Exclusive: Dr. Will Cole Discusses The Beauty Of Functional Medicine And Its Benefits For Women

We've never shied away from talking about the risks of hormonal birth control here at Evie. That's because we care deeply about women and want them to have accurate information to make the best decisions for their health and happiness. So does Dr. Will Cole.

Functional medicine providers like Dr. Cole spend extensive time listening to patients and gathering medical history to identify the root cause of health issues. Then they create a personalized plan that addresses multiple aspects of life, like nutrition, exercise, stress, and sleep. This alternative model of healthcare is rapidly growing in popularity, and it's not hard to see why.

In this exclusive interview, Dr. Cole addresses the controversies surrounding hormonal birth control, the power of functional medicine, and why the media should share women's stories of reclaiming their health rather than silencing them.

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Carmen Schober: You started one of the first functional medicine telehealth centers in the world. What inspired you to do that? 

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah, that was about 14 years ago, and I've been in telehealth support for people around the world looking for a functional medicine perspective on their health issues. It was born out of nothing other than there was a need for insight into people's health. People wanted someone to advocate for them, resources, direction, and someone to take the guesswork out of it. And I was one of the earlier people talking about it online in this way. I didn't even have a language then 14 years ago to call it "telehealth." I called it a virtual functional medicine clinic because that was the best that I could come up with to explain with human words what we were doing. And we made it abundantly clear. We are providing them functional medicine guidance and support, getting them labs, and giving them protocols to reclaim their health. So it was born out of that. I'm also in Western Pennsylvania, and a lot of people weren't in Western Pennsylvania, so it was also just born out of that geographic limitation and people needing this field of healthcare that I'm very passionate about.

CS: So you were on the pioneering side of telehealth and functional medicine. Functional medicine has been around for a long time, but only popularized, I think, in the last decade or so? 

WC: Yeah, I would say around there. When I started, there was nothing like it in the mainstream, and now the Cleveland Clinic has a functional medicine center. Many mainstream medical institutions have functional medicine centers and integrative medicine centers. It's a huge change, right? And we still have a long way to go. I mean, we're still scratching the surface of the need for this field of healthcare. But yeah, it's come a long way in that time span.

CS: How did your partnership with Agent Nateur form?

WC: Jena Covello, who's the founder of Agent Nateur, was a patient. We worked on supporting her hormone health and her autoimmune issues, and the collaboration and partnership happened out of that. So it was a really organic process to come out with (holi)mane and (holi)radiance, her ingestible and supplement line.

CS: I'm a big fan. I finally figured out how to drink the (holi)radiance. It's perfect in fruit juice or a carbonated drink. I definitely see a difference when I consistently use the products.

WC: Yeah, (holi)radiance is best at room temperature for sure.

CS: What would you say to those who are still skeptical of the effectiveness of functional medicine? The people online who say it’s snake oil and have a hostile attitude towards it. What would be your response to that?

WC: I'm pro-choice when it comes to health. I want people to have whatever options they want and have true informed consent when it comes to their health choices. So if they want functional medicine, they can have it, and they can have a conversation with their primary care physician saying, "This is an option." It's not the only option, but functional medicine could be an option for you. That's where I wanted to go. It's not that this is the "only way," just that this is a way. 

And I think that if you look at the statistics, they will speak for themselves from my vantage point. I mean, the United States spends more on healthcare than any industrialized nation, and yet the United States year after year has the shortest lifespan and the most chronic disease of all industrialized nations, yet we spend the most on it. So at that point, if someone's going to be critical of functional medicine, which is at least attempting to address the chronic disease epidemic, an autoimmune condition epidemic, then, you know, to me, it's like the failing student shaming and throwing shade at the valedictorian. 

When you look at the numbers, we're getting labs improved, we’re improving the quality of life, and we're lowering chronic disease healthcare costs. You have to be pretty nefarious to be against someone in improving their labs, and I think the data speaks for itself. I mentioned earlier the Cleveland Clinic and many other hospitals have functional medicine and integrative health. They're not spending millions of dollars on these world-class centers on functional medicine because of woo-woo and snake oil and quackery. 

It's so archaic to not be both, to be “either-or” around this topic. You need to have a "both-and" approach and say, "Okay, we have amazing advancements in conventional medicine as far as diagnostic testing and procedures that are life-saving to people." That's where the United States really shines. But when you're talking about a complex chronic disease epidemic that we're seeing, that's really where functional medicine shines because it's about root cause resolution and true healthcare, not sick care.

When you look at it from that lens and how it's so synergistic with a lot of the amazing things happening in conventional medicine and functional health, that's when it really starts to make sense. I think people just need to give people the choice to investigate it and be critical but open-minded.

CS:  It seems like the media drives this divide between traditional healthcare and functional medicine. For example, The Washington Post ran an article demonizing women who have concerns about hormonal birth control. Do you see the media driving the divide?

WC: Yeah, I think the media does drive it a lot. I mean, we know that clickbait sells and sensationalized headlines get people to read. But I do think beyond it being clickbait, there's a movement even more so now where they're doubling down in many sectors. And I don't want to generalize it because there are amazing journalists and legacy media providing their perspectives, but also doing it in a more balanced way. So I think it's individual journalists and motivations amongst certain maybe editors within these legacy media outlets, not just The Washington Post, but really any media using their outlet to push that ideology.

But I find it to be getting more aggressive in certain areas within mainstream media as podcasts and long-form conversations have grown, along with independent media sites and social media. I think that the fact that people can have direct-to-the-world conversations is threatening to industries and it's not just the media, but also threatening to industries that are used to being the gatekeepers and the narrative makers. It wasn't that long ago that if a guy with a white coat said it, it was gospel. And now you have an increasingly informed populace that is hearing diverse opinions, and they can decide for themselves. And this is happening not just in the health space, but in many other spaces as well.

These podcasts have just gotten too big for these legacy industries. These social media accounts that are having diverse thoughts and opinions, again, some good, some not good, but all free speech. I feel like it is disconcerting to people who are used to being the sole narrative drivers and gatekeepers of information. So yeah, I think a lot of it is amplified with the media obviously, but also the medical industrial complex or the pharmaceutical industry. There's a lot of money to be had, and they're going do just about anything to control the narrative.

CS: What's one thing you wish every woman knew about hormonal birth control?

WC: I wish they knew the benefits and the potential pitfalls and the relative risks and the common side effects and the uncommon side effects. That's all. And then I want them to know alternatives and the pros and the negatives of the alternatives. That's basically what this is about. This is what any of us within functional medicine want. Again, the Cleveland Clinic has a functional medicine center. These are not anti-medication institutions. Most of my colleagues are medical doctors, conventionally trained medical doctors, and we just want informed consent.

We want to have robust conversations on an individual basis and also have robust conversations in the media too about the relative risks. Some are common, some are not common. And then we want to talk about the benefits and the alternatives. We want people to have a choice when it comes to their healthcare, but to have choice, true choice, you need to look at the pros and cons of both. And that's what I want.

The problem with what the authors at The Washington Post did in that piece is that they took openly listed side effects of hormonal birth control, like mood swings, nausea, and weight loss resistance, which are all listed on the manufacturer of the hormonal birth control's website as common side effects, but when women go on social media and talk about those common side effects that they are experiencing, then they are labeled as "misinformation." And that is very nefarious, in my opinion, because you're taking someone's own lived experiences and then delegitimizing them, medically gaslighting them, and wanting them to just go away and making them a pariah, right? Sort of like a health flat earther and making them seem crazy. There's so much medical gaslighting happening on an individual basis with people's doctors who don't understand the complexity of these chronic health topics, but then to have that echoed in such a major way in the mainstream media is very disheartening.

CS: Is there anything in the health and wellness world that's trending that you're excited about?

WC: I think it's exciting to see people wanting choice in their healthcare. I think it's a great thing. While we're talking about it being offensive to the systems that are used to governing everything, when it comes to people's healthcare and information about healthcare, I actually think it's a great thing to have these interesting, out-of-the-box conversations with people who have read different things and done research on their own. I think it's a positive thing. Diversity of thought is great for a society, and I think we need more of it, not less of it. Otherwise, we get into these echo chambers of confirmation bias, and we don't want to hear anything that's different than what we've been taught or what we've been raised or trained to believe.

And you don't have to agree with everything. Not everything has to be for you. And I think that's the other thing, too. It's like even these conversations around functional medicine or holistic natural healthcare ideas, they can be good, but not necessarily right for you, right? We just need to get better at consuming information and not making everything about us. That's something that functional medicine is even predicated upon. It's bio-individuality. What works for one person may not be right for you. And that starts with information. So, to answer your question, I think a more empowered, informed populace is something that I see trending. That's actually a great thing and I would like more of it.

I think a more empowered, informed populace is something that I see trending. That's actually a great thing and I would like more of it.

CS: Is there anything in the health and wellness world that's trending that you're not super excited about?

WC: The medical gaslighting around people who are trying to find answers, asking questions, and doing research on their own. It's happening in the media. It's happening with people's doctors. And I have a problem with that. It's definitely destructive because the people who really hurt the most from that are the people going through these very real symptoms. We have an epidemic arising about immune problems and digestive problems and hormonal problems and fertility, and when you're going through that and you're not really given many solutions, many people are left to fend for themselves, and they don't know what's causing it. Shaming the people who want to find answers is an issue.

CS: Your latest book is called Gut Feelings, and it's about healing the shame-fueled relationship between what you eat and how you feel. Can you just share one insight from it?

WC: The book was born out of my work with our telehealth patients. It's looking at this bi-directional relationship between our thoughts and emotions about our physical health. I talk about sort of the human cliches that we say, these things that we don't even think about, like "gut feelings" or "gut instincts" or "butterflies in my stomach," that show that somehow our ancestors knew that the gut played at least some role as the seat of our soul.

Now, research is catching up with antiquity, and we have a lot of research in the scientific literature looking at how the gut influences our mind and mood. So it's a conversation about that and why we've seen great results clinically with helping people who are dealing with hormonal problems and metabolic issues and autoimmune problems and other inflammatory problems by dealing with the gut side of things, the physical side, and dealing with the feeling side with somatic practices, breathwork practices, mind-body practices, and trauma work practices to help heal these chronic complex health issues.

CS: Do you think that there's hope for an eventual stronger merging between functional medicine and traditional care?

WC: I'm hopeful. I think that when you look at where we've come in the past 14 years with mainstream medical systems having functional medicine and integrative medicine institutes, giving people access to this field of healthcare within their system, that's massive to achieve in a little over a decade. So I hope that as training shifts and evolves, the diversification of different thoughts, ideas, and practices will start to change in the medical education system. With time, I feel like the idea that functional medicine is a threat or different or "the other" isn't going to be the case. What people considered to be fringe or radical years ago is not anymore.

And we need to remember what we're facing as a society right now. We're faced with a massive chronic disease epidemic. We spend the most money on it. We need to have innovative ideas. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. We need to look at diverse modalities, thoughts, and vantage points to see something different.

I'm also hopeful because when you look at why most medical doctors, physicians, nurses, and medical professionals, why did they get into their field? Most of them because they wanted to help people. And I think the data speaks for itself, and I see this in increasing numbers. You look at the number of people who are being trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine. They're conventionally trained physicians who are reaching an impasse with helping people. They're seeing what I'm seeing. They're seeing these people falling through the cracks of this conventional model of care, and they, realizing like Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better," and they're starting to do that in droves.

I see this as a grassroots thing that's happening on many different levels in pockets within healthcare, in pockets within media, in pockets within podcasts and social media. It's actually a great thing. People looking for answers and solutions and asking questions is a good thing. So, probably from the bottom up, it'll happen, but it's going to be slow because, you know, these systems are very large and very monolithic, and there's a lot of money and conflicts of interest, but I see us all coming together. Maybe I'm naive, but I think more people are going to be coming together with time.

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