root cause medicine.
Functional medicine 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 diseases. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
Why Do We Need Functional Medicine?
Our society is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, dementia, autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, and troublesome conditions like irritable bowel syndrome. The treatment that patients receive for these and other chronic conditions is often inadequate. This is due, in part, to:
• Focus on acute care. The system of medicine practiced by most providers is oriented toward acute care—the diagnosis and treatment of trauma or illness that is of short duration and in need of urgent care, such as appendicitis or a broken leg. The acute-care approach to medicine lacks the proper methods and tools to prevent and treat complex, chronic diseases.
• Gap between research and practice. The way many providers practice isn’t up-to-date with new research. The gap between emerging research in the basic sciences and its use in medical practice is enormous—a few decades or more—particularly in the area of complex, chronic illness.
• Shortfalls in training. Most providers are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease and to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet, and exercise to both treat and prevent these illnesses in their patients.
why Work with a Functional Medicine Practitioner?
Functional medicine practitioners promote wellness by focusing on the fundamental underlying factors that influence every patient’s experience of health and disease.
The functional medicine practitioner will consider multiple factors, including:
• Environmental inputs: The air you breathe and the water you drink, the diet you eat, the quality of the food available to you, your level of physical activity, and toxic exposures or traumas you have experienced affect your health and well-being.
• Mind-body connections: Psychological, spiritual, and social factors can all have a profound influence on your health. Considering these areas helps the functional medicine practitioner see your health in the context of you as a whole person, not just your physical symptoms.
• Genetic makeup: Although individual genes may make you more
susceptible to some diseases, your DNA is not an unchanging blueprint for your life. Emerging research shows that your genes may be influenced by your environment, as well as your experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. That means it is possible to change the way genes are activated and expressed. By understanding the genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors unique to each person, a functional medicine practitioner can identify which bodily
processes are affected. Some occur at the cellular level and involve how cells function, repair, and maintain themselves. Others are related to how your body processes and uses nutrients. These processes include:
• How your body rids itself of toxins
• Regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters (nerve messengers)
• Immune system function
Functional medicine practitioners promote wellness by focusing on the fundamental underlying factors that influence every patient’s experience of health and disease.
These can include:
• Inflammatory response
• Digestion and absorption of nutrients and the health of the digestive tract
• Psychological and spiritual balance
• Structural integrity
• How you produce energy
Any of these bodily processes can become imbalanced or disrupted, which can cause symptoms and accelerate disease.
A Comprehensive Approach to Treatment
The good news is that most imbalances can be addressed to restore or
substantially improve a person’s health.
• Prevention is key. Nearly every complex, chronic disease is preceded by long-term disturbances in function that can be identified relatively early on and effectively managed.
• Changing how the systems function can have a major impact on health.
The functional medicine practitioner examines a wide array of available interventions and customizes a treatment plan, including those with the most impact on your health.
• Functional medicine expands the clinician’s tool kit. Treatments may include combinations of drugs, botanical medicines, nutritional supplements, therapeutic diets, or detoxification programs. They may also include counseling on lifestyle, exercise, or stress-management techniques.
• The patient becomes a partner. As a patient, you become an active partner with your functional medicine practitioner. Such a partnership allows you to be in charge of improving your health and changing the outcome of disease.