Every so often, we highlight a podcast we think our readers should be listening to. The pod space has exploded over the past few years and by highlighting a few key episodes across the space, we hope to introduce readers to a deep dive on topics we believe to be key – and to help you discover new pods you may get hooked on.
The pod: The Doctor’s Farmacy by Dr. Mark Hyman; Episode 8 with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, What the Future of Medicine Will Look Like.
Earlier this year, we called Dr. Hyman’s podcast the most important new pod of the year. In episode 8 of ‘The Doctor’s Farmacy’ Dr. Hyman speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, often called the father of functional medicine. In 1991, Bland founded the Institute for Functional Medicine and throughout his medical career has championed research on topics that were once considered extremely fringe — many of which are only recently gaining mass acceptance (think ‘gut health’, ‘mitochondrial health’ and probiotics).
The message: This podcast lasts fifty minutes. For those of you just dabbling in wellness or maybe struggling with health conditions and looking for alternative solutions, you’ll love the doctors’ case studies and anecdotes (including Dr Hyman’s own health crisis). You’ll also absorb some of the basic tenets of functional medicine. Says Dr Hyman in the pod..
“Functional medicine asks, ‘How do we restore function?’ And medicine asks, ‘How do we treat dysfunction?’ That is a very different question. In a sense, conventional medicine is a science of disease where as functional medicine is the science of health.”
For those with a hardcore interest in health and wellness, you may be encouraged and inspired to hear about Dr. Bland’s career journey – how he remained committed to paradigm-shifting medical research that was not popular at the start and is only now beginning to gain footing in the medical community at large. Again from the pod, Dr. Hyman says…
“Functional medicine for all its faults, has been brave in actually introducing simple ideas that have low risk, but potential benefit and seeing amazing results…. We have 3,000 people on our waiting list in Cleveland Clinic because people are really hungry for a different way of thinking even if they don’t know what it’s called, they want to get to their root cause of things.”
Why we loved it: The proliferation of modern illnesses and the way we currently treat them needs to evolve. We greatly appreciate modern medicine, but anyone who has experienced success in healing themselves in any way with foods, supplements or other natural measures knows that these protocols are still greatly marginalized in conventional medicine.
We look forward to seeing the current medical system improve and integrate with more holistic schools of thought and love hearing from two doctors who are no doubt leading the way.
Want more? Dr. Bland’s book The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, Happier Life is a useful read. What are your thoughts on functional medicine?
