What is functional medicine
Functional Medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centred focus of medical practice to a more patient-centred approach, Functional Medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional Medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, Functional Medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
How Functional Medicine Changes the Way We do Medicine:
Functional Medicine offers a powerful new operating system and clinical model for assessment, treatment, and prevention of chronic disease to replace the outdated and ineffective acute-care models carried forward from the 20th century.
Functional Medicine incorporates the latest in genetic science, systems biology, and understanding of how environmental and lifestyle factors influence the emergence and progression of disease.
Functional Medicine enables physicians and other health professionals to practice proactive, predictive, personalized medicine and empowers patients to take an active role in their own health.
Functional Medicine is guided by six core principles:
An understanding of the biochemical individuality of each human being, based on the concepts of genetic and environmental uniqueness;
Awareness of the evidence that supports a patient-centred rather than a disease-centred approach to treatment;
Search for a dynamic balance among the internal and external body, mind, and spirit;
Interconnections of internal physiological factors;
Identification of health as a positive vitality, not merely the absence of disease, and emphasizing those factors that encourage the enhancement of a vigorous physiology;
Promotion of organ reserve as the means to enhance the health span, not just the life span, of each patient. more from Institute of functional medicine
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