What is Natural Functional Medicine?

Natural Functional Medicine is a scientific process that reconsiders the definition of Medicine in its broad sense: Preventing, relieving, and treating the disease from its roots as taught and practiced by the pioneers of this science. They recognized it as an alternative and complementary approach to Medicine under the name of Naturopathy since:

• 1901 in several American states
• 1939 in Germany that firmly anchored it in its medical system. The Heilpraktiker (therapist practicing this approach) enjoys almost the same rights and obligations as a doctor,
• 1997 by the European Parliament
• 2001 by WHO

Although we can sometimes find some concepts and practices of pseudoscience attributed to this Medicine, the fact remains that its approach only refers to scientifically proven data and therapies.

Natural Functional Medicine is a specific way of thinking about human health and disease. It bases its approach on understanding the interdependence between the human body’s systems and searching for all genetic and environmental factors likely to impact their balance and promote illness. In this sense, it apprehends chronic and functional disorders resulting from a collection of imbalances within an etiological and comprehensive approach framework to propose an essential treatment aspiring to strengthen and restore the whole organism.

In other words, while the current healthcare system manages these conditions with symptomatic treatments to help patients better support their disease in their daily lives, Natural Functional Medicine believes that this kind of disease can be reversed and not only managed. But the only way to target an authentic and sustainable recovery is to start by answering the question: Why and How an illness occurs?

An approach based solely on symptomatic treatments or a specialized process that ignores the dynamic interaction between the different organs and systems of the human body may provide punctual relief but not without harmful effects in the long term. Far too often, it leads to a silent evolution of the disease as it happens with the complications of hight blood pressure, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and other conditions which express the general alteration of the body’s functions.

While Natural Functional Medicine is based primarily on correcting diet and lifestyle as key elements of all proposed therapies, it also opens access to several alternative disciplines and surprising natural biochemicals that are remarkably effective and powerful in their results when properly administered.

Furthermore, Functional Medicine goes against the idea that the definition of a disease and the choice of its treatment should be determined depending on the typical clinical symptoms observed in patients suffering from the same disease. This concept usually results in “one size fits all” when in fact, each organism should receive treatment tailored to its specific physical/emotional needs, environmental conditions, and lifestyle that directly influence:

• The form of the disease
• Its degree of severity and the patient’s ability to cope with symptoms
• The response of each patient’s body to treatment

Depending on these parameters, Natural Functional Medicine determines personalized alternative treatments.