Functional Diagnostic Nutrition

Do you want to stop treating symptoms and start improving health?

When our body isn’t functioning properly, biological processes and pathways become dysfunctional and imbalanced giving rise to symptoms. A healthy body should not have symptoms, they are common but they are not normal. Symptoms mean that there is a malfunction of something somewhere!

A lot of various ailments and conditions manifest themselves with similar symptoms and one condition can often mimic another, making it difficult to get to the heart of our health complaints. It is becoming increasingly evident that the old paradigm of treating health complaints with a single focus and single drug is not going to achieve lasting health and vitality. The future of health and healing starts with the individual’s body, mind and spirit. By recognising and treating each client relative to their own unique biochemical and emotional individuality we are given the opportunity to restore balance and function. This new paradigm allows us get to the underlying root causes of health complaints rather than merely supressing and chasing various symptoms.

What is Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN)?

Functional Diagnostic Nutrition is an emerging field that seeks to identify and correct the underlying causes of health complaints, often overlooked by the medical model. FDN uses functional lab testing to identify imbalances and malfunctions at the subclinical level within the hormone, immune, digestion, detoxification and intestinal barrier systems. These systems are integral to health and vitality. Imbalances within these systems affect our overall pattern of health. Viewing the body from the perspective that everything is interconnected, we can understand how one or more imbalances within these systems has the potential to influence many different parts of a person’s biochemistry and physiology, giving rise to various symptoms and ailments.

Laboratory tests are interpreted with respect for the individual as a whole and are correlated with presenting complaints. Functional Diagnostic Nutrition doesn’t ignore symptoms, in fact symptoms are comprehensively monitored throughout the healing process to determine if the client is returning to optimum health. Rather than controlling signs and symptoms emphasis is placed on understanding and improving the functional core of the person as the starting point of intervention. By restoring balance to the dysfunctional systems and by strengthening the fundamental physiological processes that underlie them, we create momentum towards health. By working as close to the underlying cause as possible the better the clinical outcome. Restore function and the symptoms literally disappear.

This model of care is client specific with hormone levels, metabolic and immunological markers giving a precise overview of your current health status and any areas in need of improvement. Safe and natural protocols as well as lifestyle modifications are used to aid the body’s innate healing abilities. Functional Diagnostic Nutrition is potent, proven and professional and has helped thousands of people return to health.

Chronic dis-ease is almost always preceded by a lengthy period of declining function in one or more of the body’s systems and returning to health requires reversing or improving specific dysfunctions within these systems that have contributed to the dis-ease state.

Common Complaints seen in Functional Diagnostic Nutrition:

• Tiredness and fatigue
• Mental & emotional stress
• Depression, anxiety, emotional fragility
• Insomnia and sleep disturbances
• Headaches and fogginess
• Hormonal imbalances, PMS, infertility
• Low sex drive
• Gut malfunction, indigestion, bloating and other digestive disturbances
• Weight gain or weight loss
• Allergies and sensitivities
• Pain & inflammation
• Blood sugar problems
• Hypertension
• Cholesterol problems
• Skin disorders and acne
• Other chronic stress related conditions

Case Study:

Emma is a 31 year old female who came to my clinic presenting with fatigue and insomnia as her two main health complaints. She was constantly tired and fatigued yet she could not fall asleep at night, often getting a second wind after 10pm and staying up well past midnight. Getting up in the morning was a struggle and Emma was finding it harder to function in day to day life.

This cycle had been going on for some time and Emma was feeling exhausted. Upon further investigation Emma was suffering from a whole host of health complaints including digestive disturbances, light-headed or shaky without food, an intolerance to the cold, hot flushes at night, skin breakouts, severe PMS and her menstrual cycle lasting just 1 day.

Functional Diagnostic testing identified Emma as being in stage 3 Adrenal Fatigue, with very low estrogen, progesterone and melatonin levels. Other malfunctions were a sluggish liver and oxidative stress. It was easy for Emma to see the clinical correlation as her results were strongly backed up by all her symptoms.

After three months of following the prescribed protocol which involved diet, rest, stress reduction and supplementation, Emma’s sleep pattern returned to normal, her energy levels improved, she no longer has night sweats or an intolerance to the cold, her period has gone from 1 to 5 days and she no longer suffers moodiness or irritability throughout her menstrual cycle.

With the use of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition and Kinesiology I was able to address Emma’s internal and external stressors that were negatively impacting her life and physiology.