What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine takes a holistic approach to wellness by examining the entire person. This method involves analyzing various factors, including lifestyle, diet, health history, genetics, and symptoms, along with lab results from blood work and other tests. The goal is to identify imbalances (such as excesses or deficiencies) and understand how these factors are interconnected (e.g., how one issue might be causing another).

A functional medicine health coach (practitioner) acts like a personal health detective, examining all clues to determine why someone isn’t feeling well, why chronic ailments exist, or what may have contributed to a current disease diagnosis. The practitioner then collaborates with the client or patient to create a plan to correct these imbalances. This plan often includes lifestyle changes, dietary adjustments, and nutritional support, frequently with the aid of supplements and detoxification.

Functional tests are commonly used (though not always) to identify food sensitivities, environmental toxins in the body (such as heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and mold), hormone imbalances, nutritional status, genetic variants, methylation and antioxidant status, and gastrointestinal health (including dysbiosis in the gut microbiome, parasites, viruses, bacterial overgrowths, and deficiencies, and gut barrier integrity). Many conditions can be reversed once the body is brought back into balance by providing it with what it needs and removing harmful elements.