What is Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional Medicine practitioners spend more time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions between environmental, lifestyle, and genetic factors which influence health. We consider multiple factors, including:
- Environmental inputs: The air you breathe and the water you drink, your diet and the quality of the food available to you, your level of physical activity, and toxic exposures or traumas you have experienced.
- Mind-body connections: Psychological, spiritual, and social factors all can have a profound influence on your health. Considering these areas helps us to see your health in the context of you as a whole person, not just your physical symptoms.
- Genetic makeup: Although individual genes may make you more susceptible to certain diseases, your DNA is not an unchanging blueprint for your life. Emerging research shows that your genes may be influenced by everything in your environment, as well as your experiences, attitudes, and beliefs.
By understanding the genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors unique to each person, we are able to identify which bodily processes may be affected.
What Bodily Processes are Affected
- How your body rids itself of toxins
- Regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters
- Immune system function
- Inflammatory responses
- Digestion and absorption of nutrients and the health of the digestive tract
- Structural integrity
- Psychological and spiritual equilibrium
- How you produce energy
Any of these bodily processes can become imbalanced or disrupted, which can cause or accelerate symptoms and disease.
A Comprehensive Approach to Treatment
The good news is most imbalances can be addressed to restore or substantially improve one's health.
- Prevention is paramount. Virtually every complex, chronic disease is preceded by long-term disturbances in functionality that can be identified and effectively managed.
- Changing how systems function can have a major impact on one's health. Micah examines a wide array of available interventions and customizes a treatment plan to target optimal health.
- Treatments may include combinations of prescriptions, botanical medicines, nutritional supplements, therapeutic diets, or detoxification programs. They may also include counseling on lifestyle, exercise, or stress-management techniques.
As a patient, you become an active partner with Micah in your care. Such a partnership allows you to be in charge of improving your own health and changing the outcome of disease.