Integrated Wellness/Functional Medicine

Preventative Wellness MD of Hartford Connecticut – Integrated Wellness/Functional Medicine 

Serving Glastonbury * West Hartford * Farmington * Avon * New Haven County * Branford * Guilford * Madison * Fairfield County * Westport

Functional Medicine

Traditional medicine focuses on disease. Once you have a disease, you’re often prescribed medications or surgery without looking at the cause of disease. By addressing the causes of disease, you can actually prevent and reverse disease and prolong and maintain health.

A functional medicine approach identifies the underlying cause or causes of disease. It is a patient-centered approach to medicine that takes into account individual genetics, environment, lifestyle, diet, exercise, and stress.  It emphasizes health, wellness, and vitality, not merely the absence of disease. It seeks to improve the health span, not just the life span of each patient.

For instance, pre-diabetes is the ideal time to introduce lifestyle interventions  to prevent development of type II diabetes. Lifestyle interventions such as a change in diet, reducing calories, and increasing aerobic activity are an efficient and cost-effective strategy that can prevent or delay diabetes up to 14 years.  There was also a 58% decrease in diabetes in the study group that followed dietary and exercise changes (The Diabetes Prevention Program NEJM 2002 346:6).

The Portfolio Diet was shown to lower cholesterol similar to a statin.  Combined with a diet and exercise, this simple supplement strategy  lowered “bad” cholesterol 28% (DJA Jenkins JAMA 2003).

Many different strategies can be employed to decrease high blood pressure such as weight reduction, exercise, limiting salt, alcohol, caffeine, and decreasing stress. Each of these interventions can lower blood pressure 4-14 mmHg and the results are additive. Sixty two percent of hypertensive patients who underwent lifestyle intervention with diet, exercise, and repletion of deficient nutrients were able to completely taper and discontinue their blood pressure medication with good blood pressure control (MC Houston J. Therapeutic Advances in CVD 2010).

Improving intestinal health with probiotics and diet can help obesity, insulin resistance, atherosclerosis, and mood disorders.

Other areas of health that can be improved with a functional medicine approach include:

• Autoimmune disease*
• Cardiovascular disease*
• Chronic pain*
• Diabetes*
• Fatigue*
• Inflammation*
• Memory*
• Mood*
• Skin rashes*
• Sleep*
• Thyroid*
• Weight loss*

In addition to lifestyle intervention with diet and exercise, Preventative Wellness MD offers the following testing:

• Boston Heart Diagnostics
• Delayed sensitivity food allergy testing with ALCAT, Brendan Bioscience, Cyrex, and Genova
• Genova GI stool effects (intestinal testing)
• Heavy metal testing
• Hormone testing through blood, blood spot, saliva, and urine
• InBody Body Composition Analyzer
• Pathway Genomics DNA testing
• ReeVue metabolic rate testing
• Spectracell Micronutrient Testing
• Telomere testing