A Long Road To Nowhere

While I’m not one to think that everything is caused by fungal candida, over the past 35 years I have seen many miracles that come from correcting it back to its natural yeast form and restoring balance in the body. For example, we have had over 58 women diagnosed as infertile get pregnant while on the Plan. People have reversed Diabetes and autoimmune diseases. People generally see decreased levels of inflammation, cholesterol, blood sugar imbalances, excess weight, and more. Fungal candida is linked to causing and/or contributing to over 125 different diseases and conditions, and yet thinking it is the cause of all problems when it isn’t, is a long road to nowhere.

"When starting any journey, it is crucial to evaluate where we are currently starting from in order to effectively plan and navigate towards our desired destination."

Recently, a patient came to us after having spent over $250,000 over the course of 15 years on his illness. His long road to nowhere was very expensive and an unfruitful 15-year odyssey. He did the Plan and about 85% of his problems went away over the 4-month course of the Plan. In just 4 short months, he was able to turn-around most of the issues that 15 years of testing and treatment weren’t able to resolve.

It was a miraculous turn-around for him and he decided that he wanted to find out more about his body, as well as handling the remaining 15% of his health issues. He decided to do Functional Genetic testing with us, along with Microbiome, Metabolomic (to see what nutrients he was and wasn’t absorbing), Ionomic (minerals), ProDrome Scan (brain lipids and energy production), Oxidative Stress  and the Total Toxin Burden panels.

New Insights

I’ve been doing these tests for the past 8 years and I cannot overstate how valuable the information and data these panels provide are and the clarity they can bring to complex situations. These are not the minimalistic 23andme or Ancestry panels that only look at about 1000 genetic mutations with a 3 or 4 page printout. The Functional Genomic panels I use look at over 40,000 mutations over 14 panels, with the largest of these panels being 352 pages long. In addition, there are now over 40 pathways maps, which show the connectedness between the various gene sets.

Adding in the other panels (Microbiome, Metabolomic, Ionomic, ProDrome Scan, Oxidative Stress and Total Toxin Burden) increases the amount of data exponentially and with that comes even greater clarity.

In reviewing all of his panels, I was actually surprised that he had the good results that he had with the Plan. In the Microbiome panel, there were still imbalances in certain bacterial ratios that the Plan should have handled. As it turned out, those particular imbalances were driven by the presence of what are known as the Forever chemicals (PFAS, PFOA, etc). These chemicals were present in his Total Toxin Burden test, along with BPA, Glyphosate, Mycotoxins, Heavy metals, and other chemicals. I was shocked at the amount of chemicals he was carrying around with him, as he was someone who only consumed organic foods and drinks.

The presence of the toxins, along with certain genetic mutations, affected his ability to break down, absorb, and transport nutrients throughout his body. By piecing everything together, we were able to have a clearer picture and course of action on how to go about addressing everything we uncovered.

I told him that I thought that some, or many, of the good results he had achieved would start to unravel over the course of months due to the presence of the toxins and the genetic mutations and how they would continue to affect the microbiome and absorption of nutrients.

Unfortunately, he didn’t choose to do anything at that time, and I didn’t hear from him until about 6 months later when he called me and said he was starting to see a reversal in the benefits he had achieved.

For a long time, I have been aware that our bodies are being asked to handle more and more toxic exposures in today’s world. Additionally, the effects of stress are another compounding factor.

How all of these various factors intersect with our body’s cells, tissues, and genetic pathways will impact our health. Today, I am seeing these impacts more frequently and thanks to genetic testing and these incredible panels, I have a better understanding of how to treat the various issues.

Our Owner's Manual

There have been instances over the past 40 years, where a patient has stated to me, “Every car has an Owner’s Manual. Why isn’t there an Owner’s Manual for my body?” With Functional Genomic panels, we finally have the ability for each person to have their Owner’s Manual.

An Owner’s Manual can help each of us to avoid a long road to nowhere.

Most autoimmune diseases take many years to diagnose and others can take 10+ years before they are correctly diagnosed, and misdiagnosis is very common. One study showed that 96% of patients received a misdiagnosis at least once and over a third of them were told it’s all in their head. Complexity is not something doctors understand.

All in the Family

Take the case of two siblings that I recently treated. Both experienced febrile seizures. A febrile seizure takes place when someone comes down with a fever and the fever rises very quickly causing the person to have a seizure. Medicine and science don’t have an explanation for this, as is the case most of the time for many conditions.

It turns out however, that their genetics held the answer. There are two separate genes that are responsible for transporting sugar across the blood brain barrier into the brain and then into the brain cells. If these genes aren’t functioning correctly due to genetic mutations, then the brain really never has enough fuel to function properly.

They both had mutations in each of the genes. The next time the son came down with a fever, I instructed the parents to give the children a ketone supplement.

Ketones are a fatty acid that can provide the cells with up to 50-60% of the cells fuel needs. High fat, or ketogenic diets, are often prescribed to children with seizures/epilepsy. Ten minutes after drinking the ketone supplement, his fever was gone and he didn’t have another fever for 3 years.

The daughter was the tougher of the two cases. She came down with a fever a couple of weeks later and ten minutes after having the ketone drink, her fever was gone. It came back an hour and a half later. Another ketone drink and ten minutes later it was gone again.

This continued all day long and the next day, she awoke with a slight fever. The parents decided to give her the drink hourly for the next three hours instead of waiting for the fever to return. This time, it stayed gone and she didn’t have another fever for two and a half years.

Only genetic testing would be able to resolve this type of an issue.

Rare Disorder?

Another note about the genetic mutation associated with this gene is that it is considered to be a rare disorder, which means it is not on any doctor’s radar. It is unknown to doctors primarily because of the designation of being classified as a rare disorder.

The effect created by the gene mutation is like a car running out of oil. As the car heats up, it burns through the oil faster until there’s no oil left and it seizes up.

As I do each person’s genetic interpretation however, I find that this particular gene mutation is very common and very far from being a rare disorder. I have seen tremendous turn-arounds in a patient’s health by just correcting this one mutation with ketones.

Since it involves the brain, it can be associated with anything associated with brain dysfunction – seizures, headaches, epilepsy, ADD, ADHD, Autism, cognitive dysfunction, learning disabilities, depression, anxiety, dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and more.

“I’ve always had to add in sugar post every meal to feel good and full.  I feel great now w/ none at all.  Thank you so much. Literally life changing how good I feel.The ketones seem to have made a world of difference.  Wow.  Now this all feels sustainable and I feel normal” ~ S.

I am finding that there are other “rare disorders” that are more common than they are currently thought to be and this opens the door to effectively knowing how to assist these people better.

Stinky Feet

 Another example of knowing what our genetics can do for us occurred with a man who had done a 23andme genetic panel. He had a simple 8-page analysis with different gene mutations highlighted. There were some mutations however, that had no explanation next to them and I knew that these were very significant.

One of these genes showed that he had a genetic predisposition to producing excess ammonia in the body. Ammonia is very toxic, so the body will steal a substance from a couple of other pathways to neutralize it.

Excess ammonia can cause some very smelly feet. He was with his wife and when I asked him if he had smelly feet, she immediately spoke up and said that the smell from his shoes was so bad, that he had to leave his shoes outside when he came home from work and go inside and wash his feet.

 Next, I asked him if he had any history of strokes or heart attacks in his family, as one of the pathways that ammonia steals from is the nitric oxide pathway. We are more prone to strokes and heart attacks when our nitric oxide levels are low and these levels decrease as we age.

He said that his father, grandfather, two uncles and a cousin all had strokes. Fortunately, you can take a product that addresses all of these pathways, which is what I gave him. He'll have to take it for the rest of his life 3 times a week, but that's a small price to pay for warding off an early death.

Also, two days later he had no more smelly feet, which made for a happier home life. If he hadn't had his genetics done, this knowledge would have never been known and chances are he would have had a stroke or a heart attack, or both.

I also had a young girl with very smelly feet and shoes. We gave her one tablet of the nitric oxide product, Neo40 Pro, and she never had this problem again. A child's body can sometimes respond very quickly and never have the problem again.

I've seen this with children who had asthma and they did the Candida Plan. After the Plan, the asthma was gone and never returned. Adults however, can be an entirely different matter with more complex issues that require knowing more about all the pathways in the body.

"I continued my journey with genetic testing. What an eye opener! For every symptom, Dr. McCombs was able to point to my genetic profile for “why” it existed. I am still in the process of healing but I feel 100% better than the day before I began this process." ~ P

Genetic Concerns

Some people have privacy concerns when it comes to genetic testing, as do I, which is why I typically create a fake name for their test, or have them come up with one. This way, their data will never be connected to them and they and I are the only ones who know. The only address and email associated with the fake name is mine. I think layers of protection are best.

Another concern is the price of testing. It definitely has come down quite a bit over the years, costing a tenth of what it used to, but it is still an expense. Based on many of the breakthroughs I've seen, I think it is under-valued for the information it reveals. As the initial story of this blog illustrates, it's easy to spend $250,000 on the road to nowhere. If you're interested, we can look at payment options.

I apologize for the lengthy blog post, but in truth, I can go on and on about the potential that these testing formats create in healthcare today and more importantly in your care.

Functional Genomics

Functional Genetic testing allows us to identify where the issues are and how we can support them through diet and nutrition. Each test is a living record that continues to keep being upgraded as more information comes along. With each test result, I record a video of my explanation of the results to allow you to go back as often as you like to refer to and understand your results better.

Understanding the complexity of life and the human body can sometimes lead to very simple solutions, as illustrated with the smelly feet, strokes and nitric oxide stories above. It takes understanding the complexity of those genetic pathways however in order to arrive at a simple solution.

I'll do a blog post on Complexity at some point, because all life is very complex. For about two decades now I've been saying that we need to embrace complexity. It is a very foundational concept that is beyond today's "modern medicine" approaches.

"Be a dreamer, be excited about life and pass that onto your children."

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