Functional nutrition is a cornerstone for functional medicine. It is the practice of personalized nutrition assessment, diagnosis, intervention, and monitoring with the goal of promoting optimal health and preventing nutrition- and lifestyle-related disease. Like functional medicine, its focus is on the whole person and the need to improve the quality of the person’s life through restoring health and preventing disease.

 

The focus of functional medicine is on patient-centered care, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease. By listening to the patient and learning his or her story, the practitioner brings the patient into the discovery process addressing the individual’s unique needs. This includes balancing nutritional intake of macronutrients and micronutrients, enhancing detoxification with appropriate foods as well as optimizing antioxidant status.

 

Integrating Best Medical Practices

 

Functional medicine integrates traditional Western medical practices with what is sometimes considered “alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet, and exercise; use of the latest laboratory testing and other diagnostic techniques; and prescribed combinations of drugs and/or botanical medicines, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, or stress-management techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can Functional Nutrition help?

 

Functional Nutrition provides safe and effective solutions for addressing complex, chronic diseases, including personalized dietary and lifestyle interventions. We are facing numerous crises in health care, none more serious than the global escalation of complex, chronic disease with its unsustainable economic and human costs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. At its core, chronic disease is intimately connected with diet and lifestyle behaviors and requires effective diet and lifestyle solutions, yet nutrition education in US medical schools continues to be woefully inadequate. What is needed is a comprehensive and cohesive approach that provides a practical framework for weaving nutrition-related medicine into an integrative and synergistic whole that delivers personalized care for chronic disease.

 

In response to the epidemic of lifestyle-related chronic illnesses—now classified as lifestyle syndromes—Functional Nutrition Counseling provides practical nutrition assessment and support for clients.

 

Contact us today to schedule a consultation or to receive more information:

859.351.1310 or info@gih-center.com