Unlocking Client Health with Precision Analysis
Making decisions about the healthcare you choose is easier than it’s ever been. You can do a quick Google search and find just about any health model in your community.
But with this freedom of choice, there can be confusion on what path to take. With so many options, which one is the right one for me?
You’re familiar with conventional (AKA western) medicine as it is today and you’re probably familiar with functional medicine too, but what’s the difference? And how does Resilience Code level up healthcare compared to these two popular models?
Today I’m going to share a little about these two models of healthcare as well as discuss what sets Resilience Code apart when it comes to applying precision analysis to a holistic model.
My hope is by discussing similarities and differences, this will paint a more complete picture of these growing fields of medicine.
A Look Back at Conventional Medicine
The start of conventional or Western medicine dates as far back as 300s BCE. This was the time of Greek medicine including the teachings of Hippocrates (Hippocratic Oath ring a bell?).
Convention medicine was felt to be the art of healing and focused on treating symptoms of disease to restore health. *
Back then they focused on the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This focus on the body and anatomy became a foundation of conventional medicine.*.
Conventional medicine is considered very regulated with protocols, best practices, and specific training required. This started back in 1140 in Sicily when the first regulations to practice medicine were put in place by King Roger II. *
Anatomy illustrations and autopsy exploration grew in popularity among physicians at this time which was also the beginning of the Renaissance Era (potentially peaking with da Vinici’s drawings including The Vitruvian Man in 1490).
This focus and exploration of the physical body as the source of disease and source of answers continue to be a characteristic of conventional medicine.
Conventional medicine goes by several names including:*
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Western medicine
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Mainstream medicine
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Allopathic medicine
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Biomedicine
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Modern medicine
In addition to focusing on physical signs and symptoms, conventional medicine focuses on treating a specific disease process that is causing problems. You have a headache and we give you medication to reduce your headache for example.
Medications, surgery, and other treatments aim to rid the body of disease as a way of healing.
Some would say this is a limitation of conventional medicine — focusing only on the disease rather than the whole person. This has the potential to lead to short-sighted solutions and may lead to chasing symptoms rather than truly improving patient health.
Finding the Root of Dysfunction with Functional Medicine
Restoring balance, or function, by identifying the root cause is a hallmark of functional medicine.
Functional medicine has been an official model of health since 1991 when the Institute for Functional Medicine was founded.* As a patient-focused model, functional medicine uses a systems approach with the understanding that everything about our health is interconnected.*
Promoting continued health rather than simply removing disease and dysfunction is at the core of functional medicine. The main goal is to sustain health and live not only longer but more vital lives.*
Going back to the headache example, digging into what caused the headache and what other body systems are being impacted by the same cause, or what body systems are contributing to the headache is a more functional medicine approach.
In addition to health promotion, functional medicine focuses on personalized solutions and recognizes a ‘one size fits all’ approach is not always the most effective. Food and natural remedies are commonly used in functional medicine to restore health. *
Lifestyle factors including sleep, exercise, and environmental exposure are also a major focus when it comes to addressing disease from a functional medicine standpoint.* Identifying triggers to dysfunction include assessing for mold, allergens, bacterial balance within the gut, and even stress can help guide functional medicine treatment. *
Diseases involving multiple body systems, causing a vast array of symptoms are often addressed with functional medicine. However, conditions like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome are difficult to test for, making them more difficult to treat. *
Functional medicine can be limited by a lack of standardized research. More importantly, there has been a lack of reliable testing to identify the root cause of dysfunction when addressing disease from a holistic or systems approach.
This is why many of the initial treatments or steps involved with functional medicine include things like elimination diets or identifying and removing potential environmental triggers to see if symptoms improve.
The Resilience Code Difference
Similar to functional medicine, the Resilience Code model focuses on health rather than just the absence of disease. By creating resilience in your health, you take a truly preventative and proactive approach to the day-to-day stressors we all encounter.
Conventional medicine focuses on data and analyzing the body to identify disease. Functional medicine focuses on the entire body but often struggles with measurable data. Resilience Code combines these two methods to bring out the best in both worlds and bring you the best chance at restoring health and longevity.
Resilience Code allows for in-depth testing and monitoring to identify specific areas of improvement — across both conventional and functional medicine values.
With various tools and programs, we can take large amounts of patient information to make a personalized health plan.
We’ve learned over time and research that improving and sustaining health is not easily achieved with a cookie-cutter plan. Traditionally, researchers conduct large randomized trials to determine what happens to the average person when it comes to treating a certain imbalance or illness.*
But we all know how different everyone iS and treating someone based on a general average means you will get average results.
Research studies tend to focus on a single issue or condition rather than looking at the bigger picture which is helpful if you only have one concern.* But the truth is, we are rarely experiencing a singular imbalance. Our body systems are constantly being influenced by each other so only addressing one area leads to limited improvement if any.
And none of us are exposed to the same toxins in our environment which can play a vital role in our health.
The best way to reach your health goals is to look at your specific body — from your genetic tendencies all the way to how your body performs physically doing things like walking and running.
Looking at genetics, brain function, and how your body moves and performs creates a 360-degree view of your health. This information is not only collected but analyzed with the Resilience Code model to identify areas of dysfunction and helps create the true meaning of personalized, precision medicine.
Tracking your patterns and ‘codes’ is helpful in monitoring progress as well.
It’s sometimes difficult to know if you’re improving, especially if you suffer from general symptoms or something like pain or gut issues that are tough to measure. But with measurable insights, you and your healthcare team can easily track changes to your health.
While all three of these models have a place in today’s world of healthcare, only one of them takes the best of both worlds and enhances them with personalized and measurable information. Monitoring certain parameters can ensure you’re on the right path and allow for any adjustments along the way making Resilience Code Precision Medicine a highly effective way to implement conventional and functional medicine values.
