Dr. Eryn Stansfield and Vinny Russo were kind enough to invite me onto their podcast, The Balanced Bodies Blueprint, to dig into Functional Medicine and Integrative Medicine. If you really want to understand why these nonsensical fields are nonsensical, then you won’t want to miss this episode! Use one of these links to listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Don’t get too excited about the YouTube link; my made-for-radio face does not appear there.
We talk about:
- Why my early experiences with Alt Med led me to start the blog
- What advocates claim Functional Medicine and Integrative Medicine are about, and what these fields are actually about
- How FM and IM differ from conventional medicine in practice, accreditation, board certification, clinical practice guidelines, and continuing medical education
- Downsides of seeing a FM provider
- Why patients seek out Alt Med, and how mainstream docs are partly at fault
- What I tell patients who are disheartened by conventional medicine
- Why the nutrition/health coaching world is besieged by FM dogma
- And more!
You should definitely check out Dr. Eryn and Vinny further at their website, Balanced Bodies. Just reading their bios, you can tell that these are two super-interesting people who are passionate about what they do.
By using this site and interacting in the Comments, you agree to abide by my Disclaimer. Please keep your comments respectful and refrain from ad hominem attacks. In the past, I’ve been permissive — no longer. The social and political discourse in our country has become so toxic that I cannot, in good conscience, allow my blog to provide a space for those who simply want to express outrage. If you disagree with something I’ve written or said on the podcast, or something written by a fellow reader, fabulous. Make your argument in as dispassionate a way as you can, and we’ll all get along just fine.
Hi HD,
I have enjoyed reading your blogs and it is refreshing to have an endocrinologist invest their time into explaining the mechanisms of thyroid and adrenal problems – and I hope this will help reclaim some trust in mainstream medicine. As a primary care physician or GP, I went through the entire certification process for FM prompted by a similar curiosity to Vinny’s in how it could further improve my nutrition knowledge and coaching skills (since it’s clearly lacking and there’s no clear further learning path for doctors like me who want to be educated). And I have to agree that after going down many rabbit holes, and now having access to research articles to do my due diligence on the claims, I have to agree with your views in the podcast.
I also agree with your advice on how patients need to work with their doctors on the limitations of our current medical system – the average primary care consult in China is 2 minutes and in some developed Asian cities, 6.7 minutes. None of these allow sufficient time for education, lifestyle assessment or health coaching. And there is no recognised remuneration for this for doctors or health providers.
To add to your suggestion, I believe we need nutrition education in undergrad medical training and the basic critical reasoning skills in the literature about nutrition and exercise research for those of us who have an interest in making this a part of our practice – not all of us have the opportunity or access to accredited allied health professionals. And we cannot rely on social media or non-peer-reviewed articles to inform us of this. I do see some of my colleagues read these articles and repeat the mistakes the general public makes. How can we be the source of trust when we don’t even know how to accurately discern it?
I’m doing my best to practice using the biopsychosocial model of care and lifestyle is still the first line – but I’ll also share a story as an example of how easily people dismiss the basic common lifestyle interventions over the fancy, new and shiny FM or Integrative Medicine realm has to offer.
I had a patient who came for a ‘Functional Medicine consult to do some ‘gut health testing’ and ‘microbiome’ diet to ‘optimise’ his health because he had read all the biohacking material about it. He left in disbelief because I didn’t recommend any of those things. Instead, after I had spent time looking at his lifestyle and dietary habits, discovered that apart from his meticulous attention to a combination of intermittent fasting, eating only low-GI fruits, low fod-map diet and carbohydrate restriction, he needed to meet the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables instead of taking some special probiotics, supplements or going on a magical diet.
However, the light for me is that I have patients who are coming in for help in shifting their mindsets and behaviours on how they can make better lifestyle choices, and I have seen how their mental and physical health has changed as a result.
Even if it’s been a convoluted journey, I’ve been there, discovered all the pitfalls, and despite the challenges, have found ways to improve my patients’ health knowledge and help develop a sustainable path.
Thanks for sharing your story – excellent insights.