According to the McKinsey Health Institute, people are living longer but not healthier. On average, Americans today are surviving about 20 years longer than they were in 1960, but they spend those extra years struggling with poor health. Why?
That’s what we explore here at Freedom Functional Wellness in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Nurse practitioner Louise Higuera has dedicated her career to digging deeper into the real problems behind pain and disease. That led her to specialize in functional medicine, offering hope to those suffering from persistent pain and disease that conventional medicine has been unable to relieve.
Because the term “functional medicine” is new to some folks, this blog post explains the primary differences between functional and traditional medicine.
The state of health
Before diving into functional vs. traditional medicine, let’s look at the catalyst that drives functional medicine — the state of people’s health.
It’s easy to see society getting unhealthier as time passes; just look at how many people suffer from chronic health conditions:
- Obesity: about42% of adults; about 20% of kids
- Allergies:over 50 million
- Asthma:42 million
- Diabetes:37.3 million
- Digestive disorders:40% of Americans
- Chronic fatigue:over 2.2 million
- Cancer:over 1.9 million casesdetected annually
With all of the technological and medical advances, you might expect to see these numbers decrease, not increase. So, what’s behind these staggering statistics? At Freedom Functional Wellness, we believe it concerns the traditional approach to medicine.
Traditional medicine vs. functional medicine
Traditional medicine has been the standard of health care for centuries. It focuses on diagnosing illnesses and providing treatment using medications, surgeries, and procedures to alleviate symptoms. Traditional medicine is disease-centered, and the health care provider approaches each patient with a specific condition assuming they will respond to treatment similarly.
On the other hand, functional medicine is patient-centered and focuses on identifying the root causes of underlying conditions. A functional medicine practitioner closely observes your physical, emotional, and mental well-being in determining the approach to care.
Unlike traditional medicine, which usually doesn’t take lifestyle factors into account, functional medicine evaluates how your environment, diet, exercise regimen, and stress levels contribute to your health and wellness.
Here’s a comparison at a glance:
Traditional medicine
- Diagnoses and treats your illness
- Focuses on drugs, surgery, and procedures
- Assumes patients with the same symptoms are the same
- Doesn’t involve the patient in the treatment
- Takes an outside-in approach to symptoms
Functional medicine
- Digs for the underlying source of an illness
- Seeks to restore the body so it can heal itself
- Involves multidisciplinary approaches
- Personalizes the treatment to the individual
- Actively involves the patient in their own care
- Takes an inside-out approach to the underlying cause
One of the primary distinctions between traditional and functional medicine is medication use. Traditional medicine frequently relies on medication to address symptoms, while functional medicine takes a broader approach to treatment by using natural remedies, supplements, and lifestyle changes to address causes.
For example, a functional medicine practitioner may recommend changes to a patient’s diet or suggest a supplement instead of a prescription drug, though Lou Higuera does recognize that sometimes prescriptions are necessary and utilizes them appropriately on an individual basis. These changes can start to take effect immediately, leading to long-term health benefits for the patient. In contrast, traditional medicine often views medication as the primary solution to most health problems.
A deeper dive into the differences
While traditional medicine is often quick to diagnose and prescribe medication to treat a particular illness, functional medicine is a more comprehensive approach to health care, which empowers you to take a more active role in managing and maintaining your health.
By treating the root cause of your illness rather than just alleviating your symptoms, functional medicine can result in true healing and long-term cessation of symptoms rather than temporarily masking the problem.
In functional medicine, the diagnosis and treatment of illness is a multi-faceted process that begins with looking at the body as a whole. At Freedom Functional Wellness, we investigate the intersection of genetics, lifestyle, and environmental factors specific to your unique condition and circumstances. In addition to conventional lab work, we check:
- Toxic load from heavy metals and biotoxins
- Thyroid function
- Signs of mold exposure
- Metabolism
- Supplements and medications you take
- Inflammation levels
- Genetic susceptibility to diseases
Functional medicine is more thorough than traditional medicine and comes at health care from a different angle. By shifting the focus toward problem prevention rather than symptom treatment and health care rather than sick care, functional medicine has caused a paradigm shift in how Americans think about their health.
To learn more about how functional medicine works, book an appointment online or call Freedom Functional Wellness.