Longevity and wellness optimization refer to the pursuit of a healthy and fulfilling life, with a focus on not just living longer, but living better. This involves optimizing physical, mental, and emotional health through lifestyle choices such as exercise, nutrition, stress management, and social connections.
While most conventional medicine practices aim to manage disease once it takes hold, our goal is to help you optimize your health and increase longevity. We give you a clear plan to strengthen your body and this requires getting to the root cause of any health concerns you may be dealing with now. We also examine all areas of your health even if you don’t notice symptoms such as gut health, hormone balance, brain health and more so that you can start to tune up those areas to feel and look your best as you age.
Every person is utterly unique and their current state of health is created from gene expression, environmental exposure, any past illnesses or traumas, diet and other lifestyle factors. This is why a cookie-cutter health plan won’t prevent disease and often misses deeper issues all together. Through advanced testing including genetic, gut and hormones paired with our extensive clinical knowledge, we can examine your individual risks and provide a highly personalized plan to help prevent disease and optimize health.
Most practices that follow the conventional medicine model are behind the times, using testing and therapies that are on average 17 years behind the curve. We provide personalized recommendations for human optimization by utilizing the latest medically-advanced testing, techniques and up-to-date therapies to unlock the vitality you have always longed for. We believe that everyone has the potential to reach their optimal state of health if they have the right tools and the right partner.
At The Real Gut Doctor, we view our patients as partners in care and we are here to guide you through your health journey as well as the stages of your life. If you’re looking for a collaborative relationship with your practitioner, then we may be right for you. That being said, it’s important to understand that functional medicine is not a quick fix. Some modalities take time. Both healing from anything chronic and optimization require a commitment both from the patient and the practitioner.
No diet or exercise is a “one size fits all”. We take a personalized approach by testing to see where you need the most support and this typically includes helping optimize your nutrition based on your age, hormones, genetics and other factors that can determine what foods and eating styles work best for your body at this stage of your life. This is why the DIY approach, “guessing”, fad diets, and a variety of exercise plans often fail to get you to your health goals. We also examine the other areas of your lifestyle that can impact health including mindfulness, stress, toxic burden, gut health and hormone balance to provide you with a charted lifestyle plan to optimize your health and keep it that way.
While we don’t believe in using medications instead of getting to the root cause, there are times when medications are necessary and even life changing! For example, in the case of bio-identical hormone replacement, that can not only help rebalance hormone levels but also protect you from many illnesses related to low hormones such as heart disease, dementia, and osteoporosis. Our approach is a targeted one, meaning we test to understand the right type and dosage for any potential medication so that you are getting the right type and quantity your body needs to function optimally. In the case of supplements, we also test for nutritional deficiencies so that we can create a personalized supplement plan instead of suggesting supplements that may or may not work. We also use medical grade supplementation to give you the best quality supplements instead of drug store supplements that often do not contain the quantities of the nutrients promised on the label.
It is estimated that 90% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, but what most people and conventionally trained doctors don’t know is that in order to prevent heart disease, you have to follow a whole body approach. This means lowering your inflammation, assessing your gut health and looking at hormone balance too.
What we have found is that so many areas of our health and lifestyle directly impact heart health and inflammation levels, including your blood sugar levels, if you are eating an inflammatory diet, if exercise takes a “back seat” in your life, what your toxic load is currently and if you have unresolved stealth infections. Undiagnosed food sensitivities can also cause a lot of inflammation and be the cause for gut symptoms that your standard scopes can’t explain.
At The Real Gut Doctor, we know that your risk of heart attack and stroke can be drastically lowered without medication by addressing lifestyle factors informed by the appropriate advanced lab testing to understand exactly what your true risks are. Some of this testing includes advanced lipid testing which shows the number of atherogenic (dangerous) particles and the size of these particles. Other tests for specific vitamins, fatty acids, and metabolites, as well as genetic markers, provide valuable information that will influence your healing protocol.
With in-depth functional medicine and advanced lipid testing, we can catch the beginning stages of cardiovascular disease and guide you how to drastically lower inflammation that can impact the health of your whole body.
So, how do you know if you are at risk or what your level of risk is? Here are some of the risks factors that you should consider, but testing is required to show all the factors:
Do you have questions about starting your path back to health? Our patient coordinator is standing by, happy to answer any questions you have to determine if our approach is right for you.
Known for his successful approach towards chronic digestive and wellness issues, Dr. Jeffrey Mark, M.D. and his team at The Real Gut Doctor combine an integrative, functional medicine approach informed by advanced lab testing.
Our unique approach to diagnosing and resolving chronic health issues recognizes that lasting health depends on resolving the underlying root causes of your symptoms. Click here to learn more »
The Real Gut Doctor is based in San Ramon and Turlock, CA and serves patients internationally as well as throughout the Bay Area and Northern California. These areas include but are not limited to Sacramento County, CA, San Joaquin County, CA, Stanislaus County, CA, Alameda Country, CA and Santa Clara County, CA.