Foundational Health

Optimization is frequently defined as making something the best or getting the most efficient use of something. You can see how optimizing your health would certainly be beneficial.

Health and longevity go hand in hand. Thus, optimizing health is imperative to not only increasing your lifespan, but increasing your HEALTHSPAN, or the number of healthy years of your life spent doing what you love. Human optimization looks at overall foundational health in order to evaluate your baseline health status and improve overall health in core domains including: hormones, nutrition, adrenals, cardiometabolic, neurocognition, and genomics/epigenetics.

Understanding where you stand in these key areas and addressing deficiencies using the most advanced, efficient methods will allow you to optimize your health.

MIM’s Program leverages the combined power of root-cause based foundational health management and the specificity of peptide therapy in tandem to address baseline health needs. Health optimization requires an in-depth understanding of where you stand from a baseline perspective. Lab work and various other testing can tell you exactly where your body needs support for optimal health.

With a clear view of where you are, Maryland Integrative Medicine can leverage its powerful knowledge by way of hormones, nutrients and medically managed peptides to support overall health. Additionally, you can focus on exercise, nutrition, and an appropriate circadian rhythm for a “DIY” optimization plan outside of the clinic.

The benefits of optimal health are obvious. Advances in medicine, like peptide science, are taking optimization to the next level and making it accessible and measurable.

Yes, as part of our COR Program, you have access to bioidentical hormone replacement therapies (HRT), including testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and other key hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. As we age, our body’s ability to produce critical hormones like testosterone, DHEA and estrogen significantly decreases. Unfortunately, many men and women reaching mid-life subscribe to a common myth that “hormone replacement therapy is dangerous.” When done safely using bioidentical (i.e. chemically identical) hormones and understanding your unique metabolic pathways, HRT not only helps to maintain the strength, attractiveness and vitality often thought to be luxuries of youth, but acts as a critical tool for combating aging-related disease.

For those who aren’t feeling well, often hormonal imbalance is at the root of symptoms and the desire to rapidly get things back on track is understandable. Indeed, a certain level of impatience is reasonable.

However, optimizing hormones to get back sleep, libido, weight management and simply feeling well again depends on many factors including age, how far from optimal one’s levels are starting, diet, exercise and other health problems.

For instance a young person with simply a little low progesterone may feel better very quickly by adding a small nightly dose of bioidentical progesterone. On the other hand, finding optimal hormonal balance in somebody with multiple deficiencies and many health issues may take as long as 3 to 6 months to fine tune!

In general, We tell our clients to give a minimum of 3 months to reach a balance and feel the benefits, but it is often much faster.

In any case, taking the step to determine hormonal needs and seeking help in addressing those needs is the right direction. Working with experts like those at Maryland Integrative Medicine can help you achieve balance over time with the ultimate goal of reaching optimal health.

As science evolves and more discoveries are made, we are learning the importance of hormonal balance to overall health and longevity. Gone are the days of, “I’ll worry about that later,” when it comes to our health.

We now know that the decline in certain hormones can begin earlier in life. Melatonin declines can begin in the teenage years, DHEA (an anti-aging hormone) in the mid to late 20s, and growth hormone and testosterone can start to decline in our 20s.

Shifting the paradigm to consider longevity at a younger age is imperative to increasing our health spans. The process of aging indeed begins in the womb. An interesting study found that giving pregnant mothers antioxidants seemed to slow aging for the offspring as they entered adulthood.

The knowledge that we can intervene early gives us the power to begin addressing hormonal needs and balance appropriately before damage sets in. Simply put, NOW is the time to begin addressing your longevity – no matter what age.

Taking the step of making positive choices as early as possible – diet, exercise, sleep – can set you on a path for healthy aging. Seeking the help of experts at the Maryland Integrative Medicine can help guide you in addressing the endocrine system for optimal health.