Dr. Erica Steele – So we’re gonna talk about integrative health versus functional medicine, and we’re gonna talk about the differences between the two. My name is Dr. Erica Steele. I’m a holistic doctor in family practice. I’m trained in both integrative medicine as well as functional medicine. I hold six degrees in my field and they’re all in the natural healthcare space, and I am a drugless.
Doctor, so thank you for tuning into my channel. So let’s talk about it. So functional medicine versus integrative medicine, they both work together as a team beautifully, and we’ll talk more about that. So integrative healthcare and integrates the whole person. It looks at all different aspects, but so does functional medicine.
Can look at all different aspects. I find integrative medicine does deal a little bit more with, let’s say, the psycholo psychologicals of the person or the emotional aspects. They do use some mind body modalities and functional medicine does too, but it’s more heavy on. The laboratory diagnostic sites.
So we’re really using lots and lots of labs to be able to evaluate. And there’s not a lot of diagnostics that are in the western world that we use to evaluate, let’s say emotions. And so functional medicine does have, its. Place because it’s looking at, your nutrient deficiencies, your accumulated toxins, your overall organ health and function, as well as areas of prevention to get to the root causes of why a person may be unwell.
Physically. It doesn’t really do a lot in terms of the emotional side of the person or what mental aspects are the person. Some functional doctors can have additional training. But they oftentimes don’t have some of the training that’s required, so they’re just gonna look at the patient simply from a physical perspective.
Integrative medicine, I find has a little bit more of the mind body approaches to it. It ha it talks a little bit more about how mindset plays into it. A little bit more about the. Psychologicals of the person, but it also deals, it allows for depending on the person’s training, and allows for more drug therapy, surgery interventions or procedures.
So an integrative healthcare provider, as long as they’re an allopath, does have those particular modalities as well to be able to offer and bring into the mix. Functional doctors can’t also have that additional training. So there’s a lot of different providers. I see both of them as very similar, but really as more of a modernized naturopathy.
So naturopaths, we were the original nature cure. We believe that the body is whole. We believe prevention is number one. We also believe Doctor is teacher. And so we do spend a lot of time educating. And then secondary to that, the traditional osteopathic doctors who were more holistic back in the day when Dr.
Andrews still first founded, but then when they joined in with the A m A, they lost a lot of their, unfortunately, their holistic practices. And then Allopaths, they are. Definitely trained more in the allopathic approaches like drugs and surgery, et cetera. However, over the last several years, they’ve been really learning a lot more about natural health practices to be able to integrate into their practices, which has been very exciting to see.
Functional medicine providers can be from various different back. They can be medical doctors, they can be osteopaths, they can be chiropractors. I often see a lot of chiropractors doing functional medicine practices and in doing a functional neurology, which is really exciting to be able to help with various neurological conditions like Parkinson’s and dementia, et cetera.
And so they can really help from a natural perspective help serve that patient population, which is. And so functional medicine providers can also be I’ve seen even some acupuncturist doing functional medicine. It’s a, that’s a little bit of a stretch just because of their original training. They’d have to go through some formalized functional medicine training programs.
Just to be able to add more of the Eastern and Western approaches to their practices. And then even I’ve seen some physical therapists start to incorporate some of functional medicine into their practice as well. So hopefully that helps to educate you about the differences in integrative health and functional medicine.
I really believe they work very closely together and I love both modalities and I use them both in my practice as a board certified naturopathic doctor. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you have any comments or questions, please share, subscribe, and send it below. Thank you.
