Functional medicine is an individualized, patient centered, science-based approach to root cause medicine. It allows for the empowerment of patients to work together with their clinician to discover the underlying causes of disease and encourage optimal wellness. Emphasizing lifestyle modification, nutrition, supplements and herbs rather than pharmaceuticals unless needed. There is no doubt that conventional medicine is well equipped to deal with acute care, trauma and emergency medicine but the high incidence of chronic conditions exposes some room for improvement in long term treatment.
Functional medicine seeks to integrate proven methods from both allopathic and alternative treatments. It focuses on practices that are preventive rather than reactive. Often, the focus is directed at metrics while not discovering what caused the metrics. It is important to use means to assist in treating the condition while concentrating on discovering why certain systems are out of order.
Functional medicine has a unique opportunity to reach disadvantaged communities. A spotlight was shined on health disparities attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Research displayed increases in infection and lethality in minority communities (Webb Hooper M, 2020). Distrust between African Americans and the modern health system was magnified at the speed in which treatments were announced. Functional medicine can begin to approach this divide by patient education on environmental factors that may be detrimental to an individuals health and offer alternatives to pharmaceutical interventions before infection or complimentary to treatment during and post-infection. This has been demonstrated by the correlation of low Vitamin D levels (less than 20 ng/ml) (Meltzer DO, 2020) and increased risk of COVID-19 infection and an additional study showing increased infection rates in Black individuals in levels less that 40 ng/ml (Meltzer DO B. T., 2021).
As the world deals with COVID-19 and the increase in interest in public health on hygiene practices, global pandemic response and vaccination distribution and education, there should also be additional emphasis on the exposome, the sum measure of lifetime exposures in an individual and how those exposures relate to health. These factors have a direct and indirect influence on our immunological reserve and should be considered in the treatment of metabolic disease. This, in turn, can decrease the lethality of viral pathogens like novel SARS-CoV-2 and those that may appear in the future.
Bibliography
Meltzer DO, B. T. (2020). Association of Vitamin D Status and Other Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results. JAMA, 3.
Meltzer DO, B. T. (2021). Association of Vitamin D Levels, Race/Ethnicity, and Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results. JAMA.
Ward, B. W. (2013). Prevalence of Multiple chronic conditions among US adults: estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2010. Preventing Chronic Disease, 10.
Webb Hooper M, N. A.-S. (2020). COVID-19 and Racial/Ethnic Disparities. JAMA, 2466-2467.
Williamson, E. W. (2020). Factors associated with COVID-19-related death using OpenSAFELY. Nature, 430-436.