Is Functional Medicine/Nutrition the Missing Link?

Hello to all my readers and followers. I have been flat out the past month between study and work, and thus have struggled to update the blog.

Currently I am finishing my certification in Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, which is an online course that I highly recommend, I am also in the process of getting certified as a Metabolic Typing Adviser, and I am studying for the HPAT (Health Practitioners Admissions Test) as part as my application for medicine. Yes medicine, medicine.

Work wise I have been flat out with the senior hurlers in the club, and some work with the senior footballers, senior camogie, and Dublin Minor Ladies Football squad. So busy, busy.

Anyway back to the subject line of today's post. Is Functional Medicine/Nutrition the Missing Link? So what do I mean?

What I mean is over the course of the last number of years (particularly this past year), I had become increasingly frustrated with my lack of ability to help people with chronic health issues that was really affecting them. I am also referring to athletes here and not just your average Joe. Just because someone if fit, doesn't mean that they are healthy. I felt like I was missing an important link in my chain!!

I was constantly coming across athletes and clients with fatigue issues, digestive issues, sleep issues, and depression and anxiety issues. So I started to educate myself on these topics. I somehow, by good function, came across Sean Croxton's Underground Wellness podcast, and the rest as they say is history!!

It was from Sean's interviews with all his guest's that I then started to buy their books, and read/studied them. Then I started to buy more books, and research more resources with anything to do with health, wellness, functional medicine, functional nutrition, etc. It was also thanks to Sean that I heard about Reed Davis and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN). FDN was the missing link in my chain.

FDN is a course that teaches you to be able to administer functional lab tests to seek a person's under-lying cause for their health complaint(s). It also teaches you what protocol's to put in place with each individual patient/client. It teaches you to also respect each and every persons biochemical individuality, by using metabolic typing to determine each patient/client's metabolic type. This is then used to devise a tailored nutritional and supplement protocol for your patient/client that will be implemented for the initial 90 days.

After the 90 day protocol the labs test are re-done to see if there has been an improvement from the initial lab tests. This in turns gives you an objective result so you are not just left relying on your patient/client's subjective feedback that the protocol is working.

After the 90 days it is recommended that the patient/client stick to the Metabolic typing nutrition plan (and any additional supplements if needed) so that they will be optimally nourishing their unique biochemistry.

The main test's that we (FDNers) run are:

205 Functional Adrenal Stress Profile
101 Metabolic Assessment Profile
304 Intestinal Barrier Function Screen
401H GI Pathogen Screen
Mediator Release Testing (MRT) - Food Sensitivities

The 205 Functional Adrenal Stress Profile:
This test seeks to find what stage of adrenal fatigue your patient/client maybe in.

101 Metabolic Assessment Profile:
This test looks at - Protein breakdown and absorption, oxidative stress, and liver function

304 Intestinal Barrier Function Screen:
This test looks at the the health of the intestinal walls. It seeks to find out if your patient/client has a leaky gut.

401H GI Pathogen Screen:
This looks to see if your patient/client has a parasite and/or fungal infection

This education has greatly assisted me in providing a far more holistic approach at helping anyone attain their goals, whatever they maybe (fat loss, health, sports performance, etc).

So that's basically what I have been up to the past few weeks.

I hope to get a few more posts up over the next few weeks with some useful information with all things relating to functional medicine/nutrition, health & wellness, and strength and conditioning of course!!

Stay Strong,
RB