What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is a way of approaching healthcare that builds a bridge between your personal situation, and the health of your body’s systems, seen as an interrelated whole.
Rather than being a specialism isolated away from other bodies of expertise, Functional Medicine emphasises the integration of knowledge from multiple fields of healthcare to support both individual parts of your body as well as how everything fits together in the big picture.
It does this by focussing on understanding how the challenges of your specific life circumstances, including:
- your symptoms
- your family history and genetic predispositions
- your attitudes, values and beliefs
- your environment and stress levels
- your diet and activity patterns
are being met by your body’s systems, including:
- your structure – from the cell membrane to the musculoskeletal system
- your digestion – including your ability to absorb nutrients, eliminate waste, and your microbiome
- your immune system – including regulation of inflammation
- your hormonal and neurotransmitter balance
to develop the most appropriate clinical approach for you as an individual, by supporting not just single, isolated aspects of your health, but also the relationships between them.
“It is more important to know what person has the disease than which disease the person has.“
– William Osler
More information on Functional Medicine can be found at the Institute for Functional Medicine.
Our Team
Clive Lindley-Jones is Helix House’s resident Functional Medicine specialist. To find out more about him, click on his name.
To book an appointment, call 01865 243351 or email us at info@helixhouse.co.uk.