Conference Highlights

Day #2

Day #2 at #IHS2025NYC

Anyone else have trouble sleeping in hotels, especially in a loud city? I say that because I found my mind wandering a bit more today, but no worries. I still did my thing and will now share the highlights so please keep reading.

1st presentation of the day by Dr. Bland who many believe to be one of the founders of Functional Medicine. His talk was on ImmunoMetabolism, or how two separate systems, the Immune and the Metabolic work together or apart. Well, I’m glad he finally realized this as this just happens to be what we have been doing and teaching at the Institute for Medical Wellness for many many years. Except we don’t just focus on the Immune and Metabolic systems. We also pay close attention to the Hormonal system and Nutrition. Oops, let’s not forget about the Gut, although I usually have the Gut intermixed with the immune system. Are you following all this? Let’s just say at the IMW we have been using an integrative systems management approach to your health and wellness for quite a long time.

Two other presentations had to do with Hormonal Health/Replacement and Breast Cancer risk.

What I find awesome about Functional medicine is that you can go to two lectures on similar topics, in this case hormones, and have two different viewpoints expressed. In Functional medicine there are less top down industry biased/sponsored algorithms, and instead more clinical experienced thought processes laid out in how to proceed with individualized treatments, but all backed by science and medical research.

So where one presenter believes hormone tests may not be needed and Estrogen replacement, even oral estrogen is preferred, the next presenter believes less in oral estrogen replacement alone, more on proper testing, and making sure to balance out the estrogen with natural progesterone. It just shows how healthcare professionals don’t all receive the same training. It also shows there are many different options out there. Myself, I prefer testing and when needed using both estrogen creams and balancing with progesterone. But if better data comes out that is safer and more effective, I am open to change my mind.

One other presentation was on the oral microbiome. This one was very interesting, probably moreso because it was a topic I have not heard that much about, but will most likely now take a deeper dive into when I find the time. To make it simple, your mouth and teeth and gums have their own balance of organisms, bacteria, yeast, etc. You can have good and not so good organisms. There is a lab that does this testing and I will be a Guinea pig and test myself.

What is interesting is that the bacteria in your mouth can travel just about anywhere in your body. If the bacteria is not good it can then cause problems elsewhere. It is especially important if you are planning on getting pregnant, to make sure your oral and dental health are as optimal as possible prior to getting pregnant. Yes, the mother’s oral microbiome can travel to the baby in the womb. Freaky isn’t it? Also some bad oral bacteria can increase your risk of Cancers.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the last day. Presentations I hope to go to include:

Thyroid, Prostate Cancer and Long Covid.

More on this conference will be discussed next week at the Institute for Medical Wellness Group Zoom. This upcoming Zoom is open to all Common Sense Health and Wellness subscribers.