Functional Medicine Treats the Whole Person

I’ve mentioned the science of functional medicine in prior posts but I wanted to highlight some some specific differences between this approach and that of conventional medicine.

1. Functional medicine can offer real solutions to health conditions rather than only symptomatic relief. Pharmaceutical representatives, who regularly visit MDs to educate them about their latest products, heavily influence physicians’ practices. The result of the relationship between pharma and medicine is that medicine as a whole is concerned less and less with treatments outside of the pharmacological/surgical model.

2. Functional medicine sees the patient as a whole person, not the sum of his or her diseases. The current healthcare model is to prescribe a “pill for every ill”. The true nature of the patient’s health status—their lifestyle, correlations between symptoms and subtle imbalances in body processes—is often not appreciated.

3. Functional medicine recognizes the health impact of preventive measures. In conventional medicine “prevention” often falls under the rubric of early detection. This way of thinking—promoted by HMOs and big pharma—overly simplifies the scope of preventive methods and leaves out alternatives to cost-driven healthcare. As a result, MDs aren’t encouraged to learn alternative methods and they have limited opportunities to provide patients with real preventive education other than “watch your diet and remember to exercise”.

4. Functional medicine promotes specialized, holistic training. Medical schools do not typically encourage thinking outside the pharmacological model. Doctors are trained to look at a patient as a symptom but each symptom could be caused by a number of different factors and patterns specific to the patient. A holistic approach can keep patients off medications or help those medications work more effectively.

I’ve written several posts on the approach of functional medicine to heartburn and thyroid problems (please use the search box to see the various posts). If you would like more information on a certain condition feel free to email me at info@betterbodysolutions.com.