If you’ve ever had any persistent or mysterious health issues, you know that going from doctor to doctor, maybe even a specialist or two, can often fail to reveal a diagnosis.  You might be offered a pharmaceutical for symptoms, or a platitude to make you “feel better”:

“You’re a 50-year-old woman, so you just have to live with your changing hormone levels.  That’s why it’s harder for you to lose weight.”

“The body just loses muscle mass as you get older.”

“Your blood lab test results are perfectly normal.  There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Winter Park native and personalized medicine expert, Russ Scala.  Russ has been a lifelong student of human physiology, a fascination that led him to intern at a Winter Park hospital emergency room as a teenager and eventually become one of seven Orlando Police SWAT team paramedics.  In the 80’s, while attached to the SWAT team and race training around the US as a tri-athlete, Russ began to partner with research labs and test people in high-stress occupations:  emergency personnel, high-endurance athletes and executives.  His curiosity and unique path led him to study and uncover what really affects health and vitality.  He also earned a Master’s degree in Human Resources from Rollins College with a focus on the aging workforce, a phenomenon that translates present-day to the health care of retiring Baby Boomers.  He founded The Institute of Nutritional Medicine & Cardiovascular Research and later, Scala Precision Health to educate—and offer personalized medicine programs—because the future of medicine is already here and available to provide answers.

Russ and his team of researchers, labs, and pharmacists form Scala Precision Health.  They work with select medical practices to offer personalized medicine in Central Florida.  They conduct advanced genetic, metabolic and nutritional testing designed to detect factors that inhibit the health and well-being of individuals.  Personalized medicine is what it sounds like:  customized treatment programs based on an individual’s unique genetic and physiological makeup.

I’ve organized my discussion with Russ into a Q&A format.  This is just a general overview.  The applications of personalized medicine are, well, as numerous as the individual needs they meet.

Why is Personalized Medicine appearing NOW?

Our medical system is broken.  Everybody and every body has a story that’s not getting listened to.  Physiologically, they’re not being listened to, and they’re not being listened to face-to-face, either.  Tens of millions of Baby Boomers in the next 4 years will turn 65.  They’re going to need somewhere to go.

We sequenced the human genome in 2003, but genetic testing is finally getting affordable.  That’s going to allow us to customize medication and diets for people.  Right now, we can do a genetic test that tells your doctor what medication will work in your body—and what might harm you or even kill you.

What does personalized medicine do for patients that conventional medicine doesn’t?

Everybody is biochemically unique.  We all have different shoe sizes; we all need different treatment protocols.  The current medical system is like a model T Ford coming off the assembly line.  One black car for everybody.  That needs to change.

Most people go on a 2-year journey when they’re trying to get answers to their condition.  We cut that time down to 30 days to find out what’s wrong with them, get them answers, and treat them.  We are able to customize treatment protocols based on a person’s unique biological markers.

How do you figure out what these biological markers are?

We do testing that’s not offered in traditional medicine.  We look at the intestinal tract first.  That’s ground zero for all wellness, because you are not what you eat, you are what you absorb.  Actually, weight loss starts in the gut, too.

Why?

Your intestinal tract absorbs nutrients.  Every day you need 21 minerals, 13 vitamins, 8 amino acids, and 2 essential fats.  The junk in your diet blocks absorption and can create food allergies and inflammation.

Also, during REM sleep, growth hormone is released by the pituitary and everything goes under reconstruction.  If your intestinal tract doesn’t pull nutrients out of your food, it’s going to mine them out of your own tissues.   This is muscle wasting, or sarcopenia.  When you lose muscle mass, your metabolism slows down, and your heinie gets bigger.  It’s called gluconeogenesis…your body is converting your muscles into sugar.

Then your heart is going to suffer, because your heart is a muscle?

Right.

What else is different about the testing in Personalized Medicine?

Personalized medicine looks at multiple metabolic markers that affect various disease states.  All disease starts with nutritional deficiencies.  It’s a bold statement to make, but we know, for example, without the correct levels of antioxidants and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, inflammation in the body can rage out of control.  If you have a B vitamin deficiency, it will cause elevated homocysteine, which causes inflammation.  Nutrition is just one of the metabolic markers.

We test all the hormone levels in the body, which are tied into weight loss, mood and energy levels.  We measure the 400 different flora in the intestinal tract, using a urine sample.  We test the Kreb’s Cycle, the energy cycle at the cellular level.

Brain chemistry tests reveal serotonin, dopamine, and adrenalin levels, which tell us about mood, cravings, sleep habits, anxiety, and stress.

These tests, taken together, give a much better picture of a person’s health.  For example, if a person is depressed, one may expect to see low serotonin or dopamine levels, but if the brain chemistry tests show adequate serotonin, you might expect to see low thyroid hormone levels.  Having one test and not the other might just leave you in the dark.  And it’s different for everybody (every body).

This is how we keep people from going down 15 different roads.  We treat multiple systems at the same time.  We don’t base everything on blood work.  We listen to your symptoms.  We adjust your dosing based on symptoms, not blood work.

What kinds of therapies have you developed?

Everyone loses weight differently, so we have customized programs for weight loss.  Everybody’s biochemically unique.  One woman might not be eating enough fat.  You need fat to burn fat.  Another woman could have low thyroid or estrogen dominance…both can cause obesity.  Obesity is not about calories or exercise.  The calories in/calories out myth has been dispelled many times.

I’ve tested a lot of professional, high-endurance athletes over a 20-year period and worked with them to develop customized performance improvement protocols.  They come to me saying things like:  “I can’t maintain muscle mass.  I’m not sleeping.  What kind of nutrition do I need?  My coach says this, my trainer says that.  What do I do?”

If you want to go faster and recover faster, you need a program custom to you.  We determine a baseline test to find out where you are.  We find out your back story, or history, as an athlete.   We don’t just give you whey protein.  We ask questions about your recovery and injuries.  Are your times slowing down?  Are you not hitting home runs like you used to?  A great example is our work with Stephanie Nickitas, UCF Tennis Head Coach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA7vdxWY580

What obstacles do we face with the implementation of Personalized Medicine?

Our system is broken, but most physicians don’t know personalized medicine exists.  A doctor that has to see 50 people a day doesn’t have time to implement new strategies.  But we have evidence-based, gender-specific education and established treatment protocols to help them easily implement new, effective ways to help their patients.

There is, of course, also personal accountability.  Until it becomes mainstream, personalized medicine is largely an out-of-pocket cost, and people must be proactive with their education and health.  Nobody can just “fix” you if you won’t get out of bed.