or deficiencies in them; hormone (estrogen) toxicity; pathogens such as mold and bacteria that create neuroimmune stress and aberrations in estrogen levels.
There are also side effects of BHRT for many people.
FAQ #4: Why have I (and so many people I know) gotten COVID multiple times even though I’m vaccinated?
This is something that will be under investigation for a long time to come, but the most important research explaining this response can be found here. I’ve worked across the last years to help everyone understand that there is no “right” way for every person to treat this situation. What the research shows is a high amount of stress on the innate immune system that results from the vaccines. Of course we can see this with infection in many ways as well - the problem lies in not knowing what our immune systems are doing and in trusting a “vaccine” to provide protection when it has just as much potential to over-stress the immune system. It is not a vaccine as we previously defined them. It is a prophylactic. A vaccine eradicates disease.
Authors of the research state: “vaccination with an mRNA vaccine initiates a set of biological events that are not only different from that induced by infection but are in several ways demonstrably counterproductive to both short- and long-term immune competence and normal cellular function.”
The primary concerns and currently understood mechanisms leading to ongoing viral susceptibility are the interference with the STAT2 protein and interferon, as well as the difficulty with detoxification of spike proteins.
FAQ #5: How long will it take for me to heal?
I believe most people know in their own hearts what the answer to this question is, but need to hear it directly from their support person. The answer is that healing is dependent upon many factors and not highly predictable. For those who have been ill for some time, it’s best to plan on close to a year. With age, healing time increases, as the body is a bit less forgiving. An average in my practice is 8 months. The most important factors for effective and timely healing are: commitment, diligence, understanding the program pieces and how they are working, avoiding stressors and environmental exposures, self regard and patience. Healing is not linear - progress and regression accompany one another throughout.
FAQ #6: Do I have to be “perfect” to heal?
Many people already know the answer to this question as well! What is perfect? And are we using some measure of it to either excuse ourselves from doing the work or are we striving for something that doesn’t exist? No one is perfect and no, you do not need to strive for it. That being said, you do want to strive for doing the most and doing it most of the time. This just improves your outcome. When your body is doing better, holding homeostasis more regularly, you have more wiggle room. But having illness or physical dysfunction is like being in the ditch. If one step takes you out but you’re still close to the edge, giving yourself too many allowances may drop you back in. We need many steps away from the ditch to be in the zone.
FAQ #7: Shouldn’t I be stimulating my immune system if I’m sick?
The immune system is a massively complex one, and it involves a multitude of cell types and responses. “Stimulating” the immune system is a misnomer, even in those who have low expressions. There are arms of the system and several different types of “armies” that function within those arms. Different substances will stimulate different arms, armies and responses. Randomly using internet advice for stimulation can push a person into excess activity and ultimately, autoimmune expression. It is important to understand why the immune system has been unable to rebalance itself and to work with a trained professional to investigate individual immune function.
FAQ #8: Why don’t you sell liver cleanses when you focus so much on toxicity?
Over the course of decades in practice, I have witnessed too many people made sicker by “cleanses”. This approach is similar to that discussed above around immune function. There is way too much “free” advice suggesting everyone should cleanse their liver. Here’s why I don’t concur with this belief:
Detoxification is also complex, not a one-size-fits-all function. Kits are one-size-fits-all.
To detoxify properly, your body needs energy. Many people who are toxic are not eating as they should and therefore not generating ATP (cellular energy). If you push your body to detoxify without energy, it will revolt.
If you push your body to detoxify and it lacks important cofactors to handle what gets pushed, it will also revolt. These include certain vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and amino acids. Toxins spill into the bloodstream when the liver is pushed - this can create a toxic soup that makes you feel worse than before. Sometimes people feel better in the short run, and then all of sudden things are worse. This is particularly true of those with hormonal imbalances.
It is important to first stabilize the body, then to understand what toxins are most offensive and then to know where the body is deficient in cofactors.
As you can see throughout these common FAQ’s, the answers are often individual. Yet in the media and “internet healthcare”, they are offered for the masses. You are uniquely you, and your biochemistry requires unique attention. If you or someone you know is needing help with illness (or simply staying well), please contact me at Julie@truenaturehealthconsulting.com. We provide holistic telehealth services.