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First Line Therapy Alternative Treatment Options Aimed at Treating Your Specific Needs
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FirstLineTherapy™

Get Support From Our Scottsdale Integrative Medical Center

Do you have 12 weeks to change your life and put a smile on your face? Want to feel better? Want to get to the bottom of what good diet and good nutrition really mean?

Give us the next 12 weeks to partner with you as you:

  • Lose weight
  • Increase your muscle tissue
  • Increase your mental alertness and calmness
  • Reduce your waist and hips
  • Lower your blood pressure
  • Lower your cholesterol
  • Reduce your risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other chronic illness
  • Decrease your joint pains
  • Decrease your panic attacks
  • Decrease your emotional breakdowns

A joint scientific statement in 2004 from the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association asserted that:

"Cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes account for nearly two of every three deaths in the United States."

These are largely diseases of diet. Yet national investment in prevention of these diseases is estimated at less than 3% of the total annual health care expenditures. All these organizations state boldly that the first line of therapy is diet and exercise.

Yet neither these organizations nor the medical establishment have been able to provide people with a successful means to:

  • Treat the cause of the their health problems
  • Incorporate good health practices in their lifestyle

Our FirstLineTherapy™ does both. It really works.*

About Our Treatment

FirstLineTherapy™ is like a lifeline with supportive people helping you get on board.* And it actually addresses the underlying causes of chronic disease. FirstLineTherapy™ is based on scientific research. It was created from the desire to prevent disease, rather than wait for it to manifest and then "manage the disease," usually with drugs and expensive medical procedures.

Many Americans are pre-diabetic. We have consumed so much sugar in the form of refined sugar and processed grains that quickly turn into sugar, that many of us have what is now called Metabolic Syndrome (also called Syndrome X).

Let's put this in perspective: 40% of all drug costs are spent on suppressing the symptoms or the expression of Metabolic Syndrome - high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, abdominal weight gain, stroke, osteoarthritis, etc.

FirstLineTherapy™ will help you lose weight now, and will put you on a path for significantly better health in the decades to come.*

Our promise to you: This is not a diet. This is not a fad. This is the real thing. We show you how to embrace a lifestyle modification so you feel better now and have a higher quality of life in the future.*

Give us 12 weeks and we will:

  • Show you how to make healthy choices when you go to restaurants and to friends' houses (that one is a little trickier).
  • Show you a social structure for nutritional and lifestyle change, so that it is easier to stay "on the wagon" of health.
  • Improve your body composition by reducing the total fat and increasing the total amount of muscle in your body, so that your shape changes - you lose the spare tire, the abdominal fat, and gain shapeliness.
  • Address symptoms of chronic inflammation:
  • Allergy symptoms typically improve or disappear
  • High blood sugar and high insulin levels typically become normalized
  • Joint pain lessens
  • Figure out how to get some exercise - we know this is a hard one for sedentary people.
  • We can use gentle movement therapy for people with chronic illness who are unable to tolerate formal exercise programs.
  • We advise walking for those who are able to do so - in graded steps.
  • We advise different forms of strength training for those who need to build more muscle mass.
  • We work with local gyms and trainers as needed for those who prefer more formal forms of exercise.
  • We show you how to work it into your day at the office - you will be surprised what you can do while on the phone for example.

Here is a critical piece of information for your success:

  • The average time frame for successful modification of a habit occurs at about 45 days. Between weeks 3 and 6 people will struggle with change. Our bodies seem to release toxicity in a 21-day cycle, which coincides with the times of struggle. If we get as far as the 7th or 8th week, we will do well, because our habits will be modified. The first six weeks are crucial times for forming new habits of lifestyle. That's why it takes teamwork to be successful.

How Does FirstLineTherapy™ Work?

First, call our Scottsdale integrative medical center at (480) 418-0220, make an appointment to get started.

Week 1:

  • Comprehensive Clinical Tests
  • Initial consultation to review test results, determine your health goals and establish your course of lifestyle therapy
  • You'll receive a guidebook, instructions, and advice about nutritional supplements
  • Begin your program

Weeks 2-5

  • Weekly visits for lifestyle counseling

Week 6

  • Re-testing to evaluate your progress and identify any needed program adjustments

Weeks 7-11

  • Bi-weekly visits for lifestyle counseling

Week 12

  • Re-testing to evaluate your progress
  • If your goals have been achieved, a maintenance program may be prescribed to ensure that your health improvements are maintained
  • Or, you may decide to continue your program if all of your goals have not been achieved

Going Through the Process

During the comprehensive clinical tests which include medical history, blood work, urinalysis, etc., we also perform a bioimpedance analysis (BIA). This measures body composition, both percentage of body fat and lean body mass. This test allows us to track your progress over time because it gives us a reading on many aspects of your body including:

Phase angle: All living substances have a phase angle. Lower phase angles indicate either cell death or a breakdown of the cell membrane. Higher phase angles indicate healthy cells. Phase Angle indicates the course of disease. It increases as the result of optimal health based on good nutrition and consistent exercise.

Body Cell Mass: BCM represents the "living cells" such as those found in muscles, organs, blood and immune cells. In the normally nourished individual, muscle tissue accounts for approximately 60% of the body cell mass, organ tissue for 20% of body cell mass, with the remaining 20% made up of red cells and tissue cells. Also includes intracellular water - the water inside your trillions of cells.

Extracellular Cell Mass: This is extracellular fluids, the amount of water found outside your cells. ECM includes blood and lymph, plus solids such as bone and cartilage - the primary functions of support and transport.

Lean body mass: The sum of body cell mass and extracellular cell mass.

Fat mass: The amount of fat stored in the body.

Body capacitance: Measures the ability for nutrients to move into the cell and waste to move out. It increases or decreases depending upon the health and the number of cells. Damage to the cell membrane and its functions is as lethal to the cell as direct damage to the nucleus itself. Cells are compartments filled with a concentrated solution of chemicals and salts. Groups of cells perform specialized functions and are linked by an intricate communications system. The cell membrane maintains an electrochemical concentration gradient between the intracellular and extracellular spaces. This gradient creates an electrical potential difference across the membrane which is essential to cell survival. Electrical gradients are necessary to support movement of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients. Therefore, the cell membrane has electrically insulating qualities, or capacitance.

Basal metabolic rate: Based upon lean body mass, the number of calories your body uses each day, not including the calories burned through exercise.

Support from Studies

More than 100 independent studies in the past 20 years have demonstrated that the BIA can provide an accurate and clinically useful assessment of body composition.

We also work with you to balance your blood sugar levels.* As you feast on sugary foods, your blood sugar zooms up. Alarms go off. Your body releases a hormone called insulin to bring your blood sugar back into the acceptable range.

Insulin then stores excess calories as fat in the event of a future famine. And high levels of insulin suppress two other important hormones - glucagon and growth hormone - that burn fat and promote muscle development.

Insulin is the key to the vast majority of chronic illness. Fortunately, insulin is most easily influenced by diet and exercise. In fact, some diabetics are able to avoid medication with a steady exercise regimen.

With FirstLineTherapy™ we are able to decrease insulin stimulation through dietary changes, and to increase the responsiveness of the cells to insulin through specific supplements.*

We look at the glycemic index of foods, and choose those which have a low glycemic index. In this way, our blood sugar rises slowly and does not crash in two hours, so that we have a more constant supply of energy to serve our bodies' needs.

We also look at the glycemic load of foods, and choose those which have a low glycemic load. This is a measure of the amount of glucose which is absorbed in a typical serving. Carrots and watermelon both qualify as low glycemic load foods, even though their glycemic index is high.

A very interesting study in 1999 reported that people had an 80% higher intake of calories after eating a high glycemic breakfast than after eating a low glycemic breakfast.2 So it's not just the calories... it's the type of calories as well that makes a difference. Low glycemic index foods control appetite and delay hunger, reduce insulin levels and insulin resistance. High carbohydrate low fat diets increase postprandial hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia.3

High dietary fiber helps to lower blood sugar levels by up to 10%.4 A diet high in saturated fats will impair insulin sensitivity and worsen the effects of the metabolic syndrome.5

It is important to realize that skipping meals leads to increased synthesis of glucose from muscle, thereby causing a reduction in muscle mass. More frequent meals and snacks will level out blood sugars, and halt the loss of muscle mass.

How We Support You

With FirstLineTherapy™, the nutrition and lifestyle educators at The Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine work one-on-one with you, as your coach. And they will monitor your cholesterol and BIA frequently to monitor progress.*

One reason FirstLineTherapy™ is successful is because we know why is it so hard to "eat in moderation" and "eat well."* Life comes at you fast, there are lots of demands on your time, etc. But there is more. There is a little talked about physical phenomenon that can explain why many prior attempts at eating well have failed. We can become addicted to food. Yes, addicted. The factors that motivate a person to abuse drugs or eat compulsively may share circuits in the brain. For example, studies have shown that restricting food changes levels of dopamine - a brain chemical associated with feelings of pleasure - in the brains of mice. It is also known that cocaine makes a person's brain more sensitive to heroin via changes in dopamine levels. Also, some substances in food are addicting such as sugar and aspartame.

Another reason it is hard to lose weight is that your body may be using fat cells to hold onto toxins in an effort to keep the organs from suffering damage. Every day, we are surrounded by a virtual toxic stew of polluted air and environmental chemicals. This constant toxic assault begins a slow decline in health. Our toxic environment is obesity's little helper. With FirstLineTherapy™, we use supplements and sometimes even intravenous nutrients to stimulate the body's ability to detoxify.* We pace your rate of detoxification so you don't experience unpleasant detox symptoms like muscle aches, headaches, rashes.

Discovering the Facts

Sometimes it has been hard to eat well and lose weight because there is just so much conflicting information out there. And sometimes that info is just plain wrong. Remember the low fat diets? They ignored that it is the taste of fat which gives the feeling of fullness, and the signal to stop eating. Eating fat does not make you fat. In fact you need fat to build healthy cell walls. Low fat diets are, by and large, doomed to fail in the long run, because people get really tired of being hungry all the time, no matter how dedicated they are to finding the "fat-free" items in the grocery store. And worst of all, they still have to take medications and suffer the side effects.

In fact, despite two decades of "diet sodas" and fat-free foods, the average waistline has gotten bigger. Really? Yes really. Take a look at the current statistics:

  • Two-thirds of America's adults are overweight or obese
  • As many as 30 percent of U.S. children are overweight
  • Childhood obesity has more than doubled within the past 25 years
  • Within the past 20 years, childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold
  • Unless many people in the United States cut back on their food intake and exercise more, one in three U.S. children born in 2000 will become diabetic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

We are seeing more children every year with so-called "metabolic syndrome" - insulin resistance, rising blood sugar levels, rising cholesterol levels/triglycerides/blood pressure. We treat by initiating FirstLineTherapy™. We correct the nutrition, identify and remove sources of sugar, learn how to increase the protein content of the foods the children eat, and add exercise to the equation.*

Children who are fully informed are much more likely to follow the recommendations. And when they find they feel better and can pay attention in class and stop being cranky and irritable all the time, most children become conscientious about what they eat. Imagine hearing, "I can't eat that, Mom, it's not on my program."

We'll show you what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacks in between.

We'll meet with you every week so you can really, truly, reach for your goals and obtain them.*

Our Scottsdale integrative medical center also works with people in groups - up to 10 people - for nutritional counseling and periodic body composition analysis.*

Call us at (480) 418-0220 and ask about FirstLineTherapy™. Let us do what we do best so you can be your best.

*Disclaimer: There is no guarantee of successes for any given medical treatment. Each individual is unique and may respond differently to our medical services, meaning results may vary for each person.

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Our Patients Say It Best

  • “I had a second chance in life after meeting Dr. Grout.” J.B.
  • “Dr. Grout is compassionate, empathetic, responsive, and the best doctor I have had the privilege to care for me.” Anita, PhD, RN, NP
  • “If you are ever wondering about the state of your health and wanting answers to why you are having the problems you are having, then seeing an Integrative Health specialist is essential.” Anita