You might have encountered the term “functional medicine” in recent years. It’s an approach to health and wellness that’s becoming ever more popular – and for good reason, too. In this blog, we’ll share what functional medicine is, why it matters, and how you can leverage it to improve your wellbeing. But first, let’s start with you.
If you’re like many of our clients, you want to be proactive about your health. You appreciate that your doctor is the go-to resource when acute issues arise, but for longer-term issues such as burnout, brain fog, digestive problems and low energy, you want answers.
We get that mindset. People come to us because they do not want to wait for illness to develop before seeking help. They want to understand their body, identify imbalances early, and deal with them through diet, supplementation, exercise and lifestyle. This philosophy is where functional medicine comes in.
Traditional laboratory diagnostics by your local doctor will identify immediate issues that might require more diagnostics or a referral to a specialist. This is an excellent way to triage your care when illness is present and immediate action is required.
At the same time, those laboratory diagnostics might not help you understand the root causes of chronic low-grade issues that actively deplete your quality of life - like bloating, fatigue, loss of libido, mental health issues and inflammation. This is not a criticism of those laboratory diagnostics; they are just different diagnostics.
Functional medicine is an excellent approach to health because it honours the importance of the conventional late-stage healthcare model while also seeking to be proactive and preventative: to understand those core underlying imbalances in the body that impact our health span and lifespan.
Think of ill-health like a row of dominos falling. When the sixth domino drops, you might need a doctor to step in and look after you. At this point, the conventional healthcare model is fantastic. But you also want to know the root cause of those symptoms – the first domino – and seek to treat that.
Functional medicine is a person-centred approach to health and wellness that helps you understand and treat the first domino. It seeks to understand the day-to-day symptoms you might be experiencing, as well as the underlying pathophysiology that triggers issues in the first place.
Let’s use an example to illustrate this. Imagine you are out to dinner with a friend, and they’re telling you about recent symptoms such as frequent headaches, stuffy nose, racing heart and digestive issues. They have gone to their doctor, and blood test results are normal. At this point, they might be left to their own devices with the recommendation to return if anything worsens.
This is a common situation: someone is struggling with a cluster of symptoms that
seemingly aren’t connected, and every day, your poor friend has to deal with feeling
run down and sub-par. They don’t have the answers.
At this point, we can jump onto Dr. Google, but as everyone knows, that can be overwhelming and often flat-out terrifying. Enter, functional medicine.
When you work with a doctor, nutritionist or healthcare practitioner who has formally trained in functional medicine with a reputable leader in functional medicine and has IFM (the Institute for Functional Medicine, everything changes.
Your practitioner takes time to listen to your story, medical history and current health
concerns. They recommend specific laboratory diagnostics designed to quantify and
map underlying imbalances, such as issues in the digestive system. They are also
trained to connect the dots between symptoms.
In this case, the person was experiencing gut dysbiosis coupled with histamine intolerance. This common but poorly diagnosed health issue impacts many systems in the body and can cause frequent headaches, a stuffy nose, a racing heart, and digestive problems.
Equally as empowering, you can solve issues like histamine intolerance through lifestyle. By addressing those imbalances in the gut microbiota and eating a low histamine diet, your friend’s symptoms can clear up, and they can reclaim their zest for life again.
We use this example because it shows functional medicine in action. It’s person-centred. It’s science-led and evidence-based. It’s there to help you treat the cause of issues rather than mask the symptoms through medication. Functional medicine is an excellent approach to optimising your health, ensuring you feel in more control of your wellbeing. Every one of these points is important nowadays.
Functional medicine has a broad scope of function. It can help with many symptoms and health issues, such as chronic fatigue, hormonal imbalances, digestive problems, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, cognitive challenges, cardiovascular risk, and aesthetic concerns, such as poor skin, weak hair, and premature ageing.
At The HVN, you have an experienced team of healthcare practitioners with a long history of leveraging functional medicine. We care, want to make a difference in your life, and look forward to hearing from you.
Justin Buckthorp, MSc (Distinction) Personalised Nutrition