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Algė Ivaškevičė

LRT.lt

Health, longevity, wellness - these are currently very popular keywords in search engines, showing that we are increasingly striving for a healthy, long and high-quality life. Functional medicine physician Algė Ivaškevičė points out that some people have discovered that demonstrating their health aspirations is a great way to create a desired image.

"I think people need to be saturated with this aspiration so that they can later reveal deeper, more substantial aspirations," she says.

- How would you describe functional medicine and how does it differ from traditional medicine?

- Functional medicine is a personalised medicine that looks for the origins of health problems and the factors that support them in the patient's metabolism, lifestyle and genetics. We use both the oldest tools - examination and interview - and modern research. This helps to find stimuli such as specific nutrient deficiencies and their causes, malnutrition, excess stress, toxins, allergens or unfavourable changes in the microbiome (the bacteria that live in our bodies).

Based on these characteristics, we adapt a person's lifestyle plan, which covers many aspects of life: physical (diet, exercise, rest) and emotional. In the system known as traditional medicine, priority is given to the treatment of symptoms or disorders. Symptoms and test abnormalities are identified as a diagnosis, and medical, surgical or other interventional treatment is prescribed according to algorithms.

- How did you become interested in this field and choose to study and practise?

- Alongside my traditional work as a doctor, health promotion research has been my hobby. According to a teacher with a good sense of humour, I accelerated my research under favourable circumstances (serious illness). Gradually, the need to systematise and expand my knowledge arose. That's how I got to the IFM ("Institute of Functional Medicine") and here I am. The more I practice, the more I like it. At a certain age (again with favourable circumstances), I wondered what I could do to be in optimal health and improve the life expectancy of Lithuanian women in the coming decades. Simply put, I wanted to catch my great-grandchild running into my arms and not fall over and break something (smiles).

- Health, longevity, wellness are some of the most popular topics/keywords in search engines, and interest in these topics is really high and growing. This seems to be a positive development, but there are definitely threats. Could you identify some of the issues that should be addressed?

- Yes, interest is growing, and we want to live even longer and with a better quality of life. This is a great aspiration, because it would allow us to spend longer doing meaningful work, creating, being useful members of families, communities and society. But sometimes longevity and wellness become an overriding and justifying goal, taking up more and more of your attention and time. It can take on some cartoonish aspects - the almost obsessive maintenance of a youthful appearance, the countless hours in the gym, the extreme diets and the frustrating conversations with others about what to eat when, what to eliminate, the arguments about the best supplement kits, telomere lengths, changes in visceral fat. If you cannot refrain from spreading such propaganda to people who are not interested or do not agree with these ideas, it is worth paying attention.

- What is the importance of being aware of the body's processes? Can sensation be a tool to improve health?

- First of all, knowing oneself and the world, expanding one's awareness, noticing and feeling analogies, experiencing the gift of life. Measurements, composition and function studies alone will not reveal this. Feeling is a wonderful tool, given to everyone. Like thinking, we can develop our sense of health. Both are developed by managing attention and checking the quality of our findings. If we do not check, we are wrong and there is no evolution. Just as we can believe that the earth is flat, we can feel that my body is 'asking' me to eat half a cake every day. Some things we cannot pinpoint because of sensory peculiarities, and some things because of sensory ignorance and lack of attention to these processes.

- Nutrition is one of the most important choices for health. What is your opinion on anti-inflammatory diets, keto, intermittent fasting?

- Good. These are just a few of the many means available to almost everyone to influence the metabolic processes of the body through diet.

- The quest for longevity and good health is often intertwined with your aforementioned desire to maintain youth and a beautiful, socially appealing appearance. How do you reflect on this trend, on people's aspirations?

- I find it very interesting. The social aspect is very strong at the moment. I think that people need to be saturated with this aspiration in order to later reveal deeper, more substantial aspirations. Just as we are amazed at the Kayan people who lengthen their necks with rings that they wear all their lives, a little later on some of our current standards of beauty will be amazed. It is a changing fashion, influenced by social influences, and then displaced by the new, and the old standards look ridiculous. It is good if, in pursuing these goals, we do not damage our health, or cause alterations that we later regret and struggle to remove.

Some have found that demonstrating health aspirations is a great way of creating the desired image they want. How else would an educated person who believes in science justify a picture of buttocks in tight trousers doing deep squats on their account? Marketing experts know that the pursuit of youthfulness keeps consumption levels high, especially in ageing populations. Those dissatisfied with their appearance and the natural signs of age in the body are an attractive segment for business. Strengthening and updating the beliefs of this group is enough to make them regular consumers of corrective products and services.

- Do you consider health to be the most important asset and purpose in life?

- It is definitely an asset. Like other assets, such as real estate or money, it is a means to an end, not the end itself.

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