Gervais Harry, MD – how I got here!

Comments and opinions, regarding healthcare “news”.

This Substack, “Aging and Your Hormones”is for you.


”Modern medicine” concentrates on the development of ever-more-complicated, ever-more-expensive synthetic medications, to “cure” conditions which are due to age-related changes in our internal chemistry. Tried-and-true methods of diagnosing and correcting our biochemical aberrations are ignored and it seems that no doctor has ever heard of preventing illness by normalizing and balancing the chemical mixture which our bodies need for perfect function!

This SUBSTACK entails a lot of work: why am I doing this?

I feel obliged, now that I am retired from medicine, to monitor the medical scene, relate new recommendations to known facts and offer my readers whatever knowledge and insight I can muster, in the interest of helping those who think outside the box.

With this in mind, I am sure you will be interested to hear that many, if not most, human illnesses are “allowed” to occur due to inconsistencies or frank deficiencies of some hormone, mineral, vitamin or what you might call “para-vitamin”: by “para vitamin”, I am referring to molecules in our food, such as the ones that cause bright red and purple coloration in fruit, curcumin etc., without which some part of our chemical balance is upset.

On the other hand, some diseases are caused by the absorption, either from food are literally through the skin, of metals such as Lead, Mercury, Copper, Nickel and others – a few years ago, one of my patients, an extremely fit weightlifter, began to complain of symptoms that suggested chronic fatigue syndrome: he turned out to have an overload of nickel and chromium, which he had absorbed through his sweaty hands while he was working out with wieghts, in his gym. “Chelation”, to wash nickel and chromium from his body, worked wonders and he was soon back to normal.

Take note

I have an extremely broad medical experience (see below) and am accustomed to thinking outside the box: I challenge you to find someone with broader experience: see my work history below.

After internship I worked with my father, a general surgeon (FRCS) and general practitioner in charge of a 160 bed country hospital In Jamaica for a year and a half, then went solo in a 65 bed country hospital (a population of 4,000, all to myself, in Jamaica’s wild “Cockpit Country”) – I had fractures to fix, major surgery to do, 3 “outstation clinics” (16 –150 patients per clinic) per week! Great fun!

Following that, I did 6 months each of emergency internal medicine, neurosurgery and pediatric surgery at the University Hospital in Kingston.
Then, 5 years training in Toronto turned me into a Urologist: I went back to Montego Bay for 2 years and then returned to Toronto, practising Urology Downtown, for 25 years.

In 1997, Mr. Michael Harris, well-known golf pro and premier of Ontario, closed all 3 of my hospitals in downtown Toronto: not knowing what else to do, I relocated to Saudi Arabia, as chief of Urology at the Armed Forces Hospital in Tabuk, for 2 1/2 years.

In the Saudi Arabian desert, 1998

Returning to Toronto,, I retired from Urology and practised Family Medicine for 14 years. Then I got interested in the effects of hormones, retired after qualifying as a Metabolic Medicine MD and worked for 8 years in Bioidentical Hormone Therapy.

My main interest is Hypothyroidism.

The family doctor, 2010

What is the point, here?

However (this is the point of this short message) – I am here to help you to understand the basics of healthcare, so that you know what you are talking about when you go to see your doctor.

Please comment

Please have a good look at my Central Post: “posts in alphabetical order” – there, you will find it easy to locate my “paper” on the healthcare subject that most interests you.

Please comment and please let me know what you would like me to write about: any medical subject you can think of is either already in my mind, or I can locate it easily.

My promise

I will do my best to provide a new post on any subject you desire, within a week to 10 days of your request.

2023: Hey, I think I’m getting old!

Gervais Angelo Harry, MD (MB, BS, LMCC, FRCSC, ABAARM), SUBSTACK blogger.

Thank you for reading Aging and your Hormones. This post is public: feel free to share it.

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FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

As I understand it, “functional medicine” includes:
1] EDUCATED PATIENTS: The high school curriculum includes hormonal metabolic and microbiome health as a formal subject, so that all understand health maintainance.
2] HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONER: The healthcare professional is an MD, trained in the application of the principles of standard medicine and in the art of metabolic and hormonal maintenance. *

3] FIRST ASSESSMENT: Preferably, the first assessment should be at age 15; it can be done earlier if puberty begins before age 11 or if the child is obese, anorexic, depressed or subject to PTSD for any reason.
The patient’s physical, psychological, metabolic and hormonal status is assessed by history, physical examination and standard “checkup” tests, plus testing for neurosteroid hormone balance, microbiome status, adrenal function, vitamin D level, toxic load, thyroid function (including T3 and rT3, so as to exclude functional hypothyroidism) and other investigations as may seem necessary. **
4] INITIAL CARE: Investigation results are compared with those expected of a healthy, functionally euthyroid 15-25 year old of the same gender and the physician endeavours to correct such metabolic, or hormonal, deviations as may be discovered so as to maintain metabolic and hormonal health at youthful (age 15-25 years) levels ***.
5] HEALTH SURVEILLANCE: If all parameters are within normal limits, or when aberrations have been corrected, the assessment is repeated every five years.
Routine immunisations and “preventions” such as PAP smears, mammography, colon cancer tests, PSA etc. are provided according to accepted routine.
6] ONGOING CARE: Following each 5-yearly reassessment, deviation from normal hormonal, microbiome and metabolic balance is regarded as prodromal to illness and is managed proactively by supplementation of hormones, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, probiotics etc, ad hoc.
7] INCIDENTAL ILLNESS: Illness presenting in spite of functional maintenance is investigated and treated as it currently is, without discontinuing supplementation.
8] ELDERCARE: At menopause or symptomatic andropause, hormone restoration tailored to the individual is provided as it is currently, utilising bioidentical preparations.

* Currently, functional, antiaging and hormone restoration medicine associations, mostly in the USA, offer training courses which culminate in formal examinations and granting of certificates of competence. These organisations do accept non-medical candidates.

** “Hormone balance tests”, done on both men and women, include DHEA, Testosterone, Oestradiol, Progesterone, Thyroid function (including T3 and reverse T3), Cortisol and Allopregnanolone (when it becomes available).

*** 1] Normal hormone production rates are not a given: children subject to PTSD, severe illness, trauma or major surgery often fail to achieve normal rates in early adulthood and for example, 60-y-o DHEA levels can be found in many “20-somethings”.
2] At age 26 we all, both men and women, begin to reduce our neurosteroid hormone production, from our then levels, by 1-2% per annum. Thyroid hormone also declines.
3] Because of this “slide”, we should reassess all our “normal” test ranges, accepting only healthy, functionally euthyroid individuals between the ages of 20 and 25 years.
4] “Age-adjusted normal” is a misnomer: a better term would be “Age-related deficiency”.

MESSAGE:
Keeping the internal millieu of the human body at youthful levels assists maintenance and repair processes, including apoptosis of new cancer cells, repair of brain tissue, optimisation of glucose and cholesterol management, fat control, muscle (including heart muscle) function, cognition and just about everything else.