Functional Nutrition

Functional Nutrition addresses the underlying root causes of symptoms and disease.

Functional nutrition embraces both conventional and complementary therapies to health and healing.

It’s a “Whole” or Holistic Approach to Health and Disease — looking at whole body systems, the body and spirit as a whole, and the body as it relates and connects to its whole environment and ecology.

“Food as Medicine,” is one of the primary aspects of Functional Nutrition. This includes whole-food therapies and targeted dietary supplements.

Functional Nutrition addresses the underlying causes of disease. It focuses on the root of  the problem and utilizes therapies and lifestyle changes to help the body get back into a state of wellness, balance and social and emotional harmony.

Functional Nutrition incorporates therapies that support the body’s natural healing processes. It supports the body to heal, rather than attempting to mask problematic symptoms.

Functional Nutrition addresses the fundamental aspects of health which are often ignored, especially when dealing with chronic diseases that affect our quality of life.

Each person’s lifestyle, environmental factors, emotional well-being, spirituality, and social supports factor into nutrition assessments and personalized treatment modalities, as do their genetic profile or predisposition, triggers, and mediators.

Functional Nutrition practitioners look at: 

• the foods you eat and drink, your nutritional status and hydration
• how you (or if you) sleep or relax
• if and how you exercise, and how you move and breathe
• what kind of stress(ors) you are under, how resilient you are and how well you cope
• the kinds of personal relationships and social networks you have
• if you have experienced trauma (physical, emotional or mental) and if these traumas have ever been addressed
• what environmental pollutants you have been exposed to
• the microbial ecology of your body
• well-researched relevant SNPs (or genetic variations), particularly in the methylation pathway.
  (Read about Nutrigenomics and the PureGenomics Program.)

Functional Nutrition medical physicians also incorporate “traditional” medical assessments such as:

• conducting a physical exam
• taking a medical history (including medications, nutritional supplements, medical treatments you have already undergone)
• looking at laboratory and other test results

I strongly believe in Functional Nutrition.

As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, my goal is to help improve people’s well-being through a Whole Food Diet, Targeted Supplements and Lifestyle Enhancements.