What is Functional Medicine? What Does It Do to Our Body?

The global pandemic has made health and safety everyone's priority more than ever. Many people are now genuinely concerned about staying healthy and avoiding getting sick when everyone around them is. This opens many opportunities for people to branch out the standard norms in medicine.

Some were changing drastically, while others added more to the list. Some people are now dabbling in herbal medicines. Others see Oriental medicine as a great way to strengthen their immune systems and prevent them from catching any viruses aside from the coronavirus. More people are also paying attention to their lifestyles.

Functional medicine works that way. Many people might not have heard of this term before, but they are already doing it ages ago. Let's give functional medicine a name and a platform to talk about how it works, what it can do to our bodies, and how we can do it in a balanced manner.

What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine is a branch of alternative medicine that looks into living organisms' functional and physiological aspects instead of focusing on curing diseases. It aims to eliminate the root cause of disease by looking at what can be improved in their lifestyles or environment, rather than just treating them with medication when they get sick.

It is also called functionalism or functional holism. So far, there's no known way for functional holism to cure diseases directly. Still, some conditions such as allergies and breast cancer have allegedly improved when functional holism becomes part of one's lifestyle. There are more than 80 symptoms or conditions that functional medicine or functionalism can help with.

The goal is to promote optimal health and prevent diseases, not just treating the symptoms that appear, as functionalists see it as a holistic approach instead of a reductionist approach which traditional medicine adheres to.

How Does Functional Medicine Work?

Functional medicine works by first diagnosing the patient based on their medical history, physical exam, and blood examinations from tests such as functional exams through laboratory testing according to functional systems to diagnose the patient's condition.

Then functionalists follow these processes: doing an assessment that considers various biological function systems, creating treatment plans and making changes based on what they found during their diagnosis evaluations, providing education about medications and treatments, then monitoring the patient's progress carefully.

What are the Benefits of Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine is seen as an alternative to traditional allopathic treatments since functionalism looks into the root cause of diseases, not just treating them with medications when they come up.

Patients who have functional disorders are observed closely by functionalists before making any changes to their lifestyle. This helps prevent functionalists from causing unwanted side effects on their patients' conditions when prescribing medication.

Eating right and exercising regularly is one way for everyone to make sure that they can achieve optimal health in gaining better immunity against illnesses rather than saying "I don't want to get sick," which doesn't do anything at all compared to these two factors on how functional medicine works.

Many functional medicine doctors can help with functionalism, and most functionalists have a degree in functional health care from one of the many functional health care schools. More than 40 functional health care schools in North America alone teach their curriculum on functional health care for patients with functional disorders.

This is just one of the many other options that people nowadays have to treat chronic or severe conditions without going for allopathic treatments.

What are the Disadvantages of Functional Medicine?

Doctors who specialize in functional medicine or functionalism may encounter a lot of criticism from other doctors who disagree with functionalism as a whole and because functionalism looks deeper into the root causes of functional disorders, unlike traditional medicine, where symptoms come first before coming up with an exact diagnosis.

Since functionalists use practice exams to diagnose their patients differently from traditional methods used by mainstream doctors, there might be some drawbacks that functionalists will need to face regarding these issues. And since functionalists also use laboratory testing on patients' blood samples to come up with a diagnosis, there could also be problems when it comes to insurance coverage if not prepared beforehand.

In addition, functionalists also need functional health care for their patients, which is seen as a disadvantage since functionalism is seen as an alternative type of medicine.

What Does Functional Medicine Treat?

Functional medicine treats symptoms from digestive problems, fatigue, weight gain, and other metabolic issues that traditional methods can't treat or simply won't.

Patients who have chronic functional disorders that refuse to go away with traditional treatments should consider going functional instead without worrying about any side effects since functionalists do not use harmful medications when it comes to treatment, unlike allopathic doctors being criticized for prescribing such drugs as antibiotics and such.

Functionalism advocates that what you put inside your body affects how functional mechanisms work inside your system to ensure optimal health is achieved. Nutrition and functional exercises are good ways to start functionalism in functional medicine.

Functional medicine can also help you lose weight once unhealthy eating habits have been changed to functionalist, healthy ones instead.

How is Functional Medicine Unique?

Functional medicine is unique since functionalism takes a look at how metabolism affects health, unlike mainstream methods that focus on the treatment of symptoms, especially when it comes down to chronic functional disorders that refuse to go away or stay away despite being treated with traditional methods for years now with no improvements whatsoever.

Traditional doctors mostly watch out for their patients' safety by prescribing them medications - not side effect free, but still safer than going functional in terms of available treatments even though the latter treats functional disorder symptoms not by the use of medications, but functionalism still holds a big risk when it comes to available treatments.

Functional Health Care for Patients with Functional Disorders

Functional health care for patients with functional disorders is one way to go about functional medicine since functional medicine helps treat functional disorder symptoms rather than watch out for your safety from side effects that come from allopathic drugs being used as functional treatment methods.

In addition, there are also other functionalist treatments such as using functional therapies and functional exercises which allow you to lose weight or maintain an optimal weight without having to worry about any side effects seen in traditional methods and mainstream medicine where fat blockers and weight loss through harmful prescriptions medication.

Is This The Right One For Me?

This might be the right one for functional sufferers who prefer functional medicine as their functional treatment method instead of going allopathic or functionalist to treat functional disorder symptoms.

People might see this functional treatment method as a disadvantage since available health care plans do not cover functionalists. Before trying this out for yourself, make sure to consult your healthcare provider because this might affect your other body functions.

Final Thoughts

Functional medicine is indeed a great way to treat functional disorder symptoms. It is unique because it looks at how metabolism affects health, unlike mainstream methods that focus on treating symptoms. Functional medicine also helps you lose weight without worrying about any side effects.

Functionalism treatment methods such as functional therapies and functional exercises, however, may impact other body functions. Thus, you must consult your doctor before diving deep into this one.

The Waco Center for Functional Medicine has dedicated a lot of time, effort, and people to perfect the science of functional medicine to help people of all ages treat any diseases plaguing them and improve their lifestyles for the better. With the people at the Waco Center for Functional Medicine, you can be sure that you are on the right path.