In the past two years, I have been learning a new theoretical system, why to learn this theory, mainly to think about and improve the current treatment of diseases. At present, the epidemic of chronic diseases, especially non-communicable chronic diseases, has not been reduced by the increase in new technologies and new drugs. Of course, there is a very important reason, is that people's life expectancy is increasing, because many chronic diseases are related to aging, but is this only the reason? Certainly not, the current chronic diseases and our living environment, lifestyle, diet, stress, etc. are closely related, however, our current treatment, mainly symptomatic treatment, such as blood pressure, hypoglycemic, lipid,uric acid, etc., these treatments are of course effective, can delay complications, prolong life. However, the underlying problem of the disease has not been solved. The most important thing is that the causes of these diseases are complex, the result of multiple factors, and it is also a relatively long-term process, which requires us to adjust from the source, try to remove these factors that cause diseases, and finally use as few drugs as possible to control these chronic diseases, of course, without drugs can be better controlled. After years of searching, I believe that functional medicine provides us with a very good adjunctive treatment for the treatment of diseases. Of course, I think there are many other means such as rehabilitation medicine, natural medicine, nutritional medicine, molecular correction medicine, etc., and today I would like to share with you my understanding of functional medicine. Functional medicine has also developed for decades, and it should have been transmitted to China for more than a decade, it is mainly to study the whole of people, not just a single disease, it emphasizes the importance of balance to health.
Modern medicine (Western medicine) mainly divides the human body into eight major systems, understanding diseases according to systems, focusing on the disease itself. Functional medicine is more concerned with the balance of the body, and when the balance is broken, people are prone to disease. But the human body has a strong self-healing function, the balance of a short time is broken, and it is not necessarily a disease (a clinically diagnosed disease), and only a long-term dysfunction can be diagnosed as a disease. Therefore, functional medicine mainly studies chronic diseases, which is the main threat we face now. I think imbalance is the basis of chronic disease or a very important cause of it.
I am not to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of functional medicine and modern medicine, in fact, they have their own advantages, if they can be combined, in order to better serve the public health.
Functional medicine emphasizes patient-centered, four major influencing factors: genetics, living environment, lifestyle, diet, and 7 major physiological imbalances. As a student of clinical medicine, some of them are well understood, and some of them feel a little awkward. After continuous learning, the understanding of it is becoming more and more profound. Functional medicine generally belongs to the category of preventive medicine and is a kind of complementary medicine, but for the stage of functional imbalance, it can play a good role in preventing diseases.
Today I mainly want to talk to you about the seven physiological functions emphasized by functional medicine, if these functions can achieve balance, it is not easy to get sick, of course, sometimes it will be difficult, but it is what we pursue.
I think this is relatively easy to understand, we need to eat a lot of things every day, but these things need to be decomposed in the digestive tract, from large molecules to small molecules, in order to be absorbed by the intestine into the human body, supplying cellular energy and building materials. This process of digestion and absorption is very complicated and requires the participation of many digestive juices and digestive enzymes. Now research suggests that the gut microbiota also plays a very important role, especially probiotics. These bacteria can digest and absorb food, produce substances that are beneficial and absorbable to the human body, and even synthesize vitamins, hormones, neurotransmitters, and can also play the role of an immune barrier to remove harmful substances to the human body. Now the study of the intestinal flora is more and more in-depth, has exceeded our previous understanding and imagination, some people think that the intestine is the second brain of people, the relevant literature is quite a lot, specifically not in detail here.
Literally, poison is definitely something bad for the body, and this poison doesn't just mean "drug." It refers to the general term for all substances that are absorbed by the body but cannot be used by the body and are harmful to the body. It can come from air, water, food, home improvement building materials, clothing, etc., the human body has a very powerful detoxification organ, that is, the liver, it can decompose most of the harmful substances, or converted into non-toxic substances, excreted through the digestive tract or kidneys, to maintain human health, but each person's detoxification, detoxification ability is not the same, it depends on each person's gene type. A very simple example, some people drink a small amount of alcohol is easy to blush, dizzy, but some people will be much lighter, the difference in alcohol intake and the detoxification function of the liver is closely related, there are individual differences.
The human body has a strong ability to protect itself, from the skin to immune cells, organs, systems; we have to contact a large number of bacteria, microorganisms and other foreign species every day, in addition, the human body will also produce a lot of aging, necrotic cells, which need the immune system to clear, if the immune system function is damaged, people are easy to get sick. Once invaded and infected by germs, it will be difficult to control this reason.
Cell communication has not been touched too much before, or emphasized. The human body as a whole is composed of countless small cells, and cells are the basic units of function. It's like a small room in a mansion. Cells and cells also need to communicate and communicate with each other. Their communication and information transmission need to be communicated with the help of hormones, neurotransmitters, cytokines and other chemicals. If communication is impaired, dysfunction and even illness can occur. The most typical is the endocrine system, first of all, the cerebral cortex will secrete some neurotransmitters to affect the hypothalamus, the hypothalamus secretes some hormones affect the pituitary gland, the pituitary gland secretes some hormones affect the glands, the glands secrete some hormones to affect the target organs, these hormones may also affect the immune system, they form a large network, in the process of precise regulation, mutual influence, dynamic balance. If the information is not exchanged smoothly, there will be disorders, which will not be secreted when secreted, and secreted when they are not needed, and diseases will also arise.
We absorb nutrients into the body need blood, lymph to transport, blood in the body needs to rely on the heart to pump blood, if the heart has a problem, its harm can be imagined. After these substances reach organs, tissues and cells, and then through the cell membrane to reach the cell, this transport process is inseparable from the functional state of the cell membrane, changes in the internal and external environment, and is very important for maintaining the function of the cell.
The functioning of the cell requires energy, and its main provider is the mitochondria within the cell. Mitochondria to absorb nutrients from the outside world, including glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, into the energy that cells can use - atp, this process requires oxygen consumption, the production of a lot of free radicals, but also produces some waste, healthy human cells can remove too many free radicals and discharge waste out of the cells, and then excreted through the kidneys, digestive tract, skin, respiratory system. If there are too many free radicals, exceeding the person's ability to scavenge, it is easy to damage human tissues and organs, resulting in a series of symptoms.
The human body has a good skeleton and muscles, the hoof tissue system support, the structure is reasonable, there is no excess, and can constantly renew itself, if the structure changes, the function will also be affected. Especially in the skeletal system, with the increase of age, bone density will decrease, the bearing capacity of bone will be affected, the structure will also change, and then the risk of fracture will increase, ultimately affecting the health of the human body. In addition, the structure of the cell membrane is equally important, the cell membrane is a phospholipid bimolecule, whether its fluidity is perfect or not will affect the cell's intake of nutrients, affecting the function of the cell
These seven physiological functions constitute a complete human body, in a dynamic balance process, people constantly maintain balance in the communication with the internal and external environment, once a certain balance is broken, it is easy to produce diseases. But this process is very long, if people can recognize the problem, through the toxins, nutrients supplementation, self-repair, can prevent its progress, which is also the basis for preventing disease.
Functional medicine and current modern medicine are not contradictory, but complement each other and promote each other. Just like an apple tree, if the apple on the tree is broken, it may be eaten by insects, or it may be the lack of nutrients in the soil under the tree, resulting in a decline in the ability of the apple to resist insect pests, so it is necessary to pick off the broken apple and improve the nutritional status of the soil, that is, to treat both the symptoms and the root causes.