Watch Out for Functional Medicine Practitioners'

Put the word "Functional" in front of anything within the world of health/medicine and all of a sudden you're the next posh doctor, health coach, personal trainer, and beyond.

Sadly, from my perspective as a soon-to-be Naturopathic Physician, all that I see going on within the Functional Medicine world are those switching out pharmaceuticals for nutriceuticals (nutritional supplements) which is referred to as green allopathy, the practice of prescribing supplements in the same way that conventional medicine doctors often prescribe pharmaceutical drugs; to palliate symptoms rather than as a means of getting to the root cause of a condition when possible.

Not only has the world of Functional Medicine primarily taken a "green allopathic" approach...

It is plagued by expensive laboratory testing whose clinical relevance may be more about the financial kickback that the doctor receives than providing clinically useful laboratory findings to better determine your health imbalances.

This entire scenario creates conflicts of interest which are often undisclosed to patients; in turn incentivizing over-prescription of supplements and laboratory testing through practitioner commissions or discounted practitioner pricing. Despite encouragement from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a majority of Functional Medicine Practitioners do not make their patients aware of their own profits from health-related sales. It truly makes you wonder, are these practitioners really looking out for you and your health or their own pocket book?

The bottom line is...

Often the world of Functional Medicine turns chronic health anxiety into profit and rebrands basic health advice into inflated price tags.

This does not sit right with me in the least.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all of those within the world of Functional Medicine are unethical or ill intended. However, system wide, there are many questionable practices happening throughout the landscape of Functional Medicine; this is due to lack of independent oversight or a governing body to ensure ethical standards around financial conflicts which allows problematic financial entanglements to flourish unchecked.

Beyond these financial concerns, Functional Medicine began as an adaptation of Naturopathic Medicine in order to make some of what Naturopathic Physicians do more palatable within the conventional medicine world. It merged the dominant philosophical approach of conventional medicine (allopathy) with natural treatment options hence green allopathy. Beyond this, it seems to have hijacked terms like holistic, trauma-informed, or root cause, without genuinely honoring those frameworks.

As I mentioned in my recent article entitled, I'm Less Than 1-Year From Graduating Naturopathic Medical School, I shared that there is more to medicine than prescribing a pill for every ill, whether drug or supplement.

You see, the thing that distinguishes Naturopathic Physicians from Functional Medicine Practitioners is our guiding philosophy of practice; one that works from the bottom-up to restore health using the least invasive treatment options to the most invasive treatment options. What Functional Medicine has done is extract higher level interventions (supplements) from our Naturopathic approach all while throwing our philosophy of care out the window.

One of the things that I learned within the first week of Naturopathic Medical School back in 2019 is that human beings cannot out supplement health.

This is a major concern regarding Functional Medicine, it has people believe that they can re-establish health by purchasing expensive supplements and laboratory testing. However, this is not how rebuilding health happens nor is it how true healing happens.

Something that is "supplemental" means that it is in addition to something else. Teachers provide homework that is supplemental to their lectures so that their students can better engage with the material. Pharmacists provide treatment pamphlets that are supplemental to a medication they have been prescribed to further educate the patient on potential side effects of that medication.

In the health context, supplements should not happen in isolation. Supplements are in addition to establishing the conditions for health. They're not meant to be a magical cure like many Functional Medicine Practitioners make them out to be.

We can take all the supplements we want but absolutely nothing is better than doing the hard work of establishing the conditions for health via sustainable behavioral and lifestyle changes that we implement into our own lives over time with expert guidance and care.

You see, one of the most common issues that people face as they parse the world of holistic health and medicine is having access to the massive amount of health information available to them and not knowing what information is most applicable to them and the health concerns they face. This is where Naturopathic Physicians' can help client's separate the signal from the noise and determine what is most applicable to them individually.

In the Western world, we often prioritize quick fixes and are accustomed to getting nearly automatic relief from symptoms, especially when we have a migraine, a stomachache or stomach acid; when fatigue presents itself or any number of other symptoms that can be quickly resolved by a particular medication.

Navigating the long arduous path of lifestyle changes is often not the first place many of us think to start; let alone processing through all of the mental, psychological, and emotional blockages that prevent many from obtaining a healthy vital life. This is further evidenced by the fact that many people often seek natural medicine practitioners as a last resort rather than as a first resort along their health journey. In part, this is a systemic/structural issue due to our conventional medical model being incentivized at all levels of modern society.

This aside, natural medicine can be profoundly powerful if it is used properly and with the guidance of an expert like a Naturopathic Physician. Overall, my concern is that many Functional Medicine Practitioners are simply providing bandaid fixes rather than long-term sustainable health solutions all while charging patients exorbitant amounts of money for protocols that do not truly heal them.

Here's a pro-tip...

If you walk out of a Doctor's/Practitioner's office with a bag full of supplements....run, and don't go back. This is not how medicine should be practiced.

I'd also add that mass prescribing supplements is not only extraordinarily irresponsible but it's also poor clinical judgement because you can't track what is actually working when a client is taking 5-10 different supplements simultaneously.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-supplements but I'm also pro ethical practitioner that makes decisions based on the best interest of the each client and their needs/goals for their overall health.

As someone with prior clinical experience as a Yoga & Ayurvedic Therapist, I firmly believe in lifestyle counseling to help client's get to the root of their health issues not only on a psycho-emotional level but from the perspective of guiding them along the journey of adopting more health promoting behaviors that they can take with them throughout their lifetime. Prior to Naturopathic school, this is what my work often centered, helping people navigate their inner world so that their outer world becomes much more healthy, vibrant, and well.

The medicine I envision practicing is about creating lasting change, not providing temporary fixes based on trends going on in the world of Functional Medicine often promoted by Instagram and TikTok.

Healing is a challenge because change is hard. However, it is indeed one of the constants in life. Either we can learn to accept change and thus healing or we can resist it; the choice is each of ours to make individually.

My sincere hope is that each of you make decisions about your own health that will lead to long-term optimal health, rather than seeking those which provide short term/temporary fixes whether this involves natural medicine, pharmaceutical medicine, or both.

The moral of all of this is, please exercise caution when seeking the care of Functional Medicine Practitioners, many of whom have never attended medical school and practice in a highly unethical manner. My biggest suggestion other than avoiding FM Practitioners is to seek the care of a Naturopathic Physician, the Doctors that truly practice holistic, root-cause medicine that guide you toward optimizing your health and co-creating a toolbox of practices to help you maintain well-being into old age. We all deserve this kind of ethical personalized care.