WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL NUTRITION THERAPY?

Functional Medicine is a unified & holistic, patient-centered methodology of delivering medical care with the goal of maximizing the individual’s

Functional Nutrition is about finding the right way for each of us as individuals to eat—using food to maximize the potential for health and reverse dysfunction or disease. There is no single “right diet” that applies to everyone. We all have different genetic backgrounds, different dietary preferences, and different lives. We all want to be healthy, but figuring out how to make food and dietary patterns serve that goal can be difficult. Functional Nutrition offers the concepts, strategies, and tools to make that happen.

At its core, nutrition is about eating a regular, balanced diet that fuels your body to get through your day-to-day activities, exercise, and meet your metabolic needs. What we eat is considered an important environmental factor that influences our health positively or negatively. Adequate nutrition ensures you take in enough vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients (like protein, fats, and carbohydrates) to maintain your brain function, muscle activity, bone health, nervous system, blood circulation, and more.

Functional nutrition is a subcategory of functional medicine based on a holistic perspective of the body - physical, spiritual, and emotional - and using healthy, whole-food approaches to nutrition to address the root causes of illness and support optimal gut health. Instead of just looking at calories and the micronutrient content of food, functional nutrition also emphasizes an individual's environment, lifestyle, cultural background, stress levels, and more to tailor nutritional recommendations for a specific goal. The field of functional nutrition embraces the concept of bio-individuality, meaning that each patient has specific needs when it comes to nutrition and overall care.

Functional nutrition focuses on healthy eating customized to YOUR needs, lifestyle, environment and health concerns. Functional nutrition offers effective strategies and tools to improve your health, including weekly food and shopping programs, healthy recipes and recommendations on cooking and food storage methods, as well as steps to achieve mindful eating.When you work with a functional nutrition practitioner on your healthcare team, you'll have access to a wealth of additional information to educate and support you in adopting a new approach to food and nutrition. Your practitioner will also determine whether specialized dietary approaches or other interventions are needed.Changing eating behavior isn't easy, even after you've been well informed about what to do. There will be ups and downs. Unlike diets, these changes are not severe, short-term restrictions on your diet, and they don't involve counting calories or depriving yourself of delicious, satisfying foods. They are scientifically-based approaches that can benefit you throughout your life.

The Mediterranean diet emphasizes nutrient-dense foods traditionally consumed by populations living near the Mediterranean Sea. Its main principles include consuming seasonal produce, fish and lean meats, healthy fats like olives and olive oil, and unrefined whole grains. Alongside the nutritional component are common lifestyle themes found in these populations, such as plenty of walking and physical activity, the importance of community and social relationships, and a balanced life overall. The Mediterranean diet is linked to lower inflammation levels, and has plenty of research behind its benefits.

In a Paleo-type diet, nutrition recommendations are centered around what our Paleolithic ancestors likely ate many years ago - grass-fed meats, wild-caught fish, healthy fats, free-range eggs, seasonal produce, and nuts and seeds. This nutritional approach typically suggests avoiding refined sugar, processed foods, legumes, and refined grains, none of which would have been available to our ancestors. Some followers of the Paleo diet also avoid dairy, while others include grass-fed dairy - this is where personalization can be helpful based on an individual's needs and tolerances.

The elimination diet is considered to be the gold standard in functional nutrition and functional medicine for identifying food reactions. It can be challenging to identify or detect problematic foods just from a history and diet diary due to the large variety of symptoms that can stem from food sensitivities and potential delayed reactions to foods. In a traditional elimination diet, suspect foods are removed for 3-4 weeks, then reintroduced one food at a time under the direction of a knowledgeable practitioner to help determine what foods may be causing symptoms. Food intolerance testing can help further personalize this approach.

A low FODMAP diet may be used by functional nutritionists initially when working with cases of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) or SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), having been shown to be effective at reducing symptoms in these populations in 75% of cases. FODMAPs is an acronym standing for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols, which are short-chain carbohydrates that easily ferment in the intestine, leading to symptoms like gas, bloating, pain, and more. This particular diet plan should be used short-term, as it is very restrictive and is typically reserved for those with a confirmed diagnosis of SIBO or IBS.

A gluten-free diet may be recommended not only for those with confirmed celiac disease but also for individuals with leaky gut syndrome and IBS, non-Celiac gluten sensitivities (NCGS), or those with autoimmune thyroid disease. While a gluten-free diet is lifelong for an individual with a confirmed diagnosis of Celiac disease, the diet may be used temporarily by functional nutritionists as a therapeutic healing approach for these other conditions.