What is Functional Medicine???

Functional medicine is a science-based and common-sense field of health care that is grounded in the following principles:

• Recognizing the Biochemical Individuality of each person

• Treating the Causes of Disease rather than focus solely on symptom suppression.

• Being Patient-Centered rather than Disease-Centered
• Acknowledging the Dynamic Balance of external and internal influences on the individual
• Using the Web-like Interconnectedness of Body Systems as a fulcrum for safe and effective customized interventions.
• Remembering Health is a Positive Vitality, not just the absence of disease
• Promoting Organ Reserve as a means to improving a person’s Health Span.

Functional medicine is anchored by an examination of the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions. Those imbalances arise as environmental inputs such as diet, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, and trauma are processed by one’s body, mind, and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs. The fundamental physiological processes include communication, both outside and inside the cell; bioenergetics, or the transformation of food into energy; replication, repair, and maintenance of structural integrity, from the cellular to the whole body level; elimination of waste; protection and defense; and transport and circulation. The core clinical imbalances that arise from malfunctions within this complex system include:

• Hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances
  
• Oxidation-reduction imbalances and mitochondropathy
  
• Detoxification and biotransformational imbalances
  
• Immune imbalances
  
• Inflammatory imbalances
  
• Digestive, absorptive, and microbiological imbalances
  
• Structural imbalances

Imbalances such as these are the precursors to the signs and symptoms by which we detect and label (diagnose) organ system disease. Improving balance – in the patient’s environmental inputs and in the body’s fundamental physiological processes – is the precursor to restoring health and it involves much more than treating the symptoms. Functional medicine is dedicated to improving the management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to address these core clinical imbalances and to restore each patient’s functionality and health. Functional medicine is not a unique and separate body of knowledge. It is grounded in scientific principles and information widely available in medicine today, combining research from various disciplines into highly detailed yet clinically relevant models of disease pathogenesis and effective clinical management.

Functional medicine emphasizes a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Functional medicine uses the patient’s story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the patient’s environmental inputs and his or her physiological function. It is a clinician’s discipline, and it directly addresses the need to transform the practice of primary care.

(modified from the website for the Institute for Functional Medicine http://www.functionalmedicine.org/)