NHD = Doctor of Natural Health.
NHDs are similar to naturopaths, it would appear, possibly even more wooey.
Hello…
I am so impressed with so many wonderful comments. To be honest I am surprised with the warm welcome by Jackmannii , Bridget Burke , Qadgop the Mercotan
The name of this forum says it all. The Straight Dope Fighting Ignorance Since 1973. The first point is putting away all of your preconceived notions on what one knows about functional medicine and begin to “really” review the peer reviewed literature. (See the end of this post). I will not get into a turf war with anyone who still believes having an MD after your name makes them the ultimate authority on any and all issues of health and disease.
Yes, I am a chiropractic physician with a diplomate in chiropractic orthopedics and yes I have my master’s degree in nutritional science. And yes, I have taught and continue to teach for the last five years (Functional Medicine University) over 1100 licensed physicians (MD, DC, ND, DO), acupuncturists, nutritionists, RN, RD, pharmacists.
So we first need to get that straight from the start before we continue with our friendly communication. If that is an issue then I won’t waste my time with a forum that claims to get the “straight dope” on things and fights ignorance.
Think of all the comments that have already been touted by my dear new friends.
So here are my replies and I would hope if you are “really” seeking to fight ignorance that you reply in a more professional and ethical way that truly represents people who are seeking truth.
Ready?
What is all this talk about traditional medicine vs. functional medicine? FM is not a treatment modality but a paradigm in critical thinking about disease. The focus is on the identification of physiological aberrations of XYZ disease. It does not take away from the traditional allopathic model but instead complements it. By working to restore or improve physiology, positive clinical outcomes are commonly obtained.
That is why you are seeing a growing number of traditional MDs join the ranks of the functional medicine movement.
One of largest and well respected training programs in functional medicine is the Institute of Functional Medicine.
One look at the list of faculty would make me question how anyone would make these ridiculous comments. If you read these credentials and come to the same conclusions you have kindly made, then I will continue to let you be the moderator of this forum and spend my time doing something of real value and that is serving the needs of people who are seeking help with their health challenges. And by the way, Johns Hopkins (did I spell it right this time) and many more reputable instutions have embraced this wonderful field of medicine.
http://www.functionalmedicine.org/about/staff.asp
As for the comment of providing outdated ludicrously irrelevant and to think small pilot studies I ask you to wake up and do your homework.
I will not do it for you. If you really… I mean really want to step above ignorance and get the straight dope then do the following:
Read every word of the following sites. And start digging into the list of peer reviewed journals with current, logical and relevant with large studies NOT in vitro but in VIVO.
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/current
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622821/description#description
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/home.action
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505519/description#description
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/506028/description#description
http://www.febsletters.org/aims
http://www.springer.com/medicine/internal/journal/10620
http://www.nature.com/mi/index.html
Finally I will end my post by saying that Doctor Grisanti is “peddling” experience, intelligence and knowledge and wisdom. Seeing thousands of patients finally get well both subjectively “and” objectively from a variety diseases like hypothyroidism, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, MS, breast cancer, Crohn’s disease… to name a few, is powerful. Getting oncologists, rheumatologists, gastroenterologists refer to me to get my opinion and assistance is pretty done important. To have medical doctors and medical professors consult with me for help with their “own” health problems is very powerful.
** Oh… one more point. I am still in the trenches every day learning and studying the most relevant medical journals on biochemistry.
So I want to end my post by saying I don’t have the time to waste on posting replies to people who have their own personal archaic prejudicial opinions.
Here a few wonderful quotes to hopefully get you folks realize what your forum is all about:
The greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about”
“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.”
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
“The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”
“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; an argument an exchange of ignorance.”
The purpose of my original post was to simply open up a “professional” discussion with folks who are seeking to learn. Yes, challenge me with your questions. Hit me with best questions. Yes, I understand being skeptical but to be hatefully cynical is not worth my time.
For you folks who don’t fall in the same camp as these others and want to learn, then take a minute and read my clinical round case studies.
www.Clinical-rounds.com or www.clinicalrounds.org
I wish everyone well and it is time to get back to work.
Sincerely,
Ron Grisanti
P.S. This is my final post… if anyone wants to ask me a question I can be reached by going to drgrisanti@gmail.com
** I will reply to challenging intelligently skeptical questions but will not reply to folks who have nothing better to do than show their face by their mocking sarcastic, and sneering comments.
Oh dear, does that mean when I call “Dr.” Grisanti a quack who badly undertrains other quacks in quackery that I won’t get a response?
Dude, you talk about yourself in the third person. What other proof do we need that you’re a quack?
Yes, I’m bitter because he didn’t single me out like Qadgop.
Why in the world would you think you can just call yourself a “University”? Beauty schools require more training then you do. If you have something positive to contribute to society you would have no need to trump up your credentials.
So, you’re saying that you don’t have a holodeck?
Yes, that string of words you put together almost made sense.
But I must ask, what is a “diplomate in chiropractic orthopedics”?
Kind of a stupid question Travis - it’s clearly a good friend who works for an embassy (presumably from some other planet where this shit makes sense). Stop being so ignorant and give the guy a break. I mean, come on, he’s practicing “medicine” in a trench.
Guys, if we’re to call him out on ignorance, we have to be in the right every time.
.
MODERATOR NOTE
Hmmmm? You don’t know him personally, but you’re posting from his computer. I wonder if he knows this. Hold on to your hat, doc, you’re probably going for a ride here.
samclem Moderator
OMG! Cadmium is poisonous! But for the grace of functional medicine we would not have known!
Is functional medicine really just a way to link well studied medicine to woo woo crap? Is the thought that, because the good science falls under the self-proclaimed umbrella of functional medicine, the chiropractors that come with it must also be good science. It’s complete horse-shit.
To be fair, we don’t know if it’s Dr. G either. It could be some minimum wage office flunky paid to scan the web and insert infodumps.
William77, if you think that personal anecdotes are worth anything at all, and that’s the best you can post from anyone’s computer, I’m afraid you have failed the first test of science. Anything else you post like this, no matter how sincere, will be given the weight it deserves, or let me put it gently…none whatsoever.
Why thank you.
Uh-oh, the warm fuzzy interlude has ended.
(here follows a long list of websites and articles which Grisanti says we must wade through to understand his New Paradigm). This is the classic Gish Gallop technique (i.e. drown them in bullshit; they can’t possibly address all this glop at once, therefore I WINS!). And bullshit (or if you prefer, ludicrously irrelevant) it is - there are numerous scientific journal links that take you to main pages, without even a pretense that there’s something relevant there about functional medicine. Nope, it’s not going to help us understand you, Doc, if we read articles about aristolochic acid suppressing gene expression, or the problem of aerosols in cage vs. floor-raised commercial poultry operations.
One other link is revealing though - it’s to the website of a company called Doctors Data, which is under fire for providing dubious medical tests aimed at showing “toxin” accumulation (the firm is suing Quackwatch’s Stephen Barrett for criticizing their activities). Among other things, Doctors Data has been accused of doing a deceptive test for heavy metals:
"…this test measures urine metal levels after the patient takes a chelating agent, a drug which scavenges any heavy metal molecules it can find and drags them to the urine. And as a reference range, they use urine levels that are considered high in people who aren’t chelated. In other words, the test purposely boosts urine metal levels and them calls the levels “toxic”.
A practitioner could show this sort of alarming-looking (but meaningless) test result to the patient (or their parents, in the case of autistic children) as evidence that the patient needs to have expensive, useless and potentially dangerous chelation therapy to remove the “toxic metals”. Parents of autistic kids have fallen for this pitch, and the result has been at least one dead child that I know of.
Is that the kind of “functional medicine” you recommend?
Tell you what, doc - since you’re making the claim that Functional Medicine is fantastic stuff, a paradigm shift and all, how about linking to and discussing a single published, peer-reviewed trial in a respected journal that validates superior clinical outcomes obtained via functional medicine as opposed to evidence-based mainstream care? One will do for now.
Another classic rejoinder: “I’m far too busy saving lives to waste time on you nasty skeptics (though I’ve wasted quite a bit of it already), so gotta run Bye!”
I’ll repeat what I asked you earlier (here’s my challenge from a previous post): “It would make for an interesting discussion if Grisanti could point to real differences in how “functional” doctors supposedly practice (as compared to mainstream physicians), and show that such differences translate into significantly improved clinical outcomes (using large-scale controlled trials as evidence).”
Instead of responding to that, Dr. Grisanti expresses contempt for the forum, attacks “cynics”, posts a flock of links that don’t address the issue, and we get an admiring followup post from a “staunch academician” who seems to be remarkably close to Dr. Grisanti. 
My hat’s off to Jackmannii for this and his many other cogent posts where he takes on the woo merchants and snake-oil salesmen and stands up for evidence-based medicine.
IIRC, he’s a diplomate of the American Board of Pathology, a board that, unlike many boards cited by our visiting doctor, is actually recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (Motto: Higher standards. Better care.)
Keep up the great work.
As for functional medicine, well, show me scientific evidence that a particular practice is safe and effective, and I’ll buy into it. But that’s the bit that is missing from this discussion, isn’t it?
But his post says he’s with a diplomate - what kind of credential is that?
Ummm, this guy next to me is like a doctor or something…
eta: maybe William is his diplomate…
“With a diplomate” is the equivalent of “with a board certification.” It’s correct usage. Sorry.
I disagree - the definition indicates that a diplomate is a person. If you say that you are with a diplomate, you are saying that you are with a person who is board certified.
eta: I guess it that may be the word is a person sometimes, and a diploma at other times - but that seems odd, since it isn’t listed as a definition, and if you wanted to say “with a diploma” you could say it and use 2 less letters to boot
Thank you, Qadgop. :o
We are fortunate to have perspective from knowledgeable clinicians (among them Qadgop and DSeid) when it comes to analyzing claims like those for “functional medicine”, along with folks in allied health fields and basic sciences, plus a lot of other posters with well-developed critical thinking skills*.
It all makes for a less than hospitable environment for woo. Plus good times. 
That link doesn’t work.
Link works for me.
Made in the U.S.A. Yay, us. :rolleyes: