Functional Medicine. Why We Ignored it and Why We Are Bringing it Back

Humans are animals much like any other species. We function on predetermined mechanisms that govern our biology. From time to time, those mechanisms might go awry due to inevitable process or entropy. Nonetheless, in the case of medicine, humans are a special case since we can leverage input by using our opposable thumbs and bulged brains.

This is where things get tricky when it comes to fixing something that has gone bad in our bodies. Normally, nature would take care of this task by allowing time and proper signaling. Bad food for example would create some adverse effects so that it can be avoided in future encounters. Allergies are also a good signaling letting us know that our genome cannot properly handle a specific substance. The problem we face today with medicine doesn't have to do much with the signaling bur rather our response to it.

Normally an animal will only listen to the response signaling of its instincts. That is, the animal will smell something, take a little taste and decide whether it is good or bad. Evolution will craft the rest and adopt the animal accordingly. Humans are not exception to this process but we share a characteristic that is both a blessing and a curse. Our brains have evolved in order to make logical decisions that are only focused on a narrow time span. We can determine very specific tasks and plan accordingly but do so only within the parameters of our narrow and limited perception. This is how we ended up developing modern medicine that manages to treat the symptoms rather than address the root cause of a given problem.

We do much the same thing when it comes to working for a paper or a task at work. We fail to see the big picture so we procrastinate. We postpone something for the vague (near?) future instead of addressing the issue right on the spot. Environmental disasters follow the same thought pattern. Most of humanities problems are caused by this mode of perception and really, we can't help ourselves because this is also part of our design. This is why we have ignored functional medicine that is ingrained in our very unique biology and rather lead our brains to overdrive mode in order to temporarily patch something.

Nobody can ignore that traditional medicine has tripled our lifespan and extended our life's quality. But this is again the small picture since most of these accomplishments were made possible by accidental discoveries like in the case of penicillin. Infection killed most people when they got infected and by solving this single problem probably doubled our lifespan. In other words, Traditional Medicine made a small dent that resulted as rather massive from our perspective. An average human would not have lived past the age of 33 without traditional medicine whereas today we touch 90 with just small modifications.

It seems that beyond the point of infection we have hit a threshold. The real killer today for most people is chronic disease that ranges from Diabetes to Alzheimer's. For this we need to address the issue differently before it often arises. This requires listening more to our bodies and focusing on unique biological imprint rather than going the traditional way. Collaboration is much more important rather than relying on a single expert. Holistic approaches are much more efficient rather than problem specific ones.

Functional Medicine is making a come-back because it has become evident that mother nature knows all the tricks before we even thought about them. She has been going through them for millennia. Her wisdom has penetrated all facets of our modern lives from engineering to technology. Processes today are rather being pushed towards emulating biological mechanisms instead of reverse engineering the problem. It is hard to go wrong with something that has been Beta tested for millions of years.

As we progress into the ear of functional medicine, our genome, diet and exercise regimen will become as unique as our own fingerprints. Our current a-la-cart solutions will be viewed as brute as witch hunting. We will be wondering whether medicine was really following the scientific method when each subject in our studies was so uniquely different.

It will take some time until everyone has their genome mapped and labs start outputting functional data like DNA methylation patterns that are unique to our biology. Until then the best we can do is listen to out bodies. No matter what a doctor says about a specific medication or what studies have showed, at the end of the day, your body will decide whether or not it is appropriate for its case. So really, at least for now, all one has to do is listen more from inwards input while taking into consideration the one that comes from outwards.