The Core of
Integrative Functional Medicine
Your body is one whole, integrated system.
Conventional medicine as currently practiced is based on an artificial division and compartmentalization of the body’s different organ systems. Thus, the primary approach to treatment is to suppress the symptoms of a disease.
To restore health, We begin by addressing the root causes of disease for each person. Integrative Functional medicine starts with a detailed understanding of your genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors. Science has taught us that a single condition can have many different causes, and that one cause can lead to many different conditions.
Your unique biochemistry
Integrative functional medicine seeks to understand why symptoms are occurring in the first place. To understand this, it approaches your health with a unique methodology for identifying and addressing underlying triggers. Treatments aim at the causes of disease, not symptoms. Moreover, treatment may be quite different for two people with the same disease because no two people are the same.
The core principle of integrative functional medicine comes from what we have learned about the human genome. The ways that our genes are expressed rely on a whole host of influences, including factors in our environments, lifestyles, diets, activity patterns, even psychological and social determinants.
Because all of the components of the human biological system interact dynamically, health and illness exist on a continuum. Therefore, integrative functional medicine is interested in figuring out how and why an illness occurs, and then restoring health by addressing the root causes of that illness.
How does it work?
Integrative functional medicine applies a systems-based approach in a therapeutic partnership between patient and practitioner to directly address the underlying causes of disease.
At Radiance Surgery & Aesthetic Medicine Healing, I have designed an approach to working with you that combines the best of conventional medicine with integrative functional medicine.
We call it the Healing Matrix. We use this matrix to assess three main areas of your health: your body, your mind, and your mind-body connection. Then we customize your care based on how your situation maps onto this matrix, helping you implement individualized healing practices that will lead to the behavioral changes key to sustaining vitality.
Why is it better?
We have to integrate individualized, patient-centered, science-based care with what we know about how the human body works. This allows us to address the causes of complex, chronic disease, which are rooted in lifestyle choices, environmental exposures, and genetic influences.
The conventional clinical model that we’re familiar with is not effective by itself in treating or preventing disease.
One thing that is clear is that the interaction between our environments, our lifestyles, and our genetics is the primary driver of chronic disease. However, the model we have inherited is simply not built to address these interactions. Practicing medicine in the 21st century requires innovative clinical models.
