Mission Functional Medicine

Mission Functional Medicine Our mission is to find the root cause of your illness and support and direct you on your path to wel Welcome to Mission Functional Medicine.

We are a Functional Medicine practice located in Winchester, VA. If you are not familiar with Functional Medicine, we are a medical practice that addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach looking at the person as a whole not just an isolated set of symptoms. Basically, we look for the root cause of problems, as opposed to masking symptoms with pharmaceuticals. If you are having health issues and you have not been able to get a clear understanding of what is happening, maybe it is time to try something different. Have a look at our website, www.drlauralawson.com, to see if Functional Medicine might be right for you.

One of last year's projects...completed.
01/12/2026

One of last year's projects...completed.

Check out upcoming EVENT!
01/01/2026

Check out upcoming EVENT!

12/12/2025

Want to thank everyone who came to our stress talk today and hope the folks that got acupuncture have great results!

09/11/2025

More and more we are hearing about the importance of the gut microbiome. In functional medicine we have been talking about this for a very long time. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published an article discussing the importance of the gut microbiome and cancer. Below are some of the highlights from that article.

What we eat and ingest has a profound impact on our health and so much of that impact is because of the impact on the gut microbiome.

In our gut microbiomes we have bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea. An intact gut barrier and a high diversity of healthy microbes is important for optimal health.

Dysbiosis which is a suboptimal balance of microbes, and a disrupted gut barrier are known to cause systemic inflammation and disruptions to our immune system. There are well-established links with the gut microbiome and depression, anxiety and many different autoimmune diseases.

A study of 111 patients with pancreatic cancer, from two separate institutions, shows that people who survived longer than five years after surgery had a higher diversity of microbes within the tumor microenvironment and a greater abundance of cytotoxic killer T lymphocytes.
Another study took f***s from patients who had survived greater than 5 years with pancreatic cancer and those who did not and did a f***l microbiome transplant with mice who had pancreatic cancer. The mice who got the transplant from the survivors had reduced tumor growth and improved anti-tumor immunity compared to mice who received transplants for patients with pancreatic cancer who had short term survival.

Several studies of patients with cancer who received broad-spectrum antibiotics prior to treatment had lower tumor response rates to therapy and reduced overall survival and higher rates of adverse effects.

One retrospective analysis of 128 patients with metastatic melanoma showed an association with fiber intake and longer remission.

JAMA. 2025 Jun 24;333(24):2188-2196.
doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.2191.

09/09/2025

Back by Popular Demand-The 30 Plant Challenge!

The Challenge: Eat 30 Different Plants Per Week!

The Prize: Improved Gut Microbiome Diversity and 2 Free Passes to the Revive Room at Mission Functional Medicine

How To Win: Eat 30 Different Plants Per week for 4 weeks

Start Date: September 22nd 2025
End Date: October 19th 2025

To Collect your Prize: You must send or bring your list of plants to Mission Functional Medicine.

Who Can Participate: ANYONE! People who are not patients at Mission Functional Medicine and have a medical condition need a doctor note to use the sauna in the Revive room.

The best way to increase diversity in the gut microbiome is to diversify your diet. Good Luck on the 30-plant challenge!

Follow us on Facebook over the next 6 weeks to learn why you want to optimize the health of your gut microbiome.

08/19/2025

Dementia & Cognitive Health Slowing Neurodegeneration With Exercise Practitioner | Reading Time: 4 minutes | Updated on: June 3, 2019 Maintaining cognition and brain fitness is a priority for many patients. And exercise is one of the strategies that has been shown to optimize both mitochondrial and....

02/06/2025

Wow today was a wild one! I did not get dragged behind the truck but I ran pretty fast today. Doing a fascia lines class with some of my patients was the perfect ending to my day. It was great to see everyone! Being gifted a box of chocolates at the end was awesome! I am not saying I was eating my feelings but that box of chocolates was pretty magical. Thank you to the person who gifted them! They hit the spot. My daughter and husband enjoyed some too!

02/06/2025

Had a great night learning how to improve my fascia with my patients. Thank you Fascia Lines!

Want to Burn Fat AND improve your bodies ability to detox?Decaff Green tea!Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021 Oct 12;12:7...
02/03/2025

Want to Burn Fat AND improve your bodies ability to detox?

Decaff Green tea!

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021 Oct 12;12:736724. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2021.736724
Effect of Decaffeinated Green Tea Polyphenols on Body Fat and Precocious Puberty in Obese Girls: A Randomized Controlled Trial

01/27/2025

Just wanted to let everyone know about an inexpensive dexa in Hagerstown.

Steven Klein and Associates offers a 63 dollar Dexa!

Office Phone: 301-714-1506 ask for Stephanie extension 1121

01/09/2025

Having trouble pulling yourself off the sugar from the holidays?
Check out this great recipe that I got from one of my favorite cookbooks by Andrew Weil. This is from the book Fast Food Good Food. It is a healthier version of Peanut brittle.

Cashew Brittle
Ingredients: 1/2 teaspoon grapeseed oil (I use olive oil)
3 tablespoons of maple syrup
2 tablespoons of roughly chopped cashews
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place parchment paper on a baking sheet and spread the oil in a thin even layer
2. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour the mixture onto the oiled parchment paper and spread it in even thin layer. Bake for five to seven minutes. Make sure that you watch it carefully so that it doesn't burn. The syrup will become bubbly. Then after another two to three minutes the cashews will take on a golden color and the syrup will be a deep amber.
3. Remove the brittle from the oven and let it cool to room temperature on the sheet. To make it easier to break you can pop it in the freezer for about five minutes break into a regular sized pieces.

10/15/2024

Mark Hyman sends e-mails with some really great information! Check out what he just sent about pasture finished beef.

"A new study published in Nature shows just how different pasture-finished beef is compared to grain-finished beef. Pasture-finished beef had significantly higher antioxidant activity, vitamin E, and choline (a vital nutrient for brain health). It also had four times the amount of omega-3s, 10 times the vitamin B3, less oxidative stress, better fatty acid profiles, and mitochondrial health. Comparatively, grain-finished beef had fewer nutrients, more omega-6, and antibiotic metabolites. If you have access to pasture-raised beef, it’s worth choosing for the extra nutrients that support optimal health."

Pasture-finishing of cattle in Western U.S. rangelands improves markers of animal metabolic health and nutritional compounds in beef

Nikia Evans, Jennifer Cloward, Robert E. Ward, Herman A. van Wietmarschen, Nick van Eekeren, Scott L. Kronberg, Frederick D. Provenza & Stephan van Vliet
Scientific Reports volume 14, Article number: 20240 (2024)

Address

158 Front Royal Pike Ste 209
Winchester, VA
22602

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 2pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 2pm
Friday 7:30am - 6pm

Telephone

+15404505743

Website

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