Tag: Functional Medicine Specialists

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Meet Restore Health: the Loveland Functional Medicine Doctor You’ve Been Looking For!

Loveland functional medicine doctor

Taking control of your health is one of the best decisions you can make for yourself. Functional Medicine involves healing the body as a whole – not just addressing your symptoms – to help you attain optimal wellness. Drs. James Howton and Rachel Fischer are Restore Health Center’s two top Functional Medicine physicians located in Loveland, CO. We’re conveniently located for individuals living in Loveland, Fort Collins, and Northern Colorado, however, we offer services to people living throughout Colorado and surrounding states. We provide a preventative approach to traditional medical practices. If you’re on the lookout for a Functional Medicine doctor, taking a look at Restore Health Center will be worth your time. 

Functional Medicine is relatively new. It is an area of medicine that still relies on the traditional medical practices you’re used to, including utilizing lab tests and studies, but Functional Medicine addresses the root cause of problems instead of just treating the presenting symptoms. Optimal health and wellness are our top priority. As Functional Medicine doctors in Loveland, we’re here to provide life-style based and natural solutions for your complete wellness.

What is Functional Medicine?

Functional Medicine is when doctors look into their patient’s histories, genetics, and environmental and lifestyle factors to see how they could influence long term health or lead to chronic disease. It focuses on treating the body as a whole organism, not just a collection of organs. It is more effective in the management and prevention of chronic diseases. 

When a patient-centered approach is used, physicians can support the healing process better. Health and illness are components that are affected by their environment. The goal of Functional Medicine is to change a person’s health from illness to overall well-being through shifting lifestyle and environmental factors.

What Do We Do At Restore Health – A Loveland Functional Medicine Doctor?

At Restore Health, we approach health challenges by addressing underlying issues first and focusing on disease prevention, not just treating symptoms with medication. We will take a close look at how your body interacts with food, environmental exposures, stress, and more. We serve patients living throughout Colorado and neighboring states, but we’re conveniently located for patients living in Fort Collins, Loveland, and Northern CO.

We offer treatments for autoimmune disease, thyroid dysfunction, gastrointestinal disorders, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, and more. We also offer specialized services and treatment options specific to men, like GAINSWave, as well as specific treatments for women, like Geneveve.

As functional medicine physicians, we strive to offer the best that medicine has to offer, ranging from traditional medical interventions to innovative treatments like bio-identical hormone restoration, targeted nutritional supplementation, detoxing therapies, and more. 

How Do We Address Common Chronic Medical Conditions? 

We start by identifying and removing the things that push you toward disease. Then we help you fill your life with practices that create wellness to prevent disease and keep you healthy. When you work with us, we help you achieve optimal function.

At Restore Health, we believe in using food, nutritional supplements, exercise as well as meditation and stress reduction methods to address the underlying causes of your health problems. We work with you to find how best to help you achieve complete and lasting wellness. Restore Health Center is your destination for a Loveland Functional Medicine doctor. We are dedicated to helping you achieve overall wellness, identifying and removing the things that push you toward disease, and filling your life with practices that keep you healthy. Contact us today at 970-278-0900 to schedule your consultation and learn more about how we can help you achieve the quality of life you’ve always wanted!

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Why Are Probiotic and Prebiotic Foods Important? Your Questions Answered by Our Colorado Functional Medicine Specialists

Colorado Functional Medicine

At Restore Health Center Loveland, your Colorado Functional Medicine specialists, we are dedicated to a new model of health care that is focused on achieving optimal health, rather than treating disease. We look at the body’s systems rather than just symptoms. This largely includes what foods we’re putting into our body’s systems and the effects that those foods have on our health. 

When it comes to eating foods that are instrumental in creating health and wellness, one of the most important considerations is the inclusion of probiotic and prebiotic foods in your diet. According to Medical News Today, “Prebiotics and probiotics both support the body in building and maintaining a healthy colony of bacteria and other microorganisms, which supports the gut and aids in digestion. These food components help promote beneficial bacteria by providing food and creating an environment where microorganisms can flourish.” 

This environment where microorganisms can flourish is also called our microbiome. As the Mayo Clinic describes it, “the lining of your gut, like every surface of your body, is covered in microscopic creatures, mostly bacteria. These organisms create a micro-ecosystem called the microbiome. And though we don’t really notice it’s there, it plays an oversized role in your health and can even affect your mood and behavior.”

Check out our previous blog post talking to your Fort Collins GI Doctor about eating for your microbiome for tips on what foods to eat. But one of the most important ways to eat for your microbiome is by including prebiotic and probiotic foods in your diet. The key to a healthy microbiome is creating a balance between all the different species of beneficial bacteria found in the gut. To maintain this balance, we must help the microbes already living thereby giving them the food they need (prebiotics) and adding living microbes directly to your system (probiotics).  As a matter of fact, the better the ratio of beneficial bacteria present, the less likely the “non-beneficial” bacteria, fungi and yeast are to overgrow–potentially creating or contributing to poor health.

Prebiotics are mostly present in fiber-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, and especially those that contain complex carbohydrates. As the Mayo Clinic explains, “These carbs aren’t digestible by your body, so they pass through the digestive system to become food for bacteria and other microbes.” 

Probiotics, on the other hand, contain live organisms that add directly to the population of healthy microbes already living in your microbiome. You can make sure you’re getting enough probiotics with foods like yogurt, sauerkraut, or kombucha, or with supplements. Keep in mind, that every food or spice creates its own unique probiotic when fermented, so variety is key. If you’re not sure what type of supplements to take or foods to eat to ensure you’re getting enough quality probiotics, you can ask the Functional Medicine specialists at Restore Health. 

All in all, the ecosystem in your gut must be healthy for you to be healthy. Normalizing gut function and flora through improved diet, increased fiber intake, daily probiotic supplementation, enzyme therapy, the use of nutrients that repair the gut lining, and the direct treatment of bad bugs in the gut with herbs or medications can be remarkable. Our patients find relief from allergies, acne, arthritis, headaches, autoimmune disease, depression, ADD/ADHD, and more – simply by restoring their delicate gut system.

Please call your Colorado Functional Medicine specialists at Restore Health at 970-278-0900 or visit us online at www.restorehealthcenter.net, so that we can help restore the symbiotic relationship between you and your gut.