What is Functional Medicine?
Benefits of Functional Medicine
Improved Energy Levels
Better Digestion
Improved Immune System
Better Sleep
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Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership.
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It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual. Functional medicine does not replace the need for patients to seek care from their medical doctor. Nutrition and lifestyle recommendations are not a substitute for prescription drugs. Functional medicine does not cure or treat disease. Rather, it’s goal is to support the body in its ability to restore homeostasis naturally.
Six Core Principles of Functional Medicine:
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Understanding of the biochemical individuality of each human being, based on the concepts of genetic, environmental and lifestyle uniqueness.
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Support a patient-centered rather than disease-centered approach to treatment.
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Dynamic interconnection between all cells, tissues, organs and systems of the body.
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Mental, emotional, spiritual and social health being of equal importance to physical health.
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Identification of health as a positive vitality, not merely the absence of symptoms and disease.
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Promotion of wellness is to enhance quality of life of patients, not merely to extend life span.
The illustration to the left uses a tree to visually represent the core aspects of the Functional Medicine paradigm and highlight the difference between conventional medical care and Functional Medicine.
In order to keep a tree healthy and allow it to flourish, you need to support the most basic and essential elements first; the foundation: the roots and soil. Similarly, if a tree is not healthy, the first place you should look for answers is those same foundational elements.
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In Functional Medicine, the same approach applies. The most important factors, and the ones we examine first when gathering information about the patient, are the foundational lifestyle factors; sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress levels, relationships, and genetics. These are the roots and soil, which are in turn influenced by specific predisposing factors (antecedents), discrete events (triggers), and ongoing physiological processes (mediators), and may then result in fundamental imbalances at the trunk. These can eventually result in the signs and symptoms that are grouped into a diagnosable constellation that we call disease, represented by the branches and leaves.
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“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”