What is Functional Medicine?
BEAUTIFUL YOU HEALTH CLUB
Dating as far back as the 1950s, people began searching for alternatives to the conventional medicine approach. Ultimately, the term ‘Functional Medicine” was coined by Jeffery Bland, Ph.D., in 1990. This type of medicine uses a systems-based approach that focuses on uncovering and addressing the root cause of the patient’s symptoms/disease. Functional medicine recognizes that there may be more than one factor contributing to the patient’s illness. Prevention and restoring homeostasis are the primary focuses of functional medicine. Individualized factors such as diet, stress, sleep, movement, and genetics are considered in treatment.
This tends to be more of a personalized and tailored approach to wellness. It is considered a patient-centered care system seeking to understand and uncover why the patient is ill vs. simply treating symptoms with a ‘band-aid approach.’ As our traditional healthcare system fails at restoring health and wellness in many cases, more practitioners have chosen to take a holistic approach to wellness and further their education in functional medicine training.
What is Conventional Medicine?
Conventional medicine is often referred to as traditional Western medicine and has been around since the 16th-18th centuries. It may also be referred to as allopathic, orthodox, modern, or mainstream medicine. Conventional medicine focuses on disease detection and management using anatomy and symptoms for diagnosis. Once the patient has been labeled with a diagnosis, a treatment plan is generally developed to mitigate the symptoms that have occurred. Within this system, healthcare providers such as medical doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, etc., use an anatomical- symptoms-based approach to diagnose disease.
As the incidence of chronic disease continues to rise, and patients become more complex, it is increasingly difficult for traditional medical providers to help patients truly heal. Doctors are pressured to see more and more patients, which means less and less time with each patient. This is one reason we are seeing a rise in medical providers seeking functional training and consumers seeking this type of care.
Philosophy of Functional and Conventional Medicine
Conventional medicine recognizes health as more the absence of disease rather than the expression of wholeness. The conventional approach is focused on modern science, research, and viewing the human body as simply a physical entity. When taking this approach, symptoms are often masked or suppressed rather than the underlying cause being identified and properly treated.
The body is viewed as a collection of parts as opposed to a system that works intricately together as a whole. Although each individual is unique, the conventional medical system typically treats the same disease with the same treatment without taking this bio-individuality into account. This model is disease-centered and reactive by only managing the condition after it has already occurred.
Functional medicine, in contrast, is more investigative by searching for the root cause of the presenting symptoms. This is a patient-centered model of care that seeks to understand why illness occurs in order to provide a personalized plan of care. Functional medicine practitioners tend to spend more time with their clients, gathering history and identifying the root cause of chronic illness. The plan of care includes multiple aspects of life, such as nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, socialization, etc. Functional medicine practitioners partner with their patients to bring the body to a balanced state. Patients are also encouraged to be proactive and take a preventative approach to their health and well-being.
Functional Medicine Doctor Treatments
Functional medicine doctors can treat a variety of health issues. They normally focus on chronic conditions that affect physical and mental health, such as:
Arthritis
Celiac disease
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
Diabetes
Alzheimer's disease
Asthma
Heart disease
Cancer prevention
Allergies
Chronic pain
Thyroid disorders
If you do not have a chronic illness, you can still visit a functional medicine doctor. Many also focus on preventative care.
