Functional Medicine vs Holistic Medicine: Everything You Need to Know

Cultivating Optimal Health

Your journey to longevity and optimal health starts here. Functional medicine and holistic medicine’s ability to promote health has received recognition. But many people still struggle to understand how to distinguish between the two. What sets them apart, and how they can offer new opportunities to promote optimal health.

Indeed, gone are the days when you were stuck choosing between conventional medicine and holistic medicine. Many people have overlooked functional medicine as a integrative treatment form altogether. But fortunately, this trend is beginning to change, with a staggering number of regular people as well as medical professionals taking an interest in functional and integrative medicine.

To truly understand how functional medicine and holistic medicine can positively promote optimal health, you need to educate yourself on them.

Functional Medicine

What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine focuses on creating personalized treatment plans that address the root cause harming a person’s health and wellness. Functional medicine centers you, the patient, and seeks to combine conventional medicine and alternative therapies as an integrative medicine to boost your spiritual health and lifestyle.

Integrative medicine physicians label this approach “functional” because of its ability to actualize new medical treatments that are individualized for your specific needs.

How it Works?

Good functional medicine doctors take their time listening to you talk about your own health. Unlike conventional Western medicine practitioners, integrative medicine focuses on understanding you, your medical history, and your lifestyle factors to understand the root cause for your poor health and wellness.

This is important as it helps functional medicine practitioners identify any triggers for poor health, like nutrition, toxins, allergens, microbes, or even genetics. Whereas it can take time to recognize what factors are harming your whole body health, it is necessary to develop functional medicine that uses alternative treatments to help you attain lifelong health.

Once your functional medicine doctor knows what the source of your ailment is, they can develop appropriate therapies that will ensure you achieve optimal health.

Key Features of Functional and Integrative Medicine

Functional medicine has a robust systems-based approach for diagnosing symptoms. All physical symptoms of an illness can be caused by a multitude of individual causes each.

As a result, functional medicine seeks to create a complex overview of all of your symptoms and what their specific causes might be. Then, it develops complementary and alternative therapies for each symptom’s healing process.

What Makes Functional Medicine Unique?

Modern medicine relies on generalized information that may prove useful for your physical health, but their results might not be as long-lasting owing to their lack of specificity for your needs. By contrast, integrative and functional medicine has a litany of distinct features. Its primary focus is your unique life style, genetics, and environmental factors.

By assessing all of these factors within a systems-based approach, it is able to treat the root causes of your poor health care. In other words, instead of managing symptoms like conventional medicine, functional medicine focuses on addressing the root cause through integrative medicine.

To reach these stellar outcomes, functional medicine also relies upon advanced diagnostic testing to assess any imbalances throughout your body so no symptom is overlooked and left untreated. It also involves patients as active stakeholders, working with a functional medicine practitioner to recognize what triggers their poor health.

Benefits of Functional Medicine

Functional and integrative medicine will promote healing within you. By combining Western medicine and complementary therapies under an integrative medicine approach, it will utilize the best of both worlds to boost your health care.

Below, you can find just a few examples of research illustrating the potential of functional medicine. For a comprehensive overview of what it can do for you, get in touch with integrative practitioners for an online functional medicine consultation.

Chronic Pain Management

Comprehensive research in the realm of healing sciences has shown how advantageous integrative medicine is for helping you achieve optimal health. A 2019 study published in the journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that functional medicine can be very effective at chronic disease management.

With a sample of 7252 patients, the researchers assessed how effective integrative medicine was for their long-term health care. It concluded that it might have “beneficial and sustainable” applications for a whole person.

Lifestyle Modifications

Another research study on updating medical care for diabetic geriatric patients also illuminated the benefits of functional medicine. According to the researchers, integrative medicine assessing patients holistically, focusing on specific elements of their health like gut health.

Using it, doctors can develop a comprehensive plan to improve diabetic geriatrics lifestyle, which would subsequently help manage their diabetes better and soothe chronic pain. This study’s conclusions imply that changes to lifestyle factors offered by the systems-based approach of functional and integrative medicine can also contribute to long-term well being.

Stress Management

A research published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice examined functional medicine treatments for women suffering from fatigue, stress and digestive issues. It points to how effective integrative medicine can be.

A 28 week long pilot study on women receiving functional medical care found that the integrative medicine approaches had fantastic results. The women showed lower stress and fatigue levels improved. Their digestive system also performed better without relying on dietary supplements. Subseqeuntly, functional medicine also proved to be great for their emotional health.

Holistic Medicine

What is Holistic Medicine?

As its name suggests, holistic medicine strives to provide its patients with treatments that address the health of their entire human body. Holistic medicine believes that attitudinal approaches to care can help people improve their health and wellness.

Underpinning this healing science is the belief that every person has the innate ability to heal themselves. To this end, holistic medicine is a big proponent of traditional medical practices.

How it Works?

Holistic medicine is interested in treating every aspect of a whole person. Not just their physical symptoms but also their mental and spiritual health. This comprehensive diagnosis of your health is what makes holistic medicine “holistic.”

But what does it do to actually treat the ailments it identifies? Well, holistic practitioners use a range of natural remedies for treating symptoms. They also encourage changes in certain lifestyle factors that can help actualize the ability of a person to heal themselves from within.

Key Features of Holistic Medicine

Much like functional and integrative medicine, holistic treatments also try to discover what is causing certain symptoms to appear in a person. It also tries to subsequently treat the problem at its core using traditional Chinese medicine rather than simply treating the symptoms like conventional Western medicine.

What sets it apart from integrative and functional medicine is its focus on the health of the whole person and not just a particular facet of it, like their physical wellness.

What Makes Holistic Medicine Unique?

Holistic medicine tries to take a very different approach to treatment than functional medicine. It promotes natural therapies for treating its patients. Holistic medicine practitioners rely on the ancient teachings of the natural world, drawing inspiration from all cultures, to bring the best treatment methods that have stood the test of time.

In fact, certain providers specialize in certain kinds of alternative medicine. Holistic medicine can incorporate elements of Chinese medicine, which is a medical research tradition that has provided the most comprehensive information on the subject. Not only does it include organic herbal medicine, but also unique treatments like acupuncture and reiki whose primary focus is on the energies flowing through your organ systems.

Besides traditional Chinese medicine, it can also use Indian ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic medicine also has its own unique herbal medicine, but it also uses massage therapy and yoga.

Benefits of Holistic Treatment

Naturopathic medicine such as these can prove to be very effective at promoting optimal health in the long term. The strengthening of your immune system can also protect you against infectious diseases. However, to achieve these results, one of the most important lessons embedded at the core of holistic medicine is the belief that you can and should take charge of your own wellness and care.

To substantiate the potential of these natural therapies, you should explore the promising results of actual research on the subject. We’ve listed a few notable examples below, but it is always better to schedule an online consultation on functional medicine with an expert.

Enhanced Emotional Wellness

The potential of holistic treatment to boost its patients’ mental health is known for years. A 2004 study in The Scientific World Journal written by a Danish and an Israeli researcher theorized a relationship between the organic lifestyle modifications promoted by holistic medicine and mental wellness.

According to these scholars, by cultivating consciousness about one’s health, holistic treatments can allow people to adopt healthier practices that promote longevity. Improved lifestyle choices subsequently leads to positive mental and emotional wellness. Plus, since the patient is self-conscious about their health, these lifestyle changes are sustainable and become habits.

Patient-Led Care

Another early 21st-century research found that holistic care incentivizes patients to take charge of their health and adopt preventative care measures (Ventegodt et al., 2004). These efforts help protect the body of the whole person, including even their dental health – as the study in question examines.

By adopting holistic care in their lifestyle, the patient is able to take agency of their well-being. At the same time, the conscious effort to look after their own health also prevents the need for troublesome surgical interventions down the road.

Long-Term Health

Recent scholarship has found an increasing similarity between conventional medicine and traditional medical treatments. Contemporary medicine encourages a more context-sensitive and individualized treatment plan for patients, inadvertently drawing on holistic medicine. As mainstream medicine advances, it is increasingly coming back to these foundational principles.

The study theorized that, soon, mainstream medicine will need to begin directly incorporating elements from holistic medicine to provide personalized care. Doing so can promote preventative healthcare by focusing on physical health and positive lifestyles.

Choosing Integrative Medicine

There are clear benefits to all holistic, functional and integrative medicine. However, there are nevertheless critical differences between the two. Meaning that they might not be suitable for all medical occasions. You can find quick rundown of these differences here.

Specificity

Integrative and functional medicine identifies specific causes that are triggering symptoms and treats them, but holistic medicine wants to treat every aspect of human existence.

Treatment

Functional medicine and integrative medicine rely on a range of complementary and conventional treatments, including modern scientific ones. Conversely, holistic care encourages medical professionals to provide natural therapies to a whole person’s body to help relax and treat them.

Patient Role

Finally, one of the most critical differences between functional and holistic treatment; what the role of their patients is. Patients work with their health providers under functional medicine, helping to identify the cause of the identified symptom. But holistic medicine goes in the other direction by encouraging people take charge of their own wellness and proceed accordingly.

Final Thoughts

Integrative medicine’s promise to consolidate these complex ideas under one umbrella certainly sounds interesting. However, assessing what specific functional medicine treatments is ideal for you is not straightforward. After all, integrative medicine requires a personalized approach, so you cannot self-diagnose.

To determine whether holistic or integrative medicine works best for you, you need to give it a try! The herbal remedies promoted by both these treatment methods would leave a beneficial impact on your wellness. However, to determine what might be your best choice, get in touch with integrative medicine practitioners to learn more.

By speaking to an expert on the subject of functional and integrative medicine, you will be able to start your first day or your new lifestyle. By the end of this transformative journey, you will feel like a new, healthier, whole person.

Citations

Beidelschies, M., Alejandro-Rodriguez, M., Ji, X., Lapin, B., Hanaway, P., & Rothberg, M. B. (2019). Association of the Functional Medicine Model of Care with Patient-Reported Health-Related Quality-of-Life Outcomes. Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2(10). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.14017

Valencia, W. M., Botros, D., Vera-Nunez, M., & Dang, S. (2018). Diabetes Treatment in the Elderly: Incorporating Geriatrics, Technology, and Functional Medicine. Current Diabetes Reports, 18(10). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-018-1052-y

Cutshall, S. M., Bergstrom, L. R., & Kalish, D. J. (2016). Evaluation of a Functional Medicine Approach to Treating Fatigue, Stress, and Digestive Issues in Women. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 23, 75–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2016.03.005

Ventegodt, S., & Merrick, J. (2004). Clinical Holistic Medicine: Applied Consciousness-Based Medicine. The Scientific World Journal, 4, 96–99.

Ventegodt, V., Morad, M., & Merrick, J. (2004). Clinical Holistic Medicine: Prevention through Healthy Lifestyle and Quality of Life. Oral Health and Preventative Dentistry, 2(1). https://livskvalitet.org/pdf/OHPD-CHM_-_8_-_Prevention_through_healthy_lifestyle_and_QOL_(proof).pdf

Yuan, B. (2019). Toward Holistic Medicine and Holistic Biology: Life Sciences After Precision Medicine and Systems Biology. Frontiers in Life Science, 12(1), 14–26.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21553769.2019.1682064