Functional Medicine
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional medicine is a science-based field of healthcare
that is grounded in the following principles:
- Biochemical individuality
- Client-centered care
- Dynamic balance of internal and external factors
- Web-like interconnections of physiological
factors
- Health as a positive vitality
- Promotion of organ reserve
Functional medicine involves examining the core clinical
imbalances that underlie a disease or condition – looking beyond signs and
symptoms to a deeper understanding of functionality. These imbalances arise as environmental
inputs, such as diet and nutrients (including oxygen and water), exercise and trauma are
processed by a client's body, through his or her unique metabolism.
We also keep in mind that literally
everything about that client is also affected by his/her mind, spirit,
attitudes and beliefs. The principles
of functional medicine present a different context for identifying and
understanding these imbalances.
Fundamental physiological processes that support healthy
balance and optimal functioning include:
- Communication (intra- and intercellular)
- Bioenergetics, or the transformation of food
into energy
- Replication and maintenance of structural
integrity, from the cellular to the whole body level
- Elimination of wastes and defence
- Circulation and transport of nutrients in the
body
From a functional medicine standpoint, imbalances in these
processes can lead to changes in many different physiological systems that then
become precursors to the signs and symptoms that we diagnose as organ system
disease.
Approaching clinical nutrition from a functional medicine
perspective also means identifying the core metabolic imbalances that most
often result from system breakdowns at any point. The main categories of metabolic imbalances
include:
- Digestive, absorptive and microbiological
imbalances
- Detoxification and biotransformation imbalances
- Oxidation-reduction imbalances and
mitochondropathies
- Hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances
- Immune imbalances and inflammatory imbalances
- Structural imbalances, from cellular membrane
function to musculoskeletal system
Consider just one example of how the complex system we have
just briefly described can be influenced by nutrition.
We now recognize that several factors affect
the amount of oestrogen that is produced in and flows through a woman’s body at
any given time. In particular, in the
postmenopausal years, oestrogen is no longer produced by the ovaries, but is
still produced in other cells in her body.
- The production of oestrogen by adipose tissue
in post-menopausal women is now understood to be one of the mechanisms linking
obesity and the increased risk of postmenopausal, hormone-dependent cancers.
- Diet
and lifestyle choices that affect adiposity can, therefore, influence the
amount of oestrogen produced in a post-menopausal woman’s body; excess oestrogen,
in turn, can create imbalances that influence the development of many
problematic conditions.
However, we need
to know more than this to be effective with the client.
Science has also recognized that ‘oestrogen’ is more than
just estrone, estriol and estradiol – it is a whole class of molecules that
includes many metabolites of estrone and estradiol.
- Some of these metabolites
are extremely active and have been linked to increased risk of postmenopausal,
hormone-dependent cancers.
- We know that dietary substances, including
some vitamins, can modify how much of these estrogenic
metabolites are made in the body and which ones predominate.
Therefore, diet can influence health in more
ways than just the amount of adipose tissue; it can also affect the balance of
metabolites in the body, and thus we believe it has a key role to play in
hormone-dependent breast cancer prevention.
Data is continuing to accumulate showing that dietary
influences have repercussions on the development of many diseases.
Research is now focusing on how to assess
these imbalances earlier in life, and then readjust the metabolic balance to
decrease the risk those conditions and diseases pose to the well-being and
quality of life for all of us.
As this brief introduction demonstrates, nutrition is one of
the key environmental inputs that can be reviewed and modified
to support optimal health and function.
