In The Field with Dr. Alison Monette

In this episode we explore the fascinating story behind Pro-Opiomelanocortin (POMC), a gene located on Chromosome 2.  Despite being one of the major ways humans interface with their environment, POMC has largely remained a blind spot for science and medicine.  By omitting POMC from our understanding of human biology and function, we’ve created a knowledge base without a solid foundation; on its ow...

Protocols aren’t new.  They are the way western, centralized medicine has been practiced since its start. In an acute care setting, they allow for standardization of procedures and outcomes.  What is new is the widespread marketing and adoption of protocols for everything health related. No matter where you are in your health journey or where you want to be, you’re told: there’s a protocol for tha...

Food metabolism is a topic that has garnered a great deal of interest and study. Partly in an effort to understand how the human body transforms food energy into biological function and partly because it seems to be a major problem for many in the modern world.  As a result, humans have generated an immense amount of knowledge related to this topic. But, what we “know” is focused only on where met...

A trip to El Salvador always yields tremendous insights. The people, the culture and the raw beauty help us to remember what it means to be human.  In this episode, Dr. Alison reflects on the lessons learned from her most recent trip to El Salvador. The conversations she had and connections she made all revolved around a similar theme: true health versus wellness, and the choice El Salvador faces...

In the field, Cortisol is the subject of many conversations–specifically with patients who feel that they have “high cortisol.”  This isn’t a surprise considering that much of the health content being produced in the modern world is about cortisol. And the dominant message: your fatigue, weight gain, inability to sleep, etc. is due to your high cortisol levels. If you check this set of boxes, then...

In the modern world, there is a hidden crisis: sleep has become a major struggle for many.  Whether it’s falling asleep, staying asleep or waking fully rested, sleep has become challenging for some way for most. In the field, the majority of patients coming to us initially check one of these boxes. And yet, the topic hardly gets talked about. Some simply accept it as a byproduct of living a stress...

Low energy has gradually become the norm in the modern world.  In the field, we see this reality confirmed daily. Low energy has become the top health issue people are seeking help with. And it isn’t limited to just adults–a lack of energy is particularly common in younger people. Even young kids are now struggling with energy The human energy crisis has perplexed everyone–centralized science and...

There is a growing awareness of circadian function and its role in shaping health. While this trend has emerged more recently, its impact on the health space has been significant. Many are now thinking differently about the role of sunlight in human function, how they structure their day, and their relationship with modern technology. But one could argue that the greatest impact of this growing ci...

In this episode, we tackle one of THE major health issues in the modern world; one we see in the field on a daily basis: hypothyroidism, specifically focusing on hashimoto’s – an autoimmune driven hypothyroidism – which is how we see it present most commonly in practice. Twenty years ago, hypothyroidism was something that affected a specific subset of the population: middle-aged women. But that is...

Blood pressure – and more specifically hypertension – has become a major source of fear and anxiety for the modern human. Adding to the worry is the ease of measurement – blood pressure cuffs are present in almost every home and grocery store. Every visit to a doctor’s office starts with a blood pressure reading. And for most people it’s simply a number. It’s either within range or out-of-range. I...

Without even a second thought, many people rarely step foot outside without a pair of sunglasses over their eyes. They have a pair in their car, a pair in the house, a pair in their purse–in so many ways, sunglasses have become the symbol of the modern human. Some of this, of course, is simply tied to style or vanity–and that’s really where it started. But, the use of sunglasses has evolved out of...

What does it actually mean to heal?  How long does it take to heal?  Healing is a word that, in the modern world, has lost all meaning and, by extension, basis in reality and human experience.  Instead of healing as the process by which we return to health, we’ve been trained by the centralized medical system to conflate health with what we see and feel and healing as simply an improvement in thos...

In a unique and unprecedented moment of alignment, we are being told by doctors, influencers and the government alike that peptides are the future of medicine–and health more broadly.  They are being marketed as the ultimate breakthrough–capable of “fixing” chronic disease and promising longevity; the panacea we have long been searching for. Whether you are young or old, sick or well, we are being...

Is weight loss supposed to be linear?  Is weight loss even the right goal if you’re seeking true health?  What is the relationship between body weight and health/longevity, if any?  Should your weight be the same all year or even over an entire lifetime? These are questions we’ve been told have already been answered, taught that the story is pretty cut and dry: weight is the ultimate metric for he...

In Episode 10–Healing Isn’t Linear (Part 1) , we asked the question: Is the healing journey linear?  Should you expect constant forward progress or is it more realistic–if not desirable–to expect that the journey will be bumpy?  Is a healing crisis actually a sign that you’re on the right track?  The answer we arrived at: True healing is never linear because it's found only through nature. Nature...

Does exercise actually make you healthy? We've been taught that diet and exercise are the foundation of health—but what if that isn't the whole story? In this episode, we explore the difference between exercise and movement, why more exercise isn't always better, and how your environment, redox potential, and overall health determine whether exercise supports or depletes your body. We...

Food is central to the conversation around health in the modern world.  Within that conversation, food is understood exclusively through the narrow lens of energy, nutrients and biochemistry. A paradigm given to us by many decades of biochemical-based, centralized science. To most, this framework may not seem obvious. But consider the language we use to describe food–terms like calories, macronutr...

Many years and untold sums of money have been spent training people to believe that the following is consensus science: food is the ultimate source of energy and that humans “burn” calories to “fuel” the living state.  We’ve been taught there is a caloric equilibrium–a perfect balance between what is required and what is consumed; taught that there is a universal caloric requirement that never cha...

There’s a lot of talk about healing in the world of health and wellness–heal your nervous system, heal your gut, heal your mind, heal your life.  Healing has become formulaic, reduced to the level of cause and effect. Countless books, programs and protocols are built on the premise that if you can do “x”, replace “y” or implement “z,” healing–and, thus, health–is sure to follow. Not only is this w...

Perimenopause is a major conversation we are having in the field on a daily basis–not because the transition is happening seamlessly. But, because women are struggling; experiencing irregular periods/menstrual cycles, hormonal imbalances, poor energy, difficulty sleeping, inability to lose weight and infertility. This trend on its own is cause for alarm, but is made even more concerning by the fac...

Sunlight is a point of major confusion, contention and fear in today’s world. We’ve been taught that UV light is deleterious to humans and that a single sunburn spells disaster for your future health. In response, people have altered their behavior drastically–lathering themselves with SPF sunscreens and makeup, wearing polyester clothing, covering their eyes with polarized sunglasses or simply ch...

The wellness space is flooded with information, protocols and experiences/retreats focused on the nervous system. We are told repeatedly that our nervous systems are dysfunctional, dysregulated, hypersensitive or burned out. We are told that all you need is a reset, rewire or reprogram your nervous system, you will finally find your health. This trend has exploded since 2020, but it’s hardly new....

The wellness industry has built a massive business on a single idea: you are toxic, and you need to detox. From functional medicine doctors to health influencers, the message is the same — your health struggles trace back to a single point of failure: a detoxification system that can't keep up. Meanwhile, we are living through an unprecedented collapse in human health. Fatigue, disrupted sleep...

Cholesterol is one of the most misunderstood — and feared — molecules in the human body. For decades, mainstream medicine has painted it as the villain in the story of your health. Instead of looking at the changing environment, we used the surface-level framework of biochemistry to create a cultural belief that the human being is broken and nature is fundamentally flawed. This created a gigantic...

Autoimmunity is on the rise—and the population in which this is happening is getting younger and younger. This is a troubling trend if you understand what this means about the state of human health, the environment we’ve created for ourselves and the long-term, species-level implications.  Yet, even in a time of near-universal health-focus (some would call it obsession), the autoimmunity increase...