Carolina Holistic Medicine

Long before “integrative medicine” became a familiar phrase, Dr. Yusuf Saleeby was already charting that course.In the late 1990s—decades before functional medicine gained mainstream traction—he founded the Saleeby Longevity Institute in Savannah, GA, blending medical science with nutrition, lifestyle and natural therapies. Those early years earned him the nickname “the Chopra of Savannah,” (a nod to Deepak Chopra who introduced America to the alternative medicine of Maharishi Ayurved) for his willingness to look beyond prescriptions and protocols to treat the whole person. By 2013, with demand finally catching up to his vision, he opened Carolina Holistic Medicine in South Carolina—now one of the region’s most respected integrative, functional, and precision medicine centers.

Why patients come—and why many should come sooner

The typical patient who walks through Dr. Saleeby’s doors has already seen ten or more specialists. “They’re coming from major medical centers, done thousands of dollars in testing, and still don’t have answers,” he says. At Carolina Holistic Medicine, the approach is the opposite of the conventional model: listen first, then process. “Eighty percent of the time, our diagnosis comes from what the patient tells us and then we do confirmatory lab work or a study. We save people unnecessary tests, heartache and sometimes even harm.” His recommendation: embrace his therapies early. “We have seen an uptick in turbo cancers, aggressive stage-four cancers that seem to come out of nowhere. If you are going to an oncologist, come see us at the same time. There’s a better chance of getting you back to wellness if you don’t treat us like your last option.”

Increasingly, though, patients are skipping the exhausting cycle of trial-and-error medicine and coming to him first. Some have relocated from states where integrative care is more widely embraced; others hear his name word-of-mouth. And not just when they are sick. 

Wellness even when you’re not sick

“It’s called wellness,” Dr. Saleeby explains. “Patients come to us wanting to make sure they are taking the right supplements and are on the right diet, checking their bloodwork to make sure. We help them make highly personalized lifestyle modifications.”

Nutrition, nutraceuticals, lifestyle intervention, spiritual well-being, and personalized medical therapy all play a role. “There’s no one diet and no single supplement for everyone,” Dr. Saleeby explains. “We practice precision medicine, so we tailor nutrition plans, movement goals, stress-reduction practices and spiritual support to the individual.”

For some, it’s foundational lifestyle rebalancing. For others—those dealing with environmental toxins, chronic viruses, Lyme disease, Long COVID, or hormone imbalance—it may involve deeper interventions like bioidentical hormones, detoxification programs, or peptide therapies.

Lyme disease

Dr. Saleeby’s deep dive into Lyme disease led him to train directly with world-renowned specialist Dr. Richard Horowitz. It’s another example of how identifying mainstream infectious diseases is foundational to what he preaches. “I was the first Lyme literate medical doctor (LLMD) in South Carolina at the time, and people came from surrounding states to meet with me.” His goal is to identify the disease as early as possible and get people in remission so that they can lead a normal life again. “Now I have bestowed that knowledge on my own nurse practitioners so that they can recognize and manage these complex conditions themselves.” 

What’s Coming Next

Looking ahead, Dr. Saleeby is most energized by advancements in peptide therapy—natural, targeted amino-acid chains that promote healing, tissue repair, immune balance, and longevity. He cites BPC-157 (used to help patients avoid knee replacements), GHK-Cu (for skin and cellular repair), in particular. Additional innovations—hyperbaric therapy, targeted IV nutrition, red-light therapy, and Extracorporeal blood oxygenation and ozonation (EBOO), a blood-filtering treatment—are also on his radar.

For Dr. Saleeby, pioneering wasn’t a choice—it was a calling. Today, Carolina Holistic Medicine stands as proof that being ahead of your time eventually pays off for the people who need it most.

To find out more, go to: carolinaholisticmedicine.com. Office located in Mount Pleasant, SC, and by telemedicine.