What is Functional Medicine?
The Future of Healthcare: The Benefits of Functional Medicine
Welcome to the future of healthcare! Functional Medicine is changing how we approach our health and wellbeing by focusing on the underlying causes of disease rather than just treating symptoms.
In a world where chronic disease is rising, Functional Medicine offers a more personalised approach. Naturopathic and Functional Medicine Doctors focus on empowering the patient to take control of their life through education and understanding the unique genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors required to improve their health and wellbeing.
In this article, the term Naturopathic and Functional Medicine will be used, as Naturopathic Medicine is the foundation of Functional Medicine due to the shared visions of many dedicated health professionals, including a group of respected world-expert naturopathic physicians. [1]
Read on to explore the best of Functional Medicine and discover the future of healthcare. Prepare to unlock a new level of consciousness.
What is Functional Medicine?
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine is a patient-centred, holistic approach to healthcare that focuses on identifying and treating disease's underlying causes. Its primary goal is to provide a continuum of care that aims to reverse illness, promote health, and optimise function. [1,2,5]
Unlike conventional medicine, which often treats symptoms with medication and surgery, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine seeks to understand the underlying root causes. Naturopathic and Functional Medicine practitioners view the body as an interconnected system, in which dysfunction or imbalances in one system affects the whole individuals health and wellbeing.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine takes a comprehensive approach to restoring balance and promoting optimal health, taking into account factors such as genetics, environment, and lifestyle.
One of the key aspects of Naturopathic and Functional Medicine is that each person is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine practitioners take the time to listen to their patients', including a comprehensive case history with the necessary medical examinations to develop a deeper understanding of the patient to uncover the underlying causes of their symptoms.
This personalised approach allows for more targeted and effective treatment strategies and planning tailored to the patients specific needs. This focus on personalised care sets Naturopathic and Functional Medicine apart from conventional medicine, making it a powerful tool for promoting sustainable health and wellness.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine also places a strong emphasis on prevention and proactive healthcare. Rather than treating the symptoms after they have manifested, functional medicine aims to identify and address imbalances before they lead to disease.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine empowers individuals to manage their own health and prevent future illness by focusing on lifestyle interventions such as nutrition, exercise, stress management, and sleep optimisation. This proactive approach not only saves lives but also reduces healthcare costs by preventing the development of chronic conditions.
What is a Functional Medicine Practitioner?
Functional Medicine practitioners are trained to examine and restore your function.
Functional Medicine focuses on understanding your physiological, cognitive, emotional, and physical function to design and implement a therapeutic nutritional and lifestyle treatment program tailored to your specific needs. [1]
Functional Medicine employs diagnostic tools to assess your individual genomic differences in response to the environment and lifestyle within the context of complex chronic disease. [1]
Functional Medicine Approach
In the functional medicine model, the term "function" is consistent with the evolving understanding that disease is an endpoint and function is a process. [1]
The model is less concerned with what is referred to as disease in conventional medicine and more concerned with the dynamic processes that result in your dysfunction. [1]
Functional Medicine is a model of healthcare that is less concerned with what conventional medicine refers to as pathology or disease and more focused on the dynamic processes that result in dysfunction, pathology, and disease. [1]
The Functional Medicine approach requires a high level of decision-making to identify the underlying physiological dysfunctions and causes of the disease. [3]
Why Functional Medicine?
The Functional Medicine approach is the best sustainable solution to our current health crisis, as our current healthcare system fails to address the underlying causes of chronic disease. [3,5]
Functional Medicine highlights the following: [5]
Functional Medicine values the therapeutic doctor-patient relationship, including active listening, reflection, presence, compassion, respect, and gratitude.
Functional Medicine organises your clinical imbalances in underlying causes, body systems and organs.
Functional Medicine evaluates, prioritises, and focuses on your modifiable lifestyle factors.
The Limitations of Conventional Medicine
While conventional medicine has made significant advances in the treatment of acute conditions and the management of certain chronic diseases, it is not without limitations.
Conventional medicine often focuses on symptom management rather than addressing the underlying causes of disease. This approach can lead to a cycle of medication dependency and fail to provide long-term solutions for patients.
One of the main limitations of conventional medicine is its reductionist approach to healthcare. Conventional medicine tends to treat the body as a collection of separate systems and specialties, often overlooking the interconnectedness of these systems. This fragmented approach can result in a lack of coordination and communication between different healthcare providers, leading to suboptimal patient outcomes.
Another limitation of conventional medicine is its overreliance on medication and surgery. While these interventions can be life-saving in certain situations, they often come with side effects and risks.
Additionally, medication and surgery may only address the symptoms of a disease without addressing the underlying causes, which often leads to the temporary relief of symptoms, but fail to provide long-term healing and prevention.
In contrast, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine takes a more comprehensive and integrative approach to healthcare, as it acknowledges the complex interactions between different systems in the body and recognises the importance of addressing the root causes of disease.
The Principles of Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is guided by several key principles that set it apart from conventional medicine. These principles provide the foundation for the personalized and holistic approach that defines functional medicine.
Patient-Centered Care: Functional medicine places the patient at the center of the healthcare journey. Practitioners take the time to listen to their patients' stories, understand their unique needs and goals, and collaborate with them to create personalized treatment plans.
Holistic Approach: Functional medicine recognizes that the body is an interconnected system, where imbalances in one area can affect the overall health of an individual. Practitioners consider the interactions between genetics, environment, lifestyle, and mind-body health to create comprehensive treatment plans.
Addressing the Root Causes: Instead of just treating symptoms, functional medicine aims to identify and address the underlying causes of disease. By understanding the factors contributing to an individual's health issues, practitioners can create targeted and effective treatment plans.
Promoting Prevention: Functional medicine places a strong emphasis on prevention and proactive healthcare. By empowering individuals to make lifestyle changes and optimize their health, functional medicine aims to prevent the development of chronic conditions.
Individualised Care: Every person is unique, and functional medicine recognizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare. Practitioners take into account each individual's genetics, environment, and lifestyle to create personalised treatment plans that address their specific needs.
By following these principles, functional medicine practitioners are able to provide personalized, comprehensive, and effective care that addresses the root causes of disease and promotes long-term health.
Functional Medicine vs Naturopathic Medicine - Is a functional medicine doctor the same as a naturopath?
Naturopathic Medicine is the foundation of Functional Medicine. People frequently seek clarification about the origins of Functional Medicine.
The Functional Medicine model emerged due to the shared visions and hard work of many dedicated health professionals, including a group of respected world-expert naturopathic physicians. [1]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the modern rebirth of a science-based naturopathic medicine profession played a significant role in the development of both Integrative Medicine and Functional Medicine. [1]
Given the significant contribution of Naturopathic Medicine to the development of Functional Medicine, there are more similarities than differences.
Naturopathic doctors are the primary educators at the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) and the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine (AIHM).
In 1991, Dr Jeffery Bland and his wife founded the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). Dr Jeffery Bland has been an internationally recognised leader in nutritional medicine for more than 25 years and is the president and founder of the Personalised Lifestyle Medicine Institute in Seattle, Washington. [1]
The Institute for Functional Medicine educates healthcare professionals, including GPs, chiropractors, osteopaths, naturopaths, and nutritionists in a comprehensive healthcare model that focuses on the primary prevention of complex chronic illnesses. [2]
Choosing a Functional Medicine Doctor
Choosing a Functional Medicine Practitioner may appear to be an overwhelming task.
A Functional Medicine doctor willing to build a collaborative relationship and listen to your unique needs to help you address the underlying causes, overcome your challenges, and promote optimal health and well-being.
Finding someone who is also willing to encompass a detailed understanding of your genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors is essential to leverage the data and establish a personalised treatment plan that leads to significant positive outcomes.
You want a functional medicine doctor with the specialised knowledge, skills and experience to assess your readiness to change and provide the appropriate coaching.
The right functional medicine doctor will help you see beyond your current signs and symptoms to resolve the underlying core issues driving your illness or disease.
Are You Dissatisfied With Your Current Results?
DR ALAIN FRABOTTA has been practising integrative chiropractic and naturopathic functional medicine in Sydney, Australia, since 1995.
With a specific interest in functional immunology, Alain focuses on preventing, treating, and managing complex chronic diseases, including delivering proven stress and pain management strategies and mental health support.
He is also committed to providing you with a personalised, targeted treatment approach that employs functional and genomic assessments to diagnose and optimise your health, wellbeing and performance.
Alain strives to find the best solutions to help you achieve results by incorporating a multidisciplinary, person-centred approach.
He integrates chiropractic, naturopathic, and functional medicine, nutrition, counselling, and coaching to help you bridge the gap between your physical, mental, and spiritual health and wellbeing.
Alain is Sydney's leading integrative chiropractic and naturopathic functional medicine doctor. He's dedicated to helping you achieve your health and wellbeing goals and reach your full potential in life.
What Does Functional Medicine Doctor Treat?
The ultimate goal of the functional medicine doctor is to help you identify and implement the most effective solutions to maximise your results and restore harmony and balance to your whole life.
Since we can now detect early function changes, these practices provide the opportunity to deliver a more precise form of personalised medicine.
This means the functional medicine practitioner can treat the complex network of interactions between your genes, environment, diet, lifestyle, and social environment in treating a wide range of chronic diseases.
Combining functional assessment with conventional medicine tests represents a significant step forward in developing targeted complementary and alternative medicine interventions.
How Naturopathic and Functional Medicine Approaches Mental Health
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine recognises the close connection between the mind and body and understands that imbalances in one area can affect the other.
When it comes to mental health, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine takes a comprehensive and personalised approach to address the underlying causes of conditions such as anxiety, depression, and mood disorders.
Determining which mood disorders people have can be difficult, as standard medical practice is to match a person's symptoms and behaviours to the DSM criteria.
However, people rarely fit neatly into one category with all of their complexities. A person's subjective distress is typically expressed through various physical, emotional, and cognitive symptoms that are not specific to a single well-defined disorder.
For instance, patients with stress and mood disorders often present with chronic physical symptoms in my clinical practice.
The patient may present in my clinic diagnosed with depression, but when asked to describe what they are feeling, a typical response includes a cluster of physical symptoms, such as "my body feels tired, heavy, and achy, and that makes it difficult for me to get excited or motivated about life."
Likewise, when a patient diagnosed with anxiety says, "I feel anxious," that feeling often translates into physical symptoms, such as a rapid or racing, pounding heartbeat, shortness of breath, tremors, or digestive pains.
In contrast, the conventional medicine approach is to identify a diagnostic criterion and then prescribe a medicine based on the diagnosis.
A key factor that Naturopathic and Functional Medicine considers the patient's physical symptoms as well as the subjective emotional experience that are accompanying the patients behaviours in mental health issues.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine practitioners work with patients to identify nutritional deficiencies or imbalances that may be contributing to their mental health issues. Research has shown that certain nutrients and dietary patterns can have a significant impact on mental health.
Naturopathic and Functional Medicine also recognises the importance of gut health in mental health. The gut-brain axis, which refers to the bidirectional communication between the gut and the brain, plays a crucial role in mental health.
Imbalances in the gut microbiome, inflammation, and intestinal permeability can all contribute to mental health issues. Naturopathic and Functional Medicine practitioners work with patients to optimise gut health through nutritional and dietary interventions, and other targeted treatments.
In addition to nutrition and gut health, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine takes a holistic approach to mental health by considering other factors such as hormone balance, sleep quality, stress management, and lifestyle interventions.
In summary, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine takes a comprehensive and personalised approach to mental health by addressing the underlying causes and considering factors such as nutrition, gut health, hormone balance, sleep quality, stress management, and lifestyle interventions.
By taking this person-centred holistic approach, Naturopathic and Functional Medicine can help individuals achieve better mental health and well-being.
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+ REFERENCES
[1] Bland, J. Defining Function in the Functional Medicine Model. Integrative Medicine. 2017;16(1),pp.22–25.
[2] Jones, D. et al. Functional Medicine: Theory, Education, and Practice. Eplore. 2009;5(3),pp.177–179.
[3] Pizzorno, JE. Clinical Decision Making - A Functional Medicine Perspective. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. 2012;1(4),pp.8–13.
[4] Weeks, J. The Leadership of the Naturopathic Profession in the Emergence of Integrative and Functional Medicine. Integrative Mediicne. 2016;15(2,pp 16-18.
[5] Hanaway, P. Form Follows Function: A Functional Medicine Overview. The Permanente Journal. 2016;20(4),pp.16–109.
[6] Bland, J. What is Evidence-Based Functional Medicine in the 21st Century?. Integrative Medicine. 2019;18(3),pp.14–18.