“The key to health lies in our cells,” states Dr. Bruce Hoffman, the highly experienced and board-certified functional medicine doctor in Calgary, Alberta. “Mitochondrial dysfunction has been linked to everything from early aging to (most) chronic diseases.”
Instead of mitochondria being used for energy output (their primary function), the introduction of high levels of toxins or stress causes the mitochondria to focus on what’s known as the “cell danger response” (CDR). This ongoing state of CDR may then show itself as any number of symptoms or illnesses, causing chronic diseases that affect nearly 129 million people in the United States alone.
Defining the Underlying Cause Is Key
Dr. Hoffman knows the mitochondrial dysfunction at the root of the issue needs to be addressed, and works with his patients in “rebuilding the foundations of health at a cellular level,” as he puts it. This focus on the cellular level is important, because even though it’s taking place at such a microscopic scale, it may affect everything from human behaviour to fertility to disease vulnerability in a given population. Here are just some of the illnesses associated with poor mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction:
- Early aging
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Autism
- Cardiovascular disease
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Dementia
- Diabetes
- Huntington’s disease
- Migraine headache
- Parkinson’s disease
7 Stages of Healing
Since the symptoms and diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction are so widespread, Dr. Hoffman’s approach has been to use his extensive experience as a healer in treating the whole person holistically, not just suppressing their symptoms. It’s an approach that has culminated in his healing model he calls the “7 Stages to Health and Transformation” book and lecture series.
The goal of this healing strategy is to address health’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. As he puts it, “there’s a deeper layer to chronic illness,” Dr. Hoffman explains. “It’s not just about medications, nutrition and supplements.”
This step-by-step strategy is:
Identifying stresses and triggers: These factors include toxicology, any biochemical imbalances, food sensitivities, and emotional stressors. This could mean anything from elimination diets to addressing childhood trauma that could be negatively impacting mitochondria.
Salugenesis: Patients are encouraged to determine what signalling molecules need to be reintroduced into the metabolic machinery so as to move the patient through the 3 stages of the CDR and back into the Health Cycle.
Educating & supporting the patient in following the Health Cycle: this means optimizing sleep patterns, grounding, balancing macro and micronutrients, strengthening social and emotional connections, developing ego structures and self-regulation, avoiding non-native electromagnetic frequencies (EMF’s), and practicing self-referral (observing body and mind with conscious awareness)
Reducing Toxic burden: Mitochondria are extremely susceptible to toxins, so patients lower toxic load through dietary, environmental, and psychological changes
Correcting metabolic imbalances: Resolve underlying metabolic disturbances that are determined by certain functional medicine labs
Initiating therapeutic interventions: Changing the cell defense response is not a fast process, so this means supporting the patient over 6–12 months to rebuild full vitality, metabolic homeostasis and ATP production.
One Treatment Doesn’t Fit All
With advanced training in multiple disciplines ranging from Ayurvedic medicine to family constellation therapy to neural therapy and traditional Chinese medicine, Dr. Hoffman integrates both traditional medicine and alternative therapies into this 7 Stage practice, and specializes in managing conditions that have not responded to conventional treatments or fall outside of a conventional diagnosis. While these complex patients come with challenges for practitioners, a multidisciplinary and multisystem approach like this can create the best way forward.
As mitochondrial dysfunction and rising instances of chronic illnesses continue to become more and more researched, there will continue to be advancements in acknowledging external factors that exacerbate these diseases. As the CDC states, “future public health interventions in chronic disease management and prevention should take into account non-behavioural factors that influence the development and progression of chronic diseases.”
Setting the Patients Free
Patient empowerment is another part of the process to reversing CDR. Dr. Hoffman knows that even if a patient is feeling better after their healing journey, it still needs to be up to them to move on from being overly medicalized. “I have to sometimes say ‘look, your next phase of healing is to move to Costa Rica and move away from being over medicalized and over treated. You must attempt to get back in touch with your true authentic self, the person you were before you fell ill.
There are different stages of the healing process. One is just to get rid of symptoms with the least amount of effort, cost and the least amount of involvement of the patient. The second is to self advocate and to bring all of your understanding and resources as to what it is you need to do to maximize your health. The third is to not only successfully traverse the illness continuum back to the Health Cycle, but to learn to live at a stage of maximum wellbeing, joy and purposefulness.”
By addressing any and many of the factors that can initiate the mitochondrial dysfunction, whether they’re environmental, psychological, or something less obvious, this comprehensive and integrative approach can lead to lasting success for chronically ill patients. As Dr. Hoffman says, “fuel your mitochondria, fuel your life.”
