Functional Medicine

What is functional medicine?

Functional medicine is a comprehensive health care approach that doesn’t focus on a set of symptoms. Instead, practitioners look at each patient from every perspective to find the root cause of ill health.

By examining factors such as lifestyle and environment, functional medicine practitioners can determine why a patient has health problems and treat them more effectively. For example, if a patient has chronic fatigue, are there aspects of their environment that could be affecting their energy levels, or would they benefit from changing their diet? Or is a brain chemical imbalance to blame causing a mental health condition?

How does functional medicine help mental health conditions?

Treating patients using a functional medicine model means creating customized care plans that consider all the influences on your health — physical and mental. With this approach, you have a far greater chance of discovering why you have these particular symptoms or suffer from a specific psychiatric condition, such as depression, anxiety, or even an eating disorder.

Imagine you were a patient with chronic fatigue. There are very few treatments for the condition other than rest and undergoing tests to check for anemia, thyroid dysfunction, or other conditions. But if you have depression, chronic fatigue may be a symptom of the condition, so treating your depression may relieve your chronic fatigue.

What does functional medicine consider when treating patients?

In addition to checking for underlying medical causes for your condition, your functional medicine practitioner looks at factors such as:

• Your diet
• Exercise habits
• Causes of stress
• Type of work you do
• The environment where you live
• Possible genetic influences
• Smoking and drinking habits

By gathering as much information as possible, your psychiatrist can see where there may be issues that need addressing. If they can pinpoint why you’re experiencing mental health problems, they have a greater chance of treating them successfully.

Does lifestyle really make much difference to my health?

Lifestyle doesn’t just influence your health; it’s the cornerstone of well-being. How you treat your body makes a fundamental difference to your well-being and isn’t limited to bad habits like smoking, excess alcohol, and substance misuse.

If you eat a poor-quality diet, your body struggles to function efficiently, making you tired and vulnerable to infection. Your organs and muscles are under strain, and you’re more likely to develop serious diseases. It can also affect how your brain functions, leading to more anxiety than you can handle, for example, or bouts of extreme loneliness or not wanting to participate in activities you once enjoyed, which are both symptoms of depression.

By eating a healthy, well-balanced diet that’s full of fresh fruit and vegetables and contains all the micronutrients you need, your body doesn’t suffer the strain and deficiency caused by a poor diet. Your gut health improves, making you less likely to become sick. In many ways, food is the best medicine there is, even for your mental health.

To learn more about functional medicine and its many benefits on mental health treatment, call V Psychiatry or book an in-person or telemedicine appointment online today.