What is 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 received for these and other chronic conditions is often inadequate. This is due, and part, to:
Focus on acute care. The system of medicine practiced by most physicians 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 doctors 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 a Normas – a few decades or more – particularly in the area of complex, chronic illness.
Shortfalls in training. Most physicians 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.
Functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend more time with their patients, listening to their history and looking at the interactions between environmental, lifestyle, and genetic factors that influence health.
The functional medicine practitioner will consider multiple factors, including:
Environmental inputs: the air you breathe in 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 set 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 house cells function, repair, and maintain themselves. Others are related to how your body processes and uses nutrients.
These processes include:
How your body rid itself of toxins
Regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters
Immune System Function
Inflammatory responses
Digestion and absorption of nutrients and the health of the digestive tract
Structural Integrity
Psychological and spiritual balance
How you produce energy
Any of these bodily processes can become imbalanced or disrupted, which can cause symptoms and accelerate disease.
© 2022 The Institute for Functional Medicine