Functional Medicine Ireland

Prevent illness: Environmental factors top genetics

Wouldn’t it be so much better to intervene early before an imbalance starts to present itself with symptoms?

The functional medicine approach can help you do just that.

What is important to know is that one single underlying issue can affect multiple systems and therefore cause many different symptoms, depending on the person and the metabolic state.

This is called epigenetics and means that environmental factors will affect people differently depending on their genetic constellation.

By doing an in-depth history, examination, and treatment plan, with respect to your inherited traits you can tackle disease before it happens.

This way you are really taking your own health and the health of your loved ones into your own hands.

Support For A Healthy Pregnancy

As a woman who wants to conceive, it would be great to start with the functional medicine approach before your baby is conceived to improve fertility, pregnancy, and provide your baby with the best start possible.

Improve Digestive Tract Function

From my experience in most cases this is one of the key elements to find good health as it is so strongly linked to inflammation and the immune system.

This includes taking care of stomach, hepato-pancreato-biliary (liver, pancreas, and gallbladder) system and small intestinal function.

Functional medicine offers a holistic approach to enhancing your digestive health.
By delving deep into the intricate workings of your stomach, hepato-biliary system, and intestinal tract we can identify underlying issues that conventional medicine cannot.
Conventional medicine would order a gastroscopy or colonoscopy, which looks at the gastro-intestinal tract structurally but with a functional medicine stool and blood test you can examine and track what is going on at a biochemical level.

This way you can assess the gut flora, the intestinal barrier, check for malabsorption/malassimilation etc. This comprehensive perspective allows for tailored interventions, addressing not just symptoms but root causes thus creating better digestion and overall well-being.

Improve bowel clearance

The functional medicine approach is also instrumental in enhancing bowel clearance processes.
By examining your unique health history and underlying factors, it uncovers issues that may be hindering regular and healthy bowel movements.
Through tailored interventions such as dietary modifications, lifestyle changes, and addressing potential underlying conditions, functional medicine promotes smoother, more efficient bowel clearance. This leads to relief from discomfort, bloating, and irregularity, fostering improved digestive well-being for optimum health.

Improve bowel flora

Human beings live in a symbiosis with bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms, that cover our outer and inner membranes. Optimally these micro-organisms are creating a balanced flora that allows the beneficial micro-organisms to thrive and keeps the pathogenic (illness causing) ones at bay.

In case of an imbalance, boosting beneficial micro-organisms and eliminating pathogenic yeasts, bacterial and other parasitic infections of the gut according to the functional medicine approach will lead to health and well-being.

By thoroughly evaluating your health history, lifestyle, chronic condition, and potential exposures, it tailors targeted interventions.

These can include dietary changes, probiotics, antimicrobial treatments, and immune system support to restore a healthy gut microbiome. Considering that 80% of immune system related tissue sits in the gut, this approach not only alleviates gastrointestinal symptoms but also bolsters overall immunity and digestive wellness, while reducing the risk of allergies and autoimmune disease for lasting health benefits.

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Due to diet, stress, and environmental factors, one of the health problems I observe is a leaky gut or in medical terms hyper-permeability syndrome. This causes abdominal symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal pain.
However more importantly further effects of an untreated Leaky Gut are immune problems, malabsorption, chronic inflammation, heart disease, strokes, and metabolic problems.
With functional medicine you can effectively stop the passage of antigenic molecules through a permeable intestinal lining, triggering the immune system and inflammation.
By assessing your unique health profile, it identifies factors contributing to intestinal permeability or “leaky gut.” Customized strategies, which may include dietary adjustments, gut-healing protocols, and lifestyle modifications, work to strengthen the gut barrier.
This prevents allergenic molecules from escaping into the bloodstream, reducing inflammation and allergic responses, thereby promoting better overall health and optimal health.

Balance and modulate immune function

Chronic infections, stress, chronic gastro-intestinal problems, and environmental toxins are the most common reasons to disrupt a balanced function of the immune system.
Functional medicine is adept at balancing and modulating immune function.
Through comprehensive assessments of your health, genetics, and lifestyle it identifies factors that may lead to immune imbalances.
Tailored interventions, including dietary adjustments, targeted supplementation, and lifestyle modifications, help regulate the immune system.
This approach can alleviate, even stop, symptoms of autoimmune disorders such as Hashimoto thyroiditis, chronic inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematodes, vitiligo or multiple sclerosis.
Reduce inflammation and enhance the body’s ability to defend against infections. It fosters a healthier and more resilient immune system for a healthier lifestyle.

Reduce and stop inflammation

Inflammation can be seen as a repair process; it is meant to attract nutrients and contain infection. However, when the cause of the inflammation stays it will turn chronic.
Chronic inflammation is at the core of some of the most widespread chronic diseases nowadays from hypertension, chronic cardiovascular disease to metabolic issues like diabetes and obesity.
On top of that most chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions would have an inflammatory component that keeps smouldering.
Functional medicine is a valuable tool for reducing or even eliminating inflammation in the body.
By conducting a thorough analysis of your health, genetics, and lifestyle factors, it identifies sources of chronic inflammation. Personalized strategies, including dietary changes, stress management, and targeted supplementation, work to quell inflammatory processes.
This approach not only alleviates symptoms associated with inflammation but also promotes long-term health and well-being by addressing the root causes of this pervasive health issue.

Improve Metabolism

Through meticulous assessment of your health, genetics, and lifestyle factors, it identifies potential barriers to efficient metabolism.
Most common metabolic problems such as diabetes, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and gout are for the most part, self-created with only a tinge of genetics.
Some estimates range the influence of genetics as opposed to environmental factors only between 5-25%, meaning that the environmental factors outweigh the genetics by far.
Glucose metabolism nowadays has a central place in metabolic disease in western countries. Some even call the excessive intake of high carbohydrate foods nowadays an epidemic.
The extreme intake of grain-based foods are causing huge trouble from insulin resistance to leaky gut and all its consequences.
Personalized strategies, such as nutrition plans, exercise regimens, and hormone optimization, are designed to help metabolic processes, stabilize blood glucose levels, aiding in weight management and energy production. This approach not only helps you achieve a healthy weight but also fosters improved overall health and well-being through enhanced metabolic function.

Improve Absorption And Utilization Of Macro And Micro Nutrients And Address Nutrient Deficiencies

Functional medicine can play a pivotal role in providing and optimizing the absorption and utilization of vital macro and micronutrients within your body. By investigating individual health histories, genetics, and lifestyle factors it tailor’s interventions to address nutrient deficiencies and imbalances.
This personalized approach ensures that your body efficiently assimilates the essential elements it needs, fostering improved overall health, energy levels and vitality.
Through comprehensive functional medicine testing and analysis we can pinpoint specific nutrient deficiencies in your diet and absorption processes. Creating individual strategies that may include dietary adjustments, supplementation and lifestyle changes helps correct these deficiencies. This targeted approach not only mitigates symptoms associated with deficiencies but also promotes long-term health and vitality, ensuring your body has the essential nutrients it needs to thrive.

Improve Body Composition

Even though for the individual person the visual appearance is understandably particularly important. I see body composition more as a visual representation of what may be going on at a metabolic level.
A waist to hip ratio of higher than 0.8 for women and 1 for men suggests insulin resistance, which automatically tells me about an increased risk for heart disease and strokes.
Functional medicine can unveil what is going on under the hood and gives us a more targeted approach in enhancing body composition.
Looking at the biochemistry can give us information about what your diet should look like.
Through a comprehensive assessment of your health, genetics, and lifestyle factors, it identifies underlying issues affecting your body composition.
Personalized strategies, which may include individualised nutritional medicine plans, exercise routines, and hormonal balance, are designed to promote healthy weight management, reduce fat mass, and increase lean muscle mass.
This approach not only leads to a more balanced and aesthetically pleasing physique but also fosters improved overall health and well-being.

Help You Enhance Detoxification Processes

Reduce toxicity

Environmental toxins pose a huge burden on us today.

• The foods we eat may contain pesticides, glyphosate, and antibiotics.
• The water we drink may contain lead, plasticisers, and other organic toxins.
• The air we breathe may contain cadmium, arsenic, and aluminium from exhaust gases from cars, planes, and chimney fires.
• A bad intestinal bacterial flora may produce aldehydes or ammonia.
• Amalgam fillings in our teeth and sea fish we eat are a constant source of mercury intoxication.
• Plastic bottles release BPA.
• Deodorants may contain phthalates and other organic toxins.

It is a toxic world we live in, and all these toxins must be processed in the liver.

In the liver toxins are going through two major detoxifications pathways, called phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification. The goal is to make toxic water soluble so that after phase 2 detoxification the water-soluble metabolites now can be excreted through the kidneys. At the same time, a well-functioning gut barrier is essential to avoid re-entry of the substances excreted through the bile.
If any of these systems are not working as they should because they are overwhelmed or genetically weak, toxins will accumulate and cause oxidative stress.

About 50% of Europeans tend to have a genetic weakness of phase 2 detoxification.

The major issue with this is that a lot of the metabolites coming out of phase 1 detoxification are more toxic than the original toxin. Only after these metabolites have gone through phase 2 detoxification, they will be non-toxic enough so that they can pass through the kidneys without causing further damage.

Therefore, reducing the toxic load and optimizing the phase 1 and especially phase 2 liver detoxification pathways can be essential for some people with severe disease to turn the ship around.

Functional medicine excels in reducing liver toxicity and optimizing the phase 1 and phase 2 liver detoxification pathways. By conducting a thorough assessment of your health, genetics, and lifestyle, it identifies factors contributing to liver stress. Personalized interventions, including dietary adjustments, targeted supplements, and lifestyle changes, work to enhance liver function, reduce toxicity, and support the body’s ability to process and eliminate toxins efficiently. This approach promotes not only liver health but overall well-being.

Support Elimination Of Heavy Metals

Heavy metals pose two major problems. For one they have strong binding capacities to the body’s enzymes, therefore disrupting physiological functions. On the other hand, they are extremely durable in the body, as they tend to be stored away in fatty tissues the most problematic being the nervous system.

This can be a major contributing factor to neurodegenerative disease such as ALS, multiple sclerosis (MS) and dementia, to name a few.
Functional medicine offers means for the detection and elimination of heavy metals from the body. Through meticulous evaluation of your health, genetics, and exposure history, it identifies sources of heavy metal toxicity.

Personalized detoxification protocols, often involving chelation (heavy metal binding) therapies, dietary changes, and targeted supplementation, are employed to remove heavy metals safely and efficiently from your system. This approach not only alleviates symptoms associated with heavy metal toxicity but also safeguards your long-term health and well-being.

Remove And Eliminate Oxidative Stress And Free Radical Activity In The Body

Chronic infections, environmental and internal toxins, leaky gut, stress, inflammatory diets, nutritional imbalance, and chronic diseases, all lead to oxidative stress. You can compare oxidative stress with a piece of metal iron turning rusty. The original function of the shiny stable material dissolves and leaves crumbly pieces of oxidised iron. A similar yet more complex process happens in the body, which causes us to age faster and in a very unhealthy way.

Functional medicine is adept at uncovering and eliminating the major reasons for oxidative stress and mitigating free radical activity within the body. By delving into your unique health profile, it identifies factors contributing to these issues. Personalized interventions, including antioxidant-rich diets, specific supplements, and lifestyle modifications work to counteract oxidative stress and reduce free radicals. This approach not only alleviates oxidative damage but also supports overall health, reducing the risk of chronic diseases and promoting healthy longevity.

Improve Energy Production And Utilization In The Body

By now you may be able to imagine the functional medicine approach is a potent means to enhance energy production and utilization within the body. By meticulously assessing your health, genetics and lifestyle and looking at all the above mentioned factors we aim to pinpoint potential barriers to optimal energy metabolism.

Personalized strategies, such as dietary enhancements, targeted supplementation, and lifestyle modifications will improve your stress response and resilience. This will optimize energy production pathways and boost efficiency. This approach not only increases your vitality but also promotes overall well-being, allowing you to thrive with sustained energy levels.