Functional Medicine is the term coined by Jeff Bland, PhD for a new approach to health care based on the principle that each individual is biochemically unique, and therefore medical practice should be “patient-centered” rather than “disease-centered.”
Functional Medicine is a science-based practice that emphasizes the interconnections of physical and biochemical processes in the body, and how they interact with the environment to create disease or health.
Bethany M. Hays, MD
Rather than taking the symptoms that a patient presents, giving them a name and then assigning the appropriate drug or surgery, a Functional Medicine approach questions the causes of the symptoms by trying to find their triggers. If we can understand how a person’s unique complement of genetic material interacts with his or her environment, we can change how the genes are being expressed by changing the environment.
Functional Medicine is the most creative use of the avalanche of new information coming out of the human genome project that we’ve seen. Using a Functional Medicine approach has helped many of our patients find answers to complex, chronic conditions.
* Susan Fekety, MSN, CNM is an advanced nurse practitioner who has received extensive training in the principles of Functional Medicine. She uses her Functional Medicine knowledge in collaboration with True North physicians.
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