Even though there have been incredible advancements in emergency care and life-saving surgeries in recent years, there seems to be something wrong with the way we approach medical care. As a response to the major weaknesses in the mainstream health system, functional medicine tries to offer sustainable solutions to health problems.
However, there is still a general lack of understanding when it comes to functional medicine and its benefits. Here are three crucial reasons for considering giving functional medicine a bigger role in healthcare.
Functional medicine takes a different approach to interpretation of lab results
In many medical labs, you’ll find a reference range of what the healthcare professionals consider normal. Results outside these ranges are labelled ‘high’ or ‘low’. The statistical normal distribution curve of the results in that lab determines the reference range for normal.
If your lab results are, for example, one number short of being outside the reference range, you’re ‘normal’. The problem with that approach is that a disease doesn’t become real only as soon as you step outside the reference range. So you’re either tending towards a disease, outside the normal range, or tending towards good health.
Many people visit the doctor to find out why they’re experiencing some health problems only for their lab work to come back as ‘normal’. The doctor tells them they’re okay and they’re sent on their way. Columbus Ohio functional medicine aims to take a closer look at lab results and deal with questions that conventional medical care leaves unanswered.
Functional medicine digs deeper to solve health problems
Functional medicine looks further than the label of the disease. It seeks to shed light on the entire landscape of a patient’s physiology. Mainstream medicine focuses on matching a diagnosis with a pharmaceutical drug. Mainstream doctors use lab results to prescribe medication.
To functional medicine practitioners, lab results tell only part of the story. They’re keen on doing deeper investigations to uncover underlying imbalances, deficiencies, dysfunctions, and infections. This helps them develop a powerful insight in aspects of your health that mainstream medical care professionals often overlook.
Natural treatments play a much bigger role in functional medicine
It is important to note that functional medicine does not oppose conventional medicine. Rather, functional medicine practitioners are most interested in determining the most effective treatment option for the patient—and the one which has the least side effects. If medication happens to be the most suitable option, that is well and good.
In functional medicine, diet plays a bigger role in treating specific conditions. Micro nutrients and herbal medicines are used to tackle underlying the health issues that lab results uncover, all for the purpose of supporting optimal bodily function.
Keep in mind, however, that even when it comes to natural foods and remedies, people respond differently to the same treatment. Functional medicine practitioners customize the treatment program to match a patient’s health profile. In that way, functional medicine is not just another version of the one-size-fits-all model of conventional medicine.
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