Functional Medicine has been described as an approach centered on finding root causes of illness and prioritizing lifestyle choices as medicine. At its best, it focuses on what we can modify in our daily lives to feel well. For some patients, this type of approach offers new perspectives on health and provides powerful motivation to make positive lifestyle changes. Over time I have developed my own approach to this paradigm and in this practice, each visit is rooted in:

• appreciation of how movement, nutrition, sleep and stress affect our overall sense of well being as well our cardiometabolic health, that includes blood pressure, blood glucose and our risk of chronic illness.

• consideration of how mind and body are connected and how our perspective, beliefs and stories affect our health.

• a botanical medicine perspective that encourages consuming a delicious Mediterranean or other plant based diet, knowing how to cook or access nourishing food, the use of culinary and medicinal herbs and spending time in nature.

• concerns about polypharmacy and polysupplement use and all visits include review of prescription medications, herbal medicines and nutritional supplements in terms of safety, interactions, side effects, quality, cost and rationale for use.

I see functional medicine as part of the larger category of integrative medicine that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has defined as healthcare that “brings conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. It emphasizes a holistic, patient-focused approach to health care and wellness—often including mental, emotional, functional, spiritual, social, and community aspects—and treating the whole person rather than, for example, one organ system. It aims for well-coordinated care between different providers and institutions.”

At the Institute for Functional Medicine class Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice (AFMCP) in Washington, DC in May 2017.