What if the future of medicine is not just about data – but about ecology?
In this live episode of The Evolution of Medicine Podcast recorded at the Institute for Functional Medicine Annual Conference, James Maskell speaks with Patricia Devers, Chief Clinical Officer at Genova Diagnostics, about the evolution of functional medicine into a systems-based, ecological model of care.
Patricia Devers shares her journey from conventional internal medicine to functional medicine leadership, explaining why she left hospital practice after 20 years due to a lack of meaningful patient improvement. She describes how Genova Diagnostics has evolved over four decades from basic laboratory testing into advanced microbiome sequencing and functional ecosystem analysis.
About the Guest:
Patricia Devers is the Chief Clinical Officer at Genova Diagnostics, one of the leading specialty laboratories supporting functional and integrative medicine worldwide.
She trained as a conventionally trained internal medicine physician and spent 20 years practicing in hospital and clinical settings before transitioning into functional medicine. Frustrated by the lack of long-term patient improvement in conventional care, she moved into systems-based medicine, where she has spent the past decade helping advance clinical laboratory science and practitioner education.
At Genova Diagnostics, Patricia Devers focuses on expanding the clinical utility of advanced diagnostic testing, including microbiome analysis, gastrointestinal function testing, and systems-based biomarker interpretation. Her work emphasizes an ecological model of health, where disease is understood as a disruption of interconnected biological systems.
She is a leading advocate for integrating functional medicine into mainstream healthcare through better diagnostics, education, and clinical decision support, with a particular focus on gut health, chronic disease, and personalized medicine.
– – – – –
About the Host:
James Maskell is a healthcare entrepreneur and founder of The Evolution of Medicine. For over 20 years, he has worked to scale functional medicine through community-driven models, group visits, and practitioner infrastructure. His work focuses on moving medicine upstream – toward prevention, lifestyle intervention, and systems-based care.
Social Handles:
Website: https://www.jamesmaskell.com/
X: https://x.com/mrjamesmaskell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesmaskell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesedwardmaskell/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmaskell
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/FunctionalForum
Evolution of Medicine™ Mission Partners:
TrueNeura: https://truneura.com
Fullscript: https://goevomed.com/fullscript
Big Boost Marketing: https://goevomed.com/bigboost
Freedom Practice Training: https://goevomed.com/fpc
– – – – –
PODCAST
Thank you for listening.
Please subscribe and share.
This podcast is produced by DrTalks.com
https://drtalks.com/podcast-service/
Listen wherever you listen to your podcast or watch the full episode on our YouTube channel.
Transcript:
The conversations are also different. You know, there’s this biohacking space of shiny new nickel, new peptides, all this great stuff, but when we have these conversations at the booth, it always comes back to those basics, right? The basics that we’ve been talking about for 10 years. Go outside, sunshine, rest, de-stress, eat clean foods, remove toxic burdens.
So it always comes back to those basics, and so I love bringing people back to the basics, especially with some of the conversations around things like AI, which has come into our space, right? Yeah. This is fairly new for both of us- Yeah … coming into this, which is a very helpful tool and clearly the future.
However, the debates I’ve been having at the booth and, and the discussions that we’ve been having one-to-one with doctors- Mm … is around AI and how to use it in medicine because, let’s face it, a lot of us projected protocols in conventional medicine to come to understand that this is a personalized approach to medicine.
Everyone’s different. It’s not a check mark of a protocol that’s created somewhere else to make your life easier. Hello, and welcome back to the Evolution of Medicine podcast. We are here at the Institute for Functional Medicine’s annual conference, and we are connecting with leaders and innovators at the front lines of healthcare transformation.
And here is Dr. Patty Devers. She’s the chief clinical officer at Genova. Uh, we’ve been friends for 10 years- Yes, we have … and followed each other’s journey along the way. Yes, we have. And, um, yeah, maybe we could just start with your journey to be here at this conference and- Yeah … a little bit more about how you got here.
It’s always great to see you, James. Yeah. Like I said, we’ve evolved with medicine over 10 years. I was or- originally a conventionally trained internal medicine doctor, and I worked in a hospital for 20 years and left because people weren’t getting better. They were getting sicker quicker. So I left and found Genova, thank goodness, learned everything I could about functional medicine voraciously, became the chief clinical officer, and I’ve been there for 10 years, and I’ve gotten to know you, come to all these conferences.
And Genova’s been around for 40 years. Wow. Four decades. This is our 40th year. And with that, we’ve seen a lot. We’ve evolved a lot. We’ve grown, and we’ve led And so we’ve been a big supporter of the Institute for Functional Medicine for many, many years. So for us, it’s always fun to come to support IFM, to hear the key opinion leaders giving us the latest and the greatest, to meet new friends and find our old friends, and so we’re honored to always be here.
Yeah. So, um, you’ve got a good pulse, I think, of how people are feeling. Mm-hmm. I’ve noticed there’s a ton of new people here. Yes. But I’m just wondering what you’re– as someone who’s, like, having conversations, what, what are you, what are you, what are you hearing this year, and what’s interesting to you? I’m so excited.
Over the past five years since COVID, the time of COVID where people are trying to take better control of their health, there’s been a real focus and a shift to what we do, which you, you and I have been trying to shout this from the rooftops for many, many years. So we’re seeing a lot of new people come into the space, not leaving conventional medicine, but knowing that there’s something more, and coming here and really genuinely trying to understand.
So it’s not only the fact that we’re getting some newer people into the space, which I love, but the conversations are also different. You know, there’s this biohacking space of shiny new nickel, new peptides, all this great stuff, but when we have these conversations at the booth, it always comes back to those basics, right?
The basics that we’ve been talking about for 10 years. Go outside, sunshine, rest, de-stress, eat clean foods, remove toxic burden. So it always comes back to those basics, and so I love bringing people back to the basics, especially with some of the conversations around things like AI, which has come into our space, right?
Yeah. This is fairly new for both of us- Yeah … coming into this, which is a very helpful tool and clearly the future. However- The debates I’ve been having at the booth and, and the discussions that we’ve been having one-to-one with doctors- Mm … is around AI and how to use it in medicine, because let’s face it, a lot of us projected protocols in conventional medicine to come to understand that this is a personalized approach to medicine.
Everyone’s different. It’s not a check mark of a protocol that’s created somewhere else to make your life easier. And so when you’re taking lab results and you’re putting it in AI and it’s telling you what to do, I’m pulling people back and saying, “We’re treating people. We’re not treating data. We’re treating a person.”
So those conversations, these nuanced conversations as things are evolving with AI and with the newer things coming to the space, I think are really important debates to have, and I just am loving having them and hearing different people’s perspectives. So that’s kind of new. Before, it was almost like green allopathy when we both first started in this.
It was lab testing and supplements. We kind of took the conventional way and said, “Test. Here’s a supplement.” Now there’s all these nuances that are happening that are really exciting that I love to debate. Yeah. Yeah, that is exciting. Well, you know, I think one of the things that, um, I just heard Dr. Bland, you know, give his keynote, and- Yeah
it’s like a lot of the ideas that were impossible, you know, 30 years ago- Yes … to like, “Hey, personalized medicine is a joke. You can’t do it. You have to do it for the standard- Right … because it’ll be way too expensive or otherwise,” well, now I just went to a talk on the continuous glucose monitor for people outside of diabetes, and here’s, like, real-time feedback that could- Great
lead to not only personalization but also, like, the transformation of consciousness of a patient to understand how they interact- Yeah … with certain foods, how they interact with their stress. So you couldn’t even- Data’s compelling … imagine that that was real- It’s compelling. Great … you know, this- Great
when you started, but it’s the principle of what’s involved, right? Love that. Love that. And, you know, we’re kind of like the bleeding edge type of people. Not– Like, we’re cutting edge, not bleeding edge in general. We’re the people who are thinking outside the box. Here’s conventional medicine. We’re looking at things differently.
So as these things come into this space, I, I love watching it evolve. I love watching it, you know, be- gain acce- acceptance in the conve- in the conventional space. So that’s been really exciting for us. Yeah. And to your point, data’s very compelling. Patient is motivated to change once they see this in real time, what’s happening to them.
Yeah. Well, I’ve been, uh, you know, one of the things I’ve been focused on for the last, you know, year and a half, two years, is really trying to understand what’s happening at the cross-section of sort of functional medicine and Alzheimer’s and dementia care. Yes. And it’s been a revelation to me to really understand the degree to which, let’s say in the Avantia trial that just happened- Yes
everyone does the Genova Test. Yes. And that there’s information on that Genova Test- Yes … and some of the different tests that inform, um, the strategies to reduce the systemic chronic s- inflammation that exists that is associated with dementia. And it must be interesting, you know, for you, given that, you know, I think Genova’s evolving, right, from a company that was really about this one test that you started with- Yeah
right through to now, having a range of- Yeah … specialty testing, and, and that allows you maybe to have impact in, in different areas of the physical body. 1,000%. That Avantia trial was profound, especially for this space, to prove out what we’ve all been doing for years now. Genova is just honored to have been in- invited to even be part of it, and the fact that this is gonna revolutionize our space to say like, “No, this stuff is real,” and our Genova tests have contributed in any way to that, is very exciting.
And again, it comes back to our basics. We have known, using our specialty lab testing, that if you optimize your microbiome, if you optimize your nutrition, all these downstream effects will happen. But again, it comes back to those basics. But to, to be proven out in something like what TruNeuro’s doing in the Avantia trial, to even be involved is just so exciting and so we’re honored.
We’re honored. The thing about the microbiome is that it’s impossibly complex- Yeah … in a certain way, and so you need these kind of tools like AI- You do … and that kind of understanding to make sense of it. You do. Because like, I think it’s amazing that clinicians in our space have been able to wrap their head around something that, one, is evolving, two, I think someone said earlier, there’s more spe- there’s more species or more microbes in the gut than stars in the universe.
I mean, the fact that you’re dealing with something that has that much, like, complexity and understanding, and also- Yeah … um, symbiosis and things like, I love things like quorum sensing, where- Yes, yes … they’re not just acting individually, they’re working together. It’s mind-blowing. Like, that level of complexity is, is wild.
It’s mind-blowing. But, but even with that, even following the microbiome, like Genova, like I said, for 40 years we’ve been looking at stool, and to see how that’s evolved in, in the technologies and the assays and what we can measure, it’s started to become just this laundry list of bacteria. Now we’re understanding it’s not just the laundry list of bacteria, it’s what they’re doing, how they’re moving together, what they’re making based on what you’re giving them.
And so when you start to realize that how you modulate the entire microbiome, it becomes so exciting, and it’s still a moving target. But to, to have been studying this for 40 years, and now to have things like this proven out in this Avantia trial is very exciting for us. Yeah. What are you… What has been some of the things that you’ve learned along the way about how to make these kind of ideas accessible to someone who doesn’t really have much context, never ran a stool test?
So I just wanna take a minute to talk about the incredible mission partners that we have here at The Evolution of Medicine that have made this possible. So first and foremost, I wanna thank- Fullscript and Fullscript Journey.
So Fullscript’s been an amazing partner for 10 years. We only pick partners that can help us achieve our vision and help you achieve your practice vision. And Fullscript have been an incredible partner for a decade, but their new offering Journeys, this is why we called it The Evolution of Medicine Journeys, is allowing practitioners to combine the relationships that they have with the newest technology to sell direct-to-consumer lab testing, and use it as a funnel to bring into your practice, and it’s a game changer for the whole industry.
So go to goevomed.com/journeys, and you can get started on building the Journeys for your practice, an optimal way into your practice. We’re gonna have some conversations about it. This is a game changer. Next, Genova. Genova, um, have been fans of The Evolution of Medicine for a long time. We’re big fans of them, and they now have a lot more specialty testing.
They have a lot more tools, and it’s a key part of, uh, understanding the body ecologically. So go to goevomed.com/genova to find out more. Come on over here and I wanna show you about the other mission partners. You know, if you’ve been following us for a while, you know that these are organizations that we trust, that add a lot of value.
Freedom Practice Coaching. Um, I have been sup- supported by them since the beginning and, you know, so many of the issues that practitioners face in building a successful practice, scaling a successful practice, come down to having the right support with people who have been there and done that. Go to goevomed.com/fpc.
Um, BigBoost Marketing. Uh, Uli and his team are the best in the business when it comes to really understanding how to market your functional medicine practice. Go to goevomed.com/bigboost and see how they can help you. And then what you’re gonna be hearing a, a lot about is the formation of clinical networks.
And ultimately, TruNeura is our first effort at that, which is to build an integrated clinical network, combining independent practices from across the country into a network that can reverse cognitive decline. And if you go to goevomed.com/truneura, you can get a demo. You can see what it means to be part of an integrated clinical network.
That’s mentorship, that’s software, and that’s making it easier for you to get incredible outcomes in a disease state where there are no other options. So thanks to our mission partners. Let’s get back to the content
It’s a hard buy-in for someone who’s never done a stool test- Yeah … let’s be clear. Um, but I think once you start to explain to them that all disease begins in the gut, the microbiome is really the key to just about everything that’s going on, including Alzheimer’s, dementia. It– I think you, you start to explain to them that these bugs are really in charge, and what they’re doing is really important based on what you’re giving them.
So it’s this symbiosis, to your point. And so once you start to explain to them the importance of this, of, of what can be done, we hear success stories literally every single day ’cause we talk to doctors every day, and so we know the importance and we know what we can do to make people’s lives easier, and that’s really the, at the end of the day, what we want.
We wanna help people. So to your point, the microbiome is so important, and as we s- continue to evolve, we’re helping more and more people ’cause at the end of the day, that’s, that’s the answer. That’s the key. We wanna help people. Hmm. I’d love to just go into that a little bit because I, I see, you know, now I’ve been involved in this project where all of these things are being measured, you know- Mm-hmm
a few times. You’ve got like biomarkers, which reflects sort of like the biochemistry. Right. You got sort of CGMs and, and wearables- Yeah … that have a bit more of a dynamic piece. Yeah. But uniquely here in the microbiome, you have sort of like a measure of an ecology, right? Yes. It’s an ecological understanding, and it seems to me that the ecological understanding might be the key thing.
‘Cause at the end of the day, functional medicine is an ecological way of practicing medicine. It is. It is. And more recently, stool testing, like I said, methods have evolved. Genova now does just about every method you can do in stool testing. We have whole genome sequencing, what this… which is super exciting, looking at the entirety of the DNA ecosystem of the GI tract, not only who’s there, but their potential to make certain things.
And now you’re pairing it with something like the GI Effects, where we’re showing you what’s being made. We’re looking at those discrepancies and saying, “No, this is a deeper understanding of you have a potential to make something, but your level here is low. Why?” So the, the level of understanding gets deeper and deeper and deeper and more impactful.
So it’s very exciting, and I love being on the cutting edge of this stuff. Yeah. I wanted to share with you a story that’s happened to me in the last little while. Oh, boy. So I, um, I came to find out through, an, uh… actually it was in Mother Jones, uh, magazine- All right … that essentially the land above my house, so I r- I live in El Dorado County, which is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.
All right. And there was a terrible fire there actually the year that I moved in called the Caldor Fire five years ago. So there’s basically this two-million-acre burn scar that went all the way up there. So now they’re in the process of reforestation, right? And so they wanna, um, bring the forest back. But rather than just saying, “Well, nature’s been doing this for billions of years and probably knows how to do it,” right, how to reconstruct it- Yeah
the, the answer for organizations that, um, are really focused on conifer growth- All right … is to use glyphosate to be able to- Wow … kill all the weeds- Wow … so it doesn’t compa- doesn’t compete with the conifers so the conifers can grow quickly. And I had a friend of mine who is a organic farmer. Okay. He goes, he goes to the same school as m- uh, my kid- our kids go to school together.
And I said, “Look, can you make a video on this?” ‘Cause I’ve made a video saying, “Hey, go to protecttahoe.com. Let’s fight this- Yeah … because it’s insane.” And also like, oh, if you put glyphosate up there, what’s happening to my stream, my well, my water, my food, my organic food, right? Wow. So anyway, so he, he do- he re- creates this video, and he’s talking about all the things that you should do to repopulate.
And n- none of those things are glyphosate or killing anything. Yeah. It’s all about re- recreating the good things. And I just, as he was speaking, I was like, this is like microbiome regeneration 101, right? I, that’s what I was exactly what I was thinking. And I was thinking about when we were gonna have this conversation- Yeah
because it was just so obvious. I was like, oh yeah, that sounds exactly the same. That’s insane, right. You could watch that video and say, “Okay, well, what’s it like to be a regenerative farmer?” Well, it’s the same thing as being a functional medicine doctor. That’s exactly it. Yeah. That’s exactly it. It’s, it’s the soil.
It’s letting the soil do its thing. That’s shocking. That’s shocking. It’s a, a very strong parallel to what happens in the microbiome. Once you’re on the antibiotics, for example, to rebuild that microbiome in a healthy and safe way rather than not. But that’s shocking. And one of the things he said- I love that analogy
is that he said, “Look, you know, if you kill all, everything, then the things that grow back are the resistant things.” And I’m like, that’s like MRSA up the hill from me. Preach it, James. Yeah. Preach it. Bring it, bring it, bring it. Yes. So s- Yes … don’t bring your MRSA down here. Yes. You know what I mean? Preach it.
So crazy. Yes. But it’s that ecological way of thinking. Yeah. And I think part of what happens when practitioners come to functional medicine, they learn about Genova, and they go through this, and they start to think in ecological terms. Once you’ve had that thinking, you can’t shake it, and you realize that not thinking in that way- Oh, yes
is like the root of all of our problems. And that’s kind of where I say, like, we always go back to the basics. Like, all new supplements or peptides are coming out. It’s like it’s the basics. It’s those basic concepts that we continue to, to hone in on because, to your point, your, your, the ecosystem of your microbiome is like soil, and you have to feed it properly, and you have to get the things out of the way to prevent it from growing like glyphosate.
So I love that analogy, and that’s something that we hone in on all the time. It’s the, it’s the ecosystem of the microbiome being healthy. Dr. Michelle Perro, who’s a pediatrician- Uh-huh … in California- Yeah … spoke at one of my events recently, and she was talking about, um, like, uh, particular strains of microbes just not being present at all- Mm-hmm
in, in certain children based on historical glyphosate exposure. Wow. And, you know, it’s very, it’s very interesting to just see, um- The, the, the, like, long-term biological impact of the, sort of those ecological interventions- Right … and also that there’s sort of, like, the transgenerational effect too- Yes
which I think Jeff was talking about in his lecture today too. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. And it’s that developing microbiome that’s so important in little kids, that reintroducing foods out in the dirt, who you’re around, who you’re with. I just, I hope everything’s gonna be okay by your house with that birds out area.
Gonna fight. Good. Yeah. Good. So, um, one of the things that is happening, I’m really excited about this collaboration. Yes. And I wanna thank Genova. Thank you for your support of, you know, of this and doing this. I hope we get to do it again. It’s been amazing. Meet so many people, and to create, like, essentially 10X more content than I used to create.
I’d make one show from the sh- show, and now we’ve got… It’s an opportunity to see so many people and connect. Yes. Um, one of the things that there’s, there’s two sort of forces happening that I think I wanted to ask you about. One is this sort of growth in direct-to-consumer lab testing- Right … right, where people are realizing that they have a very small amount of data on themselves.
Interesting fact, I was speaking to a doctor here who’s from Japan. Okay. And they were saying that their annual panel that they get every year is much more significant here. That’s, that’s just, like, the normal, um- Right … nationalized medicine- CBC levels, yeah … they’re getting a lot more of that. But here, so now hundreds of thousands of people are choosing to get a little bit more data, uh, about themselves- Mm-hmm
uh, which is really interesting. And, you know, Fullscript Journeys is creating a way to- Yes … essentially for practitioners to do that, and I hear that at some point very soon, Genova will be able to be added into those Fullscript Journeys- Correct. Yeah … so that at the top of the funnel of a patient inter- interaction, a patient could choose to have an ecological understanding of their gut.
That’s- And I’d just love to get your thoughts on, like, the implications of that, the benefits of that, and what might be, you know, what might the implication of that be for clinics, um, and for communities. Well, I think it comes back to what I was saying earlier, that- I’m just h- deeply heartened that there are people out there that are trying to take better control of their health, right?
They’re being more proactive. They’re going to direct-to-consumer platforms, which, you know, Genova’s got one, Genova Connect, connect.gdx.net. Fullscript’s is great, great. We’re, we’re talking with them about journeys, like specific clinical conditions. What does that journey look like? What testing might be helpful to you?
And I think patients resonate with this, which is important. And also, they may not have the depth of understanding and the ability to read the results the way that they should- Yeah … and to, to actually do something with it. That’s a big barrier, one that we’re trying very hard to overcome with education, and our platform is called Genova Connect for a reason.
We’re connecting patients with clients on the back end that can actually help them in their journey. They may have started with a direct-to-consumer, but we wanna connect them with an expert in their area, and also putting out more content to help educate some of these patients who are seeking help, um, to have it more accessible I think is fantastic.
Fullscript has been a great partner for us, um, and I think what they’re doing is fantastic. It’s a one-stop shop basically for all things health, and we do a lot of education with them Trying to put some of our educational content on there, again, to help both clinicians and patients because we do understand that patients are searching and they’re frustrated, and we wanna help them and connect all of these people together in community, to your bigger point.
And I will say, um, Genova’s got a podcast, it’s called The Lab Report, co-hosted by me, and whenever James is on, we just are jumping out of our s- our s- just waving our arms. This is how I know James. He’s so inspiring, and I think it’s helped a lot of people to really understand how, how to- Can I tell a funny story about that?
So I c- I came on the, I came on the podcast the first time. Yeah. And I did it, and I did the podcast. Yeah. And I showed up at a conference like this, and someone comes up to me and goes, “Cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches? I can’t even believe you eat that.” And I was like, “Um, I guess people love me.” It was the banh mi.
That’s what it was, the banh mi. The banh mi is the best sandwich. Yeah. But you know, I, I, I d- I did grow up on cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches. It was so great. You have to go listen to these episodes if you’ve missed them. James was on fire. We were jumping up, waving our arms. We were just so inspired by everything that you did, and you just really brought me along and inspired me along the way, so I appreciate you as a friend.
Well, one of the things that’s happening that I see, and this is sort of what the work that I’m involved in, is the, the vision that I see for the next phase of the functional medicine revolution is what I’m sort of thinking about is, like organized clinical networks. Uh-huh. And you know, I would say the one that I’m, like focused on starting with is, is, uh, is cognitive decline.
Right. Because there, I think there’s an opportunity to sort of normalize a standard of care that could be agreed upon. Mm-hmm. Which isn’t what has happened in functional medicine. Rather than keep a standard of care, there’s been this sort of emergent phenomenon of- Right … functional medicine which creates the space for innovation to happen and happens, but ultimately what that means is everyone’s doing it a bit differently.
Right. Which doesn’t really allow the sort of necessary cohesion to be a, you know, a specific service. And so I’m focused on that, but I was interested because I thought that, like an obvious clinical network that I could imagine coming down the road would be a gut health- Mm-hmm … you know, clinical network.
And I did a podcast recently where I found out, I should have known this already, but there’s like between 25 and 45 million people with IBD. Yes. And- Yeah … and, and also if you listen to that podcast with Dr. Isabella Wentz, you just see that… Actually, I could see that there’s no real way of, um, solving this problem for those 25 to 45 million people without a ecological framework.
Right. Because it’s an ecology that you’re implementing- Yeah … and anticipating. Yeah. And so then it got me thinking, like, okay, well, if I had a functional medicine clinic today and I was just starting out, gut would probably be the easiest way. Yeah. Because I think the GI medicine thing is mainly out, out to lunch.
You know, I don’t know. Mm. That’s my opinion. Yeah. Legit to give that opinion. But I wouldn’t- Yeah … go and see a GI doctor who didn’t understand the body as an ecology. Right. That would not be my choice, because it is obviously an ecology, right? It is. It is. And so then, then there’s this huge gap in the market, and lots of practitioners are taking up on that gap.
Exactly. Everyone in functional medicine does do gut. Yeah. Absolutely. But I also do think that, um, it’s a, it’s a niche that’s easy to be part of. And if they s- if we said tomorrow, “Hey, we’re starting this, um, gut health, um, you know, nationwide clinical network,” almost every functional medicine doctor could be part of said network.
Yes. And ultimately, you know- Easy … Genova could be a, a foundational element for that. And that data multiplied by, you know, a bigger understanding could, you know, could open up, um, the next phase of understanding what really drives everything. I agree. Um, thankfully, I think the paradigm is shifting a tad with the conventional gastroenterologist.
I just spoke to a patient a few days ago who has been failed by gastroenterology. She had IBS, she had traveled, had diarrhea, got scoped from above and below. There’s nothing there. Here’s some Imodium. You have IBS. And so for years this has been an ongoing struggle. And just by educating her and saying, “You don’t have to live this way.
There’s more. That there are tools out there.” And so I think there’s real hope. And to pick up that mantle is gonna be some of those functional medicine clinicians who are gonna fill in the gaps with gastros- gastroenterologists, and hopefully pull the gastroenterologists along with us in educating them.
So I, I think that network will be filled by functional medicine clinicians. What, what are the some of the specialties of specialists that are showing up to Genova today that give you hope- You know what? … that something’s happening? That’s a great question. We literally just had a discussion at Prep Test about OBGYN.
The obstetricians and gynecologists in women’s health has become a huge thing showing up into our space. And we know that in functional medicine, I mean, just by Genova statistics, and I think across the board in functional medicine, the number one patient that seeks out functional medicine are middle-aged women from 45 to 55 who are perimenopausal, me- like, you know, hormones are shifting.
They go to their primary care doctor who’s not really fully understanding. There’s a myriad of symptoms a mile long. They’re told they’re a little bit crazy. No one can really help them, so they’re coming to functional medicine to seek help. Yeah. I think the OBGYN community is really opening up to this- Wow
and is really stepping up in a big way, in addition to the fact that the black box warning has been removed from bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Mm-hmm. They’re showing up at the booth, like, just hungry for more information, so I’m really heartened by that. Like I said, gastroenterologists, we’re pulling them along.
They’re coming. But I was heartened by this specific conference of the amount of OBGYN doctors that are here. That’s cool. What about psychiatry? A huge growing market, huge growing growing market. Even as I go to conferences and hear lectures, the, the mental health has become paramount. Ketogenic diet’s been mentioned, the gut-brain axis has been mentioned.
I think that’s a burgeoning part of what we’re doing here in functional medicine with the rise of all kinds of anxiety, depression, you know, all of these mood disorders. I think this is a place that you’re gonna see big movement in the coming days. Yeah. Yeah, I’m interested, you know, one of the things that I’d love to understand is, you know, uh, you guys do all these tests- Yeah
and you do repeat tests for people- Yeah … in certain cases. Yeah. But how do you, how do you ever find out what’s happening between those repeat tests? Like, what is the person actually doing? It’s a great question. We, we get a lot, because we speak to clinicians- Yeah … mainly, so it’s, “Patty, here’s what’s going on with this patient,” blah, blah, blah.
We’ve reviewed the results. I’m thinking, maybe think about this, think about that. They’ll repeat a test, call back three months later, and say, “Patty, you were right. Here’s what happened.” And so we get these success stories over and over and over that, you know, we’re so bought in to the power of what we do that it, it keeps me, like, coming and showing up every day super excited.
It’s hard to know specifically what’s happening with a patient, what they’re doing day to day, other than if, you know, if there are health coaches that are involved or there’s CGMs or something that’s collecting data, that’s a different story. But we’re kind of limited to what clinicians tell us and, and what they’ve intervened with, and we’re seeing a repeat testing.
So that’s very exciting for us on the front lines as we speak to clinicians, and I’m sure it’s even more exciting to the clinicians who are seeing the results in front of themselves with their patients. Yeah. At the end of the day, we want patients better. Well, I wanna, I wanna follow up on that conversation because I believe that, you know, something that I’m seeing happen- Yeah
is, is what… I- if you look at Genova, if you look at Function Health or these kind of- Yeah … things, you know, you, you have repeat testing- Mm-hmm … but what you don’t have is an understanding of what I would call the participatory layer. And that’s the point, yeah. Yeah. There’s, between office visits, what’s happening- Yeah
or what’s going on, and what are they doing? Because it’s also difficult- That’s a great point … it’s, it’s also difficult to know, um, how do you recap what I’ve done for the last 90 days- Yeah … in a five-minute doctor visit? Correct. Right? And so- It’s tricky … that’s, that’s basically impossible. That is impossible.
The next step is, like, you have a health coach, and the health coach is with them a little bit more time- Right … in understanding that. Then the next thing would be, like, okay, a continuous glucose monitor- Yeah … like, to be able to see- Mm-hmm … you know, for periods of time what their, how their blood sugar was affected.
The next thing might be, like, an Oura Ring to see how, you know, their other things were happening. The next thing might be taking photos of their food and then tracking how they were, you know, how they were eating and what supplements they were taking to do that. Mm-hmm In, in the early cases of what’s happening with TruNeura and- Yes
the reversing of cognitive decline, we’re all the way over here. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the program. Because some of that has come all the way over. Yes. And some doctors, like I just interviewed Dr. Ryan Arnold, who’s here, who’s speaking on behalf of Dexcom, but he has people doing preventative Alzheimer’s programs.
So not even like, they don’t even have it yet- Yes … but they’ve done the testing to see where their risk categories are. Yes. But they’re getting CGM and coaching, and inside the software saying, you know, “Did you poop today? Did you see the morning light? Did you eat these vegetables? Did you all that?” And to me, what I see is that, like, you have so much data inside, but without that understanding of the participatory layer, it’s hard to know what cause what cause what.
1,000%. And unlocking that- I think is the game changer. And I’ve see- I’ve seen your TruNeuro program, and it’s fascinating because it, there’s a lot of data. You’re gonna take all of this data from an Oura Ring, from a CGM. It’s a lot of data to put together. But what TruNeuro has done, and a lot of programs do, is puts it, put it together in a cohesive state, so when a clinician meets back up with that patient, they can put as much together as you can.
You can’t get– You can’t capture all of it. Yeah. But you can get pretty close. Some people can’t get that close. It’s still an open gap, I think. Well, I’m just glad that- I love that … Genova is in, in the mix- Yeah … because it does give us the key insight on ecology and the ecological changes that happen. And ultimately, you know, these are diseases of broken ecology- That’s right
you know, one way or another. So- Right … I think we’ll, we’ll see that more and more. I agree. Well, look, again, I wanna say, you know, thank you for, you know, supporting this to happen. It’s actually been- For sure … incredible so far. Some of the content that we’ve, um, that we’ve captured has been- I love it … um, exceptional, and I’m really excited to see as pe- as the, you know, Fullscript Journeys thing evolves, and as it’s easier and easier to create starting points for patients, uh, where they can combine conventional labs, other labs, track those over a period of time, that, um, you know, we’ll end up with something, um, really transformational and keep moving the, keep moving the field forward.
We’re honored to be involved in any way. Thank you, James. Awesome. Well, you can check out all of the tools, uh, that Genova has to offer. There’s an expanding list of specialty tests. Find out more about that if you go to goevomed.com/genova. We’ll have, uh, uh, details there of how you can get involved. Some of the tests that you know and love now are under, uh, the Genova, um, you know, are part of the Gen- Genova community, and there’s a ton of added value to be part of it.
Uh, we’re super grateful for the opportunity to start our partnership here, and I think there’s a lot of work to be done here in the future. For sure. Um, but this is, uh, Dr. Patty Devers. She’s the chief clinical officer over at Genova Diagnostics. Uh, we’ll be back next week with another epic episode from here.
It’s been wonderful, uh, to learn from so many great clinicians, um, and we’ll see you next time. So I just wanna take a minute to talk about the incredible mission partners that we have here at The Evolution of Medicine that have made this possible. So first and foremost, I wanna thank- Fullscript and Fullscript Journey.
So Fullscript’s been an amazing partner for 10 years. We only pick partners that can help us achieve our vision and help you achieve your practice vision. And Fullscript have been an incredible partner for a decade, but their new offering Journeys, this is why we called it The Evolution of Medicine Journeys, is allowing practitioners to combine the relationships that they have with the newest technology to sell direct-to-consumer lab testing, and use it as a funnel to bring into your practice, and it’s a game changer for the whole industry.
So go to goevomed.com/journeys, and you can get started on building the Journeys for your practice, an optimal way into your practice. We’re gonna have some conversations about it. This is a game changer. Next, Genova. Genova, um, have been fans of The Evolution of Medicine for a long time. We’re big fans of them, and they now have a lot more specialty testing.
They have a lot more tools, and it’s a key part of, uh, understanding the body ecologically. So go to goevomed.com/genova to find out more. Come on over here and I wanna show you about the other mission partners. You know, if you’ve been following us for a while, you know that these are organizations that we trust, that add a lot of value.
Freedom Practice Coaching. Um, I have been sup- supported by them since the beginning and, you know, so many of the issues that practitioners face in building a successful practice, scaling a successful practice, come down to having the right support with people who have been there and done that. Go to goevomed.com/fpc.
Um, BigBoost Marketing. Uh, Uli and his team are the best in the business when it comes to really understanding how to market your functional medicine practice. Go to goevomed.com/bigboost and see how they can help you. And then what you’re gonna be hearing a, a lot about is the formation of clinical networks.
And ultimately, TruNeura is our first effort at that, which is to build an integrated clinical network, combining independent practices from across the country into a network that can reverse cognitive decline. And if you go to goevomed.com/truneura, you can get a demo. You can see what it means to be part of an integrated clinical network.
That’s mentorship, that’s software, and that’s making it easier for you to get incredible outcomes in a disease state where there are no other options. So thanks to our mission partners. Let’s get back to the content
.
Subscribe
Download
Click here to download this podcast
music provided by intomusic.co
