I'm Dr. Ann Haiden.  Functional medicine physician, food as medicine advocate, cancer survivor, practical optimist.

I'm a true believer in building health and vitality by getting to the root of problems and by taking some cues from our ancestors on how us humans can thrive.

Many years of medical school, training, and even my earlier practice as an internal medicine physician, did not teach me about nutrition. Neither did it teach me about the huge importance of a healthy gut microbiome, either. Or, the impact on health of stress, sleep, toxins, out-of-balance hormones, and individual variation in biochemistry and genomics.

But I learned. Out of necessity! Two bouts of cancer, chronic fatigue, hypothyroidism, the most horrible of gut bacterial overgrowth and leaky gut, and a whole bunch of mystery symptoms was my motivation. I had no choice but to figure it out or be perpetually sick. And being perpetually sick was not an option. Once I figured it out, there was no going back to the sickness model of health care in either taking care of myself or in being a doctor.

There is nothing more powerful for the creation of health, vitality, and life itself, than the choices we make everyday about how to live, what to eat, and how to discover and solve the things that threaten our health.

We've got lots of power over our health and vitality. Whether it is about eating better and optimizing vitality, or, conquering  overweight, diabetes, low thyroid, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome or stress, my goal is to help us be the healthiest and most vibrant we can be.