About us

Fundamental Physiology, formerly the Center for Metabolic Health, LLC, is an internationally-recognized treatment and research facility based in Boulder, Colorado. Patients come to us from many countries across the world for metabolic evaluation and treatment. We specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of people suffering from an impaired metabolism, also known as hypometabolism. Fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism, thyroid hormone resistance, and chronic fatigue syndrome are all examples of dysfunction due to hypometabolism. People who are struggling with their health and well-being but have not yet been diagnosed with one of these disorders also come to FunPhysio for evaluation. If you even suspect that you have a problem with your thyroid, fibromyalgia, hypometabolism, or adrenal fatigue, trust yourself and contact us for more information.

Dr. Honeyman is currently researching neuroendocrine disruption (NED) due to environmental toxins such as PCBs, dioxins, BPA, and flame retardants. This is one of the causes of thyroid problems which result in hypometabolism. The global impact of these environmental toxins is distressing, but fortunately there is effective treatment when the thyroid system is involved.

Philosophy of health care

Dr. Honeyman's goal is to help you find the cause of your health problems and find a solution so you can recover your health. Dr. Honeyman was instrumental in developing the new standard of care known as “metabolic rehabilitation” for the treatment of people with hypometabolism. Metabolic rehab is an integrative treatment protocol with specific components that are tailored to the individual’s needs. Anyone, including children, can use it to get well. You and Dr. Honeyman will form a partnership to work together toward your recovery. Dr. Honeyman spends much of her time with patients teaching them what they need to do to get well and stay well.

Metabolic rehab is based on scientifically-tested concepts and has been successful for 85% of her patients. This statistic was generated when her patients were tracking their responses to the protocol with standardized monitoring forms. By using these standardized forms to collect consistent types of data, Dr. Honeyman could easily calculate the percentage of people who fully participated and actually got well. And, as long as these patients continued to use the protocol, they stayed well over the test of time.

People often have associated health problems like suboptimal adrenal gland function or sex hormone imbalances as a result of a slow metabolism. Dr. Honeyman uses functional medicine testing to help you detect any such problems. These types of tests can find suboptimal function of various tissues or systems in the body before the problem develops into a disease process. Most of the necessary treatments can be accomplished with over-the-counter supplements rather than with prescription medications.

History of Dr. Honeyman’s work with metabolic rehab

Research has shown that fibromyalgia symptoms are consistent with those of hypothyroidism or thyroid hormone resistance. Primary and central hypothyroidism were easily determined with blood tests, but thyroid hormone resistance was harder to diagnose. Before Dr. Honeyman had access to indirect calorimetry to measure resting metabolic rates, she had to make a clinical judgement about the diagnosis of thyroid hormone resistance. If the patient had normal thyroid-related blood tests, but had the symptoms of hypothyroidism, logic followed that she must have thyroid hormone resistance.

Nearly 50% of Dr. Honeyman’s patients had lab tests and symptoms that were consistent with thyroid hormone resistance. The cotreating doctors who prescribed thyroid hormone, typically Cytomel (T3), for these patients would get nervous at a certain point during treatment. Their Cytomel dosages were gradually increased into the supraphysiological range, meaning that the doses were much higher than one would expect for usual replacement doses. Safety testing would find no signs or symptoms of thyrotoxicity (overstimulation from excess thyroid medication) and the patients got well with the same treatment protocol that hypothyroid patients followed. There was no other explanation for this phenomenon besides thyroid hormone resistance.

Resting Metabolic Rate

In 2004 the Center obtained an indirect calorimeter, a device to actually measure resting metabolic rate (RMR). This technology is well-established in the medical and research communities. Now we can prove whether or not a patient has an impaired metabolic rate. We can decide if a patient is using enough thyroid hormone supplementation - or too much of it. We can determine if the diagnosis of fibromyalgia means the same thing as an impaired metabolic rate. We also can prove whether or not there is any correlation between the TSH and thyroid hormone levels and the actual tissue metabolic rate. (Remember, the purpose of thyroid hormone is to regulate the metabolic rate and function of nearly all of our tissues, not to maintain a midrange TSH level!!) Dr. Honeyman participated in two published studies about some of these topics, and you can find them at these links:

Medical Science Monitor:

http://www.medscimonit.com/medscimonit/modules.php?name=Current_Issue&
d_op=summary&id=8851

Thyroid Science (online journal): http://www.thyroidscience.com/experiments.htm