Going beyond the “What” to the “Why”

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Going beyond the “What” to the “Why”

At Summit of Health, Dr. Anschutz utilizes the principles of functional medicine that allow her to see the patient as a “whole” person rather than a series of symptoms fit into a model of disease. Every person has an individual biochemistry with their own optimal nutritional requirements and history of exposures.

Functional Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine

Health oriented	Disease oriented
Patient oriented	Doctor oriented
Biochemical individuality	Same diagnosis equals same treatment
Cost effective	Become cost prohibitive
Holistic	Specialized
Looks at true cause	Diagnoses from a set of symptoms
High touch high tech	High tech
True preventative medicine	Early detection of disease as preventative

An early spokesman for functional medicine was Leo Galland, MD, who wrote:

“Disease is a dynamic event in the life of an individual, determined by disharmonies, imbalances and pernicious influences. The goal of diagnosis is not to identify the disease entity, which has no independent reality, but to characterize the disharmonies of the particular case, so that they can be corrected.”

Patient Centered vs Disease Centered

The individual- not the disease- is the target of treatment. Functional medicine views disease not as an enemy (not even as independent realities) with which to grapple, but as a manifestation of the breakdown of mechanisms that maintain control, resilience, and balance.

Going beyond the “What” to the “Why”.

Functional medicine divides the cause of dysfunction into six main categories:

Digestion, Absorptive and Microbiological Imbalances
Immune and inflammatory imbalances
Structural imbalances
Hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances
Detoxification imbalances
Oxidative Reduction imbalances and Mitochondrial dysfunction

Each one of these categories can cause dysfunction that, if left untreated, can manifest in disease. The challenge is to locate and repair the damage that keeps the body from performing as it should in order to repair itself. Any single cause or combination of these six may be behind your symptoms. By individualizing your treatment plan, we increase the chances of eliminating the problem.

Functional medicine can successfully treat people with the following conditions:

ADD

Autism

Inflammatory Bowel

Psoriasis

Restless leg

Rheumatoid arthritis

Obesity

Herpes

Stress

Sinusitis

Anxiety