Clinical Nutrition and Functional Medicine
My name is Michael Forman. I am a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. I practice what is called Clinical Nutrition, a form of ‘Functional Medicine’. Perhaps some of you have heard this term before and many of you might be wondering what this means. ‘Functional medicine’ is a Holistic approach to supporting and correcting the body’s organ functions as a means of handling disease, symptoms and maintaining good health.
We view disease as a result of systemic organ dysfunction instead of an independent event occurring to an otherwise healthy body. Our approach is to support the body to function well and let the body take care of any problems and imbalances that are causing symptoms. We do this by identifying specific organ dysfunctions and nutritional deficiencies that lie at the cause of symptoms and then handle those deficiencies with Acupuncture, Chinese herbs and whole food based nutritional remedies.
It’s the opposite of the traditional medical approach which seeks to isolate and suppress symptoms through pharmaceutical remedies in an attempt to intervene in or manage diseases. In acute and emergency cases, this approach is both effective and necessary and we are certainly fortunate to have it available to us. However, most health problems in the US are not acute, emergency cases and tend to get worse and even debilitating using this approach as evidenced through the prolific number of chronic health problems facing so many people in their daily lives.
A well functioning body does not experience disease. A well functioning body is not tired with fatigue, doesn’t have a chronic, sore lower back, does not have high blood pressure, high triglycerides, insulin resistance, auto-immune dysfunction and the myriad of conditions that plague people every day and keep them from being fully productive in their lives.
Our current physical state is the sum total of everything we consume and how we process it (whether taken through food and drink or exposed environmentally). And food (including liquids) is the most important and fundamental factor.
Our bodies are designed by nature to use vitamins and minerals that come from food and our environment to grow, maintain and replenish. When we experience any kind of stress, our body, through our nervous system, pulls on our reserves of these nutrients to sustain the necessary level of organ activity to deal with whatever it has to.
If we do not replenish these vital nutrients, we begin the process of deterioration through deficiencies that ultimately lead to symptoms. If not dealt with, these symptoms become more severe because the more nutritionally deficient we get, the more dysfunctional out organs get. And the less our body can digest and utilize these minerals and vitamins. And the more severe symptoms become to the point they get classified as a ‘disease’.
Types of Conditions best suited for treatment in Functional Medicine:
- Chronic pain
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Infertility
- Auto-immune disease
- Fatigue and tiredness
- Weight loss
- Indigestion
- Low libido