“Functional Medicine …is that even a thing?”
In response to the post I shared last night (which, to be fair, is from an individual who does not represent the entire field of functional medicine) that question arose. And it’s a great question. As these fields and specialties start to arrive in Ireland, we should have a good understanding of exactly what they are.
Let’s just highlight four of these fields:
1. Functional Medicine is practiced by doctors who are certified in functional medicine. Functional medicine focuses on the idea of every cell of the body can affect every other cell. They do focus on nutrition and holistic care. However, docs in this field stray from evidence-based medicine in several practices, such as testing patients for trace minerals and/or hormones for which science has no evidence. Some functional medicine physicians have promoted practices that are not based in science and lack evidence (such as detoxification). And then some think humans have cell walls, so take from that what you will…
2. Integrative Medicine is a practice that medical doctors certified in this area use evidence-based medicine and merge it with the patient experience of holistic spiritual or alternative medicine. Again, it has drawn criticism on the basis that doctors in this field use of practices that have no evidence.
3. Alternative or complementary medicine is not practiced by doctors. Alternative medicine does not use conventional medicine and is not evidence-based. Complementary medicine is used along side conventional medicine (think aromatherapy or reflexology for comfort in cancer/hospice patients).
4. #LifestyleMedicine is a distinct field of medicine practiced by medical doctors (like me!), though the term lifestyle is often used by those in the above groups. Lifestyle medicine is strictly evidence-based and is a field of medicine where lifestyle change is the first and most important prescription for treatment and reversal of common diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.)
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