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Functional Medicine - A Holistic Approach to Cultivating Wellness and Preventing Disease

Functional Medicine is a root-cause approach to cultivating wellness and preventing disease. It takes into consideration your genetics, diet, environment, and lifestyle to help you feel better. You spend at least 1 hour with your practitioner on your initial consult, which is a lot different from the 7 minutes you’re given in a conventional doctor’s office.

Why wait until you’re sick to do something about your health?

Functional medicine practitioners take the time to assess your unique body, history and lifestyle. They look for the root cause of your issues and then build a comprehensive treatment plan that is a mix of new technology, holistic, and ancient healing practices. For example, instead of just treating your severe high blood pressure with pharmaceuticals, they may prescribe a diet and lifestyle that can reverse the condition and phase you off of medication entirely. This is a much more cost-effective approach than simply masking your symptoms with drugs. They also review optimal lab values yearly to spot trends and prevent chronic debilitating disease.

It’s not about pills

If you’re diagnosed with a disease in conventional medicine, it’s likely you’ll be given pills to help treat the symptoms. However, what if that medication doesn’t work for you or causes side effects that are not worth it? A functional practitioner will take a more holistic approach and consider all the factors that affect your health. This includes your diet, activity level, emotional well-being and any environmental exposures you may have had. They will also focus on optimal lab values instead of the typical range that is used in conventional medicine, so they can catch issues early on before they become full-blown diseases.

It’s not about fad diets

Whether you become certified or simply shadow another practitioner, there are many ways to learn functional medicine. The goal is to be able to take time to get to know your patients and their unique health challenges. This allows you to uncover the underlying cause of your patient’s condition. If someone has high blood pressure, a conventional doctor may prescribe a medication to lower it to a safer level in the short term. A functional medicine practitioner would take the time to discover what is causing the high blood pressure and work with a team of nutritionists, health coaches, and other practitioners to address it.

It’s not about taking supplements

The FDA does not approve supplements, but they are often used in functional medicine as part of a holistic treatment plan. Rather than focusing on the symptoms, practitioners take a look at who a patient is outside of the hospital or clinic. This includes assessing their dietary choices, activity level and emotional well-being. Using the Matrix, a tool like a health decoder, functional medicine physicians organize and prioritize the patient’s concerns as elicited from their extensive personal, family and medical history. This allows the clinician to better understand their patient’s unique situation and make the best treatment decisions. This personalized approach is more comprehensive than any one-size-fits-all prescription. But because it requires more frequent testing, it also comes at a higher cost.

It’s not about invasive tests

In functional medicine, practitioners focus on identifying the underlying causes of a health issue. To do this, they spend time collecting a detailed medical history and assessing diet, exercise and lifestyle factors. This includes nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalances and other potential causes of your symptoms. Practitioners also use specialty labs that can assess for these issues. These labs can give a more complete picture than conventional ones that only look at “normal” ranges. This allows them to identify the cause of your health concerns and create a treatment plan to address them. This may include supplements, diet changes and other natural solutions. Using functional labs can also help prevent disease progression.

It’s not about a one-size-fits-all approach

A practitioner may ask questions about your work environment and the toxins you encounter. They’ll also examine your family’s health history. This holistic approach to health allows practitioners to uncover and address underlying issues that cause disease. Functional medicine practitioners also interpret labs differently. Instead of looking at the labs as a diagnosis, they’re viewed as indicators of disease progression and early warning signs. Studies at the Cleveland Clinic have shown that patients treated by a functional medicine practitioner improve their PROMIS quality of life markers significantly more than those treated by a traditional medical doctor. Ultimately, the functional medicine model is the future of healthcare. If you would like to find out more about functional medicine, we recommend BioJourney Health.

BioJourney Health has a mission to empower individuals to take control of their health and embrace life-changing experiences through their services. They uphold values of transparency, integrity, and a relentless pursuit of excellence in all facets of their operations. BioJourney Health was born out of a passion for revolutionizing personal well-being through the lens of genetic exploration and global healthcare. Their commitment to excellence and customer-centric values drives everything that they do. Here you will be able to get Health Risk Assessments – Testing and Medical Treatments. Visit the BioJourney Health website at https://www.biojourney.com to find out more and to book an appointment today!