The Functional Medicine Approach

Functional medicine shifts the focus from just managing symptoms toward ways to cultivate better health so that patients can live healthier, more vibrant lives.

The functional medicine approach is based on a deep understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the body and focuses on the root causes of illness. Conventional medicine is a disease-centered focus to chronic illness. It focuses on a set of symptoms or a diagnosis, and then tries to suppress these symptoms with medication or surgery. In functional medicine, we work to understand the drivers of your illness, looking at such interactions as lifestyle, environmental and genetic influences to long-term health and how these contribute to the development of complex, chronic disease. 

In conjunction to working with your health coach, a comprehensive lab evaluation will be done. We will use these biomarkers to identify areas of imbalance and use them to monitor your progress in the healing journey.

We also sometimes use functional tests (such as GI MAP and DUTCH testing) to look at the state of your digestion, hormones, adrenal glands and nutrition to gain a deeper understanding of the imbalances within these systems to target our approach. 

Treatment plans focus heavily on adapting lifestyle measures in order to optimize digestive health, nutrition, hormones and adrenal/nervous system balance. 

Recommendations and treatment strategies are highly individualized and are meant to meet each person’s needs, no matter where they are in their health journey. Your care plan will include recommendations to a health coach or dietitian, specific lifestyle modification, specific food plans tailored to your needs, and tailored nutraceutical recommendations.