Functional Medicine and You
Functional medicine focuses on the balance of the endocrine system and optimizing how hormones interact within the body. How does functional medicine differ from conventional medicine? Traditional medicine focuses on treating isolated symptoms and illness, with specialty drugs and doctors. Meanwhile, functional medicine focuses on the person, not the symptoms.
Your body can heal itself.
Your body has a fantastic capacity for continuously healing itself of sickness and injury. If you are injured or become ill your body should quickly and accurately deal with the problem and restore itself to health. Why then, if our bodies are so well designed, why are 20.4% of American adults dealing with chronic pain and more than 40% of Americans affected by chronic diseases?
Your Hormones
Hormones act as chemical couriers within the body, telling it to perform specific physical and mental tasks. We have close to 50 different hormones in our body. They are primarily created by the endocrine organs, releasing into the bloodstream and allowing organs to “talk” to each other. A negative feedback loop in the brain controls hormone demands.
Hormones have high levels of specificity, which means they only react with specific receptor sites in the body. For example, the best way to explain hormones is to think of a lock and a key: only a particular hormone can unlock a specific response within your body’s sensitive tissue.
It is a complex system: The mind messages the endocrine organs; the organs excite the cells, which then sends signals back to the brain. This process controls every part of our body. Hormone delivery naturally fades over time, leading to signs of aging and illness.
Finding the root cause
Conventional medicine treats the symptoms of illness as a single problem. With conventional medicine, we treat the signs of illness as a single problem. On the other hand, functional medicine looks at all of these symptoms as a whole. AgeWellMD will work with you to balance and correct your body chemistry with vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and, most importantly: bioidentical hormones. The balancing of your hormones can allow for repair for all parts of the body, without treating the symptoms.
In conclusion, our body is very complex and tends to stay in motion if put in motion. At AgeWellMD, we focus on optimizing your bodily functions to restore your health and allow the body to heal itself. Call us today to see how we can get you back to your best self!
