Joanne Pizzino, MD, MPH, is board-certified in Preventive Medicine and diplomate-certified in Integrative Medicine. After her own self-empowered healing epiphany in 1997, she has guided people to livehealthier through both Eastern and Western medicine, ancient and ultra-high-tech healing. Learn more abouthow to claim your power to heal yourself at our website doctorjp.com
Tom Ronen Goddard, PhD is a psychologist specializing in somatic energy work. To schedule a Free Discovery Session to learn more about personal or retreat work with Dr. Goddard, go to https://www.integralbecoming.com
By Joanne Pizzino, MD, MPH, Medical Editor of Health&Healing, and Tom Ronen Goddard, PhD, CCEP, Integral Psychologist, Core Energetics Practitioner
Dr. Pizzino
In today’s world, many diseases remain silent until they reach advanced stages. Conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, obesity, and chronic stress quietly undermine our health without immediate symptoms. These hidden threats, compounded by drug side effects and environmental toxins, pose significant challenges for diagnosis and treatment.
Often, our solutions to these complex threats are overly simplistic, focusing on only one dimension when the problem is multi-faceted. These issues rarely have a single cause or impact only one biological system. For example, heart disease may stem from genetic predispositions, poor diet, lack of exercise, chronic stress, and environmental pollutants, each contributing in unique ways. Similarly, diabetes affects metabolic, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems, influenced by insulin resistance, genetics, and lifestyle habits. This complexity underscores the need for a holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment, addressing the broader interplay of factors to fully resolve or prevent these conditions.
An Integral Approach
Tom Ronen Goddard, PhD
We propose an integral approach to addressing these silent adversaries. “Integral” here means “whole,” emphasizing the integration of multiple perspectives for comprehensive health solutions, and treating the person as a whole, unified being—body, emotions, mind, and spirituality.
The integral approach combines insights from various disciplines to tackle health challenges holistically. This includes functional medicine, which examines the interplay between genetics, environment, and lifestyle to identify root causes of health issues. Complementing this, somatic psychological approaches like Core Energetics and bioenergetics explore how emotional trauma and unresolved psychological issues manifest physically, impacting overall health. Addressing these somatic and psychological dimensions uncovers hidden factors contributing to illness. Additionally, lifestyle influences such as diet, exercise, and stress management are incorporated to provide a holistic view of the patient’s well-being. This integral perspective ensures that treatment strategies address not just symptoms but also root causes, supporting the body’s natural healing processes for more effective and sustainable health outcomes.
Proactive Self-Care
For individuals seeking to address their own silent diseases and hidden threats, proactive self-care is essential. Begin with regular health screenings and diagnostic tests to detect potential issues early, even without symptoms. Adopt a comprehensive wellness strategy that includes a balanced, nutrient-rich diet, regular physical activity, and adequate sleep. Incorporate stress management techniques like mindfulness, meditation, and yoga to enhance mental and emotional well-being. Work with healthcare practitioners who use integrative approaches such as functional medicine and somatic therapies to address underlying causes and support holistic healing. By adopting this multi-faceted approach, individuals can uncover hidden health risks and take informed steps to mitigate them.
We humans—and the health issues that impact us—are vastly more complex than a monolithic approach can satisfactorily address. We must address our health and well-being with a comprehensive approach, or be doomed to face solutions that are, at best, partial.
We are not machines. We are, so far as we know, the most complex creation in the cosmos. Let’s act as though we are exactly that.
A little appreciated hidden health risk, observes Dr. Charles Ferzli of the TMJ & Sleep Therapy Centre in Cary, is poor sleep. “Indeed,” he says, “quality sleep is a critically important foundation for health, and poor sleep contributes directly to many serious diseases—including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, depression, and more. It is during our nightly sleep cycle that our body regenerates and heals. And when that cycle is disrupted, it affects inflammatory processes in the body, contributing to disease and impairing our ability to heal.
“Plastic surgery is not a one-step solution to obesity. While body contouring procedures can provide transformative results, they have major limitations on how much fat they can safely remove. Further, not only does excess weight have serious health consequences, but obese patients are at greater risk of complications during and after surgery.”
“Any conversation about the risk of so-called ‘silent diseases,’ will inevitably lead to a discussion of hormones and hormone imbalance,” observes Dr. Jennifer Burch of Central Compounding Pharmacy in Durham. “Osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease—all these conditions are influenced in significant ways by our hormones, and particularly by hormone imbalances.
“One lesson I’ve learned in my 29 years in this business,” says Bill Dolch, “is that most people are unaware of the toxins they’re exposed to in their own homes.” Mr. Dolch is the owner of Certified Indoor Air, Inc., of the Triangle, a company providing comprehensive mold testing and air quality inspections in the Greater Triangle area.
In today’s world, many diseases remain silent until they reach advanced stages. Conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, obesity, and chronic stress quietly undermine our health without immediate symptoms. These hidden threats, compounded by drug side effects and environmental toxins, pose significant challenges for diagnosis and treatment.
When parents and caregivers think about hidden threats to their children, social media and messaging is a huge source of anxiety for many. At a time when many adults are themselves feeling more isolated and reports of childhood anxiety are rising, it is right to feel cautious. At the end of July, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill proposing new safety and privacy regulations for minors on social media and on-line communication platforms. This work was fueled in large part by testimonies from families whose children succumbed to bullying, harassment, and other negative impacts of on-line networks. While this legislation…
Among the more challenging aspects of my work,” notes Dr. Gregg, “are the risks involved when a patient has an underlying disease, such as diabetes.
“Diabetes patients,” she explains, “have significantly higher risks from surgery because of their high blood sugar levels, especially when the disease is not well controlled. There is an increased risk of infection, slower wound healing, and potential kidney and heart problems. So it is critically important that we evaluate each patient’s case carefully, make sure they are aware of these increased risks, and—most importantly—that we get clearance from the physician helping them manage their diabetes….
Founded in 1935, after a meeting between two strangers in Akron, Ohio, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped save and impact countless lives since its inception. Through its unique approach in utilizing a “spiritual solution to a medical problem,” the organization’s famous 12-Step Program has spawned other peer-to-peer “Anonymous” groups with the same basic principle that only those similarly afflicted can truly comprehend a mutual malady. This type of support transcends religious, racial, socioeconomic, and cultural differences, as reflected in A.A.’s two million active members across 120,000 groups in 180 countries. At its core, A.A. is a process by which people get…
I believe most of us are walking around carrying some kind of pain. We may experience the loss of a beloved partner, whether through a breakup or death. Many of us grieve parents, grandparents, children, friends, or other loved ones. Some of us have lost jobs or a place to live. Many of us have experienced diminishments to our health or way of life. We may have lost our innocence through betrayal or emotional, physical, or sexual abuse in a relationship that should have been safe. We all have our share of pain. Even if we have support at the…
“Not only is the skin our largest organ but, for the careful observer, it often reveals vital information about an array of diseases that, in early stages, are free of symptoms,” observes Dr. Gregory Wilmoth of Southern Dermatology and Skin Cancer Center in Raleigh.
We tend to think that menopause is all about hormones, right? Therefore, taking hormones should provide relief for hot flashes, vaginal dryness, weight gain, moodiness, hair loss, and more. As a physician who has been prescribing bio-identical hormone therapy (BHRT) for women for nearly two decades, I can say that prescription hormones alone often provide only partial answers.
“Typically, depression weakens the ability of the patient to manage and moderate the pain they’re experiencing, so they often slip into a loop: increasing pain induces more severe depression which intensifies the pain.”
