Prevention is cure

We all know that health care is in crisis – in Sweden and in many other countries in the world- but there are solutions! One is called Functional Medicine. According to the Institute of Functional Medicine: http://www.functionalmedicine.org/about/whatis.asp ”Functional Medicine is the science-based approach to healing that goes beyond Integrative Medicine. It is a clinically effective “operating system” designed to deal with the current epidemics of chronic diseases that Western Medicine manages poorly and rarely heals.

Functional medicine is personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease. It is anchored by an examination of the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions. Those imbalances arise as environmental inputs such as diet, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, and trauma are processed by one’s body, mind, and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs. The fundamental physiological processes include communication, both outside and inside the cell; bioenergetics, or the transformation of food into energy; replication, repair, and maintenance of structural integrity, from the cellular to the whole body level; elimination of waste; protection and defense; and transport and circulation.

Functional medicine emphasizes a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis. Functional medicine uses the patient’s story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the patient’s environmental inputs and his or her physiological function. It is a clinician’s discipline, and it directly addresses the need to transform the practice of primary care.”

From Morledge, T. J. (2011), Introduction to Integrative Medicine, http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com.

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, Functional Medicine promises to be what most doctors will be practicing in 40 to 50 years:

It's more important to understand the imbalances in you body’s basic systems and restore balance, rather than name the disease and match the pill to the ill.