06/20/2025
Why do we need Functional Medicine:
Functional Medicine involves understanding the origins, prevention, and treatment of complex, chronic diseases.
Hallmarks of a Functional Medicine approach include:
Patient-centered care - The focus of functional medicine is on patient-centered care, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease.
An integrative, science-based healthcare approach - Functional Medicine practitioners look “upstream” to consider the complex web of interactions in the patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness.
The unique genetic makeup of each patient is considered, along with both internal (mind, body, and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect total functioning
Integrating medical practices.
Functional Medicine integrates traditional Western medical practices with what are sometimes considered “alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet, and exercise; use of the latest laboratory testing and other diagnostic techniques and a
prescribed combinations of drugs and/or botanical medicines, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, or stress-management techniques.
Conventional medicine has its strengths, particularly in the areas of emergency medicine and surgery.
However, it falls short in treating chronic illnesses, particularly complex chronic conditions such as Lyme disease and Thyroid conditions.
Functional medicine utilizes the most current scientific knowledge regarding how our genetics, environment and lifestyle interact as a whole system to diagnose and treat diseases based on patterns of dysfunction and imbalance, without necessarily treating the specific disease itself.
It treats the person who has the disease, not the disease the person has. Determining the root cause of the illness is an essential component of the functional medicine model.
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