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Functional Medicine at the Canberra Acupuncture Clinic

Functional medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century.

By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms.

Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and evaluating the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease.

In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual. Below a great video of Mark Hyman MD the current president of the Institute for Functional Medicine in the US.

Why Do We Need Functional Medicine?

Our society is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

The system of medicine practiced by most physicians is oriented toward acute care, the diagnosis and treatment of trauma or illness that is of short duration and in need of urgent care, such as appendicitis or a broken leg. Physicians apply specific, prescribed treatments such as drugs or surgery that aim to treat the immediate problem or symptom.

Unfortunately, the acute-care approach to medicine lacks the proper methodology and tools for preventing and treating complex, chronic disease. In most cases it does not take into account the unique genetic makeup of each individual or factors such as environmental exposures to toxins and the aspects of today’s lifestyle that have a direct influence on the rise in chronic disease in modern Western society.

There’s a huge gap between research and the way doctors practice. The gap between emerging research in basic sciences and integration into medical practice is enormous—as long as 50 years— particularly in the area of complex, chronic illness.

Functional medicine’s aim is to evaluate, assess, and carefully enfold emerging research in a practical, efficient, and safe manner.

Most physicians are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease and to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet, and exercise to both treat and prevent these illnesses in their patients.

How Is Functional Medicine Different?

Functional medicine involves understanding the origins, prevention, and treatment of complex, chronic disease. Hallmarks of a functional medicine approach include:

Patient-centered care. The focus of functional medicine is on patient-centered care, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease.

By listening to the patient and learning his or her story, the practitioner brings the patient into the discovery process and tailors treatments that address the individual’s unique needs.

An integrative, science-based healthcare approach. Functional medicine practitioners look “upstream” to consider the complex web of interactions in the patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness.

The unique genetic makeup of each patient is considered, along with both internal (mind, body, and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect total functioning.

Integrating best Medical Practices

Functional medicine integrates traditional Western medical practices with what are sometimes considered “alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet, and exercise; use of the latest laboratory testing and other diagnostic techniques; and prescribed combinations of drugs and/or botanical medicines, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, or stress-management techniques.

Functional Medicine Principles

Functional Medicine is a personalized medicine that deals with the primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease. It is a science-based field of health care that is grounded in the following principles:

- Biochemical individuality describes the importance of individual variations in metabolic function that derive from genetic and environmental differences among individuals.

- Patient-centered medicine emphasizes “patient care” rather than “disease care,” following Sir William Osler’s admonition that “It is more important to know what patient has the disease than to know what disease the patient has.”

- Dynamic balance of internal and external factors. We have to acknowledge that diet, exercise and our general environment have a big impact on our physiology, mental and emotional states.

- Web-like interconnections of physiological factors – an abundance of research now supports the view that the human body functions as an orchestrated network of interconnected systems, rather than individual systems functioning autonomously and without affect on each other. For example, we now know that immunological dysfunctions can promote cardiovascular disease, that dietary imbalances can cause hormonal disturbances, and that environmental exposures can precipitate neurologic syndromes such as Parkinson’s disease.

- Health as a positive vitality – not merely the absence of disease.

- Promotion of organ reserve as the means to enhance life and health span.

Functional medicine is anchored by an examination of the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions.

Those imbalances arise as environmental inputs such as diet, nutrients (including air and water), exercise, and trauma are processed by one’s body, mind, and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes, and beliefs.

The Fundamental Physiological Processes in your Body

- Communication, both outside and inside the cell;

- Bioenergetics & bio transformation, or the transformation of food into energy;

- Replication, repair, and maintenance of structural cell integrity.

- Functional Medicine Principles from the cellular to the whole body level;

- Elimination of waste;

- Protection and defense;

- and transport and circulation.

The Core Clinical Imbalances that arise from malfunctions in this System

- Hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances

- Oxidation-reduction imbalances and mitochondropathy

- Detoxification and bio-transformational imbalances

- Immune imbalances

- Inflammatory imbalances

- Digestive, absorptive, and microbiological imbalances

- Structural imbalances from cellular membrane function to the musculoskeletal system.

Imbalances such as these are the precursors to the signs and symptoms by which we detect and label (diagnose) organ system disease. Improving balance – in the patient’s environmental inputs and in the body’s fundamental physiological processes – is the precursor to restoring health and it involves much more than treating the symptoms.

Functional medicine is dedicated to improving the management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to address these core clinical imbalances and to restore each patient’s functionality and health.

Functional medicine is not a unique and separate body of knowledge. It is grounded in scientific principles and information widely available in medicine today, combining research from various disciplines into highly detailed yet clinically relevant models of disease pathogenesis and effective clinical management.

Functional medicine emphasizes a definable and teachable process of integrating multiple knowledge bases within a pragmatic intellectual matrix that focuses on functionality at many levels, rather than a single treatment for a single diagnosis.

Functional medicine uses the patient’s story as a key tool for integrating diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and evidence of clinical imbalances into a comprehensive approach to improve both the patient’s environmental inputs and his or her physiological function. It is a clinician’s discipline, and it directly addresses Functional Medicine Principles.

Functional Medicine at the Canberra Acupuncture Clinic

The Canberra Acupuncture Clinic strongly supports and advises on a Functional Medicine approach in regards to healthcare.

Matt Dippl CMD, the founder and director of The Canberra Acupuncture Clinic is a member of IFM (Institute of Functional Medicine), AIMA (Austral Asian Integrative Medicine Association) and AACMA (Australian Association for Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture). He aspires to bring a truly integrative approach to Medicine being practiced at the Canberra Acupuncture Clinic.

Functional medicine is the medicine of the 21st century and we are proud to be at the forefront of this development in medicine. Functional Medicine aims at a truly integrative system of western and complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) in a very effective and powerful manner.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of the oldest CAM therapies in the world and with it’s systematic approach to creating balance and vitality in the body is a perfect ally and vehicle for applied functional medicine.

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