- Arthritis
- Medical Weight LossDavid Chappell, Medical Director and Robert Park, M.D., founder of IHM, are widely recognized experts on weight loss and fasting. Dr. Chappell will supervise your medical care throughout all three phases of IHM and provides a strong team dedicated to helping you achieve and maintain your ideal body weight. With two locations to better serve you, the goal of the program is to help you lose the weight and keep it off. Our staff consists of highly trained and widely recognized experts on weight loss and fasting, behaviorists, exercise physiologists, and dietitians. Together, they form a strong team dedicated to helping you achieve and maintain your weight. Contact the experts at IHM today!
- Nutritional CounselingA key component of IHM is to eat teach each participant how to modify their behavior to achieve lifelong weight control. To the extent that the ability to diet successfully and exercise and a healthy way is within the control of each participant, we provide you with the tools needed to accomplish a healthy lifestyle. At each weekly visit there is also a group behavioral / nutritional meeting led by either IHM behaviorist Dr. Marc Klein, PhD or IHM dietitian, Ms. Ginny Irwin, RD. Although these meetings occur in a group both Dr. Klein and Ms. Irwin are available for one-on-one discussions as well. Dr. Klein has over 25 years of experience in counseling patients about food-related behaviors. Ms. Irwin has over 10 years of experience in nutritional counseling.
- Primary CarePrior to beginning the protein-sparing modified fast all participants will undergo a complete history and physical examination with routine laboratory work and an EKG. These can be done either are at IHM or by the primary care physician. In this way a complete medical assessment of safety and medical issues for each participant in the program can be made. We have safely supervised the weight loss of patients with a variety of medical conditions including cardiac arrhythmias, emphysema, asthma, kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, and osteoarthritis.
- Constipation
- ElectrocardiogramYour doctor will review your medical history, perform a physical exam, labratory studies and review your EKG results.
- Internal MedicineDavid A. Chappell, M.D. is a 35-year expert in managing obesity, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and other obesity-related complications. Dr. Chappell has excelled in the medical field since completing his internal medicine residency at Barnes Hospital Washington University in St. Louis, and his endocrinology fellowship at University of California, San Francisco. As a board-certified physician in internal medicine and endocrinology, Dr. Chappell is a consulting physician at Petaluma Valley Hospital and Novato Community Hospital. He has served on the faculty of UCSF and University of Iowa College of Medicine, and earned recognition from the National Institutes of Health for his research.
- Stress ManagementMost states in America today have passed regulations to help prevent obesity. These include providing access to drinking water at schools, limiting access to sugary drinks, increased food labeling and awareness of calorie and carbohydrate content of foods we eat, and increased efforts to get daily exercise. A general recommendation exists that we should all try to get at least 30 minutes of aerobic (hungry for air) exercise daily. We should all try to achieve a well-balanced lifestyle with healthy plant-based diets, stress management, and good sleep hygiene. A rule of thumb is that half of what we eat should be non-starchy vegetables. We should limit our alcohol intake to the equivalent of 1-2 glasses of wine or beer per day.
- Depression
- Diabetes Care
- EndocrinologyMoreover, in a separate practice setting, Dr. Chappell is one of a handful of concierge physicians in California who practice personalized endocrinology and primary care. Dr. Chappell has a strong research background with over 30 publications of original research in cholesterol and fat metabolism. He was a professor of Internal Medicine at UCSF and University of Iow prior to open his practice in Petaluma, CA in 1998. Dr. Chappell is expert in the use of all FDA-approved weight loss medications, general endocrinology, and general internal medicine.
- Bariatric SurgeryCultivation of a healthy lifestyle is the hallmark of treating obesity. There is no substitute for eating healthy foods and having a healthy level of exercise. There are a growing number of online and personal fitness tools to help us track our activity level and calorie intake. There are a number of organizations such as Weight Watchers that provide a structured, individual/group approach to "low-calorie" dieting. There are also a number of clinics that offer "very-low-calorie diets". Four FDA-approved medications for long-term obesity exist today. These include phentermine/topamirate (Qsymia), Lorcaserin (Belviq), bupropion/naltrexone (Contrave), and liraglutide (Saxenda). The 1st three are daily pills; liraglutide is a daily subcutaneous injection. Unfortunately, many people using FDA-approved drug treatments fail to achieve even 10% loss in body weight. Moreover, insurance coverage for obesity treatments is hit or miss and often leaves people with large co-pays. Bariatric surgery has emerged in the past 10-20 years as a viable option for many individuals with severe obesity related illnesses.
- PsoriasisPrior to beginning the protein-sparing modified fast all participants will undergo a complete history and physical examination with routine laboratory work and an EKG. These can be done either are at IHM or by the primary care physician. In this way a complete medical assessment of safety and medical issues for each participant in the program can be made. Individuals who have special medical needs are identified to make sure that they are capable of fasting safely. We have supervised the weight loss of patients with a variety of medical conditions including cardiac arrhythmias, emphysema, asthma, kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver, gout, sleep apnea, psoriasis, and osteoarthritis. IHM will assume responsibility for scaling back on diabetes and blood pressure medications as weight loss is achieved. There are some medical risks of very low-calorie dieting including constipation, low blood pressure, exacerbation of gallstones, and gout. These risks will be reviewed and monitored at the weekly IHM medical visit.