There are many things we know that make for a healthy body and quality of life. For example the role nutrition plays in health and disease and how important certain vitamins, minerals, and trace elements are such as vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, CoQ10, and fish oil. The sad thing is that your local doctor often dismisses many of these as ways to maintain or improve your health status. For example, it is only now becoming realised how important vitamin D is and how many crucial roles it plays within the body for many of your local GP’s. This has been known for at least 15 years (minimum) within the doctor’s community who are a bit more enlightened and up to date with medical research.
Doctor Tom O’Bryan said “it takes an average of 17 years for research findings to work their way down to your local doctor. The problem is that you don’t have 17 years to waste.” This is why I like to do my best to stay up to date with medical research the best I can. Obviously I am not a scientist and don’t understand every mechanism in the body and how it works inside out but I do my best and I also seek out the doctors who are fully aware of what cutting-edge science is out there. If something makes sense but has not yet been fully validated then I don’t care. I try it out and see how I feel, monitor blood work, and make changes.
Your doctor may have the best intentions but it is very hard for them to stay up to date with the medical research when they are seeing patients all day long and also when much of the current information may not have been taught to them in medical school. This is especially true if they finished more than 10 years ago as research into things like the immune system, environmental toxicities, and epigenetics have progressed so quickly. The good news is there are some local doctors now trying to bridge this gap as they have started to accept that things aren't working as well as they should be.
Another thing that also plays a role in whether you have an issue or not in your doctor’s eyes is if you are “in range” or not on a blood test. This is a very poor marker of health vs disease as the norms on these tests are not about functioning optimally. It is an average of everyone who gets tested, mostly sick people. I have written about this Blood Tests - In Range Doesn't Mean Healthy.
I always get frustrated when I see on the news or hear from people about a certain topic that they think is so new and amazing, when in fact I told them about it 5 to 10 years ago because I have been fortunate to learn from some of the best people in the world in their given fields. At the end of the day, I’m glad they end up coming to the same conclusion. I just hope they haven’t deteriorated too much or accumulated many health issues along the way. I don’t want to simply chase off symptoms or feel ok, I want to function at the best I can each day. Don’t accept mediocrity.