Using Functional Medicine to Treat Alzheimer’s

Conventional versus Functional Medicine

Perhaps you’re familiar with the conventional approach to medicine where you have a primary care physician and then visit different doctors for testing on each issue you are experiencing.

In conventional medicine, the doctors you see are disconnected. Each has their specialization, and they don’t consider how issues in the body are related. Instead of targeting underlying causes, these doctors typically prescribe pharmaceuticals (while saying something like “let’s see if this works”) to alleviate symptoms. Often, they don’t even mention changes you can make to your diet, sleep, stress, exercise, or other lifestyle factors to improve wellness. In the end, you’re likely to be back at the doctor’s office within a few months, looking for a new solution.

Functional medicine is changing that.

With functional medicine, the goal is to treat the root cause of the issue instead of only alleviating the resulting symptoms. For instance, the leading hypothesis from conventional medicine asserts that amyloid plaques in the brain cause Alzheimer’s and aims to remove the plaques to cure Alzheimer’s. Thus, billions of dollars have been invested in trials to clear amyloid-beta with no success to date.  In fact, there is some evidence that several have worsened cognitive decline.

Functional medicine goes deeper. Rather than solely focusing on the removal of amyloid plaques, functional medicine asks why plaques arise and seeks to prevent their development in the first place.

Using Functional Medicine To Treat Alzheimer’s And Cognitive Decline

         First, it’s important to understand that functional medicine physicians have the same training as conventional physicians, with further training and certification provided by the Institute for Functional Medicine. Additionally, physicians recommended by Apollo Health have undergone specialized training in the Bredesen Protocol® as outlined in our ReCODE 2.0 Training syllabus.

The whole-body systems approach of functional medicine has proven optimal for treating the chronic illnesses that lead to Alzheimer’s disease, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and more. Consequently, these efforts have led to unprecedented success for treating Alzheimer’s, as Dr. Bredesen’s multiple peer-reviewed, published papers have demonstrated.  

Hundreds of testimonials now also highlight the success of applying Dr. Bredesen’s work to prevent and reverse cognitive decline at Apollo Health. Apollo Health practitioners develop a personalized treatment plan that optimizes wellness and actively works to fight Alzheimer’s disease by identifying and addressing individual risk factors. Apollo Health’s functional medicine driven approach using the Bredesen Protocol in our ReCODE and PreCODE solutions is currently helping thousands of participants.

Apollo Health practitioners can apply the Bredesen Protocol and help you to identify your risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. Learn more about the science of treating cognitive decline and decide which treatment option is right for you today.