Functional Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine
By Kirsten Petersen, DC
The field of functional medicine has rapidly been gaining popularity over the past decade as individuals seek out more comprehensive approaches to their chronic illnesses. But how do we decide when to use functional medicine or conventional medicine, and what are the major differences?
Conventional Medicine
Let’s start off with the basics on what classifies a conventional approach. If we picture health as a “tree,” a dynamic and diverse oak tree for the sake of imagination, many of the branches are a reflection of the constellation of symptoms a person presents with. Conventional medicine will typically assess and diagnose based on these branches and leaves. Most patients with the diagnosis are treated exactly the same regardless of the cause of their disease, most often starting with pharmaceutical intervention for the symptoms and stopping there until things worsen.
Conventional medicine adheres to a compartmentalized approach, inadvertently losing sight of the interconnected whole – the roots and soil as well as the branches, and thus fails to recognize how differences in underlying imbalances play a role in the manifestation of symptoms. You have a mental illness, you see a psychiatrist. You have a heart condition, you see a cardiologist. You have a digestive disorder, you see a gastroenterologist. There is a specialist for every condition. And while this is incredibly valuable, to have experts in each specialty, the approach is fragmented.
Each illness and diagnosis is treated in isolation, disconnecting us from the intricate and comprehensive network of the human body.
This is not to say that the conventional space is insufficient or irresponsible. Conventional medicine is an integral part of assessing, diagnosing and treating chronic conditions. It does excellent work in the realm of acute care. Medication and surgery are powerful and effective tools in mitigating symptoms for individuals who are suffering. Physicians are seeing thousands of patients per year and there is simply not enough time to discuss root causes and establish more supportive foundations that address chronic illness as a whole. However, we believe that the conventional approach necessitates a broader inclusion of care.
Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine supports the idea that a disease can have an array of possible causes, and seeks to discover the individual causes for the individual person.
Functional practitioners spend time with their patients, documenting extensive health histories and looking for patterns and clues in their health story. Functional medicine celebrates human individuality and considers unique biochemistry, underlying imbalances and triggers to treat the person, not the symptoms or disease, and address root causes of illness. Let’s think back to our tree. In order to support and optimize the “tree”, in functional medicine we first tackle the roots and soil – the most basic and essential foundation. This includes lifestyle factors, nutrition, stress levels, sleep, physical activity, support systems, and recognizing genetics. An imbalanced foundation predisposes individuals to physiological imbalance, which over time, presents itself as disease.
From The Institute for Functional Medicine
As we move up to the trunk, we are pinpointing core clinical imbalances through in-depth laboratory testing, another foundational quality of functional medicine. This type of testing goes beyond the basics and looks for patterns and deviations from optimal through functional assessment across disciplines.
Every tree is uniquely different, each presenting with a unique shape that stems from it’s own network of roots and stems, climates and environments, and diverse resources made available for growth. Just like us. We are diverse, living in different environments, coming from different backgrounds, growing up in different cultures and lifestyles. Our treatment should be as unique as we are, and the primary difference between functional and conventional medicine lies therein.
The 6 Key Principles of Functional Medicine
We can better understand a functional medicine approach by breaking down these 6 foundational principles:
1. The Person is Not Their Disease
Functional Medicine adopts the understanding that healing is patient-centered, rather than disease-specific. This takes the entire person into consideration when developing treatment strategies instead of implementing a one-size-fits-all approach designed to treat a specific condition.
2. Functional Medicine is Evidence-Based
Just like the conventional approach to healthcare, functional medicine needs to be defined by the evidence. It guides us to ensure that the testing and treatments we are doing are worthwhile, safe and effective.
3. The Human Body is Self-Healing
We have the potential to reverse many of the common diagnoses associated with aging. Diagnoses like diabetes or high blood pressure are culminations of underlying imbalance that present as illness over time. Functional medicine helps us to understand that our bodies have the innate ability to heal given the right conditions and a preventative, systematic approach can alter our biological trajectory.
4. The Body’s Systems are Interconnected
Nothing in our bodies happens in isolation. Our internal physiological states are innately connected, with each organ, tissue, cell, and biochemical change influencing the other. Functional medicine recognizes this profound complexity and promotes the restoration of balance across all internal systems.
5. Enhance the Health-span, Not Just the Life-span
We have been conditioned to understand health as solely the “absence of disease.” Functional medicine determines health as an ongoing state of growth and vitality, working to optimize our livelihood to unlock our highest potential.
6. Dynamic Balance of Body, Mind & Spirit
Honoring the intricate relationships between the body, mind and spirit provides us with extra tools to improve how the human body functions and to deepen our healing potential.
A Final Note…
Functional medicine is a dynamic, ever-changing, systems-oriented and evidence-based approach that engages both the patient and practitioner in a therapeutic relationship. The human body is a self-healing entity that can be activated through honoring our complexity, understanding root causes of disease, and tapping into the incredible healing potential of our bodies through foundational work.
Conventional medicine is immensely valuable, but health does not end with a diagnosis, so we often need a complementary approach. Keep asking questions. Keep seeking answers to better understand your history and your path. And consider seeking support from a functional doctor to guide you through this journey.