Is Integrative Functional Medicine Here To Stay?

 

Introduction

Integrative Functional Medicine is not only here to stay, but it is also set to be at the core of one of the most major revolutions in the health and medical paradigm in the last century. Since the early 1900s, there has been a virtual conflict between Conventional/Allopathic Medicine and Integrative Functional/Natural Medicine for everyone who has been paying attention. In reality, when the medical establishment attacked and tried to discredit chiropractors, naturopaths, homeopathic practitioners, and others who created or sold nutritional supplements, this virtual battle appeared to turn into a real war.

The medical establishment’s major weapons in this fight were claims that they had scientific proof to support what they were doing, while proponents of Integrative Functional Medicine did not, putting people’s health at danger. Natural practitioners were frequently labeled “quacks” and threatened with losing their ability to treat anybody, as well as huge fines, product or equipment seizure, and even jail time.

This situation has steadily improved over the last 60 years, as Integrative Functional Medicine and its natural friends have gathered data from patient surveys, clinical trials, and other academic and scientific investigations. Linus Pauling, along with Eric Hoffer, Roger Williams, Carl Pfeiffer, and others, were early pioneers in this movement, examining the influence of diet and supplements on brain-related diseases.

This early research of depression, anxiety, bipolar illness, and schizophrenia was dubbed “Orthomolecular Psychiatry,” which later evolved into “Orthomolecular Medicine.” Yes, even Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Laureate, was frequently labeled a “quack” by the medical establishment.

Linus Pauling and his colleagues Integrative Functional Medicine pioneers, it turns out, are about to get the last laugh. Dr. David Eddy, a medical researcher, reviewed everything that Traditional Medicine does in a cover article from Business Week magazine on May 29th, 2006, headlined “Medical Guesswork,” and found scientific proof for just 20-25 percent of conventional medical treatments, goods, and procedures.

Only 11% of traditional medicine treatments generated a favorable effect or outcome, according to a research published in the British medical journal The Journal of Clinical Evidence.

At the same time, according to this selection of recent publications, Integrative Functional/Natural Medicine is receiving greater scientific credibility:

•     Integrative Functional Medicine was found to be practical in managing and reversing hypertension, obesity, heart disease, and prostate illness in a research published in the British medical journal Lancet Oncology.
•     According to a research published by the Institute of Medicine, scientifically validated conventional therapies coupled with meditation, yoga, acupuncture, and herbal medicine were both medically and financially beneficial.
•     In a meta-analysis titled “Health Cost Productiveness of Natural Health Products: A Systematic Review of Randomized Clinic Trials,” the National Institutes of Health discovered positive health outcomes and cost savings of up to 73 percent when natural products were compared to conventional treatments.

Why Does Integrative Functional Medicine Perform Well Than Allopathic Medicine?

The answer to this question is well-known among individuals in the Integrative Functional Medicine community, but for others who aren’t as familiar with the topic, a concise overview is provided below. Allopathic Medicine’s Weaknesses

•     Diagnoses and therapies are divided into organs and systems without respect for their interrelated relationships throughout the body.
•     Some diagnostic methods, such as radioactive mammography, CT scans, and early biopsies, are really dangerous.
•     Many diagnostic tests may only detect illness or disease after it has progressed to the point where it is harmful. Mammograms are the finest example, because tumors do not appear on a scan unless there are at least four billion cells present, and even then, these scans are only 65 percent accurate. For ill patients, this size tumor generally signifies Stage 2 or Stage 3, and each scan exposes them to hazardous radiation.
•     Rather of working with the body to employ its natural disease-fighting capacities, many therapies, particularly prescription drugs, are designed to disrupt and change biochemical systems.
•     Many prescription drugs have side effects that cause more health issues than they alleviate, which may take to life-threatening scenarios.
•     Many licensed pharmaceutical drugs have productiveness rates of less than 1%. In the case of cholesterol-lowering statin medications, for example, 150 people must take the treatment before one person’s life is extended.
•     Allopathic doctors have little to no training in nutrition or other natural medicine fields, limiting their capacity to properly comprehend the origins of most ailments. As a result, they are forced to address the symptoms, which might be the same for a variety of illnesses, resulting in misdiagnosis and incorrect therapy.
•     Surgical procedures are often performed, despite the fact that they typically provide only marginal advantages or might have been avoided entirely by utilizing an useful natural remedy. An angioplasty, for example, typically yields a meager 3% favorable effect, but EDTA Chelation Therapy might often yield substantially higher results.

Aside from these flaws in medical practice, the whole healthcare system is predicated on managing symptoms, despite the fact that 80 percent of all disease is both preventable and reversible. There are little incentives for keeping patients healthy, and changing the way most doctors practice medicine will be difficult until this situation changes. Integrative Functional Medicine’s Advantages:

•     ‍In both the diagnosis and therapy stages, Integrative Functional Medicine evaluates the entire organism.
•     Integrative functional medicine focuses on managing the cause of a disease rather than merely the symptoms.
•     Treatments used in Integrative Functional Medicine are significantly safer and have less negative side effects.
•     Integrative Functional medicine may be used in conjunction with scientifically validated allopathic treatments to provide an integrated medical solution.
•     Diagnostic tests in Integrative Functional Medicine are frequently used to detect cells that are on the verge of illness but are not yet sick. This usually happens five to 10 years before a condition is diagnosed by traditional medicine.
•     Conventional medicine may only manage an ailment, but Integrative Functional Medicine therapies are frequently more successful and may often reverse a condition. The finest illustration of this is type 2 diabetes.
•     Integrative Functional Medicine therapies are much less expensive than Conventional Medicine treatments, and they may help people, companies, and governments that are overburdened by the cost of Allopathic treatments that frequently fail.

Is Integrative Functional Medicine the Answer to Saving Our Healthcare System?

The basic answer is, “Not by itself.” While Integrative Functional Medicine may make a significant difference, many other variables must shift before our healthcare system may really be “saved.”1. The Medical Establishment – The attitudes and financial motivations of traditional medical practitioners must fundamentally shift.

The medical establishment will find it quite difficult to recognize that they have been completely incorrect on many things for a long time. Dr. Mark Hyman, speaking at a Senate Hearing on Health on February 26, 2009, summed up the situation perfectly. According to Dr. Hyman:

“If you just keep doing the wrong things well, you won’t be able to address the health-care situation.”

Dr. Hyman stumbled across Dr. Elos Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, on his way to a medical conference in Paris, France, a few years later. Dr. Cosgrove must have been pleased by Dr. Hyman’s comments on how Integrative Functional Medicine was curing many chronic illnesses with natural treatment procedures since he invited him to the Cleveland Clinic to learn more about it.

Dr. Hyman first rejected, but once Dr. Cosgrove decided to change the Cleveland Clinic in the direction of Integrative Functional Medicine, he said “yes” two years later. His statement at the time of the announcement was apparently
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“The medicine of the future is integrative functional medicine.”

If the Cleveland Clinic’s shift is functional, it might be the first domino to fall for conventional medicine, and it could be one of the most significant medical developments in the previous century. This transformation might be considerably hastened and save millions of lives, as well as billions or perhaps trillions of dollars, if we could convince the financial model to focus more on prevention and less on treatment. Boeing is one company that is trying to reform the system by compensating doctors for keeping people healthy rather than merely managing their symptoms.

Drug firms, insurance companies, and many doctors will all be losers as a result of this move. The victors, on the other hand, will be individuals who will be healthier and live longer, rescuing future generations from our country’s impending bankruptcy.

Doctors’ Education — Instead of trying to “treat” everyone in the seven minutes they see the typical patient, doctors will need to learn how to incorporate Integrative Functional Medicine into their practices and how to become instructors and facilitators. By reading more, receiving timely and relevant health checkups, and altering harmful lifestyle behaviors, the general population will be able to take greater personal responsibility for their health.

If businesses and their insurance companies hop on the Integrative Functional Medicine bandwagon, workplace wellness initiatives may have a major impact. Employee and family education, paired with effective incentive systems, has been shown to have a significant impact on people’s health and the bottom line of businesses.

Food Producers and Sellers — Our food business has to adapt as rapidly as possible to this transformation and cease creating unhealthy foods, overprocessing them, and selling unhealthy foods so cheaply while keeping healthy food costs too high. If farmers, food processors, and merchants fail to make the required modifications, the government may be forced to legislate these improvements. We should be worried about allowing the matter to reach this degree, given the government’s past record in this area.

‍Conclusion

Other considerations should be made in this critical paradigm shift. Nobody is implying that everything about conventional medicine is terrible and should be altered arbitrarily. Acute treatment, in the form of procedures, is quite effective and saves a lot of lives each year. Some surgeries, such as angioplasty, have a poor track record, and scientific evidence supports just 20-25 percent of what Conventional Medicine performs.

What we need is a real integration of these two types of medicine, using the most of each to create a medical system that actually saves lives and avoids as much sickness, pain, and waste as possible. The path has been spelled out plainly. All we need is someone like Mahatma Gandhi to lead the way and take the initiative.

The blog post “Is Integrative Functional Medicine Here To Stay?” was published first on Rowan Clinic

Ready to get started with functional medicine? The Toronto Functional Medicine Centre may be a good place to start. The clinic is conveniently located at the heart of the city. Schedule an introductory meeting by calling (416) 968-6961.