Unlike conventional nutrition, functional nutrition is all about the patient’s needs and not just the disease. A functional nutrition practitioner looks at a patient’s individual laboratory results, lifestyle history, health patterns and even genetics so he can create a personalized nutritional plan that’s specific to his needs.

With functional nutrition, you’ll never see generic handouts and nutritional plans because every individual is treated uniquely as his own.

While functional nutrition is focused mainly on food as medicine, it doesn’t dismiss the importance of other factors such as the environment, sleep and stress that contributes to a patient’s disease. Functional nutrition practitioners understand that complete health goes beyond what a person eats, so they take a holistic approach in giving treatment plans to patients.

Aside from creating a personalized meal plan to promote better health, a functional nutrition practitioner could also recommend foods and nutritional supplements in combination with a stress management routine to help address the issue of stress, which is a major causative factor for a lot of medical conditions.

Food has always been the most natural form of medication, but it’s also one of the most underutilized treatment options. Functional nutrition aims to regain the significance of food as part of healing by using it as a natural medicine.

After assessing a patient’s needs, a functional nutrition practitioner creates a diet rich in specific fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-rich foods that target the root cause of his or her medical condition.

It’s also very important for functional nutrition practitioners to help a patient eliminate food sensitivities that could be contributing to his disease.

A lot of patients who have tried functional nutrition as part of their treatment plan have reported a huge improvement to their conditions after a month or two of removing food sensitivities and focusing on foods that are specific to their needs.