What is Functional Medicine?
Have you been from doctor to doctor in our Western culture’s medical community but still have no relief for what is causing you distress? Functional medicine may be what you have been searching for!
By definition, functional medicine is personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease.
It is a science-based field of health care that is grounded in the following principles:
- Biochemical individuality describes the importance of individual variations in metabolic function that derive from genetic and environmental differences among individuals.
- Patient-centered medicine emphasizes “patient care” rather than “disease care,” following Sir William Osler’s admonition that “It is more important to know what patient has the disease than to know what disease the patient has.”
- Dynamic balance of internal and external factors.
- Web-like interconnections of physiological factors – an abundance of research now supports the view that the human body functions as an orchestrated network of interconnected systems, rather than individual systems functioning autonomously and without effect on each other. For example, we now know that immunological dysfunctions can promote cardiovascular disease, that dietary imbalances can cause hormonal disturbances, and that environmental exposures can precipitate neurologic syndromes such as Parkinson’s disease.
- Health as a positive vitality – not merely the absence of disease.
- Promotion of organ reserve as the means to enhance health span.
Functional medicine is anchored by an examination of the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions. Those imbalances arise as environmental inputs such as diet, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, and trauma are processed by one’s body, mind, and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs.
The fundamental physiological processes include communication, both outside and inside the cell; bioenergetics, or the transformation of food into energy; replication, repair, and maintenance of structural integrity, from the cellular to the whole body level; elimination of waste; protection and defense; and transport and circulation.
Source:
The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)
Marie Starling specializes in functional medicine. To begin, she does a full body examination that includes a detailed family history, as well as structural and allergy assessments. Dr. Starling utilizes specialized lab tests to fully diagnose what’s going wrong in your body.
Dr. Starling’s intent is to help you restore the function to all of your body systems including your GI system, your blood sugar system and your nervous system. She does this with a full range of carefully selected natural products as well as Chiropractic and NAET Allergy Elimination techniques.