by David Quick
The Post and Courier
September 8, 2009

Fitness testing is among the components of FitMed Partners, which was opened in March by Dr. Bright McConnell in his second attempt at a wellness-based practice on Daniel Island.

McConnell founded Prevecare in 2003 but closed it down due to the financial burdens of high-end imaging equipment.

“We ran out of gas,” says McConnell, who is an orthopedic physician by training.

But the experience didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for approaching medicine by promoting wellness rather than treating sickness, and he bounced back with FitMed — which weds some of the same technologies used in sports performance for preventing illness and disease.

“There are a lot of interesting things that come under the aegis of sports medicine other than optimizing athletic performance,” says McConnell, adding that understanding exercise and nutrition today is confusing for so many individuals. “The science is pretty solid, but how that science is extrapolated is the problem.”

He points to the notion of the “low-fat diet” that pushed people away from both bad and good fats, the latter of which includes healthy and hunger-satiating oils, nuts and vegetables.

Today, using the latest research and tools is key to tackling the “elephant in the room”: managing body weight.

“That’s the underpinning of fitness,” says McConnell, adding that maintaining a healthy body weight not only lowers the risks of heart disease, cancer and diabetes but other issues in “age management,” such a lowered testosterone in older men.

The first key to weight management is a simple, 15-minute-long resting metabolic rate analysis. The test determines a baseline of daily caloric expenditure, which varies among people depending on age, gender and body composition.

“It’s what your internal thermostat is set at,” says McConnell. “It’s critical information for diets. Everyone is different, and no one diet fits all.”

Matching the fitness component of FitMed is a nutrition component where it is partnering with Spectracell Laboratories to perform cellular micronutrient testing, such as how many antioxidants an individual client needs. From there, a customized approach to getting necessary vitamins and minerals can be developed.

“What we’re trying to do is to find the sweet spot (the combination of diet, exercise and supplements) that works best for the individual.”