The concept of functional medicine is not a new-age revolution of medicine. It has been considered the best practice for achieving health and wellness for a very long time.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food -Hippocrates
The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition. – Thomas Edison
Optimum nutrition is the medicine of tomorrow- Dr. Linus Pauling
Until about 3 months ago, I had never heard the term Functional Medicine. I am a doctor of pharmacy, my training has been on medications. I know when to use certain medications, I know how medications work in the body, and I know how medications work with another medication. In other words, I was trained in what a doctor will prescribe you when your body is not working right, is sick, is broken. I learned medicine the same way the medical schools train doctors. We learn about the body when it is healthy and functioning correctly. Then we are taught about each health condition that can happen to the body. We learn about how to deal with each symptom that may arise by using a medication. This is the current model of our health care system.
The problem is, can you really call that healthcare? A pharmaceutical medication can certainly help a symptom or problem by making it “go away”… but the problem isn’t really gone. For example, if you have chronic constipation and take a medication to regulate your bowel movements that will make you less constipated but it does not address the issue in your body that is causing you the symptom of constipation. Maybe it is that your diet is not providing enough fiber to create easy flow in the intestines. Maybe you do not have the right balance of probiotics to properly break down what you are eating. Maybe you are lactose intolerant and need to avoid dairy so your gut can function correctly. This is the thought process of functional medicine. It is the idea of getting to the root cause of why the body is not functioning. I was recently listening to a podcast on which the doctor speaking gave the greatest break down of the difference between traditional western medicine and functional medicine. She put it like this: As doctors, we are taught about the healthy body (anatomy) and the sick body (pathology) but not about how the body goes from healthy to sick and how to reverse that process so the body can return to health. Healing the body and returning it to a state of health is functional medicine.
Hearing this made me shout YES in my car. That is the kind of medicine I want to be helping people with. It just makes sense. Like an “aha” moment of clarity. It is the difference between “sick care” and “healthcare”. A pharmaceutical medication, of course, has its place in a journey back to health, it just shouldn’t be the stop where you get off the health train and remain at for your final destination. The body is providing you clues to what is going on, and the answer is not to just take a medication for the rest of your life. It is possible depending on the situation that you will have to take a medication to control a health condition long term, but if your body is broken you also have to fix it at the functional level. You need to figure out what is wrong and what your body needs to begin to heal itself. I do not want to see patients just putting band-aids on the issues of their health, I want to see them healing the wounds underneath. This idea makes me so excited. The idea that we can figure out what is wrong with our body and begin to actually fix it. It is empowering.
To heal the body and return it to the best level of function it can have takes more than nutritional supplements. It requires balancing supplements with pharmaceuticals and also lifestyle and diet changes. If you are ready to begin the journey toward your best health please contact me for guidance and support. It is important to make sure you have a health professional advising you on the proper nutritional supplements your individual body needs.
Your Health Matters
Tiffany Herring PharmD