So what are Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine, and how can it help you if you are chronically ill? Though it’s been around for 30-some-odd years, and it’s been growing by leaps and bounds in the last few years, the average person doesn’t know what Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine is. Even people I would expect to be in the know are confused about what it is.
Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine are an emerging holistic health care approach that will likely become a default part of the medical system within the next 5 years.
Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine provide the kind of care that a growing number of chronically ill people with confusing health problems need to get better. It is also valuable for everyone else.
There are three fundamental principles of Functional Nutrition
1. Work to uncover the root causes of health challenges and address them at the source
Conventional treatment, though sometimes necessary, usually doesn’t try to uncover the why behind a symptom or diagnosis. You go to the doctor to get a diagnosis and maybe a prescription or other treatment. Though diagnoses are important, and can properly frame the problem, the challenge is that they are simply a label, and standard treatments do not necessarily lead to remission.
Functional Nutrition and Medicine practitioners help you dig through your case details to help identify the probable sources of your health distress.
Once the sources are identified, your practitioner helps you create a plan to remove the root causes, so your body can heal. In Functional Nutrition, this plan may include diet changes, shifts in sleep and exercise habits, stress reduction techniques, supplements to correct deficiencies, use of functional lab tests, and referral to additional practitioners.
If this work isn’t done, the situation that created the problem in the first place is likely to continue. You may need treatments and therapies to deal with symptoms forever, while never getting any closer to resolution. Does this sound a little like a hamster wheel?
2. Use tools and frameworks to clearly identify problems and possible solutions
There are many variables at play in your life that are affecting your health, but it can be overwhelming to organize these details, and to decide what the best path forward should be.
As my own chronic illness case unfolded, I had a file full of test results, food journals, forms I had filled out at doctor’s offices, notes from conversations I had with health providers, and more. I know many of you also have “the file”.
I also tried a lot of natural treatment protocols and diets that I thought might help, based on my symptoms. I would haphazardly add and subtract things from my life on a dime.
The trouble with this shotgun approach is that though you might get lucky, you’re mostly shooting in the dark. If you don’t have a systematic way to evaluate what you’re doing, or you don’t know how your signs and symptoms fit together in the whole, you’re truly flying blind.
In Functional Nutrition, we use tools, systems, and frameworks rather than protocols to help organize all the information that is relevant to your case. The tools show us where our efforts will be most useful, and track the metrics that matter. Using this information, we continue adapting your action plan so it fits with what works for your body.
3. Honor clients and patients as truly unique and “bioindividual” people, discover what’s true for the individual, and tailor recommendations to those people.
If ten of you have heart disease, you are likely to get very similar prescriptions for treatment. Statins. A Mediterranean diet. Maybe blood pressure medication. Quit smoking. Get exercise.
The trouble is, the root causes of the heart disease is different and unique for each of the ten people. For some it might be diet related, for others stress, and for others still, it may have to do with genetics or something else entirely.
And because we know heart disease is largely driven by lifestyle factors, resolving the root causes will require lifestyle shifts. Yet what a person is capable of changing, and how fast they can change it will be unique to each individual.
In Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine, we acknowledge, fundamentally, that each client or patient is unique, and needs a unique and tailored prescription of care. Not only this, but whatever solutions we offer must fit with the client’s lifestyle, and be able to be sustained, or no real change will be possible.
Functional Nutrition uniquely fills a gap in conventional as well as Functional Medicine care. Certainly, we need doctors and hospitals, and they are experts at diagnosing and treating life-threatening, emergency, and pathological illnesses.
Yet there is a growing population of people who are sick, and need more high-touch, one-on-one, expert support care than doctors offer to restore their health. They need more frequent help and guidance, and help linking their behaviors and habits with the results they want to see.
And the truth is that most of these people are chronically ill with complex health conditions or overlapping and multiple diagnoses. According to the CDC, current statistics are 1 in 2 Americans has a chronic disease, while 1 in 4 has multiple chronic diseases.
If you are one of these chronically ill people with confusing health challenges, and you want root-cause resolution and restored function, then Functional Nutrition and Functional Medicine may be a good fit for you.
A Functional Nutrition Practitioner can help you do the detective work on your case to uncover YOUR root causes, and create a plan to restore your health, or manage your diagnosis long-term in the best possible way with the most quality of life.
Where to Find A Functional Nutrition or Functional Medicine Practitioner
There are several places to find a Functional Nutrition Practitioner or Functional Medicine Doctor. Many Functional practitioners work online, and may be able to help you even if you don’t live near them. Try these links to practitioner directories:
Functional Diagnostic Nutrition
Institute for Functional Medicine
Learn about how to work with Amanda as your Functional Nutrition Coach.
Have you tried to create root-cause resolution with your own chronic illness or complex health challenge? Share about your experience below!
Want to see what it would look like to apply Functional Nutrition to your own health challenge? Grab a free copy of Roadmap to Recovery: How to Get Beyond Your Symptoms and Create A Personalized Plan to Restore Your Health. It’s got easy action steps to get started, and you’ll get my favorite tool as a bonus in one of my follow up emails.
