Standard of Care and Functional Medicine
I once read a Facebook post in an integrative community group that asked members what natural “go-to” remedies were recommended to give her husband (who had been in an…
Evidence based medicine in functional medicine
"First do no harm" We rely on evidence-based-medicine (EBM) to determine safe and effective treatments for our patients. This is ideal for pharmaceutical drugs that are potent and carry many…
Teaching vs Treating
When we go to the health care clinic, we expect to leave with a cause of our illness (aka diagnosis) and a treatment to feel better. But there should be…
Proving Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is rooted in evidence-based scientific research (aka "proof"), which helps those of us who have chosen this path back up our choices for labs and treatments. For any…
Insulin Resistance: The Facts
In our medical education, we learn about insulin resistance, and what parameters "define" insulin resistance syndrome (aka metabolic syndrome). But how do we measure it and identify it? …
What Most People Fear as We Age…
I once asked my mom what her biggest health fear was, as she gets older. She said she is not scared of cancer or osteoporosis or gaining weight. She is…
Difference between functional medicine and mainstream medicine
I'm often asked the difference between functional and mainstream/conventional medicine. I can repeat the typical definition of functional medicine (find the root cause, systems-based, etc), but I don't think this…
Cutting Out the Fear Factor
Too often I see a lot of functional medicine practitioners providing well-intentioned information (e.g. on social media site, summits, etc), but this information often induces fear in the audience. Fear…
The Art of Functional Medicine: 5 Things To Avoid as a Functional Medicine Provider
Functional medicine, a practice that involves looking for and treating the causes of symptoms (rather than just treating the symptoms), is a type of integrative medicine that was developed in…