#2930: Lauren Grace

Yeah, functional medicine again. And let us just quote David Gorski on this one: Functional medicine “is a form of quackery that combines the worst aspects of conventional medicine and alternative medicine. Specifically, it combines massive over-testing with a lack of science and a ‘make it up as you go along’ ethic, all purportedly in the service of the ‘biochemical individuality’ of each patient. Don’t believe the hype. It’s mostly quackery.” But it is lucrative quackery: functional medicine is usually based on ordering a number of meaningless, useless or fake tests, and then making up a treatment regime as they go based on the results of said tests (which are of course designed to give positive results for something lucrative). And to really illustrate that description, look at the first of the “seven principles” of functional medicine: “Acknowledging the biochemical individuality of each human being, based on concepts of genetic and environmental uniqueness” [the other principles are similar]. It’s a principle that legitimizes anything and everything any practitioner might feel like they want to do: any treatment, quack or otherwise, can be tied to the “biochemical individuality” of the person being treated: it’s a rejection of anything resembling standards of care (or standards altogether).

 

Lauren Grace isn’t even a physician but one of a number of altmed promoters and quacks who has, predictably, latched onto the woo and pseudoscience trailing (or endorsed by) the functional medicine movement. She terms herself a functional medicine practitioner, which in her case means that she is a licensed acupuncturist and “doctor of oriental medicine” who has done “additional study” in naturopathy, which she appeals to in order to justify expanding her nonsense with mesotherapy, homeopathy, and something called the Maxim Life Health System, which purports to “take patients through a series of detoxes to eliminate any disease or disorder” – apparently the system has a “95% success rate”, whatever that means (it’s a scam). Yes, Grace is all about detox, in particular “mini-cleanses” and her two-week digestive cleanse (which she sells) and three-day “cleanses” to get rid of “all those toxins” – she does of course, in line with most pushers of detox scams, not bother to name the toxins her suggestions ostensibly target. As Grace sees it (wrongly), since the gut matters to your immune system, cleansing the gut to make it “healthy” (she doesn’t specify what that would mean) will boost your immune system and fix a range of medical conditions, including eczema, autoimmune diseases, and digestive troubles. The cleanse itself consists of some very special magic smoothies, a couple of supplements, and a meal plan for the meager cost $175. And yes, her website does have a quack Miranda warning.

 

Like other functional medicine practitioners, Grace’s “integrative medicine” clinic offers useless “advanced lab testing” and some rather typical quackery like acupuncture and thermography to help deal with the results she thinks she receives from the tests. And her tests are, as Grace emphasizes, “not typical lab tests,” like the CBC. Indeed, they’re not. Rather, she’ll subject her customers to tests like the infamous Doctors Data Heavy Metal Test ($100) and Spectracell Micronutrient Testing, an “innovative assessment of nutritional status” that measures whether your are “taking too many [worthless] supplements” or “not enough” (hint: not enough; after all, those who order and pay for the test have supplements to sell and would prefer the tests to support their marketing efforts). As Grace sees it, her tests are “much more preventative” and “much more advanced” than standard tests, which means – in line with the standard functional medicine use of “preventative” – that she’ll identify something (whatever) that seems unusual but doesn’t need treatment, and then sell you something expensive to address it that often doesn’t work but can still be counted as a success because what it was intended to target didn’t need treatment anyways.

 

Though Lauren Grace is no physician, her collaborator, Michael Carter, apparently is – on her website, he only goes by “Dr. Carter”, possibly to remain somewhat anonymous, but it is, in fact, Michael Carter, “former owner, Cosmetic Surgeon and Functional Medical Physician at Atlanta Liposuction” who claimed to deal “not only” with cosmetic improvement but to apply “a naturopathic, holistic view” to support the “overall health of the patient”. Right. Anyways, the support of Carter is the reason Grace can provide medical services without a degree in medicine.

 

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s the same as so many others; hopefully we are not to dulled by the repetivity to recognize how shockingly stupid and cynical this kind of thing really is.

 

Hat-tip: David Gorski @ Sciencebasedmedicine