Functional Medicine
“The Doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease” - Thomas Edison
Functional medicine focuses on discovering nutritional and metabolic imbalances, dietary and exercise habits, environmental influences, and psycho-social stressors knowing that they directly relate to the development and maintenance of illness. Upon discovery, the next step is to encourage you to change and even give up any negative lifestyle patterns we discover while establishing more positive ones, regardless of the type of medical conditions for which you are seeking treatment.
Modern living has its share of genetically modified and processed foods, a soil almost depleted of life-sustaining nutrients, contaminated water supply, a toxic environment from factories, automobiles, crop-preserving pesticides, plastics everywhere, and electromagnetic field pollution, mental and physical stress, a lack of physical activity due to readily available transportation and a sedentary work environment coupled with hours spent daily in front of the TV, dangerous chemically-produced pharmacological medications and surgical procedures that promise a cure while most of the time failing to deliver.
Allopathic, conventional medicine has its place in acute care, and especially in emergency care. Without it many people can die from infections, wounds, or other trauma. Organ transplants are a life-saver procedure for many that otherwise would not be able to survive.
In a modern, changing world we need a more modern medical model, a shift from the acute, pharmacological medication-based model to a model of care based on the root cause of disease, a patient-based rather than disease-based medical model known as Functional Medicine.
Some of the physicians adopting the Functional Medicine model are medical and osteopathic doctors, chiropractic doctors such as myself, naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, dentists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, or certified clinical nutritionists.
The Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner looks at the whole person for the causes of illness, taking into consideration the environment in which you and your family function on a daily basis, and how your whole person responds to it. Once the root causes of illness are identified, blockages to optimal health and well-being are eliminated through natural and integrative approaches.
Some of the root causes of illness addressed by Functional Medicine are:
• Nutritional imbalances
• Digestive imbalances
• Oxidative stress
• Impaired detoxification
• Immune dysfunction
• Inflammatory imbalances
• Endocrine and hormonal imbalances
The first step begins with a set of detailed questionnaires to find out about your current and prior symptoms, illnesses, toxic environmental exposures, living conditions, treatments received, emotional state, and how strong your desire is to become well.
Laboratory tests are then utilized to find any specific genetic imperfections, compromised hormonal, immune, and other essential body functions, along with nutritional deficiencies, food sensitivities, allergies, inflammation, intestinal health, infections, and toxic compromise.
The Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner such as myself will then propose individualized nutrition and lifestyle changes, to optimize your body’s own detoxification process, restore and replenish any nutritional and physiological deficiencies, and reduce or eliminate the root cause of each illness or symptom.
Taking control of our health is an ongoing process. We start by making small, regular, and consistent changes to the way we eat and to the stressors in our environment that influence our ability to bring balance and take control of our lives. This is “smart” medicine.
I like how Mary-Ann Shearer, a well-known natural personality and author from South Africa summarizes it: “Feed and look after your body the way it was designed to be fed and looked after and you will be healthy. It’s that simple”
As a Functional Medicine patient, no matter what your symptoms or the condition, some of the indirect benefits can be:
• Improved digestion
• Improved bowel elimination
• Improved blood sugar regulation
• Improved circulatory system function
• Improved stress response
• Improved immune response
• Reduced inflammation
• Balanced hormones
Functional Medicine is a patient-based model of health care that is in complete alignment with Sir William Osler that once declared:
“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”
Functional Medicine and Functional Chiropractic complement each other in discovering and addressing the root causes of disease, especially when it comes to acute on chronic/chronic conditions that failed other conventional treatment.
I do not treat a disease. I treat you as the unique individual you are. I search at the deepest depth possible to find WHAT causes your health issues, and WHY, help your body naturally eliminate or alleviate the root causes, and then help your body restore itself to its designed optimal function. in doing that, you start experiencing True Health. Functional medicine is not about finding what lab values are high or low and giving you supplements to bring those values within an accepted range, but rather understanding WHY the values are high or low and addressing the issue within the context of your individual life.
References:
- Jack Wolfson DO, The Paleo Cardiologist, Morgan James Publishing, 2015
- Michelle Corey, The Thyroid Cure, Vibrant Way Press, 2017
- Adonis Maiquez, MD, Modern Medicine for Modern Times, e-book
- Mary-Ann Shearer, Perfect Health the Natural Way, BenBella Books, 2006
- Mary-Ann Shearer, Take Control the Natural Way, Ibis Books, 2005
- Ron Grisanti, DC, A Commonsense Approach to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Sickness, Functional Medicine University