Healthspan Over Lifespan
An Interview with Dr. Alise Jones-Bailey of Buckhead Functional Medicine
Here at Longevity, we love partnering with like-minded practitioners in the community as we come alongside our patients on their wellness journeys. One of those trusted practitioners is Dr. Alise Jones-Bailey of Buckhead Functional Medicine. Her traditional functional medicine practice specializes in women’s health, digestive disorders, weight loss, cardiovascular disease, diabetes prevention, hormonal health, and immune system deficiencies.
We sat down with Dr. Jones-Bailey for a little Q&A to learn more about her practice, the services she offers, and her approach to overall health and wellness.
What is the heart and mission behind your practice and the work you do?
I am board certified in OB/Gyn and certified in Functional Medicine. The word doctor is derived from the Latin verb “docere’ meaning to teach. The mission behind my practice is to educate my patients health and disease while showing them the evidence based functional medicine practices. These practices promote prevention and ” healthspan over lifespan.”
What do you think is the biggest health factor or risk facing women today?
Stress in my opinion, followed by obesity. This is so often behind mental and physical challenges many of us experience. Obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer, uterine cancer, colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and others.
So many of our patients are concerned about hormonal health and its impact on their metabolism/weight, reproductive health, mood, and energy. What kind of approach do you take on hormone balance, and what services do you offer in this department?
Hormonal health for both men and women is key to health and a sense of well being. Whether we are talking about sex hormones, stress hormones, sleep hormones or thyroid hormones, they all work collaboratively. Measuring and monitoring are key tools to hormone optimization.
What do you wish women understood when it comes to understanding and balancing their hormones?
Women experience many hormone transition periods throughout their lives as do men. From childhood to puberty to childbearing years, menopause and postmenopause hormone dynamics are at play. Understanding these transitions and proactively managing them via lifestyle supportive practices is the key to navigating! Specifically, adequate sleep, a quality diet, exercise, adequate water intake, spiritual practices, community and daily sunlight lie at the core.
Our practice takes a preventative approach to breast and reproductive health, utilizing proactive thermography testing to assess disease development and holistic detoxifying therapies such as lymphatic drainage massage. How can our practices work hand-in-hand to help our clients treat and get to the root cause of female health issues?
I love that your practice does such a phenomenal job with a proactive approach to female breast health! Recognizing that 80% of breast cancer is fueled by estrogen, all practices that support modulating estrogen are critical tools. Looking at lifestyle and genetic predispositions are important, allowing you to decrease risk factors as much as possible. Anti-estrogen and anti-inflammatory dietary nutrients from fiber, flaxseed, cocoa, aloe vera, cruciferous veggies, tumeric and seaweed to name a few are supportive here. Limiting alcohol, the less the better as studies are conflicting in this area.
We can continue to work collaboratively with your patients by understanding individual risks,
and “test don’t guess!” Look at genetics, look at hormone metabolism, look at genetic predisposing factors, and measure so you can see your progress in lowering or eliminating risk factors.
What advice or recommendations do you have for our clients who are setting their 2023 wellness resolutions and goals this month? How can they get the most “bang for their buck” as they set new rhythms and habits for the year ahead?
- Leverage the power of lifestyle medicine. An excellent publication called The Original Prescription by Thomas Gilliams so eloquently reviews the science behind this concept and practice.
- Let food be your medicine.
- Limit environmental toxic exposures.
- Control your thoughts with positivity and gratitude practices.
- Get quality sleep.
- Get daily sunlight for 60 minutes a day, winter or summer.
- Turn off all electronics at least an hour before bedtime.
- Engage a mindfulness or meditation daily practice.
- Take care of your gut or the microbiome with pre and probiotics.
To learn more about Dr. Jones-Bailey and Buckhead Functional Medicine, visit https://www.buckheadfunctionalmedicine.com/
