http://www.drkarafitzgerald.com/

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, Sandy Hook, CT (2026)

02/05/2026

February is National Cancer Prevention Month. And the numbers are a wake-up call.

In the U.S. alone, an estimated 2,041,910 new cancer cases and over 618,000 deaths are projected this year, that’s more than 5,600 diagnoses every single day.

Even more striking: nearly 40% of men and women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives based on the latest lifetime risk data.

Globally, about 1 in 4 people will develop cancer during their lifetime, a somber reminder that this is not rare, it’s common.

But here’s what functional medicine brings to this month of awareness:
Cancer isn’t just a matter of genetics or chance. Most cases are influenced by modifiable lifestyle and metabolic factors. Diet quality, metabolic health, inflammation, immune resilience, toxin exposure, physical activity, and circadian rhythms all shape risk over time.

An FxMed approach doesn’t chase fear. It focuses on root causes and signals:
• Optimize metabolic flexibility and glucose regulation
• Prioritize nutrient patterns that support detoxification and DNA repair
• Balance the microbiome and reduce chronic inflammation
• Support immune surveillance and resilience
• Address environmental and lifestyle exposures early

If nearly 4 in 10 people are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, prevention isn’t optional, it’s essential.

This month, think beyond screening. Think upstream, where metabolic health, nutrition, movement, sleep, and immune signaling intersect.

Cancer prevention isn’t one pill or test. It’s a lifelong strategy built on physiology, not fear.

Sources: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11745215/ https://gco.iarc.fr/ and https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10640926/

02/04/2026

When you eat may matter as much as what you eat.

A new 2025 review in Current Obesity Reports takes a deep look at time-restricted eating (TRE) and what it’s really doing under the hood.

From a functional medicine lens, the most important takeaway is about circadian biology.

TRE appears to:
• Resynchronize peripheral clocks (liver, muscle, gut, adipose tissue)
• Improve mitochondrial signaling and metabolic flexibility
• Reduce inflammatory signaling
• Support autophagy and cellular repair
• Favorably influence the gut microbiome

Clinically, TRE performs about as well as calorie restriction for weight loss, without calorie counting, which matters for adherence. More importantly, it reinforces a core FxMed principle: metabolism is rhythmic, and timing is a therapeutic lever.

This aligns closely with how I think about metabolic timing, resilience, and aging biology in Younger You, not extremes, but intelligent signaling.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-025-00609-z

Funding & disclosures: Open-access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata (CRUI-CARE Agreement). No external funding. Authors report no competing interests.

02/03/2026

❤️ It’s National Heart Month, and your heart is listening to more than your cholesterol.

When we talk about heart health, we often focus on a single number. But the heart is deeply influenced by inflammation, metabolic health, mitochondrial function, hormones, sleep, stress, and even how your genes are being expressed.

In functional and longevity medicine, we look at the heart as part of an interconnected system, not an isolated organ.
Here’s what truly supports heart health over time:
• Metabolic flexibility and insulin sensitivity
• Mitochondrial resilience
• Vascular health and endothelial function
• Inflammation control
• Lifestyle patterns that shape gene expression

And yes, nutrition, movement, and stress regulation matter every single day, not just when labs are out of range.

What I find hopeful is this:
❤️ The heart is remarkably responsive to change. Small, consistent shifts can meaningfully improve cardiovascular health and biological aging trajectories.

This month is a reminder not to fear heart disease, but to understand it better, address root causes, and use the tools we have to protect heart health across the lifespan.

02/02/2026

What happens when AI meets aging biology? In this conversation, reproductive biologist Dr. Vittorio Sebastiano and I explore how rapidly advancing technologies are reshaping geroscience and regenerative medicine, with the potential to be game-changing for human health and longevity.

To watch the full excerpt, comment ERA, and we'll send you the link or head to https://www.drkarafitzgerald.com/2026/01/20/ai-ovarian-rejuvenation-longevity/

Dr. Sebastiano also joined us for the 2025 Functional Medicine is Longevity Medicine™ Masterclass, where he examined how organ-specific rejuvenation may deliver systemic benefits for overall health and longevity.

To access the full recording, comment “YYIP” and we’ll send you the registration link.

02/01/2026

🧠 Why Alzheimer’s risk looks different in women

A new lipidomics study found that women with Alzheimer’s disease show a marked loss of protective, highly unsaturated fats (including omega-3–rich lipids) while men did not show the same pattern.

What stood out:
• The decline was specific to women
• It tracked with worse memory scores
• It was independent of cholesterol or LDL

This matters because unsaturated fats support synaptic signaling, membrane fluidity, and brain resilience. Losing them may leave the brain more vulnerable to degeneration, especially after menopause, when estrogen’s support of omega-3 metabolism declines.

🔍 The takeaway:
Alzheimer’s is not a one-size-fits-all disease. Sex-specific biology matters, and nutrition, lipid metabolism, and brain aging are deeply connected.

What questions does this raise for you about women’s brain health or prevention strategies? 👇

https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.70512

This was an observational, cross-sectional study. It does not prove causation, nor does it establish that supplementation prevents or treats Alzheimer’s. Clinical translation requires further human trials. Supported by Lundbeck Fonden and Alzheimer’s Research UK (AddNeuroMed Consortium).

Most of the authors report no conflicts of interest. One author, H.Z., has extensive professional relationships with multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and diagnostics companies, including advisory roles, consulting, and speaking engagements, and is a cofounder of a biomarker company. These activities are disclosed as outside the submitted work..

01/31/2026

🧬 Your genes are not your destiny.

Identical twins share the same DNA, yet they often age differently, get different diseases, and experience different health outcomes.

Why? Epigenetics.

Take the famous astronaut twins, Scott and Mark Kelly. After Scott spent nearly a year in space, scientists found that 7% of his gene expression remained altered years later, and he was biologically older than his identical twin on Earth.

Same genes. Different environment. Different biology.

Or consider twin sisters raised in the same home, eating the same foods, playing the same sports. One developed stage 2 breast cancer in her early 30s. The other didn’t. Small differences in exposures, stress, sleep, or chemicals, possibly even everyday products, may have nudged their epigenomes in different directions.

✨ This is the power (and promise) of epigenetics.

Your DNA is the script. Your lifestyle is the director.

What you eat.
How you move.
How you manage stress.
How you sleep.
What you’re exposed to.

These factors constantly tell your genes which chapters to read… and which to skip.

So when someone says, “It’s just my genes,” science says otherwise.

👉 You have far more influence over your health and your future than you’ve been led to believe.

Want to learn more about the role of epigenetics in your life? Comment YOUNGER YOU and we’ll DM you the link!

01/30/2026

Hair greying may be more than cosmetic. It may be protective.

A new Nature Cell Biology study suggests that when melanocyte stem cells experience DNA damage, they often choose senescence and pigment loss rather than continued self-renewal, a trade-off that appears to reduce melanoma risk in preclinical models.

Under carcinogenic stress, that protective pathway can be bypassed, increasing cancer risk.

A reminder that some features of aging may reflect tumor-suppressive biology, not simple decline.

DOI: 10.1038/s41556-025-01769-9

Limitations: Primarily preclinical (mouse models); mechanistic and hypothesis-generating, not prescriptive. Public research funding (JSPS, AMED); One of the study authors is a co-founder of EADERM Co., Ltd., a research company engaged in the development of hair growth agents and treatments for intractable skin diseases. This affiliation is disclosed for transparency.

01/29/2026

The immune system doesn’t just defend the body; it shapes the brain.

A new review in Science Immunology shows that type 2 immune signals (IL-4, IL-13, IL-33) directly influence synapses, cognition, and brain repair in preclinical models, revealing deep cross-talk between immunity and the nervous system.

Brain health isn’t just a neuronal issue. Immune tone helps determine how the brain adapts, repairs, and ages. Understanding these pathways shifts us beyond “inflammation on/off” toward a more nuanced view of immune balance in cognitive resilience and recovery.

doi:10.1126/sciimmunol.adp6450

This narrative review (NIHMS-2107565) was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS126765) and Schmidt Science Fellows, in partnership with the Rhodes Trust. Findings are primarily preclinical and mechanistic, intended to generate hypotheses, not clinical guidance. Human studies are needed before translation to practice.

01/28/2026

🍲 Comfort food, upgraded for longevity.

Food is one of the most powerful tools we have to support healthy aging. That’s why my team and I love recipes like this Longevity Beef Chili. It’s deeply nourishing, satisfying, and built with ingredients that support metabolic and cellular health.

This isn’t your standard chili. We’ve layered in vegetables, spices, and quality protein to deliver flavor and epinutrients that work with your biology, not against it.

It’s the kind of meal we actually make at home: simple, comforting, and aligned with how we think about food as medicine.

👉 Comment BEEF CHILI, and we’ll send you the full recipe, or head to https://www.drkarafitzgerald.com/recipe/longevity-beef-chili/

01/26/2026

This should concern every parent, clinician, and educator.

In a large JAMA study tracking 6,500+ children, increases in social media use between ages 9–13 were linked to measurable declines in memory, language, and overall cognitive performance just two years later.

These changes were small at the individual level, but at a population scale, they matter. Small cognitive shifts, multiplied across millions of developing brains, become a public health issue.

This study is observational, not causal. But it raises a deeply uncomfortable question:
👉 What happens when the architecture of attention, language, and learning is shaped by algorithms instead of human interaction?

Source: JAMA, 2025 (ABCD Study)
doi:10.1001/jama.2025.16613

Disclosure: Funded by the U.S. NIH through the ABCD Study. No industry funding or reported conflicts of interest.

01/25/2026

When sleep is short, physiology shifts fast. Even a few hours of sleep deprivation can impair insulin sensitivity, reduce cognitive performance, and increase perceived stress.

One counterintuitive but effective intervention is brief, high-intensity exercise.

As little as 10 minutes of HIIT can increase cerebral blood flow, improve glucose regulation, and temporarily restore cognitive function to baseline or better. For many people, this effect lasts several hours or until adequate sleep is possible.

You may not feel like pushing when you’re exhausted, but the biology supports it. Used strategically, this can help protect performance and reduce burnout in the short term.

That said, this is a bridge, not a solution. Exercise can buffer the damage of sleep loss, but it doesn’t replace sleep. Chronic deprivation will eventually override even the best interventions.

Use it wisely. Then prioritize rest.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2017.00992

The referenced study was supported by academic and institutional research funding as disclosed by the authors. No industry sponsorship or relevant conflicts of interest were reported.

01/24/2026

This is one of the clearest mechanistic links yet between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

In this Science Translational Medicine study, researchers show that EBV doesn’t just coexist with autoimmunity; it can reprogram autoreactive B cells to behave as highly active antigen-presenting cells, amplifying immune dysfunction in lupus.

Using advanced single-cell sequencing, the team demonstrated that EBV infects nuclear antigen–reactive B cells, alters their epigenetic and transcriptional programs, and drives downstream activation of pathogenic T and B cell responses. In other words: a virus reshaping immune “terrain,” not just triggering flares.

This work adds important depth to a long-standing clinical observation: EBV exposure is nearly universal, yet autoimmune disease is not. The difference may lie in how the immune system is reprogrammed under specific conditions.

Important context:
🔬 This is mechanistic, translational research, not a clinical intervention
🧠 Findings help explain disease biology—not guide treatment decisions (yet)
Still, studies like this move us closer to understanding autoimmunity as a systems-level process shaped by infection, immune tolerance, and epigenetic regulation.

PMID: 41223250

Research funding was provided by academic and institutional sources as disclosed by the authors. No industry sponsorship or relevant conflicts of interest were reported.

Dr. Kara Fitzgerald

02/05/2026

02/04/2026

02/03/2026

02/02/2026

02/01/2026

01/31/2026

01/30/2026

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