Ask The Nature Doc

The best way to describe functional medicine is to contrast it with conventional medicine. It is not a completely fair comparison because I am presenting the best case for functional medicine and, in some ways, the worst case for conventional medicine. As I stated earlier, conventional medicine has some amazing characteristics. It is remarkable in terms of trauma and emergency medicine and acute care. But I think we can all agree that it is not very good at treating chronic disease, which is the number-one problem that we face today. Functional medicine differs from conventional medicine in six important ways:

1. Functional medicine is investigative

Functional medicine treats symptoms by addressing the root of the problem, which leads to more profound and longer-lasting results. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, tends to be more superficial. It masks or suppresses symptoms but does not address the underlying cause, and this tends to create patients for life. For example, if you have high blood pressure, you get on a drug to lower it, and you’re basically told to take that for the rest of your life. The same is true for high cholesterol.

2. Functional medicine is more holistic

Functional medicine treats the body as an interconnected whole, and practitioners recognize that in order to treat one part, all other parts must be addressed. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, is more dualistic. It views the body as a collection of separate parts. In fact, there’s a doctor for every different part of the body, and there is often very little communication between these doctors or even acknowledgement of a connection.

3. Functional medicine is safer

Treatments in functional medicine typically have fewer side effects, risks, or complications. Practitioners emphasize diet, lifestyle, supplements, and herbs, and unrelated complaints often will improve spontaneously in treatment. Conventional medicine tends to be more dangerous. Drugs and surgery can have serious side effects and complications, including death, and this is evidenced by the fact that medical care, as we discussed earlier, is either the third-leading or the leading cause of death.

4. Functional medicine is patient-centered

This means that practitioners treat the patient and not the disease. We recognize the individuality of the patient, and we know that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. In fact, patients with the same condition, for example, ulcerative colitis, may get a completely different treatment based on the particular etiology or pathogenesis of their condition. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, tends to be more disease-centered. It treats the disease and not the patient, and patients with the same disease will often get the same treatment despite differences in their presentation. In functional medicine, the patient is respected, empowered, educated, and encouraged to play an active role in his or her healing process. In conventional medicine, the patient’s opinion is often discounted or ignored, and little time is spent on education. In some cases, the patient is even actively discouraged to play a strong role in the healing process.

5. Functional medicine is integrative

Functional medicine combines the best of allopathic and alternative treatments. It doesn’t exclude drugs and surgery when they’re necessary, but it does tend to focus more on diet, lifestyle, supplements, and herbs as the primary interventions. Conventional medicine is more limited in its scope. It typically relies almost exclusively on drugs and surgery, despite risks. While it does pay some lip service to the importance of nutrition and lifestyle, physicians are under educated on these topics and often don’t have much time to devote to them in the typical patient interaction.

6. Functional medicine is preventative

Functional medicine is guided by the ancient Chinese proverb, “The superb physician treats disease before it occurs.” Conventional medicine, on the other hand, tends to be a little more reactive. It aims to manage disease after it occurs and often doesn’t intervene until disease has progressed beyond a certain point of no return.