Rebuild: Five Proven Steps to Move from Diagnosis to Recovery and Be Healthier Than Before

Introduction

Recovering from Disease: A New Perspective

Can you recover from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune issues, and other chronic conditions and actually be healthier than you were before you got sick? Can you rebuild your body during a health crisis and then prevent recurrence? Can you melt unwanted toxic fat off your body as you gain lean muscle and restore your health? The answer to all these questions is an emphatic yes! By using the tools in Rebuild, you will come out of your health crisis not only a victor but also healthier, leaner, and more energetic than you have felt in years.

In Rebuild, I explain the link between an unhealthful lifestyle and the creation of disease. I lead you through the steps you must take to rebuild yourself after disease, while you are being treated for a condition, and afterward, to prevent recurrence. You will also learn how to sustain your newfound health for a lifetime and discover the dangers of an unhealthy body composition—the ratio of fat to muscle. An unhealthy body composition is a driving force in the development and return of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic ailments. This book presents the latest research in an easy-to-read format so that you can create a lifestyle that will help you not only look great but also have lots of energy and feel good about yourself.

My Story

Known to my patients as Dr. Z, I am a physician, specialist in functional medicine, board-certified chiropractic neurologist, clinical nutritionist, and transformational speaker. My clinical practice of twenty-four years is focused on helping people resolve health issues by finding the root causes of their problems, an approach known as functional medicine. Whether it’s hormone-based problems, a chronic disease, neurological problems, or weight issues, I take a functional approach—looking at the whole person—to search for clues. I dig deep for facts that enable me to understand the mechanisms of each issue. That way, I can help you reverse the cause and rebuild yourself back to normal function. I know that what I’m sharing with you works because it has worked for countless patients, and it worked for me.

At the age of thirty-eight, after a few years of feeling intense stress and neglecting a healthful lifestyle, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a life-threatening blood cancer. The diagnosis took me by surprise. The first symptoms had been mild; I started losing muscle weight and developed a low-grade fatigue that no amount of caffeine and B vitamins would help. As the symptoms became more severe— including intense head pain and being awakened by gushing night sweats—I knew I was in trouble. I had blood work and X-rays done to find the reasons for my symptoms. On August 18, 2006, a radiologist and friend announced, You have a five-inch tumor in your chest. My heart nearly stopped beating, and voices around me sounded muffled. As I walked out of the doctor’s office that day, I realized that by not taking care of myself, I had compounded my health problems.

Right before I started treatment, the doctors told me, We’re giving you the strongest stuff we have. They were not kidding. Within a two-year period, I had seven months of the most toxic chemotherapy— including a chemical similar to mustard gas and a noxious substance known as Red Death—and four weeks of radiation.

During the first three months of chemotherapy, the symptoms and side effects were devastating. I developed the nasty side effects that many people develop: I suffered from peripheral neuropathy (burning and tingling) in my fingertips, uncomfortable constipation, burning eyes, and fatigue. My beard stopped growing, my eyebrows fell out, and so did the little bit of hair I had on my head (hair is overrated anyway). Midway through the chemo cycle, I developed nosebleeds that became a regular occurrence every morning. My left lower leg became very swollen, and the skin surrounding my left ankle turned an amber reddish-brown from the drug called Red Death. I also lost all sense of taste except for the sweet and tangy taste of tomato sauce. Since I’m a foodie, having everything taste like cardboard was a bummer.

When I first started chemotherapy, I wasn’t told the importance of getting a port put in (a device inserted under the skin where the drugs are infused); as a consequence, the drugs were given to me through a catheter pushed into my veins that caused them to flatten and turn brown. On top of that, one of the chemo drugs affected my bladder, delaying the sensation of urgency when I had to urinate. When I finally felt like I had to go . . . I really had to go.

During this period of time, I began wading through research to understand my disease and figure out what I could do to improve my health even during cancer care. The more I learned, the more I applied to myself. As a result, my appetite and strength returned rather quickly, and I began to recover. Future scans revealed activity in my chest that I was told was benign. With much excitement, I was back in my practice full-time, working out at the gym, eating well, and now driven to know more about the factors that create disease.

As it turned out, I recovered quickly only to find out I was gearing up for round two. Follow-up scans revealed that the lesion in my chest wasn’t benign; it was cancer that had not been completely eradicated by the first round of chemo. The excitement that had been building in me was quickly replaced with frustration. I began a second cycle of drugs that were just as toxic as the first. But this time, I was armed and ready for battle. I had engineered a rebuild plan to mitigate the side effects of the chemo and keep myself relatively healthy so I could function normally in my practice, work out, socialize, and feel human.

Despite the toxicity from the drugs, I continued on my rebuild plan. It was so effective that I was called the freak by my doctors because they couldn’t understand how I was doing so well physically and mentally while being treated with the strongest stuff. I was still seeing patients full-time, working out, and living a somewhat normal life during my care.

When those treatments were over, the cancer was diminished but not eradicated. At that stage, my prognosis looked grim. In a meeting with my doctors at a well-known cancer hospital, we discussed a stem-cell transplant from my brother. The preparation for the transplant involved more chemo to suppress my immune system. As I contemplated the upcoming procedure and its potential health risks, I realized— based on my education and experience—that a stem-cell transplant would not work for me.

I developed a Plan B. I challenged the doctors to remove the tumor, a procedure they claimed never to have done before in cases like mine. But I persisted. Two years from the day of my diagnosis, a surgeon cracked open my chest from throat to belly and removed the mass of scar tissue where once a giant ball of cancer cells had been growing. That operation—and my persistence—saved my life. However, the cumulative effect of nearly two years of chemo, radiation, and major surgery left me with new challenges.

Yes, I was cancer-free, but the cancer treatment had taken its toll. Blood work revealed a low red blood cell count, low platelets, and low white blood cells. My thyroid had been affected, which created low levels of thyroid hormones and the symptoms associated with hypothyroidism, including cold hands and feet, slow metabolism, and dry skin. Hormone testing revealed low testosterone and low vitamin D levels. A special test to check my metabolism and energy production revealed that the drugs had also caused malabsorption of B vitamins. On top of discolored skin on my lower left leg from the Red Death and the collapsed veins in my arms, I suffered from weakness in the muscles of my lower left leg, which made fast walking or running a problem.

With my health crisis behind me, I asked my providers what I should do to prevent recurrence, and they responded with the sage advice, Don’t eat junk, and stay healthy. Wow! That was so profound and helpful. Since my doctors couldn’t give me more advice, I knew I had to find the information to help myself going forward. I wanted to learn what had caused my disease so I could prevent its recurrence. I also wanted to learn how to rebuild my body after the side effects of the cancer therapies. My goal was to create the ultimate healthy body—one that was disease-free and lean.

I dove into the best research and applied my findings to myself. The facts were there: I had created my own disease. For a few years prior to my diagnosis, I had not taken proper care of myself. Circumstances involving my busy practice, coupled with some standard life problems and setbacks, created extreme levels of stress. This disrupted my sleep and led me to eat unhealthful foods and neglect my exercise regimen. After reading research on nutrition, nutritional biochemistry, genetics, cancer, endocrinology (the study of hormones), chronic disease, and exercise physiology, I refined my program for myself with one thing in mind—to rebuild.

In following this plan, I have improved my low blood counts and restored my thyroid, testosterone, and vitamin D levels. My energy is back to normal, and I have no residual tingling in my limbs—a major problem that plagues many people who have received certain chemotherapy drugs. Frantically pulling off the highway at the next exit to empty my bladder is a problem of the past. Although the discolored skin remains, the weakness in my left leg no longer interferes with my physical activity. Currently, I am lean, with 10 percent body fat.

My personal experience, coupled with countless hours of research, ignited a passion to help others rebuild from their health issues so they don’t have to go through what I experienced. Facing the Grim Reaper is not fun, to say the least! Neither is enduring debilitating and scarring procedures. Worrying about a recurrence or worsening of your condition is emotionally draining. And I’m sure those of you who are being or have been treated for a serious illness feel the same way.

The Keys to Health

Most physicians will say that what you eat and how much you exercise has a nominal effect, if any, on the creation of disease or ill health. Many health authorities also say that disease is inherited, or that it originates from some unknown source we have no control over. But the scientific research is clear: most chronic disease does not come from our genetic makeup alone. In most cases, it can be traced back to specific aspects of what we do to ourselves—our lifestyle, our habits, and our daily rituals.

Your health crisis didn’t emerge out of thin air. Most of the diseases we now call Western diseases are caused by the interaction between your internal environment—which you control—and your genes. In many cases, health can be traced back to specific aspects of diet, lack of exercise, emotional stress, poor sleep habits, and toxins.

In other words, our environment and the choices we make set the stage for the diseases we develop.

If our choices affect disease progression, then these choices can be modified. The major factor that you can modify to your benefit is your body composition, a mixture of elements that create a synergy of normal function and health, and different types of tissues, such as fat and muscle. My reading through countless research studies and dissecting the scientific literature showed one clear message: an unhealthy body composition correlates with the creation of many leading Western diseases.

To have a healthy body composition, you need to consume an abundance of nutrients from a variety of foods, as well as exercise to burn fat, tone muscle, and regulate the hormones that, in turn, control fat and muscle.

One major problem, however, is the colossal amount of misleading information out there on what foods to eat and not eat, and what exercise program is best. We’ve all seen the health books that tout some new fad or plan. Others promote some gimmicky workout or fat-burning supplement. How many times have we seen a smiling celebrity on a book cover promising we’ll lose twenty-one pounds in seven days? Then the next trend grabs our attention, and off we go again. Three months later, we’ve regained all the pounds we lost on our diet—and often more.

Before going any further, I’d like to clarify the definition of the word diet. Somewhere along the line, the real meaning of diet was subverted. It is commonly misunderstood as a jail sentence of eating gruel. The word conjures up images of short durations of restriction and starvation, where you have to give up foods you like for boring and tasteless health food. You decide to go on a diet to get rid of fat, lose weight, or improve your health because you have just been diagnosed with some chronic health issue. The decision seems less painful because you know the diet is for a finite amount of time.

Instead, the word diet actually just refers to the type of food you eat regularly. Some people choose to eat only plant-based foods; others eat foods high in animal protein and low in carbohydrates. Many people eat anything and everything. What you are putting into your body— that’s your diet.

Most restrictive diets fail because they are too extreme. The approach of going on a diet doesn’t work because it creates only a famine mind-set. Then you indulge in rebound feasting on the processed and unhealthful foods that created the overfat body composition and helped cause your disease in the first place. (Overfat means carrying too much subcutaneous and visceral fat, even at a BMI—body mass index—that would otherwise not be classified as overweight.) Instead, dieting should be seen as a lifestyle.

In my experience of working with countless patients to help them rebuild from disease, changing one’s diet typically means reducing calories. Yet calorie restriction in most diet books means nutrient restriction. If you are overfat and looking to improve your body composition, be careful you don’t starve yourself of vital nutrients that come from nutrient-dense whole foods, as nutrient deficiency is a major cause of all disease. The key to getting rid of inflammatory harmful fat is eating plenty of low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods throughout the day.

The body composition diet in this book goes far beyond getting rid of fat and reducing weight. It is a research-based plan that leads to excellent health and a strong and lean body. The best thing about this approach is that you can create a custom plan that uniquely suits your metabolism and your specific health issues.

Considering the negative mind-set around the word diet, I wanted to make the definition more appealing. I decided to use DIET as an acronym standing for words that provide a positive approach to your health: Decide, Indulge, Enjoy, and Transform.

When restoring your health, the first thing you have to do is DECIDE. As I say to my patients, the first step to rebuilding from any health issue is making a decision. Make the decision to do what it takes to rebuild from your illness and prevent its recurrence. Once you make the decision, INDULGE in a variety of nutrient-dense and tasty whole foods that will communicate with your cells to turn on genes that create normal function, while at the same time shutting off genes that set the stage for disease. Indulging in a variety of healthful foods will force your body to burn fat and build lean muscle. Doing that enables you to ENJOY the fruits of your effort with more energy, vibrancy, and health. Enjoy looking and feeling better. Finally, watch yourself TRANSFORM physically and aesthetically. Transform yourself into the physically fit and healthy person you deserve to be.

Does this sound more appealing? I will show you how to set this plan into action in the pages that follow.

Still, changing the foods you eat to rebuild yourself is not enough. According to the prevailing research, there are five steps that should be taken to be victorious in rebuilding yourself.

First, you must eliminate all processed foods while replacing them with nutrient-dense, low-calorie whole foods. This is how you will recalibrate the way your body communicates with your genes, allowing you to shut off the disease process and improve your internal physiology.

Second, you must move more. You need to adopt an exercise regimen, including high-intensity interval training (HIIT), that will restore normal function and help you quickly lose the fat and get lean.

Third, you have heard that stress kills . . . and it does. Whatever the stressors are in your life, the next step is to change your perspective and rebuild your thinking about those stressors. The best approach is to find a coach—not your son’s soccer coach or your daughter’s field hockey coach, but someone with experience who can help you navigate and manage the stressors that drive you into harm’s way.

Fourth, you need to be aware of and eliminate major toxins not only in your foods but also in your environment—things that you may be inhaling, swallowing, or smearing on your skin. You may be aware of the four thousand known toxins and carcinogens found in a single cigarette. But did you know that in dairy products, there are also harmful compounds that fuel cancer and autoimmune diseases? You will be surprised to learn which toxins from the foods we eat and the substances we are exposed to on a daily basis contribute to the development of disease.

Fifth and last, sleep is extremely important to rebuild your health. Sleeping regulates critical hormones and the immune system needed to rebuild yourself. Sadly, we shock ourselves awake with latte-frappu-crème-macchiato-whatevers, which are loaded with caffeine, sugary syrups, dairy, and soy—disastrous cocktails of inflammation. We also sedate ourselves before bed with a glass of wine, or two, or three, which can alter the sleep cycle and set the stage for a health crisis.

The only permanent way to rebuild yourself from disease, and to become lean and strong, is to have a vision for what you really want. You also need to set new standards for yourself while at the same time making realistic changes. That means laying out attainable goals. Setting your sights only on the finish line can be overwhelming. Instead, you can take small, incremental steps, similar to a runner looking ahead to the next telephone pole during a marathon. Unless you focus on your progress, your old, unhealthful habits can sneak back in. Rebuild helps you celebrate small wins while on your journey to becoming healthy, which is an important way to move forward.

Why Functional Medicine?

My victory over cancer, and certainly the restoration of my health, was achieved by using medical treatment combined with my own education and critical thinking. If I had not taken a stand with my doctors to advocate for my own health, I would have followed the standards of care for my diagnosis, and likely would not have lived to tell my story . . . or to help you by writing this book. All through my ordeal— the chemo hell, radiation, surgery, and the miserable side effects—I never lost sight of victory.

I pushed the oncologist, surgeon, and nurses to think about me as an individual, to think outside the box when devising my treatments. Finally, I convinced them to do a surgery that they never would have considered if I had not insisted. It took a tremendous amount of personal research, initiative, and effort to get them to listen to me and try something that was not part of the usual protocol for my diagnosis. Perhaps the reason I was finally able to get through to them was that I am a doctor and I can speak their language. That made me realize how difficult, if not impossible, it must be for someone who isn’t a health professional or doesn’t have the knowledge to suggest something different.

My quest to find something better, something more holistic, began with a meeting—or rather, a non-meeting. I wanted to find out how to rebuild myself, so I called a meeting with my doctors. On that day I looked around, and I was by myself . . . nobody showed up. Why? The reality is that most doctors are not trained to handle postwar treatment and rehabilitation. Sadly, there are no standard-of-care guidelines to help you rebuild from and prevent recurrence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and other chronic ailments. The specialists in crisis care had each done their piece, but they had nothing to offer me in my quest to rebuild myself. Every one of my doctors felt responsible for their individual contribution; nobody felt responsible for the whole.

This should not be surprising. Our current health care system is not one of health care; rather, it is crisis care based on an old algorithmic way of thinking. Dr. Jeff Bland says it nicely in his book The Disease Delusion: Name the disease and prescribe the cure. Chronic diseases and conditions are usually treated with hard-hitting pharmaceuticals. This old model of treating people often fails to restore health to those battling disease. Because all health problems and diseases are multidimensional, with many underlying roots, attempting to tackle human ills with a magic bullet just doesn’t work.

Fortunately, through the genius of Dr. Bland, there is a new model of health care that is spreading over the globe: functional medicine. Functional medicine is a methodology of uncovering why disease happens. It provides an understanding of how to reverse conditions while at the same time restoring health. Like an archaeologist digs for fossils or clues, a specialist in functional medicine digs for physical clues to understand the origins of your disease. The functional medicine approach also understands that the body functions as an orchestrated network of interconnected systems, and disease is created from an imbalance in those systems. Once the physical clues are found in the dysfunctional internal terrain—the physical condition or state of the inside of the body—a plan is engineered to help resolve the physiological dysfunctions through individual treatment. This method is health-centered, not disease-centered.

The realization that functional medicine could help me—and my patients—recover from illness drove me to get additional training, reshape my clinical practice, write this book, create educational material and videos, and go on the lecture circuit. Why? Because of my personal experience, I am committed to doing all I can to create options for other people facing critical or chronic disease, so that they don’t have to face what I’ve faced or feel as lonely and disconnected as I felt. My own experience also enabled me to look at patients differently, to listen more closely, to be more attentive, and to really discover and document what people need to understand in order to avoid the bad lifestyle choices that lead to disease. Rebuild is a culmination of my experience treating my own health and the health of my patients using the principles of functional medicine.

You can find more resources beyond the book by tuning in to my YouTube channel (Dr Z TV); finding me on social media (facebook.com/Zembroski, twitter.com/DrRobZembroski); and visiting my website (www.drzembroski.com). I would love to hear from you, and I would love to share your wins, your personal rebuild story, and your new outlook on life with others. By following the five rebuild actions (re-actions) I describe in Part II, I know you can come back from whatever health crisis you are facing and be better—stronger, leaner, healthier—than you were before.

Here’s to your victory.

I

It Can’t Happen to Me

OKAY, YOU’VE BEEN DIAGNOSED with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune disease, or some other unresolved chronic condition. You’ve been through a slew of tests and diagnostic procedures—poked, prodded, stitched up, and drugged. Let’s not forget the long office visits in cold exam rooms trying to piece together everything you’ve been told while your internal monologue is saying, Is this for real? Is this really happening? You may have been running into dead ends in a maze of providers as you search for effective and affordable answers to your questions.

Now what?

For most people, becoming your own disease detective while dealing with a serious health issue can be too much to handle, especially on top of all your other responsibilities. Furthermore, medical jargon is often confusing and potentially stressful if you don’t have a clinical background.

In addition to your chronic health issue(s), you may be suffering from medical apathy—a learned helplessness that comes from seeing doctors who haven’t helped you. Many people get stuck in a medical holding pattern and feel frustrated, lonely, and disconnected. Perhaps you have been told by different specialists and -ologists that you have been dealt a bad hand, that your condition is genetic, or that you’re just going to have to live with it. Perhaps you have a big folder full of test results, but still no answers. In some cases, you may have the wrong diagnosis. You have exhausted the best of what conventional medicine has to offer—more medications—and are now looking for real answers to your unresolved health issues.

How often have you sat across from a doctor and felt as though you haven’t been listened to or acknowledged as you try to figure out what’s wrong with your health? You—and your symptoms—may have been brushed off, as if what you feel and say don’t matter. The lack of acknowledgment in that seven-minute visit is extremely frustrating. As a patient myself, I experienced the medical cold shoulder before the actual discovery that I had cancer.

Perhaps you’ve been bounced around from doctor to doctor, trying to navigate all the (sometimes conflicting) information being thrown your way. Deciding which option is best for you isn’t easy, especially when you’re feeling far from your best. Don’t get me wrong—there are wonderful practitioners out there. Unfortunately, it is more and more common for patients to feel brushed aside, confused, and in the dark as they’re trying to restore their health and get their life back.

Here’s my advice: If your doctors are not willing to work with you, fire them. Hire new people to help resolve or control your condition, and use the information in this book to be your own advocate. Remember, statistics are about groups of people, not you. The information in this book will help you become your own statistic.

While studying the latest research on the mechanisms of disease, I realized how difficult it must be for people without the necessary time, knowledge, or background to find and interpret useful information, and to be able to use it to create a personalized protocol to rebuild. My journey through a health catastrophe pushed me further into the research and allowed me to break it down into easy-to-understand language for you. I wrote this book so others could benefit from what I learned during my rebuild.

Many people diagnosed with a disease do not have the resources to understand their illness, rebuild from it, and prevent a recurrence. You do—you have this book. Your first step is understanding your disease or chronic health issue and what caused it. That is covered in chapter 1. Chapter 2 asks you to assess your health to identify a baseline from which to rebuild. And for those of you who want more information on a topic, I have included details in the form of Z Notes placed throughout the book to provide additional science and/or further research. You can also choose to skip over those sections and continue reading.

1

Anatomy of Disease

In centuries past, the leading causes of death were the result of poor sanitation and infectious diseases. Countless people died from smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, and dysentery, among many other causes. Since the accidental discovery of penicillin, and the manufacturing of vaccines and other forms of biotechnology, these infectious diseases are not the prevailing reason for our current suffering (though they still exist). Today, a poor state of health, for many, is self-inflicted. I know that’s tough to hear, but it’s true.

You may have been told that the cause of or reason for your chronic disease or condition is unknown, or that it runs in your family. In this chapter, I provide an explanation of how certain diseases develop, but it’s important to understand first that the main reason behind your cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, or other chronic condition is probably not your inherited genes.

Before you scan the list of chronic diseases looking for your health issue, let’s define chronic. A chronic illness is a long-lasting condition that does not self-remedy and for which there is no vaccine. It usually requires ongoing medical attention and often treatment with pharmaceuticals. It may remain stable, or it may worsen over time. Sometimes the symptoms of a chronic disease go dormant for a time and then reappear with a vengeance.

Chronic disease develops due to alterations in some aspect of your physiology. Networks within the body short-circuit and cause a breakdown of cells, tissues, or even an entire organ. When the disease progresses, you often develop symptoms. The onset of symptoms leads to a diagnostic evaluation, which then leads to naming the pathology (deviation from normal cells and tissues) or giving it a diagnosis. The symptoms dictate what treatment is recommended, whether drugs, surgery, or some other form of therapy.

Here is a list of the major conditions classified as chronic diseases. Some are potentially life-threatening, while others can impair your daily activities or just make you miserable.

Autoimmune diseases

Cancer

Diabetes

Digestive disorders

Heart disease

Neurological conditions

Obesity

Z NOTE: Obesity is now considered a chronic disease. Rather than an actual disease, it is a chronic metabolic and inflammatory condition that can create more serious diseases, such as most of those in the list above. Obesity is typically classified based on a measurement called body mass index (BMI), a value derived from your height and weight that can be an indicator of an unhealthy body composition. BMI is a screening method to categorize your weight, but it does not reveal the amount of fat you have on your body. In the pages that follow, you will find simple calculations that will tell you how overfat you are.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO), chronic disease is the leading cause of death and disability in the United States, accounting for 87 percent of all U.S. deaths, or roughly 1.7 million people, annually. An estimated 50 percent of all Americans have a chronic health condition, and one in four have multiple chronic conditions. The journal Public Health Reports projects chronic conditions to rise in the next thirty years. Not surprisingly, health care costs are expected to rise in tandem. The Milken Institute projects that by the year 2023, there will be a 42 percent increase in cases of chronic disease, costing this country $4.2 trillion in treatment fees and lost economic output.

Disease: Inherited or Self-Inflicted?

Dr. Jeffrey Bland, known as the father of functional medicine and author of The Disease Delusion, has said, Inherited doesn’t mean inevitable. Let me explain.

Genes are sets of instructions programmed for specific functions that control health and patterns of disease. Genes are distinct portions of a cell’s DNA that make everything the body needs, especially protein. The proteins produced by genes are the building blocks for everything that allows the body to work properly. As a computer responds to a programmer, genes respond to signals. These signals come from your internal environment, which is determined mainly by the foods you eat, the amount of exercise you get or how much you move, the stressors you experience, your sleep, your exposure to toxins, and your thoughts. If your genes are getting signals from habits that encourage normal function (such as a diet of healthful foods, moderate exercise, and enough sleep), you remain healthy. But if your genes are getting their signals from toxic, processed, inflammatory foods; lack of exercise; chronic unresolved stress; and a lack of sleep, those signals tell the genes to switch on the production of disease.

No single gene causes the development of chronic illness. When the dance between your environment and your gene network goes awry, your physiology begins to deteriorate to the point of dysfunction, what we call disease. Disease can be acute, rapid onset, and short-lived; but chronic disease lasts for a long time. Basically, your unhealthy internal terrain has influenced your genes over a long period of time, and that influence gradually causes the making of a disease.

DISEASES ARE RELATED

An unhealthy internal terrain sets the stage for any number of conditions that lead to disease—sometimes more than one. For example, heart disease is not an isolated pathology that develops within a small artery of the heart. It is created from the combined influence of abnormal blood sugar, the immune system, and distress in the liver. Cancer is not one disease but an accumulation of smaller diseases that interact in a network to create a tumor. The network is made up of high insulin levels, weakened immune cells, poor liver detoxification, abnormal hormone levels, low levels of vitamin D, and DNA damaged by free radicals and nutrient deficiency. Autoimmune diseases develop from a reaction in the gut when certain proteins interact with gut bacteria, an unbalanced immune system, stress hormones from the adrenal glands, and an unhealthy body composition (too much fat and not enough muscle).

A free radical is a simple molecule with a missing electron. To become whole again, free radicals interact with, and steal, electrons from other cells or tissues in the body. Doing so leaves those cells or tissues damaged. This process, called oxidation, has been linked to many chronic diseases.

Z NOTE: Oxidation takes place when free radicals attack and damage the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particle; think of hail denting the hood of a car. A common theme, threaded throughout the research, states that free radicals from a processed and nutrient-deprived diet, high blood sugar, and smoking are the initiators and main drivers for coronary artery disease, a preventable, lifestyle-based, and often fatal disease.

As you can see, the chronic condition from which you want to rebuild stems from many different systems of the body. Therefore, if you are rebuilding from heart disease, read the diabetes section as well. If you are rebuilding from cancer, read the information on diabetes and obesity. Our current health care system is based on treating the ill with a pill, rather than looking at the broader causes of why diseases develop. We also have specialists who treat just one organ system, rather than treating the whole person to uncover why disease has developed. That’s where functional medicine differs from conventional medicine. Functional medicine looks at the whole person as an interconnected system—not a series of independent variables.

Symptoms of a chronic disease can be insidious, or they can come on abruptly, as in a sudden heart attack. Sometimes you get a warning signal that something is wrong. For example, those with developing heart disease may get chest pain (angina) and shortness of breath. In extreme circumstances, the first sign of a major disease—like advanced coronary artery disease—is sudden death due to abrupt heart failure. If you have symptoms in one part of the body, it could mean there’s a problem in another part; this is sometimes called referred pain. As you rebuild yourself, it’s important to listen to your body and keep track of your symptoms. If you have any, make sure you describe them in detail to your doctor(s).

LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH VS. ACTUAL CAUSES OF DEATH

In the United States, heart disease is the number one killer of men and women, and cancer is the runner-up. Approximately 610,000 people die each year from heart disease, and roughly 589,000 die from cancer. Right behind them are medical errors, stroke, respiratory issues, and diabetes. Yet while these conditions are what we die from, they are only the end results of issues long stewing within us.

A landmark study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed the most prominent causes of mortality in the United States were tobacco use, poor diet (soon defined, keep reading), and physical inactivity, accounting for 80 percent of the factors that create disease. We have complete control over these factors. If you don’t smoke, then you need to focus only on poor diet and physical inactivity. Simple, right?

Mortality data reported to the CDC were published in a more recent study found in JAMA. Smoking, poor diet, and physical inactivity are still the top killers. However, current trends say a poor diet and inactivity will soon overtake smoking to become the leading causes of early mortality.

The good news is that modifying your personal choices will profoundly affect your health. This is also borne out by research: a large population-based study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that people who ate healthful foods, routinely exercised, avoided smoking, and controlled their body composition had an 80 percent lower probability of developing and dying from chronic illnesses. An 80 percent lower probability sounds like a get-out-of-jail-free card to me. Just as heartening is the fact that changes in your lifestyle will help you rebuild from disease and prevent any recurrences. This is why I wrote this book.

I WON’T LIE: rebuilding your health takes discipline and determination; sometimes it’s hard work. That’s because rebuilding your health is a process, not an event. However, the support protocols (what I call supportocols) in Rebuild are not difficult to implement, and restoring your health is not as complicated as you may think. If you follow the steps in this book, they will help you rebuild your body’s internal environment. It worked for me, and it has worked for countless patients who have found themselves dealing with a health crisis.

The following sections explain how the top chronic diseases develop, so you can better understand your condition when you begin your personal rebuild. It’s important to also understand that all diseases have common roots in an unhealthy internal terrain. For example, having too much body fat not only is linked to all chronic diseases but is one of the primary drivers of the development of disease. Another common link to all chronic disease is inflammation. As such, I’d advise that you read about each condition even if you don’t think it pertains to you, as the root cause is likely relevant to your overall health.

Z NOTE: What is inflammation? Under normal circumstances, the inflammatory response, created by the immune system, is needed to fight foreign invaders and heal injuries. We can feel and see inflammation when there is pain, redness, and heat—a sore throat, a