Mission Functional Medicine

04/08/2026

🧬 A New Way to Think About Aging & Chronic Disease

Emerging research is shedding light on a process called ferroptosis—a form of cell damage driven by fragile cell membranes that are rich in polyunsaturated fats. The double bonds in the polyunsaturated fats are vulnerable to damage.

This then leads to lipid peroxidation, leading to cellular damage and contributing to conditions like:
– Type 2 diabetes
– Fatty liver disease
– Cardiovascular disease
– Elevated Ferritin
– Neurodegenerative disorders

One area of growing interest is the role of C15 (pentadecanoic acid), a healthy saturated fat that may help support cell membrane stability and reduce susceptibility to this type of damage. These levels are very influenced by diet. Full fat dairy is a great source of C15.

Low levels of C15 have been associated with poorer metabolic health and increased disease risk.

The Good News is you can test your C15 levels!

Genova Diagnostics offers testing.

At Mission Functional Medicine, we can order this test for our patients and pass along our discounted rate:
👉 $159 for patients

Non-patients can also order directly through Genova:
👉 A little over $200

💊 There is also a commercial product called Fatty15 that may help raise C15 levels if they are low.

If you have unexplained elevated ferritin (test negative for Hemochromatosis), or have NASH, prediabetes, or diabetes, consider checking your C15 levels.

03/29/2026

Chronic stress isn’t just “in your head” — it’s deeply affecting your body.

Let's talk about STRESS! What's your favorite stress reducing activity?

Below is some information about why we need to care about stress.

Cortisol, our main stress hormone, is essential for survival. It helps us respond to challenges, stay alert, and manage energy. But when stress becomes constant, cortisol stays elevated — and that’s where problems begin.

Over time, excess cortisol becomes catabolic, meaning it breaks the body down instead of building it up. It works against anabolic hormones like testosterone and DHEA, which are responsible for repair and growth.

Chronic high cortisol can:
• Suppress key hormones like growth hormone, thyroid-stimulating hormone, and reproductive hormones
• Disrupt thyroid function by reducing the conversion of T4 to active T3
• Increase blood sugar while interfering with insulin in muscles
• Promote fat storage — especially around the abdomen (visceral fat)
• Weaken bones by inhibiting bone-building activity
• Dysregulate the immune system

This is how ongoing stress can contribute to fatigue, weight gain, hormone imbalance, and increased disease risk.

Bottom line:
Short-term stress helps you survive. Chronic stress slowly breaks you down.

Managing stress isn’t a luxury — it’s a key part of protecting your long-term health.

03/17/2026

I wanted to share an idea I had to inspire myself and my family to increase our healthy habits. I created the healthy habits bingo game! 10 dollars for bingo and fifty dollars for the most bingo squares. My eleven year old is champing at the bit he is determined to win. Hoping this inspires us to be healthier. If you like the idea try it out with your family and friends!

03/08/2026

If you’re looking for a high-quality air purifier, this is one I often recommend people look into.

Using the link below, you can save up to $300 depending on the model.

👉 https://www.airdoctorpro.com/?oid=17&affid=7432

Affiliate Disclosure: This link is an affiliate link. If you purchase through it, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

AirDoctor offers top-ranked air purifiers with HEPA and carbon filters for dust, smoke, allergies, pet dander, wildfire smoke, and more. Buy the best, affordable air purifier today!

02/18/2026

Medicine has changed in the last 6 or 7 years and not in a good way. Some pharmacies have lost sight of the most important thing and that is working together to help our patients. Pharmacists are an essential part of the care team. I think some pharmacies have lost sight of that. So many are not doing right by our patients but I wanted to highlight the good that Costco continues to do.

Last night a patient of mine needed an antibiotic. The pharmacy told them it was not covered by their insurance and they needed to contact my office. They also failed to mention that they did not even have said antibiotic in stock. They did not call the on call number, they just sent an after hours fax. While working on charts, I noticed the fax at about 8:30 pm. Too late to get another pharmacy in the area to get the medication to my patient. The message was, pick a medication covered by patients insurance but no suggestions on what was covered.
Today I called the pharmacy, and asked what is covered? They offered me a 1-800 number to call the patients insurance. I have been doing this for a long time, this is something they can figure out for me within two minutes or less. My patient decided to pay cash for the drug, Surprise! that's when we learned it was out of stock. The pharmacy told her to wait another 24 hours to get her ANTIBIOTIC. No call to me, no offer to send to another pharmacy in town that may have this common drug.

Enter Costco pharmacy. With my patient's permission, I resent the prescription to Costco. The pharmacist had a question and guess what he did, he called ME. We had a conversation. He ended it with I am going to get right on processing this. Costco pharmacy always meets my expectations. Kudos to Costco! My patients deserve a Costco pharmacy experience!

02/10/2026

Hot Topic February 2026: New Study Links Air Quality to Obesity and BMI Reading Time: 5 minutes | Written on: February 5, 2026 By Machell Collier, MSSenior Marketing & Clinical Content Specialist, IFM Obesity is a chronic disease that affects an estimated one in eight people around the globe.1 This...

01/12/2026

One of last year's projects...completed.

01/01/2026

Check out upcoming EVENT!

12/12/2025

Want to thank everyone who came to our stress talk today and hope the folks that got acupuncture have great results!

09/11/2025

More and more we are hearing about the importance of the gut microbiome. In functional medicine we have been talking about this for a very long time. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published an article discussing the importance of the gut microbiome and cancer. Below are some of the highlights from that article.

What we eat and ingest has a profound impact on our health and so much of that impact is because of the impact on the gut microbiome.

In our gut microbiomes we have bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea. An intact gut barrier and a high diversity of healthy microbes is important for optimal health.

Dysbiosis which is a suboptimal balance of microbes, and a disrupted gut barrier are known to cause systemic inflammation and disruptions to our immune system. There are well-established links with the gut microbiome and depression, anxiety and many different autoimmune diseases.

A study of 111 patients with pancreatic cancer, from two separate institutions, shows that people who survived longer than five years after surgery had a higher diversity of microbes within the tumor microenvironment and a greater abundance of cytotoxic killer T lymphocytes.
Another study took f***s from patients who had survived greater than 5 years with pancreatic cancer and those who did not and did a f***l microbiome transplant with mice who had pancreatic cancer. The mice who got the transplant from the survivors had reduced tumor growth and improved anti-tumor immunity compared to mice who received transplants for patients with pancreatic cancer who had short term survival.

Several studies of patients with cancer who received broad-spectrum antibiotics prior to treatment had lower tumor response rates to therapy and reduced overall survival and higher rates of adverse effects.

One retrospective analysis of 128 patients with metastatic melanoma showed an association with fiber intake and longer remission.

JAMA. 2025 Jun 24;333(24):2188-2196.
doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.2191.

09/09/2025

Back by Popular Demand-The 30 Plant Challenge!

The Challenge: Eat 30 Different Plants Per Week!

The Prize: Improved Gut Microbiome Diversity and 2 Free Passes to the Revive Room at Mission Functional Medicine

How To Win: Eat 30 Different Plants Per week for 4 weeks

Start Date: September 22nd 2025
End Date: October 19th 2025

To Collect your Prize: You must send or bring your list of plants to Mission Functional Medicine.

Who Can Participate: ANYONE! People who are not patients at Mission Functional Medicine and have a medical condition need a doctor note to use the sauna in the Revive room.

The best way to increase diversity in the gut microbiome is to diversify your diet. Good Luck on the 30-plant challenge!

Follow us on Facebook over the next 6 weeks to learn why you want to optimize the health of your gut microbiome.

08/19/2025

Dementia & Cognitive Health Slowing Neurodegeneration With Exercise Practitioner | Reading Time: 4 minutes | Updated on: June 3, 2019 Maintaining cognition and brain fitness is a priority for many patients. And exercise is one of the strategies that has been shown to optimize both mitochondrial and....