How Functional Medicine Can Help You Get Better

13 Sept

Introduction to functional medicine

About three years ago a good friend of mine who happened to be an Accident and Emergency (A&E) registrar posed a question.

He asked what happened to all the patients who attended A&E with stomach pain, migraines, aches and pains, gut/digestive issues to name a few, who had been seen by him as a senior doctor or consultant, and who had been given the all-clear in the way of blood tests and scanning?

I replied we generally referred them back to the hospital.

“But they will not find anything”, he replied in a bamboozled tone.

I then added, there was another medical model called functional medicine that was highly effective with such patients.

As expected, he has never heard of it. Three years later, he has now enrolled on a functional medicine program.

What is Functional Medicine?

Simply put, functional medicine is a science-based medical model that focuses on finding the root cause of disease.

The functional medicine model looks at the body as a whole and integrated system, and thus considers all symptoms to be interrelated with each other.

In other words, a problem in one part of the body isn’t limited to that part, but also affects other parts of the body.

Functional medicine recognises genetic variability, diet, lifestyle, environmental factors, and their interaction with the various body systems which ultimately leads to symptoms.

In trying to identify and treat the root cause of disease, the body is restored to its natural state of equilibrium or balance.

This approach is radically different from the conventional medical approach, which despite its successes with acute diseases, largely only treats symptoms.

Here are two quick examples to help you make more sense of the above.

Your GP might diagnose you with dermatitis (eczema), prescribe a steroid cream and you are off on your way.

However, a functional medicine doctor will want to find out why or what caused the rash in the first place.

Equally, your GP might diagnose you with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), prescribe an antispasmodic drug, for example, Meberevrine, and off you go.

A functional medicine doctor will want to find out why you are getting your symptoms or what caused them in the first place.

Once the root cause is identified, which will be different for everyone, then a treatment plan involving diet, lifestyle and supplements is initiated.

As the burden of chronic disease increases in society, the functional medicine approach is increasingly being applied all over the world due to its successes.

How Does Functional Medicine Work?

Like any form of medicine, functional medicine uses a diagnostic model starting with the history taking, examination, investigations( urine tests, blood tests and scans) and treatment.

To further explain this point, it is useful to make a side-by-side comparison with conventional medicine, in the general format described above of history, examination, investigation and treatment.

History Taking

A functional medicine doctor or practitioner will spend at least an hour with a patient.

This differs from the standard National Health Service (NHS) GP appointments lasting 10 minutes on average.

Spending more time with a patient is hugely rewarding, and provides so many clues on uncovering the root cause of one’s ailment.

Typically, functional medicine doctors or practitioners go through a timeline of one’s health, starting from birth right up to the present condition.

Questions like type of delivery, feeding method as a baby (breast or bottle-fed) are often asked.

This is because both the above factors play a factor in the development of the community of bacteria, fungi and protozoa that live on the skin, in the mouth and in the gut, called the microbiome.

The microbiome is of utmost importance in functional medicine due to its diverse role in the body that includes nutrition and digestion, secretion of enzymes like vitamin K and the B vitamins, and brain health.

Examination

Because functional medicine largely caters for chronic diseases, chances of finding anything major on the examination like stomach lumps, hernias, lumps in the neck and so on are small.

This is mainly because the cohort of patients seeing a functional medicine doctor would most likely have had thorough examinations with their own GP, consultant or A&E doctor(s).

The signs sometimes picked up by functional medicine doctors on examination are the subtle changes in the body reflected in the nails, hair, skin, eyes, tongue, muscles and joints.

While these signs are occasionally also picked up by conventionally trained doctors, it is their significance in functional medicine that is important.

As many of these subtle changes tend to manifest in the very early stages of diseases, functional medicine can thus be seen as a largely preventative approach.

Find out more about functional medicine and how it could benefit you

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Investigation

This is where functional medicine truly shines.

Here, we are generally talking of urine tests, stool tests and blood tests, collectively known as functional tests.

These tests tend to be more detailed and sophisticated, prompting some critics to question them, and the whole discipline as a whole.

The fact of the matter is that functional tests are not sorcery, but tests based on pure science.

They are just more cutting edge but don’t take my word for it.

In 2011, a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reported that it takes 17 years for medical science to reach doctors and ultimately clinical practice!

In other words, a new scientific discovery eventually trickles to your doctor’s office 17 years after discovery!

Functional medicine is thus ahead of the curve, it is as simple as that.

Here are a few examples:

Thyroid Testing

If you have ever had your thyroid checked, your GP / doctor would most likely have tested a TSH, and sometimes a T4 level.

Unfortunately, this method of analysing the thyroid is outdated and fails to take into account other hormones like T3 and reverse T3.

Functional thyroid testing tests for all of these.

Gluten Testing

Traditional testing only looks for antibodies towards one of the 12 sub-fragments in gluten. This means you could have coeliac disease but your blood test comes back normal.

Functional gluten testing is of course more comprehensive.

Stool Testing

Traditional stool testing relies on identifying parasites with the aid of a microscope.

Functional stool testing uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to identify DNA fragments.

This makes it much more sensitive and accurate.

In addition, functional stool testing shows a breakdown of your microbiome as well as many other parameters.

A PCR stool test is extremely useful in many gut disorders which have not been resolved using conventional treatment.

This is a test amongst others I request frequently in my private practice.

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Leaky gut, also known as increased intestinal permeability is a condition that occurs when the spacing between the gut cells, known as tight junctions is increased.

This allows foreign materials like bacteria, viruses, fungi and toxins to move from the gut into the blood, causing a variety of symptoms.

Although there is some reluctance by conventional medicine to accept this condition, science proves it, thanks to Dr Alesio Fasano, a paediatric doctor in Boston USA in the year 2000.

Dr Fasano and his team discovered zonulin, a protein that controls the opening and closing of these tight junctions.

Zonulin can be clearly measured in functional stool testing.

There are so many examples I could cite, but I hope these give you an idea.

Treatment

This is an interesting one, and mainly why functional medicine is sometimes looked at as alternative / complementary medicine.

Before we go into the different treatments, it is worth reminding ourselves that functional medicine recognises genetic variability, diet, lifestyle, environmental factors, and their interaction with the various body systems.

This means every case is different, and your treatment plan is tailored to you (personalised medicine).

With that said, the first treatment option is food.

Functional medicine recognises food not just as calories, but as information and medicine.

Of course, this is not new, and your Grandmother might attest to this.

Food contains, vitamins, minerals and health-benefiting phytonutrients that all have healing properties.

Some foods are inflammatory in nature, some are beneficial for the gut, some are great for blood sugar control, some are great for the liver and so on.

Knowing this intrinsic property of food is a great tool that can help you heal.

In order to seek balance in the body, other disciples like meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and of course exercise are core pillars often recommended.

In addition, supplements (vitamins, minerals) and herbs drawn from ancient healing modalities like Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and folk medicine are also used.

Although some of the above disciplines like meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, exercise and some supplements(vitamins and minerals) are now being recommended in the NHS setting, they don’t form the core pillars of treatment, which are pharmaceutical drugs.

Talking of supplements in the conventional setting, vitamin D took the centre stage with the rise of Covid-19 when some studies showed it prevented serious disease.

In fact, vitamin D was recommended by the Government for care home residents during the pandemic.

Who can Practice Functional Medicine?

This can be a confusing area, often leading to some questions like “are functional medicine doctors real doctors”?

The first thing to point out is that not all functional medicine doctors are medical doctors.

To confuse matters further, some health practitioners like chiropractors, osteopaths and PHD holders might also carry the title doctor.

This is why the term functional medicine practitioner is used by some to avoid confusion.

Having said this, do not let the fact a nutritional therapist, osteopath, chiropractor, pharmacist or other healthcare professional trained in functional medicine are incompetent because they are not a medical doctor.

In fact, they are all trained to a high degree in the basic medical sciences and great at what they do.

Conclusion

Functional medicine is a science-based medical model that focuses on finding the root cause of disease and is particularly suited for chronic disease.

It combines ancient wisdom with modern science to produce something extraordinary.

There is no doubt millions of patients all around the world are warming up to this relatively new way of treatment.

Why? It produces results.

If you have seen your GP/doctor with multiple symptoms that simply aren’t going away despite seeing consultants, I highly recommend you give functional medicine a try.

Please share this article with anyone you know who might benefit, and if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Thank you!