Functional Nutrition/Medicine

Functional medicine is complementary to western (conventional) medicine and is fully backed by science. Western medicine is necessary for acute sudden illness/injuries, whereas functional medicine is better for disease prevention and reversing chronic illness. There are many studies showing connections between different systems/organs in our body and how they all collectively play a role in disease. Therefore, one type of medicine should not override the other. 

For example, the following conditions have all been shown to correlate back to a disrupted gut microbiome and poor digestion; hypo/hyper thyroidism, anxiety/depression, autoimmunity, heart disease, skin conditions, chronic fatigue, migraines etc. None of these conditions are directly apart of the gastrointestinal tract but it still plays a massive role. This is what functional nutrition is all about; looking at your body from a broad perspective to piece together your health puzzle and rebalance from the root. Rather than prescribing drugs for each disease, a functional nutritionist investigates why the disease has occurred in the first place and works to reverse it. 

Western medicine tends to look at disease from the 'germ theory' perspective whereas functional medicine takes a hybrid approach but understands that keeping a healthy environment (terrain) in your body is most important for disease prevention. Let's look at acne for example. If you go to a dermatologist, they will likely say you have a bacterial infection on your skin and will encourage a heavy dose of different topical anti-bacterial agents. They do not see acne as an internal issue like we do. However, we know that acne can be caused from internal or external stressors, poor detoxification, hormone imbalances, nutrient deficiencies and poor eating habits as well as gut dysbiosis. We see it all the time in our practice and have got our clients transformational results by addressing acne from the inside out. The topicals you put on your skin do have the ability to aggravate your acne and make it worse or better but an infection on the skin is never the cause. This would be a very narrow minded, 'germ theory' approach. 

What you eat probably plays the biggest role in the health of your skin. This is why we are trained to use food as medicine. Medical doctors are only trained to use pharmaceuticals as "medicine" and are not taught much about nutrition in school. Functional nutritionists honour the fact that food is fuel for our bodies and will always play a substantial role in healing. Of course, nutrition is very bio-individual especially if you are suffering from a specific condition. Generally speaking, we recommend a balanced whole food diet similar to our ancestors. We should not be consuming processed foods that were not around 500 years ago like vegetable/seed oils for example. We never recommend cutting out large groups of healthy food as that is very damaging to your thyroid and metabolism. Diet culture tends to be very toxic and contributes to imbalance in the body as you go from one extreme to another. Instead, we recommend all of our clients get a balance of saturated fats, animal protein and whole food carbohydrates with every meal. We view cravings and other symptoms as valuable information our body is trying to communicate with us. Although food is not our entire focus by any means. Keep reading to learn about all of the aspects of health we look at. Functional nutrition is not only a customized approach but very integrative.