Did you know functional medicine can really shine in helping people find and treat the root cause of most digestive issues? One of the most common digestive conditions we see in clinical practice is acid reflux/heartburn. The traditional medical approach is to prescribe antacids or acid blocking medications. This can help with the symptoms but does little to address the root cause of the problem.
Functional medicine finds the root cause in two ways. The first is in asking the right questions through a detailed health history overview. The second is to run the appropriate functional medicine tests. The first test we use is the Food Safe 190. This shows which food(s) are potentially upsetting the digestive system. We all intuitively know the foods we eat are at the heart of most digestive issues and this will show exactly which food(s) could be the problem.
The second test is a comprehensive digestive stool analysis. We use this test to look for bad bacteria. The most common one that can cause acid reflux is helicobacter pylori. With this test we can also look to see if the body is lacking in digestive enzymes, how the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas are functioning, and what the levels of the beneficial bacteria are. These can all be clues as to what is leading to the acid reflux/heartburn.
Once this information is gathered then a specific plan of action can be tailored for the patient to treat the underlying issues that are found. This is root cause medicine at its best. For a more detailed discussion of this topic listen to our podcast called Treat the Cause on Spotify. It is a 30-minute podcast on which we have already covered several topics and are continually building upon.