Our current medical standard of care is:

Well equipped to handle acute cases, and is successful and lifesaving in this regard.
Less effective at preventing illness and addressing chronic conditions.
Not set up for sharing information that supports healing and building optimal health.
Designed for damage control rather than prevention.

How is Functional Medicine Different?

Key principles of functional medicine:

It invites us to dive deeper to determine the cause and address it from the root; this supports healing from a cellular level.
It aims to address the imbalances in the body through food, lifestyle and supplement interventions – transforming dysfunctional bodily systems into optimal, functional health.
It looks at diet, lifestyle, environment, genetics and health history – the whole picture.
It figures out what specifically is moving too fast or too slow and what is out of order, and then restores balance to those processes.
It’s a dynamic process, which involves refinement of diet and lifestyle to restore optimal health. We give an intervention and then we listen to the body to see what it says back. If we like what we hear, we keep on doing that. If we don’t, then we make adjustments.

In functional nutrition/medicine we believe that one condition can have many different causes, and one cause can lead to many different conditions. For example:

Headaches: Headaches can result from dietary choices, imbalanced blood sugar levels, lack of sleep, hormone disruption, dehydration, stress, muscle or nerve pain, and more.
Gluten: Consuming glutenous foods can cause or aggravate a wide variety of conditions including digestive problems (bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, etc.), inflammatory diseases, brain fog, depression, skin conditions, joint pain, autoimmune diseases and more.

Western Medicine or Functional Medicine?

Western medicine can integrate with natural therapies to change the efficacy of healthcare. Both systems have their role and their place and when combined in a complementary treatment plan, we can dramatically increase success rates. As a society plagued with chronic degenerative health challenges, it is not a question of choosing one over the other – but instead understanding how both systems can work together.

Things to Think About

Do you understand the beneﬁts and shortcomings of both conventional medicine and functional medicine/nutrition?
What ideas today are not being adopted that could have a positive impact on people’s health?
Do you know of 2 people with the same symptoms, but with different causes? Do you know 2 people with the same cause but with different symptoms?

Reading: The Current State of Health Care

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