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7. Rise of Functional Nutrition in Modern Healing: Getting to the root of diseases

Functional Nutrition- getting into the heart of every disease to ensure sensible nourishment. Ms. Mugdha Pradhan, Founder & Nutritionist, ThriveFNC, shares her insights on functional nutrition and revolutionary techniques featuring a customized healing process.

The prolonged lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic has turned many individuals lazy. But rather than focusing on keeping the body active and doing some home workouts, 32-year-old marketing professional Shivani Singh read about this miraculous diet program on the internet and felt pumped to start following it from the very next day to lose all the extra kilos she had gained. The diet demanded her to starve throughout the day and eat just a cube of cheese at night. At this point, Shivani was desperate to try anything to get back in shape. The more she read about it, the more it seemed like the perfect solution. But after a month, instead of losing weight, she started feeling much worse than before. She was experiencing incessant hairfall and was also diagnosed with a digestive tract infection and multiple vitamin deficiencies. So much for that diet program! As she underwent the necessary treatment, her family doctor mentioned the revolutionary benefits of functional nutrition. Suddenly life didn’t seem that bleak to Shivani as the conversation progressed. Her hopes of reviving her health rekindled and she promised herself to meet a certified functional nutritionist at the earliest. So what exactly is functional nutrition?

Functional Nutrition is a holistic wellness approach that takes into account all the essential aspects of an individual such as the daily habits, important health metrics, and current lifestyle, environment they are living in and concluding on root causes before giving any nutritional guidance. Sounds complex but not really. Functional nutrition simply endorses a systematic healthcare practice that understands the interconnected nature of a human body. It considers the larger picture surrounding your health and aims to reinstate your overall bodily functioning to the optimum.

By zeroing in on the root cause of the patient’s health predicament, and resolving it from the root, a functional nutritionist aspires to eliminate the disease itself. The root cause analysis technique helps functional nutritionists reverse even chronic and lifelong health conditions. This holistic technique addresses the various disparities in the body by reinstituting function through a transformed intervention program that includes modifying a patient’s diet, lifestyle, and supplement regimen.

While claptrap diet programs and shoddy weight-loss techniques remain popular, they are not about fetching genuine results. The Keto diet, the Atkins diet and countless other varieties are nothing more than one-dimensional fads that often do more harm than good. This is where functional nutrition steps into the frame. It moves beyond traditional methodologies that are limited to curtailing the immediate effects of an ailment. Functional nutrition strives to strike the disease at the very core. It transcends generic diet programs and remedies as it attacks the essential nature of the underlying symptoms in a patient. This helps them in understanding the particular cause behind each disease.

Functional nutritionists endorse a more comprehensive approach when it comes to treating patients. While conventional nutrition attempts to suppress ailments without getting into the bottom of the disease, functional nutrition intends to locate the various clues and weave them together to arrive at an authentic prognosis for the patient. The major causes of health afflictions in most patients include dysfunctional organ systems, pathogens, nutritional deficiencies, exposure to external toxins, undesirable eating practices, and last but not the least, stress. These are the primary clues that help functional nutritionists delve deeper into the disease and its origin. This is a key factor in the curative process that follows the patient’s prognosis.

A functional nutritionist will first commence a thorough assessment of the patient’s previous medical history along with blood tests to locate symptomatic patterns. It is followed by an extensive process of reviewing the patient’s various organ systems and evaluating their preceding medicine and supplement intake records. It is also important to analyses a patient’s eating behavior and sleep patterns as it has been found that many people are prone to overeating to compensate for their emotional duress whereas lack of sufficient sleep can effectively wear down one’s body. After carrying out an extensive evaluation of the patient’s lifestyle, a food nutritionist will gradually move at a holistic pace while focusing on every significant health aspect.

This includes verifying whether the patient suffers from any food allergies or sensitivities. They will also conclude an in-depth examination of a patient’s blood chemistry to locate the presence of deficiencies, external toxins, dysfunctional systems or pathogens. The next step is configuring whether a patient is subject to health conditions like insulin resistance, gut dysbiosis, detoxification troubles, weakened thyroid system, etc. A patient may also suffer from high cortisol levels and adrenal stress, which can explain the recurring symptoms. After identifying the fundamental factors behind the existing ailment, the functional nutrition expert carves out a permanent recovery plan for the patient by resolving not just the symptoms, but the root cause itself.

The revolutionary techniques of functional nutrition feature a customized healing process for every patient. As each body has its particular sets of biological configurations such as metabolism, hormone synthesis and immunity, preparing a personalized prognosis for patients works best. Unlike conventional nutritionists, functional nutritionists extend a matchless curative methodology by taking into account the minutest cellular and genetic requirements of the patient. The Functional Nutrition framework provides guidelines that allows a Nutritionist to examine the most intrinsic details of a patient such as their unique genetic makeup, the state of their gut microbiome, immune reactions to certain foods, presence of environmental pollutants, and an exhaustive breakdown of the cholesterol profile. This grants them a superior edge over standard nutritionists and helps them serve patients better.

It is quite evident that functional nutrition is a practical and medically-approved healing methodology that is dedicated to providing the ultimate care and attention to a patient from the initial stage to the point of absolute recovery. Though a relatively new concept in India, there are very few health-based startups that are offering this western conception in an Indo-centric avatar. By inculcating a multifarious remedial process and a broad amalgamation of various healing practices such as western medicine, Ayurveda, Naturopathy and traditional medicine, these nutritional startups are creating huge waves in the nation’s health sector by delivering the best of different worlds.

Further, to let the patients enjoy their recovery process to the fullest, functional nutritionists offer a course of constant community support and collective inspiration. This motivates them into establishing the highest possible health standards for themselves. Thousands of people have managed a complete recuperation from major chronic illnesses in India on the back of functional nutrition and personalized healthcare. Such immense success rate has increased the adoption of this wellness approach in more and more healthcare systems around the world. We can say that it is another step ahead on the road towards creating a disease-free world.