What is environmental medicine?

Environmental medicine is a specialty that looks at the influence of your environment on your health. In particular, environmental medicine practitioners like Dr. Bartman study the relationship between environmental factors and any health problems you might have.

Your environment is the world around you, the places where you live, work, go to school, or otherwise spend your time. There are many potential influences in your environment that could affect your health, such as pollutants and irritants in the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat.

These environmental factors can alter the way enzymes work in your body. Enzymes are critical to your metabolism, so if they’re not functioning as they should, it can severely impact how you feel.

What environmental factors could affect my health?

Examples of substances in the environment that can affect health include:

• Environmental radiation

• Ultraviolet light

• Tobacco smoke

• Exhaust fumes

• Power plant pollution

• Environmental noise

• Electromagnetic fields (EMF’s)

• Pesticides

• Water pollution

• Chemical pollution

• Plastics

• Perfumes

• Allergens

• And more!

The effect of any of these on your health depends in part on your level of exposure. For example, living in a city dramatically increases your exposure to exhaust fumes, increasing your chances of developing respiratory health problems.

The effects of your environment can also differ according to the influence of an individual’s:

• Genetic predisposition

• Gender

• Nutrition

• Current health

• Emotional stress

• Physical activity

In other words, if you already have risk factors for a specific condition, then your environment could be even more influential on your health.

What conditions are caused by environmental factors?

There are certain diseases that can develop entirely because of environmental factors. Respiratory conditions such as emphysema and lung cancer are examples of diseases that are typically due to breathing in pollutants like smoke, asbestos, or other contaminants over the long term.

Excessive exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays or tanning beds is known to cause skin cancer, and contaminated water can carry numerous bacteria that cause gastrointestinal and other health problems.

However, the impact of the environment on your health goes far beyond these diseases. Lower exposures to a variety of pollutants can have an adverse effect on many of your body’s systems, causing familiar symptoms such as fatigue, problems sleeping, and general aches and pains.

How does environmental medicine improve my health?

Dr. Bartman analyses the environmental factors that could be affecting your health by going over your medical history, discussing where and how you live, and running tests to check for contaminants or deficiencies in your body.

When she has the information about what environmental factors are impacting your health, she creates a personalized treatment program that aims to reduce the harmful effects of your environment. This could include therapies such as:

• Lifestyle interventions

• Clinical nutrition

• Botanical medicines

• Homeopathy

• Hormone supplementation

• Nutritional supplementation

environmental survey

As you can see, your environment plays a big role in epigenetic programing and gene health. All 6-month packages will dive into the environmental impacts made on your health and well-being.

Dr. Liz will ask detailed questions about your current environment, as well as the environment you grew up in.

Based on your history and risk factors, and paired with a risk analysis from your genome, labs will be suggested and treatment suggested to support your body inside and out.

Labs may include:

• Serum testing

• Urine testing

• Hair analysis