Form & Function MD

Form & Function MD Where precision meets purpose. Form & Function MD blends medicine, movement, and modern living — designed for those who live intentionally.

06/10/2026

The sit-to-rise test may be the most important number you’ve never calculated.

Here is what your score predicts:

1. Your cardiovascular mortality risk
2. Your all-cause mortality risk
3. Your functional strength and balance trajectory
4. Your fall risk
5. Whether you’ll stay independent into your 70s and 80s

Here’s how to calculate your score.

Start with 10 points (no shoes, no warm-up). Lower yourself to the floor and rise back to standing. Deduct one point each time you use a hand, knee, or forearm for support. Deduct half a point for any loss of balance or unsteady ex*****on.

Your score out of 10 is your number.

8–10 → strong functional fitness
5–7 → meaningful room to improve
0–4 → the research says this matters. Now.

Can you do it?

None of this is permanent. All of it is fixable. But it won’t fix itself.

Want to see the full study? Comment RISE and I’ll send it to you.

Want to know how to improve your score? Comment 10 and I’ll make that reel next.

—

06/06/2026

Sauna culture has exploded — and infrared saunas have dominated the wellness conversation. But there’s a critical distinction the marketing doesn’t make.

The landmark data comes from Finnish cohort studies — most notably Laukkanen et al. — following thousands of men over decades. 4–7 sessions per week in a traditional Finnish sauna (170–190°F, 15–20 min) was associated with a 40% reduction in cardiovascular mortality and significant reductions in all-cause mortality.

Infrared saunas operate at 120–140°F and heat the body directly rather than heating the air. The physiological response — rising core temperature, increased heart rate, sweating — is real. And there is emerging data on pain, blood pressure, and mood. But the long-term cardiovascular and mortality data simply doesn’t exist yet for infrared.

Bottom line: if longevity and heart health are your goal, traditional sauna is the evidence-based choice. If infrared is what you have access to and you’ll actually use it — that matters too. Compliance is everything in medicine.

But don’t let the wellness industry tell you they’re interchangeable. The research hasn’t caught up — and that distinction is worth knowing.

🔗 Laukkanen et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015

Hashtags
health

06/03/2026

Standard first aid kits are built for parking lot emergencies. This one is built for places where help is hours away.

Everything on this list is available on Amazon ⬇️

—

WOUND CARE

Steri-strips — field wound closure without sutures

Tegaderm — monitor healing without removing it. Stays on wet

Gauze + Rolled Gauze — pack the wound, apply pressure, don’t peek for 10 minutes

Coban — self-adhering, works wet, nothing to lose in the field

Pre-cut Kinesiotape — joint support and blister prevention, ready to apply

Irrigation Syringe — high-pressure flush. Infection kills trips

Surgical Stapler — closes lacerations in seconds. No suture skill required

Nitrile Gloves — always on before you touch a wound

—

BLEEDING / TRAUMA

CAT Tourniquet — the only thing proven to stop life-threatening limb bleeding. Don’t hesitate

Israeli Bandage — compression where a tourniquet isn’t an option

QuikClot / Hemostatic Gauze — when pressure alone fails. Standard military trauma kit

—

TOOLS

EMT Shears — cut through waders and boots without moving an injured limb

SAM Splint — immobilizes fractures in whatever position you find them

Mylar Emergency Blanket — hypothermia sets in fast when wet. Weighs nothing

Headlamp — emergencies don’t wait for daylight

Emergency Contact + GPS Coordinates — when your phone is dead, this card saves you.

05/29/2026

Muscle isn’t just about how you look. It’s your most powerful metabolic organ — and most people are letting it waste away.

What strength training actually treats:

1. Blood sugar dysregulation — Muscle is your largest insulin-sensitive tissue. Every contraction pulls glucose out of circulation without insulin. This is the mechanism behind exercise reversing pre-diabetes.
2. Chronic inflammation — Contracting muscle releases myokines — IL-6, irisin — that systemically reduce inflammatory markers. Your muscles are a pharmacy.
3. Cognitive decline — Exercise drives BDNF production in the hippocampus. Low muscle mass correlates directly with accelerated cognitive aging.
4. Bone loss — Mechanical load through muscle contraction is the primary signal for bone remodeling. Resistance training does what calcium supplements can’t.
5. Falls and fractures — Falls are the leading cause of traumatic death over 65. Muscle mass and grip strength are the most modifiable fall-risk variables we have.
6. Early death — Grip strength is a stronger predictor of all-cause mortality than blood pressure or cholesterol. The data is unambiguous.

The prescription isn’t complicated. Progressive resistance training, adequate protein, consistency.

Evidence over ego. 🏋️

05/27/2026

The supplements on my shelf — and why they earned their spot:

🔵 Creatine — Best-studied supplement for preserving muscle and strength after 50. Emerging data supports cognitive function too. 5g/day. No loading required.

🔵 Vitamin D3 + K2 — K2 is the traffic cop that directs calcium into bone, not arteries. Most people over 50 are deficient in both.

🔵 Magnesium — 300+ enzymatic reactions. Sleep, muscle function, blood sugar regulation. Diet alone rarely covers it.

🔵 Fish Oil (Omega-3) — Anti-inflammatory at the cellular level. Joint health, cardiovascular protection, brain longevity. High EPA/DHA concentration matters — not just total mg.

🔵 Whey Protein Isolate — Protein synthesis becomes less efficient after 50. Whey isolate hits the leucine threshold needed to trigger muscle building when whole food falls short.

💬 What are you taking that’s not on this list — and why?

👇 Comment “BRANDS” and I’ll tell you exactly what’s on my shelf.

05/26/2026

48 million pickleball players. Wrist fractures are the #1 injury — and 91% happen in people over 50.

Here’s why it’s so predictable.

When you fall, your brain fires a protective reflex before you can think. Your hand shoots out automatically. Your distal radius — the end of your forearm bone at the wrist — absorbs your entire body weight in a fraction of a second. After 50, bone density has already declined. That combination is a fracture waiting to happen.

Two things that actually protect you:

→ Strengthen your wrist extensors now — before you fall
→ Learn a shoulder-roll fall technique. Ten minutes on a mat can rewire that reflex.

I’m a hand surgeon. I fix these fractures. I’d rather you never need me.

Source: Warrender et al., Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, April 2026 — ER visits from pickleball injuries up 88% since 2020.

05/24/2026

The wellness industry sells novelty because novelty sells.

Cold plunges. NAD+ drips. Peptide stacks. Red light panels. IV infusions. All of it loud, expensive, and largely unproven at the population level.

I’ve spent 27 years operating on aging bodies. What I see on the table tells me the same thing the cohort data does — muscle and movement are the variables that determine what 70, 80, and 90 look like.

Here’s what actually adds years, based on decades of data across millions of people:

Lift heavy things. Resistance training preserves muscle, bone, and the metabolic capacity that decides what aging looks like. Combined with four other healthy behaviors, it added 14 years for women and 12 for men in a Harvard cohort of 123,000 adults.

Walk fast. Low cardiorespiratory fitness was a stronger mortality predictor than diabetes, smoking, or hypertension in a 122,000-adult JAMA study. Three to four hours weekly of brisk walking builds the engine that runs everything else.

Sleep at the same time every night. A UK Biobank study of 328,000 adults found sleep regularity predicted healthspan independently of total hours. Consistency matters more than duration. Poor sleep accelerates muscle loss and impairs tissue healing — I see the consequences of that in the OR.

And what doesn’t have the cohort data yet? Cold plunges, NAD+, supplement stacks, biohacks. Some evidence. None of the population-level proof. Spend your time and money on the boring list first.

The boring stack adds twelve years. The novel stuff hasn’t proven one.

Li et al, Circulation 2018 | Mandsager et al, JAMA Network Open 2018 | UK Biobank cohort, n=328,850

05/18/2026

After 50 your body changes the way it processes protein. Most people don’t eat enough of it. And for women — there is a reason this becomes even more critical that almost nobody talks about. Here’s what low protein after 50 actually costs you.

1. Muscle loss accelerates
After 50 you lose 1-2% of muscle mass per year. Protein combined with resistance training is the most evidence-backed intervention to slow it. Nothing else comes close.

2. Joint protection decreases
Muscle is your joint’s shock absorber. Less muscle means more load on cartilage, faster arthritis progression, and earlier joint replacement. I see this every day in my OR.

3. Bone density drops
Adequate protein intake is directly linked to bone mineral density. Low protein accelerates osteoporosis. Fractures are not inevitable. This helps prevent them.

4. Tendon repair slows
Tendons need protein to heal. After 50 repair mechanisms slow down significantly. Low protein intake makes that worse and keeps you injured longer.

5. Falls become more dangerous
Sarcopenia — muscle loss from aging — is the leading modifiable risk factor for falls and fractures in adults over 60. Protein is your first line of defense.

6. For women — menopause changes everything
Estrogen protects muscle, bone, tendons, and joints simultaneously. When it drops at menopause all four systems deteriorate at once — faster than at any other point in a woman’s life. Most women are never told this. Adequate protein is one of the most evidence-backed ways to slow that decline across all four systems simultaneously. This is not optional after 50. It is essential.

The protocol:
→ 1 gram per pound of body weight daily
→ Spread across meals — your body can only use 30-40g per sitting
→ Animal protein has the highest bioavailability
→ Leucine-rich sources trigger muscle synthesis most effectively — eggs, chicken, fish, beef

Save this. Share it with every woman you know over 50.

orthopedicsurgeon womenshealth menopause longevity evidenceovrego formandfunctionmd over50health musculoskeletalhealth

Address

2214 Braxton Edge Road
Fayetteville, NC
28312

Telephone

+19106354314

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Form & Function MD posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Form & Function MD:

Shortcuts

Share

Category