Functional medicine involves testing for the root causes of disease and designing a treatment plan to address the root cause of the disorder, not just the symptoms. Functional Medicine views and treats the body as a whole system.
The use of the word “functional” is key to understanding the functional and integrative medical approach. Functional lab tests help determine how the body or organ is really working, or functioning, as opposed to other medical tests which measure pathological breakdown and disease.
A sub-optimal functional medicine test may indicate a need for correction even though traditional testing may show everything is within the normal range. This is a subtle but important difference as many sub-optimal health conditions will cause symptoms that get us to the doctor, but then no reason can be found for what is causing our health problem.
Functional Medicine Lab Tests and Genetic Testing May Uncover Factors Which Contribute to Illness such as:
Nutritional Deficiencies
Hormonal Imbalances
Detoxification and Biotransformational imbalances
Immune imbalances
Inflammatory imbalances
Digestive,absorptive, and microbiological imbalances
Structural imbalances
Methylation issues
Genetic mutations, MTHFR and COMT genes
Neurologogical Conditions
Autoimmune Conditions
GI disorders
Chronic pain syndromes
Anti-aging, preventative medicine
Asthma, dermatitis and allergy disorders
Brain health and memory issues
Cardiovascular diseases, stroke, co-management of risk factors
Chronic fatigue syndrome CFS, Fibromyalgia and related disorders
GERD, irritable bowel disease, GI disorders
Immune and autoimmune disorders
Metabolic disorders, diabetes, dysglycemias, weight loss
Parkinson’s disease, neurological disorders
Insurance May cover standard lab tests, however, some services and labs are not covered by insurance.
We strive to make Clinical Nutrition and Functional Medicine affordable for everyone and our fees are below what other centers charge.
Functional Medicine First Visits are seen by Dr. Ratcliffe on Tuesday and Thursday