Integrative Medicine: Treating the Whole Person

Dr. Sean McCloy is the medical director of the Integrative Health Center of Maine and is board certified in both family medicine and integrative holistic medicine. In this conversation, he and the hosts explore what integrative medicine actually means: pairing the conventional tools of medicine, prescriptions, lab work, and physical exams, with nutrition, sleep, stress, movement, and targeted, evidence-based therapies that aim at the root cause rather than the symptom. As McCloy puts it, the goal is less pills, more health.

The discussion ranges across the questions Maine patients live with. McCloy describes the "mystery patients" who do not fit the conventional model, and how a functional medicine approach, with time, a thorough history, and careful testing, can surface what is missing or out of balance. He and Dr. Jeff Barkin dig into sleep as a foundation of mental and physical health, the gut brain connection, and the realities of chronic Lyme disease in the state with the country's highest incidence. Dr. Lisa Belisle brings in Five Phase theory from Chinese medicine and the idea that the body's systems, and our relationships, are deeply interconnected.

Throughout, the throughline is hope and the whole person. The conversation turns to environmental exposures like PFAS and heavy metals, the problem of medical gaslighting, and the case for deprescribing when a medication stops serving the patient. It closes on a simple, well-supported idea: connection is medicine, and people who get seven or more hugs a day tend to have a longer health span.