Functional Medicine, is a science-based field of health care, grounded on the principles of biochemical individuality, patient-centered care, the dynamic balance of health processes rather than health and disease as a sudden fixed event, health as a positive vitality, promotion of organ reserve, and that the human body functions as a network of interconnected systems rather than individual systems functioning autonomously.
Functional Medicine is anchored by evaluation of core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions. The core imbalances are environmental inputs, such as diet, nutrients, air and water, influenced by micro-organisms, radiation, physical exercise and trauma, with social-relational-spiritual factors also having an influence. The fundamental physiologic processes, such as communication inside the cells and between cells, bioenergetics, replication and repair, elimination of waste, protection and immune defense, and circulation can be altered by core clinical imbalances. Left unresolved, impaired fundamental physiologic processes lead to fundamental clinical imbalances, for example, hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances, detoxification imbalances and digestive/absorptive imbalances. Imbalances such as these are the precursors to the signs and symptoms by which we detect and label (diagnose) organ system disease.
Functional Medicine is dedicated to objective assessment, through traditional and physiologic laboratory testing, of altered physiologic processes which lead to diagnosable diseases. The practice of Functional Health Care is to intervene at multiple levels in the altered physiologic processes so as to “steer” those altered processes back to balance on the “road” towards health!
Functional Health Care focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Working in partnership with a trained Functional Medicine practitioner, patients make dietary and activity changes that, when combined with nutrients and nutraceuticals targeted to specific functional needs, allow them to truly be in charge of improving their own health and changing the outcome of disease.
