What is Functional Nutrition?
Functional Nutrition may be defined as an individualised, patient-centred, and science-based approach that treats the body as a whole. Focuses on your family history, genetics, environment, stress level, energy level, sleep patterns, and diet.
The functional nutrition approach to health is based on three principles:
- Patient-centred care: Practitioners listen to the patient and learn about the whole person—physical and emotional–mind, body, and spirit
- Integrative approach: Body systems exist in an interconnected, complex web of interactions
- Best practices: the best practices of Western medicine are utilized in addition to nutrition, diet, and other techniques like stress management and detoxification
Functional Nutrition is specifically designed to address the ‘why’ to get to the root cause of your symptom(s)
- Why did the symptom(s) occur?
- When did the symptom(s) occur?
- What factors are causing the symptom(s)?
- How can we bring the body back into balance?
For instance, in conventional medicine, if two people present with chronic migraines, they might be offered the same treatment – painkillers. This may remove their symptoms but not the cause. Using the functional medicine approach – the two cases will be treated differently, and the root cause of their migraines will likely be different.
How can a nutritional therapist help you?
A nutritional therapist is trained to assess functional and nutritional imbalance at the individual level to determine the underlying root cause(s) driving your symptom(s). A personalised nutrition and lifestyle programme will be created to correct these imbalances to restore optimal health.
Disclaimer: Nutritional therapy does not treat, cure or diagnose disease but is a complementary therapy that works alongside conventional medicine.