Services
The Carolina Center is committed to assisting our patients in regaining their health and maintaining good health throughout their lives. Click on one of our service areas below to find out how the Carolina Center can help improve your quality of life.
Integrative Medicine
The Carolina Center is an Integrative Medical practice, one which seeks to integrate or complement alternative and nutritional therapies with those considered more conventional. The name of our practice recognizes that health and illness are conditions that affect a person on every level – from the subatomic through the molecular, the cellular to the organ, the body as a whole including the energetic body, but also at the level of the family, the community, and society as a whole.
The development of our Integrative Optimal Wellness Program has grown from the awareness that patients must go through distinctive steps of treatment and stabilization before moving forward. There are stages in this process that must be completed for any benefit to be observed and for progress to the next stage to occur. There are then many side paths to the process that may be taken depending on the individual variability of the patient and their specific health issues. This further refinement of the program is what ultimately provides the most sustaining benefits and what distinguishes this approach from other protocol-based wellness systems.
Functional Medicine
The term "functional medicine" was coined in 1993 to describe the integrated medicine of the future. Functional medicine links research in basic sciences with emerging options in clinical care to create safe and effective treatment of complex, chronic medical conditions. It is a patient-centered approach that goes beyond a typical holistic model to balance core functional processes in the body such as cellular metabolism, digestive function, detoxification, and control of oxidative stress. A combination of elements comes together in the functional medicine model:
- A thorough understanding of physiological and biochemical function, from cellular to organ levels;
- Knowledge of well-established interventions for altering gene expression; and
- An intensive study of the fundamental biological processes that can cut across organ systems and medical specialties.
Diet & Nutrition
To recover from any chronic health condition requires serious changes in diet and lifestyle. At every office visit, these issues are incorporated into your individual treatment program. We also offer additional sessions for more advanced dietary Counseling and have an association with a Registered Dietician, if needed.
Hormone Replacement
Hormone replacement therapy has evolved tremendously over the last fifteen years with a much greater understanding about the processes of aging and its effects on various organ systems. Both men and women experience a deficiency in the production of all hormones as we age, and this process starts much earlier than previously thought. Evidence continues to build that replacement with bio-identical hormones in older individuals can both reverse many of the effects of aging, as well as prevent many serious degenerative conditions. By using non-synthetic bio-compatible hormones and through proper laboratory monitoring, Hormone Replacement can be a safe and highly beneficial therapy.
Optimal Health
In spite of the focus on treatment of chronic illness, many patients come to The Carolina Center with an interest in optimal health and want assistance with diet, nutrition, hormones, and other factors that will impact their future. Prevention is the best way to treat a chronic condition. Through understanding a person’s risk factors, family history, and lifestyle issues, it is possible to develop a program that is relatively easy to follow, not too expensive, and will set the person on the right course for their future health. Even the healthiest person may have certain nutritional deficiencies or hidden infections that are not causing any negative symptoms now, but if left unchecked, could progress and cause more serious problems in the future.
Medical Weight Loss
Obesity and the need to lose weight are serious issues for 65% of U.S. adults. For years, a diet that balances protein, fat, and carbohydrate has been recommended. The reality is that this is often very hard for many individuals to carry out, as portion control, food choices, and lack of structure inevitably derails most typical diet attempts.
The two most effective weight loss methods are bariatric surgery with gastric by-pass and meal replacement programs. Given the risk, practicality, and expense associated with surgery for the average individual, we feel that meal replacement programs offer the greatest advantages and benefits. Clinical studies indicate that these programs provide the best outcomes in terms of successful weight loss and reduction of disease risk.
The Carolina Center uses the Medifast Meal Replacement Program. Medifast is the oldest physician-supervised weight loss program in the US and offers the widest choice of food options including shakes, oatmeal, hot soups, chili, bars, and puddings. This program consists of 5 meal replacements per day plus one lean/green food meal to provide excellent support for active weight loss and maintenance. Medifast products are soy-based, but are fermented during processing so that phytates and other known impurities are removed while retaining the protein matrix and isoflavones.
The unique component of The Carolina Center Integrative Medical Weight Loss Program is the accountability, which is central to helping our patients achieve their goals and keep the weight off. This support is provided by brief office visits every two weeks during the active weight loss phase so that problems are addressed quickly and success is not compromised. Our goal is to be sure that the health benefits are being achieved while limiting any risks from the process.
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