As a functional medicine practitioner and member of the Institute for Functional Medicine I often get asked what it actually is? Here are some basic principles explaining it.
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Functional Medicine views us all as being different; genetically and biochemically unique. This personalised health care treats the individual, not the disease. It supports the normal healing mechanisms of the body, naturally, rather than attacking disease directly.
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Functional Medicine is deeply science based. The latest research shows us that what happens within us is connected in a complicated network or web of relationships. Understanding those relationships allows us to see deep into the functioning of the body.
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Your body is intelligent and has the capacity for self-regulation, which expresses itself through a dynamic balance of all your body systems.
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Your body has the ability to heal and prevent nearly all the diseases of ageing.
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Health is not just the absence of disease, but a state of immense vitality.
Here lies the clear distinction and definition of Functional Medicine. Instead of asking, “What drug matches up with this disease?” Functional Medicine asks the vital questions that very few conventional doctors ask: “Why do you have this problem in the first place?” and “Why has function been lost?” and “What can we do to restore function?” In other words, Functional Medicine looks to find the root cause or mechanism involved with any loss of function, which ultimately reveals why a set of symptoms is the in the first place, or why the patient has a particular disease label.
