Functional Medicine

Energy is not just a matter of getting enough sleep or regulating caffeine levels. Those things are very important — but let's go a step deeper and talk about what energy is at its core. According to Dr. Henri Roca, Concierge Primary Care Physician and Functional Medicine Specialist at PALM Health, “Low energy and fatigue are signals. And very often, those signals can lead us to investigate the health and function of your mitochondria.”

Think about a time when you felt angry, anxious, or stressed. Maybe you had a big exam, an argument with a loved one, or a jarring emotional situation. It’s likely that your heart started to race, your breathing became quick and shallow, and you felt yourself start to tremble. Your muscles tensed up. Maybe you even felt dizzy or nauseous.

PSA: Your workouts are only as good as the recovery you do in between. Professional athletes know this best — despite the intensity of the training, their bodies are resilient enough to do it day in and day out. Why? Because they don’t just train hard: they recover intentionally.

We’ve been told for years that metabolism slows with age, or that midlife weight gain and energy decline is inevitable. But that's not totally true: if you're feeling those effects, it's likely that your metabolism isn’t actually bad or broken. It’s just under-muscled.

With Thanksgiving around the corner and the rest of the holiday season not too far behind, gratitude seems an obvious topic to come to mind. You may think of gratitude as a simple gesture of expressing thanks. But really, gratitude blossoms far beyond this gesture, starting within and extending out to connect us with other humans and the world around us.

Leaders in functional medicine are emphasizing a strong but little-considered link: poor oral health can increase your risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

With the holiday season in full swing, there are parties, gatherings, and celebrations galore for many of us. Though it’s a favorite time of year for many and a natural time of indulging, being around so much food — particularly the heavier, calorie-laden and sugar-filled holiday dishes — can cause us to stray from our healthier habits and experience the effects of an unhealthy diet, such as weight gain, sugar hangovers, and bloating.

Did you know that nearly 80% of all autoimmune disease cases occur in women? It’s not a coincidence — so what gives? Let’s unpack the reasons why and what you can do to protect and support your immune system.

The quality of how you age is deeply shaped by a quiet force: chronic inflammation. This slow, simmering internal fire—called inflammaging—is typically what’s behind the common chronic illnesses that affect nearly all adults over age 65. The good news? It doesn’t have to be that way. A proactive focus on your health now, at whatever stage of life you’re in, can reduce and reverse inflammation so you can live all of your years with maximum health, strength, and vitality.

The gut is more than a digestive organ — it’s a command center for the entire body, influencing immunity, inflammation, mood regulation, hormone balance, and more. If it’s not functioning well, chances are high that the other systems in your body aren’t either. And reciprocally, if you’re experiencing an imbalance in another area of your health, the first thing to do is to look back to the gut.