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What Is Functional Diagnostic Nutrition ® and How It Can Help You.
FDN is an emerging field and a growing body of work that bridges the gap between clinical nutrition and functional medicine. It is a type of detective work that seeks to identify and correct the underlying causes and conditions that lead to people’s health complaints. FDN is NOT diagnosing or treating any specific disease or practicing medicine.
It is a series of functional tests that show how well various systems function in the body, which organs are stressed, and where imbalances occur. Based on the test results we are able to design a protocol to improve the functioning of the body and let it heal itself. The protocol, called D.R.E.S.S. for Health Success program, is a drug-free, natural protocol, which is very comprehensive and addresses diet, rest, exercise, stress, and supplementation. We look at how various systems are interrelated and teach clients how to make lasting health improvements by making natural and sometimes very simple changes in their lifestyle. We do not diagnose or treat but guide clients to better health by seeking healing opportunities and then taking a natural functional approach to improve the function of all the systems in the body. We do this by uncovering the underlying factors (malfunctions) on the subclinical level that contribute to or cause disease and are often overlooked by the traditional “medical model,” and then recommending the D.R.E.S.S. protocol, which is guided by clients’ lab test results and is based on health-building strategies to help the body’s innate ability to heal itself.
Lab testing is a great way to discover hidden internal stressors that are at the root cause of your symptoms. Our program uses functional saliva, urine, stool, and blood testing to identify healing opportunities—especially within the hormonal, immune, digestion, detoxification, and intestinal barrier systems. The benefits are immense—increased energy, stronger immune function, balanced hormones, slowing the aging process, elimination of symptoms, and much, much more.
The “medical model” deals mainly with treating current symptoms, often without looking at the underlying causes. It does not look at whether various systems/organs function optimally and test results in the “normal range” are often considered a final answer to patients’ complaints, many times leaving them with no answers at all, or worse, the feeling that the condition they suffer from is in their head. The “FDN model” is not so much concerned with symptoms (although important), but rather with underlying reasons that led to symptoms in the first place. FDN believes that the occurrence of symptoms is the final stage in the disease process, which usually takes a long time to develop. It tries to find where the malfunction is and work on the underlying causes, rather than providing temporary relief (although intelligent allopathy is sometimes necessary). It also works on the presumption that the body has an innate ability to heal itself if smartly supported in a natural way, and given appropriate conditions to do so.
Lab Tests… to learn more about specific lab tests, please see the LAB TESTING page by clicking HERE.