The Decisive Role of Inner Linings like the Endothelial Glycocalyx

Focus on permeable boundaries for health outcomes

In this 2-minute video, functional immunologist  Sam Yanuck points to the decisive role that  inner linings — such as the gastrointestinal epithelia — play in human physiology. In this respect, the vascular system, on which all clinical outcomes depend, has been historically underserved. Now, with the emerging importance of the endothelial glycocalyx, that picture is changing for the better. 

Key Takeaways

• Inner linings can be enormously biologically active and play a major role in affecting clinical outcomes
• Examples include: the gastrointestinal epithelia, the respiratory epithelium, and the sinus epithelia
• The vascular system has its own critically important inner lining: the endothelial glycocalyx (EGX)
• The vascular system is essential to all clinical interventions, because it delivers the nutrients clinicians provide to the organs and tissues
• Until recently, functional medicine practitioners lacked an adequate toolkit to address the EGX and therefore ensure the healthy function of the vascular system
• This is now changing, with new research and protocols to restore and protect the EGX.

In Dr. Yanuck’s words:

“We're very busy in the functional medicine world trying to modify people's tissue chemistry, and it's appropriate to say to ourselves: “Okay, is this stuff getting there?” When I began to learn more about the endothelial glycocalyx, I began to feel things are snapping together in a way that they had not before.”

Learn more about the endothelial glycocalyx in this 20-minute video with integrative clinician Dr. Burke.

About Sam Yanuck DC, FACFN, FIAMA

Dr. Sam Yanuck has been in practice since 1992. He sees patients with complex chronic conditions from all over the world. He is the creator and chief educator of Cogence Immunology, an online functional immunology course for clinicians. Dr. Yanuck is an adjunct assistant professor in the Program on Integrative Medicine, in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where he teaches principles of functional immunology and other topics related to the treatment of chronically ill patients.

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