What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine is gaining more and more traction in the popular press. But what is it exactly? More importantly, can it be of help for your condition?

If you’ve already visited doctors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, specialists, and even shamans or energy healers, functional medicine may be the perfect system to assist you in regaining your health.

Calgary has a vast selection of conventional and alternative health providers. But have you heard of functional medicine before?

Functional medicine is a new vision for healthcare. Some circles would go so far as to call it a movement. Below, I go into detail describing what exactly functional medicine is and where you can find a functional medicine provider in the Calgary area.

What is functional medicine?

The best way to describe functional medicine is to contrast it with conventional (Western) medicine.

In conventional medicine, there’s a doctor for every part of your body: cardiologists for the heart, gastroenterologists for the digestive system, neurologists for the brain and nervous system, podiatrists for your feet, and ophthalmologists for your eyes. This compartmentalization of medical skillsets breaks our body down into specific categories or systems.

The problem is our body’s systems don’t work in separation. You can’t treat one system without affecting another. When we focus on one system without considering its effect on the others, we lose sight of, or, neglect to look at the whole person. Remember, to understand complex or chronic illness, one needs to view the body as an interconnected whole.

In conventional, or Western medicine, symptoms are identified in order to name a disease and then find a corresponding drug to treat that symptom. In functional medicine, the body is seen as an interconnected whole. You can’t treat one system without affecting the others. This whole body or connected approach is foundational to functional medicine.

Functional medicine recognizes that in order to treat one part of the body, all other parts must also be considered. This breaks apart the artificial divisions of the body. There are not functional medicine practitioners for the heart, digestive tract, or brain. Instead, it is best to think of functional medicine practitioners as “super generalists”. This general or big picture perspective is what gives functional medicine its strength.

Functional medicine looks at underlying phenomena that occur across specialties in order to understand the root cause of disease and find the right tools, at the right time, individualized for each person.

What’s the difference between functional and conventional medicine?

The table below compares seven key distinctions between functional and conventional medicine.

FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

Health-oriented Disease-oriented Patient-centered Doctor-centered Individuality Everyone is treated the same way Holistic Specialized Cost Effective Expensive Looks at underlying causes of disease Diagnosis based on symptoms Preventative approach Early detection of disease

Does Canada need functional medicine?

This is a valid question. When compared to their American peers, Canadians will generally classify themselves as healthy. Unfortunately, the statistics don’t agree with the typical Canadian’s rosy outlook. Consider the following Canadian health statistics:

• More than one in five Canadian adults live with one of the following chronic diseases: (1)
• Cardiovascular disease
• Cancer
• Chronic respiratory disease
• Diabetes
• One in 25 Canadian adults aged 20 years and older reported having a mood and anxiety disorder and at least one of the four major chronic diseases. (2)
• Approximately four in five Canadian adults have at least one modifiable risk factor for chronic disease (self-reported tobacco smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating and harmful use of alcohol). (3)
• Physical inactivity, sedentary behaviors, and obesity rates remain high, especially among children and youth. (4)
• More than 90% of Canadian children are not meeting current physical activity guidelines in Canada
• Canada ranks amongst the worst of OECD countries for adult obesity rates. (5)
• The number of prevalent cases for diagnosed diabetes is projected to be over four million people by 2020. (6)

More alarming than these statistics, the majority of chronic illness is a preventable, lifestyle illness. Meaning that you have more control than you may think over your health. Take autoimmune diseases, for example, these are rarely present in developing countries. It’s a first world illness. The cause? Lifestyle factors — the food we eat, the toxins we’re exposed to, our stress levels, etc. For more information on autoimmune disease, please see this post.

When did your medical doctor last recommend diet and lifestyle changes? And if she did, were you given the support needed to make these changes? This is the gap functional medicine fills. Functional medicine recognizes the connection between our lifestyle and chronic illness.

The system of medicine practiced by most physicians is oriented toward acute care, the diagnosis, and treatment of trauma, or illness that is of short duration and in need of urgent care, such as a heart attack or a broken leg. Physicians apply specific, prescribed treatments such as drugs or surgery that aim to treat the immediate problem or symptom.

Unfortunately, the acute-care approach to medicine is ill-equipped to address complex, chronic disease. In most cases, the model does not take into account the unique genetic makeup of each individual and does not allow time for exploring the aspects of today’s lifestyle that have a direct influence on the rise in chronic disease in modern Western society.

How long was your last doctor visit?
The latest research suggests it was probably 15 minutes. Of that 15 minutes, you likely talked for about 5 minutes. And the doctor talked for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes was spent on your most pressing issue. While secondary concerns were likely talked about for only 1 minute. (7) Chronic illness has many variables and lots of moving parts. How can one uncover critical environmental stressors such as diet, sleep, exercise, or exposure to toxins in that amount of time?

This is not the fault of the physician. This problem is much wider reaching. It illustrates how the system itself is not positioned to deal with chronic illness. As a result, most physicians are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease, nor to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet, and exercise to both treat and prevent these illnesses in their patients.

Functional Medicine is a different approach, with methodology and tools that are specifically designed to prevent and treat chronic diseases. (8)

How does functional medicine address chronic illness?

Let’s use fibromyalgia as an example. After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, conventional or Western medicine will follow the traditional pharmacologic treatment paradigm. This begins with the use of simple painkillers. Other pharmacologic treatments including other antidepressants, gabapentinoids, opioids, dopaminergic agents and sleep aids are now also commonly used. (9)

This stacking of medication will continue until the patient has some level of pain relief. Often, other medications will need to be prescribed to help combat the side-effects of the pain-relieving medication. Does this sound like a long-term solution to you?

Functional medicine looks to the root-cause of fibromyalgia. A practitioner will typically start with diet and lifestyle strategies. Identifying potential food allergies and adding in stress reduction or meditation practices. Fibromyalgia patients have shown to have a higher prevalence of gut issues and gluten sensitivities. (10, 11) The simple removal of gluten in these patients results in a great reduction of symptoms.

If a fibromyalgia patient simply had an undiagnosed gluten sensitivity, this would be missed by conventional medicine. Functional medicine looks at the environmental factors that could be contributing towards the illness. Sometimes this is as simple as the food consumed. Other times, it could be heavy metal exposures, gut infections, or hormone imbalances.

Functional medicine takes a 30,000-foot view of illness. It looks to see how our environment — the food we eat, our stressors, toxic exposures, etc — interacts with our body. Conventional medicine zooms in; looking for bacteria, viruses, infections etc. that could be causing the symptoms.

Who should see a functional medicine practitioner?

As I mentioned earlier in the post, functional medicine is well positioned to deal with chronic illness. Initial appointments with functional medicine practitioners are typically 1–2 hours. This thorough history helps the practitioner identify where and when your body may have initially been

Much like primary care physicians, functional medicine practitioners likely have interest and specific knowledge or skills in certain areas. At Flourish Clinic, we specialize in the gut, fatigue, fibromyalgia, and gluten-related disorders. Other practitioner’s knowledge base likely lies in other areas.

Regardless of the practitioner’s specialty, functional medicine thoroughly investigates how your environment may be causing illness. For many patients, this starts with food. Functional practitioners will look to see how the food you regularly consume may be contributing towards your illness. From there, the treatment and testing options are unique to each case.

In general, functional medicine is well positioned to treat the following conditions:

• Chronic fatigue
• Fibromyalgia and chronic pain
• Thyroid illness
• Adrenal fatigue or HPA-axis dysfunction
• IBS
• Gluten-related disorders
• Insomnia
• Stress-management
• Gut infections
• Anxiety and depression
• Autoimmune diseases
• Hormone imbalances
• Migraines and headaches

If you feel like you’ve tried everything — from conventional to alternative medicines (and maybe even energy medicine) — functional medicine is likely a great fit for you.

How to find a functional medicine practitioner near you

Those practicing functional medicine may be medical doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, or nurses. While each background of study has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, the education your functional medicine practitioner went through is paramount to his understanding.

There are two resources to help you discover well trained functional medicine practitioners:

1. Chris Kresser — The Kresser Institute

• https://kresserinstitute.com/directory/
• Chris is a pioneer in the functional medicine world. His training program is the most thurough and in-depth training program available.

1. The Institute For Functional Medicine

• https://www.ifm.org/find-a-practitioner/
• The IFM set the foundation for functional medicine. They continue to become the leading resource for all things functional medicine.

Ok, now you should have a clear idea of functional medicine and whether it’s a good fit for you.

Please reply in the comments section if you still have any questions about functional medicine!

Originally published at Flourish Clinic.