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Modern nutrition science likes to pretend that it simplifies the age-old question of what\u2019s for dinner. In reality, most of us are more confused than ever. If you\u2019re sick of struggling to sift through contradictory advice about optimal eating plans, it\u2019s time to adopt a different framework\u2014functional nutrition.<\/p>\n
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But what is functional nutrition? And how can you put it into practice? The answer may not be as complicated as you think.<\/p>\n
Functional nutrition is the practice of considering every aspect of health, diet, and overall lifestyle when giving nutrition recommendations. It aligns with the ideologies of functional medicine.<\/p>\n
Functional medicine follows an approach to health care that takes into consideration how interrelated every part of the body is. This strategy seeks to look at the big picture of health by restoring physiological functioning.<\/p>\n
With functional nutrition, symptoms are seen as clues for managing your primary health issues, whether they are related to diet, illnesses, medications, lifestyle factors, exposure to toxins, antibiotic use, or other factors.<\/p>\n
While standard healthcare will try to suppress these symptoms with medication, functional nutrition and functional medicine see them as clues for understanding the underlying issues within the body. By considering the impacts of seemingly unrelated factors on health, functional nutritionists will put together a holistic health plan that takes every aspect of health into consideration.<\/p>\n
For these reasons, functional nutrition is never one-size-fits-all. Instead, it is a highly customizable holistic health perspective that takes your unique situation into account to support healing from the cellular level.<\/p>\n
While the terms \u201cfunctional medicine\u201d and \u201cfunctional nutrition\u201d are often used interchangeably, they aren\u2019t technically the same. Functional medicine is a broad medical approach that treats health problems as a part of the whole interconnected body system. Functional nutrition takes this perspective one step further by highlighting the ways that food is a fundamental component of health. Functional nutrition focuses on dietary habits, but it also considers the other components of health and whether food can be a part of the root cause.<\/p>\n
Clients come to health practitioners with a diverse array of concerns, including inflammation, chronic diseases, and inflammation.<\/p>\n
In most cases, a functional nutrition approach requires practitioners to follow a sequence of steps to determine what dietary changes their client will best benefit from. While these steps tend to vary significantly, they usually include the following:<\/p>\n
With these results, a functional nutritionist will work to develop a customized program that targets the root cause of their client\u2019s health problems. Program options might include suggestions for dietary changes, like eliminating overly processed foods or entire food groups like gluten or dairy. Sometimes it’s recommended to take a supplement to improve digestion or encourage the establishment of beneficial bacteria. Other times they will teach their client how to manage lifestyle factors, like learning how to handle stress or better manage their nervous system impulses.<\/p>\n
Put another way, it is typically out of a functional nutrition practitioner’s scope to diagnose, prescribe, or treat their patients for specific conditions. Instead, their role is to look at all health problems with a holistic approach, educate patients about the ways their behavior is impeding their optimal health, and offer suggestions for improvement.<\/p>\n
Contrary to popular opinion, there is no single functional nutrition diet. Instead, the right dietary strategy for you is the one that\u2019s designed to address your specific health concerns.<\/p>\n
Even so, some general premises hold true for almost anyone seeking to eat in a way that supports their body. The following principles outline what functional nutrition can look like for you on a personal level.<\/p>\n
The five main principles of following a functional nutrition plan include:<\/p>\n
The components of your food make up the building blocks of your entire body. Nutrients like vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids, essential fatty acids, probiotics, and complex carbohydrates are vital for keeping your body functioning well. By nourishing it with what it needs each day, you are setting your system up for a state of health.<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s world, it\u2019s more important than ever to understand precisely what is in your food. Factory-farmed animal products, GMO crops, and pesticide-laced produce<\/span> are all filling your digestive system with substances humans weren\u2019t exposed to even 80 years ago, and the impacts on your health can be extreme. Take care to source your food from places you can trust to ensure that each bite contains exactly what you expect and nothing more.<\/p>\n Just as the quality of gas in your car makes a difference in how well it drives, the components within your food dictate how well your body will run. Filling up on heavily processed food will prevent you from taking in all the nutrients you need, potentially compromising your system.<\/p>\n Hippocrates told us that health begins and ends in the gut, and eating the world\u2019s most nutritious diet won\u2019t do you any good if your digestive system isn\u2019t prepared to process it. Over 80 percent of your immune system is located in the gut, and without it functioning correctly you are at risk for infections, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and hormone imbalances, many of which may be misdiagnosed as other conditions.<\/p>\n Tending to your gut requires that you keep it healthy with beneficial bacteria and prevent pathogens and undigested food from causing problems. Make sure you know the signs of intestinal permeability, irritable bowel syndrome, and other conditions so that you can tell when something has fallen out of place.<\/p>\n Healthy digestion doesn\u2019t happen without a robust supply of beneficial microbes in your stomach and intestines. In fact, the human gut contains ten times more bacteria<\/span> than all cells that make up your body.<\/p>\n These bacteria are collectively called a microbiome, and they are responsible for a myriad of health processes that affect your immune system, mental health, memory formation, and risk of developing chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease. Ensuring you eat foods filled with probiotics will help your microbial levels stay high, which will help your immune system work as it should.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s summarize:<\/span> why is functional nutrition so powerful? It allows you to utilize food to support your body and set it up for optimal health. By realigning your relationship with food and thinking through the ways that every aspect of your physical and emotional life is interconnected, you can shift your entire paradigm on eating to make it easier to make healthy choices.<\/p>\n How do health practitioners determine which functional nutrition eating strategy makes the most sense for their clients? Most use a \u201cfunctional medicine matrix\u201d to examine how a client\u2019s health history, lifestyle choices, and current diet might be contributing to their health concerns.<\/p>\n Generally, it\u2019s stressed how vital it is for you to take in a variety of foods as opposed to a range of \u201cfood products.\u201d Functional nutritionists generally recommend eating a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet that contains little in the way of processed ingredients.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that a functional nutrition diet isn\u2019t a one-and-done event. It is a dynamic process where you will continuously experiment with your diet and lifestyle and tweak the variables until you find what works for you. Success comes from listening to your body and being aware of how it responds to different factors so that you can be continuously supporting it.<\/p>\n This level of ongoing dialogue isn\u2019t always available in the modern health system, which is why seeking out the advice of a functional nutrition expert is so beneficial for your health journey.<\/p>\n Holistic thinking is gaining traction in the medical world, and the trend shows little sign of slowing down. Functional nutrition provides answers to some of today\u2019s most significant health problems. Its premise of looking at individual health concerns holistically can make a world of difference in your overall health and quality of life.<\/p>\n By taking time to learn more about this paradigm shift, you can start supporting your body with nutrition and pursuing optimal health.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nStick with Quality Foods<\/h3>\n
Prioritize Gut Health<\/h3>\n
Tend to Your Microbiome<\/h3>\n
Starting a Dialogue About Your Diet with Functional Nutrition<\/h2>\n
Functional Nutrition: The Healthcare of the Future For Optimal Health<\/h2>\n