FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

Be healthy and stay fit

Functional medicine, like osteopathy, focuses on finding the causes of symptoms, disorders and diseases. Research over the last two decades has shown that inflammation can play an important role in the development and maintenance of disease. Inflammation is easy to measure and, in principle, well understood, at least as far as local and general factors and the body’s responses to noxious stimuli are concerned.

However, the fact that so-called low-grade inflammation, i.e. inflammation in areas that are considered insignificant by conventional medicine, may be the cause, trigger or perpetuator of complaints and diseases, is an important basis of functional medicine.

In the search for the triggers of low-grade inflammation, we are entering areas that have long been known to alternative medicine: Exercise, sport, diet, stress factors, sleep and relationship factors.

The first step is to take the patient’s medical history, which often indicates disturbances in these areas, e.g. strong current or long-term stress factors, repeated antibiotic therapy, industrially influenced diet, lack of exercise and balance, etc.

In addition, the readings may indicate inadequate bodily functions: Cortisol levels for stress, stool tests for digestive imbalances, blood and urine tests for hormones, detoxification, nutrient status, etc.

Taken together, this research usually provides a good picture of the patient’s health and illness. Therapeutically, specific dietary changes, inhibition of inflammatory factors through better detoxification, addition of vitamins and minerals, advice on stress management and balancing are applied.