What is Functional Medicine?
What Is Functional Medicine—and Why It Matters
I started hormonal birth control and Accutane to treat cystic acne when I was 13 years old. That was the beginning of a 15+ year journey through acne and hormone imbalance—compounded by food sensitivities, early childhood antibiotic use, trauma, an eating disorder, and heavy drinking. Over time, it spiraled into autoimmunity and hypothalamic amenorrhea.
For a long time, health and nutrition—at least how I understood them—meant eating low-fat, avoiding animal protein, restricting calories, overperforming, relying on copious amounts of coffee and artificial sweeteners, and running myself into the ground. Somehow, that all balanced out the weekends I spent drinking too much—or so I thought. I had no idea how much damage I was doing to my bones, liver, reproductive system, and mental health.
No topical or prescription could truly heal my skin. Eventually, I developed immune reactions to nearly everything I ate. Conventional medicine wasn’t helping—and no one seemed concerned that I wasn’t menstruating. Wild.
Let me pause here: I’m not perfect now, nor do I ever expect to be. But I’ve come a long way. My lifestyle has transformed. I’ve healed many of the conditions I just mentioned—and I’ll be sharing more details about that journey as we go. What matters here is this: my lived experience drove me to understand the human body more deeply, and ultimately guided me from a career in commercial banking to one in holistic wellness and functional nutrition.
There’s a lot of noise and confusion about functional medicine, so let’s define it clearly.
Functional Medicine is a science-based, patient-centered, systems-oriented approach to health. It goes far beyond treating symptoms or assigning a diagnosis. Rather than focusing on disease labels, functional medicine aims to uncover the root causes of chronic illness by exploring how your unique genetics, environment, and lifestyle have interacted over time.
It is a proactive approach that emphasizes early detection, prevention, and highly personalized treatment to answer the question:
“Why is your system out of balance?”
Core Principles of Functional Medicine
Functional Medicine is based on a clear set of principles:
Every person has biochemical individuality.
It is patient-centered, not disease-centered.
Health involves a dynamic balance between internal and external influences.
The body, mind, and spirit are interconnected in a web-like system.
Health is defined as positive vitality, not just the absence of disease.
Organ reserve is promoted to enhance both healthspan and lifespan.
Unlike holistic, integrative, or complementary medicine, Functional Medicine emphasizes identifying and addressing underlying root causes of dysfunction using organized systems like a timeline and matrix. While it values and integrates conventional medicine when appropriate, it fills a massive void by investigating what’s driving chronic illness at the root.
It uses evidence-based tools such as diet, lifestyle interventions, botanical medicine, nutritional supplements, and detoxification. Functional Medicine also values a wider range of scientific evidence beyond just randomized controlled trials, incorporating cohort studies, case-controlled studies, and cross-sectional research.
Two Essential Questions in Functional Medicine
A functional medicine practitioner seeks to answer:
Does this person need to remove something? (e.g., toxins, allergens, infections, poor diet, stress)
Does this person have an unmet need? (e.g., nutrients, sleep, movement, connection, purpose)
My Functional Medicine Story
Reflecting on my own story, I can now trace the dysfunction to a combination of gut, hormone, and liver imbalances. Through targeted interventions—like eliminating bacterial overgrowth, healing the microbiome, identifying food sensitivities, using herbal therapies, and supporting myself with balanced nutrition—I began to experience true healing. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight. It was a long, layered process. But addressing the whole system finally reduced the disease and dysfunction I had been living with for years.
Why This Matters for You
Understanding how to support your body from the root changes everything. It transforms your energy, your relationships, your mental health, your worldview, and the way you show up in the world.
When you nourish your body deeply, you reconnect with your purpose, your intuition, and your soul. And the more connected you are to yourself and your health, the greater your capacity to impact the world around you.
When you're responsible for your well-being, you ripple love, presence, and kindness into your work, your relationships, and your creations.
