Each and every turn of the year, Americans spend such colossal sums on health care needs, with statistics averaging the figures at about $3.3 billion on an annual basis. What’s even more worrying is the fact that such a large share, close to 90%, of these go into the treatment and management of some of the chronic conditions such as diabetes and arthritis.
Thanks to such statistical facts, the professionals in the medical world were prompted to start looking for alternative ways to approach health and healing. The focus or emphasis of these approaches is to manage or treat the causes of these particular chronic conditions.
In this post, we will take a look at some of the things that you need to know of when it comes to functional medicine and how this approach, functional medicine actually differs from traditional medicine. We see in this post just how this approach to medicine and health is proving to transform the medical landscape.
Looking at functional medicine, this is primarily an approach to health and wellness that has a focus on the would-be causes of some of these chronic conditions that we may be faced with such as diabetes and the like, and not the kind that will go direct to the treatment of the symptoms that such conditions may show. Take for instance where one is diagnosed with heart disease in which case they would most likely be prescribed medication under traditional medicine to help them manage the condition.
But under functional medicine, the approach is a little bit different when it comes to such kinds of conditions as heart disease. Under functional medicine, the healthcare professionals would first take a look at a number of the things that would be the causes for these conditions such as lifestyle choices, environmental exposures and genetic influences.
By and large, this particular approach in functional medicine is actually taken looking at the fact that it is assumed, and rightly so, under functional medicine that as humans, we were not just wired to in a way naturally suffer such kinds of conditions of lifestyle like diabetes, heart conditions, and the like chronic ailments so common with us today. Therefore we see the fact that functional medicine approaches the treatment and management of such conditions from the assumption that these conditions must be resulting from some causes and mostly lifestyle choices and such.
If at all you are looking for more info on this approach to health and wellness, the history and effectiveness of functional medicine, see here for more info.