When I was in medical training one of the professors said that 50% of what we learned would be obsolete in 5 years. He knew what he was talking about. The practice of medicine is ever-changing as new knowledge and research become available. One of the more recent trends is to embrace more of a holistic and integrative medical paradigm because the current system is failing so many people. Functional Medicine is a model for providing care that sees each patient as an individual person and focuses on getting to the root causes of your problems, rather than the current model of focusing on the disease and treating the symptoms.
Many chronic medical conditions develop over decades of poor eating, lack of exercise, poor sleep, and chronic stress. We have not been taught how important those factors are for maintaining our health. Life seems to get busier each year and we are pushed in front of a computer or smartphone, with less and less movement in our lives. We are bombarded with thousands of food dyes, preservatives, pesticides, ever increasing hidden sugars, and decreasing nutrition in our food. The effects of all this gradually takes a toll on our health.
The incidence of chronic, degenerative diseases, like diabetes, dementia, and autoimmune diseases is on the rise. Fortunately, this is being recognized and there are things you can do to combat this as you take control of our own health under the guidance of a well-trained provider. The aging process can be slowed and many diseases or conditions can be avoided or decreased.
How Functional Medicine Works
Functional medicine is a systematic, scientific approach, based on the latest research and on best medical practices, that focuses on the individuality of the patient and looks for the root causes of illness. The provider and patient are in a partnership to pursue optimal health for you. Both conventional and alternative treatments may be used. Many alternative or holistic treatments have been disparaged by the modern medical world, but Functional Medicine seeks out the best of these treatments, the ones rooted in long historical evidence and backed by scientific research. Let me explain these tenants in more detail.
Each Person Is Unique
In Functional Medicine, you are seen as an individual with physical, mental, and spiritual components making up the whole. Each of us has a unique history that has led us to our current state of health. We are each unique in our:
- Genetic makeup
- Exposures to infections
- Social history
- Intestinal flora (the gut microbiome)
- Season of life
- Immune system
- Worldview
- Physical environment
- And more…
All of these factors can affect your current health and how you handle what comes your way. Core lifestyle issues like sleep, stress, exercise, relationships, and nutrition will be explored and recommendations for change will be based on what your problems are and what will help promote optimal health. Functional Medicine also dives deeper into each person’s individuality by doing a thorough history and laboratory testing and other exams needed to get to the root of your specific issues.
Provider-Patient Partnership
In Functional Medicine, your provider and you develop a partnership to work together to improve your health and well-being. Your concerns are thoroughly listened to and addressed. The provider helps you to understand the impact of various choices, such as diet. Food is considered a medical treatment, often with very good outcomes. Compliance with the plan is aided by education and coaching as needed. Helping you to see the bigger picture puts these choices into perspective.
Different Root Causes, Same Symptom
There can be many different causes of the same symptom. For example, consider depression. In one person it is related to chronic stress, in another, it may be due to hypothyroidism, or alcoholism, or gluten intolerance, or low vitamin D, or hormone imbalance, or many other causes. In contrast, today’s modern medicine strives to have a more industrialized approach by finding your disease label and then putting you on a prescribed course of care. I compare this to putting you in the right box, so you can be put on an 
assembly line of treatment. The depressed person would simply be put on an antidepressant and may be referred for some counseling. The underlying cause may not be looked for.
Many conditions don’t fit nicely into a diagnosis box and if you are put into the wrong box, you can get useless and possibly harmful treatments. But by considering your individuality and looking at many possible underlying causes, the treatment can be tailored to the individual and changed over time as needed. Addressing the root causes often has further benefits in addition to treating the original symptom, whereas treating to mask symptoms allows the underlying deficiency or problem to continue the dysfunction that may cause more problems down the road.
Functional Medicine Excels For Care Of Chronic Conditions
The current modern medical model is designed for acute health conditions such as pneumonia or Strep throat, where the condition is diagnosed and the right antibiotic given in a timely manner. This can save lives
. Heart attacks are an example where having a well thought out protocol can save time and improve survival. But what if yo
ur condition is chronic and does not have a single cause and may come from poor diet, lack of exercise, or chronic stress. Functional Medicine shines when it comes to the chronic problems with multiple factors at the roots.
For example, if you are suffering because of food allergies or chronic mold exposure, the symptoms can be nonspecific to the untrained eye, Maybe add some specific symptoms yet the patient can be suffering and their health declining. Natural treatments that are safer, such as removing the offending allergens, calming the adrenals with herbs, or learning to meditate, or many more tools and treatments can help many conditions that modern medicine struggles with.
In Functional Medicine, we use the best of both worlds, the natural and the medical. Many chronic conditions can be headed off and prevented. When a provider is looking for signs that indicate a deviation from optimal health, early intervention can keep a condition from developing into a full-blown problem. In conventional medicine, you cannot be labeled until you meet the criteria for the disease box, which is usually when it’s gotten so bad you are experiencing significant symptoms.
Autoimmune disease is a good example where immune dysfunction can be picked up earlier and treated with diet and lifestyle modifications. For example, currently, it can take years of symptoms before a person meets enough criteria to be diagnosed with Lupus. By then, the disease process has caused damage to organs and the treatments that are used are damaging to the immune system, opening up the body to further risks. In Functional Medicine, there is no need to wait for years. The underlying dysfunction can be addressed and corrected before organ damage is permanent in many cases.
Science-Based Health Care
It currently takes many years, sometimes decades for the practice of medicine to catch up to the current
research. Many promising treatments are not studied because there is not a lot of profit to be made, so there is no funding for the research. Fortunately, many other countries conduct such research and our own National Institutes of Health has been funding some of this more recently.
Much of Functional Medicine is rooted in basic physiology and biochemistry, combined with the latest research. These open minded providers are also not afraid to test and prove the worth of time honored therapies when evidence supports them. The toolbox of the provider is greatly expanded when able to use all the current modern therapies, along with natural treatments.
The doctor can utilize both herbal and drug therapies, as well as
- dietary changes
- exercise
- lifestyle coaching
- bioidentical hormone replacement
- stress management
- supplemental vitamins
- minerals
- phytonutrients
- detoxification
- physical modalities
- and more…
Many of these tools are available to modern providers, but are underutilized, such as counseling, health coaching, meditation, physical therapy, sleep hygiene, vitamins, and minerals.
How Did We Get Such A Limited Toolbox?
In the past century, a dichotomy of philosophies developed in medicine. Prior to 1900, even though the science was rapidly expanding in knowledge, there was also a respect for time honored knowledge of herbal medicines and other natural practices. In the early 1900’s, the American Medical Association decided that medical education was not consistent and formed a council to study the problem. They decided an accurate survey of all the medical training institutions in the United States was needed. They, in turn, asked the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to conduct this survey. Abraham Flexner, a German-born educator, was hired. In 1910, they published the Flexner report.(1)
This report had a profound effect on medical education. Flexner highly valued the German scientific style and praised Johns Hopkins Medical School and a few others, while condemning other teaching institutions he considered less scientific. With the help of large grants from Carnegie and Rockefeller, the face of medical education was radically changed as many schools were shut down and new ones created under the guidance of this report. A few osteopathic schools managed to survive by adapting, but schools not associated with universities were mostly shut down within a decade or two. Practitioners who still used herbal remedies or other natural healing methods were largely labeled as quacks and discredited as unscientific.
This had some benefits in helping to make sure all doctors were adequately trained and schooled in the basic sciences required. But it also introduced a narrowing of the healing perspective. Being an oil man, Rockefeller encouraged the use of pharmaceutical agents, often made from petroleum, over herbal medicine. Over time, aided by other wealthy vested interests, the limited view we see today developed. When the tools are limited to drugs, surgeries, and only a scattered handful of other treatments, you are at increased risk. Dying from medical treatments is now the third leading cause of death in the United States.(2)
Full Circle
Today, Functional Medicine is bringing us back to a broader view that can embrace many types of treatments as long as they have proven merit. This allows better outcomes, less toxicity, and better patient satisfaction. It often reduces the overall cost of medical care and helps you to be more responsible for your own health by educating you in the importance of lifestyle choices. One forward looking institution, the Cleveland Clinic, has now developed a department of Functional Medicine. They 
are running studies on comparing the two treatment models on certain conditions, looking at outcomes, costs, and patient satisfaction.
I believe this will be the medicine of the future for several reasons. Patients are seeking a different approach and are very open to natural treatments, and patient satisfaction is high with Functional Medicine. The rising cost of medicine is unsustainable, and Functional Medicine offers a viable alternative model to help control the cost. More than ever, the science is supporting this return to the biochemistry of the cell. Common cellular pathways cause some simple interventions to be very powerful in several different conditions.
This broader view means all the body systems can benefit, rather than putting up with toxicity from a very expensive drug that is usually interfering with a natural pathway, rather than supporting your body’s natural function.
For example, bioidentical hormone replacement in an appropriate menopausal woman can save thousands of dollars by decreasing fractures from osteoporosis, delaying long-term care for dementia or arthritis, and keeping you in the workforce longer. You can remain happy, healthy, and productive which is of great value to you, your family, and to society. Functional Medicine can save lives and dollars for the healthcare system.
If you haven’t checked out Functional Medicine yet, consider getting more information at www.ifm.org.
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