Functional medicine: the new trend where the patient takes control of his health arrives in Argentina

And he added: “Functional medicine belongs to doctors, but all health professionals can develop it in some way.

Said medicine is practiced, it is not something that if or if it has to be studied, as long as one has the knowledge of how to approach a patient in an integrative way, it is enough. It’s a head-turner.”

Within this framework, and with the aim of “not getting sick but preventing it with habits”, the first Functional Medicine Festival will take place on August 26 and 27, which will take place at the Sans Souci Palace (Victoria – Buenos Aires), and which will feature talks by health and nutrition professionals. Also breathing workshops, yoga, constellations, cryotherapy, body composition and more proposals for all interested public.

Would you take charge of your health? In short, through functional medicine you can learn to achieve comprehensive well-being with multiple tools and develop a lifestyle that makes nature the protagonist of our lives without neglecting the focus on prevention.

Who wouldn’t want to avoid getting sick? It is worth noting then, that among the numerous benefits of the practice are:

• – The patient takes control of his health with professional follow-up.
• – It is not a paternalistic medicine but the doctor guides you.
• – It is not a medicine that is stipulated with protocols, but each patient is bioindividual and has a different management.
• – It is based a lot on habits, it greatly improves them in terms of quality.
• – It seeks to prevent disease.

Florencia Raele is a functional and integrative physician. She specialized in nutrition and deepened her studies in orthomolecular medicine, clinical psychoneuroimmunology and stress medicine, both in Argentina and abroad. She wrote three books (“Ancient Medicine and Epigenetics”, “Holistic Nutrition” and “Preventive Medicine in Your Kitchen”) that became best sellers.

Some time ago he thought about how to help interested people to acquire habits and tools that help prevent their illnesses and achieve a better quality of life.

1. 1 – Consume real food: The ideal is to base the diet on foods with a single ingredient, which predominates on the plate to be eaten, thus avoiding the abuse of ultra-processed foods. Animal meats and derivatives, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, cereals, legumes, mushrooms, spices, and algae are just a few examples of single-ingredient foods.
2. 2- Generate routines: The body acts in advance, that is why it is important to have marked routines that are directly allied to habits. If one establishes them, it is easier then to automate healthy habits.
3. 3- The importance of planning: Many people, no matter how much they have the knowledge and know what to do, sometimes forget that planning is key, precisely to know, for example, that when there is no time one has the prepared food. Anticipate habits and have both food, exercise and everything diagrammed to have a routine.
4. 4- Hydration YES, but be careful with stimulating liquids: You have to hydrate throughout the day, but without abusing hydration during intakes because that hinders digestion. On the other hand, it is trying to avoid stimulant drinks -such as coffee, mate or tea- after 2:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. since the half-life of these stimulants is an average of 6 hours and they cause sleep to be interrupted. . Beyond the common belief that you have to drink 2 liters of water a day, the amount must be personalized according to fluid losses and ensure that the water we are drinking has minerals. Beyond quantity, quality also matters.
5. 5- Exercise: Beyond the planned physical activity, it is very important to stay active during the day with basic movements such as walking and daily chores to take advantage of stimulating the body. Incorporating strength exercises into the routine is also something that is not always kept in mind and is important for maintaining muscle mass that declines with age.
6. 6- Contact with nature or earth (grounding): Take the time even a few minutes a day every day to come into contact with the earth barefoot. That generates antioxidant power in the body and balances our charges. Today we are very abstaining from contact with nature and just a few minutes bring many benefits to health.
7. 7- Take advantage of sunlight in the morning and avoid artificial light at night: This point is very important to regulate the internal clocks that we have in the body. During the day, you have to expose yourself to natural sunlight and when the sun goes down try to refrain from artificial light so that the body receives the signal that it is night and can rest well.
8. 8- Digestive rest: The digestive part of our body needs a minimum of 12 hours to be able to repair itself and detoxify the body in an ideal way, from dinner to the first intake in the morning.
9. 9- Being in a community: Being alone or feeling alone brings a lot of negative repercussions for health and it is key to have a group or community that can be friends, family or a group with whom you share something in common and feel accompanied.
10. 10- Stress management: It could be said that it is the most relevant point on the list. Find a practice that helps manage emotions and achieve daily balance, especially in a world in which we are exposed to different tense situations without realizing it.