Functional Medicine for a Functional Force

A year ago, when I started to experience what I believed were just signs of aging, I had never heard of functional or integrative medicine. If you are like I was then, terms such as allopathic or osteopathic may be foreign to you. But if the military wants to maintain a healthy and ready force, these terms should become part of the normal lexicon and practice of military health care. If you experience difficultly sleeping, joint pains, brain fog, high blood pressure, or any other number of physiological or psychological issues, functional medicine and nutrition may be able to put your body back into a state of overall wellness.

Too many service members spend their days suffering in silence, because the Western, allopathic approach to medicine—combating disease with remedies such as drugs or surgery—fails to get to an ailment’s root cause. Allopathic medicine has its place. It plays a critical role in treating acute injuries that commonly occur in combat. If someone breaks a limb or experiences head trauma, for example, they need specialized medical professionals capable of stabilizing and treating that injury in the moment to ensure their survival and eventual recovery.

The problems that lead to lifelong suffering, however, typically come post–initial injury, or once disease has set in well enough to manifest active symptoms. By practicing a more osteopathic approach, military healthcare professionals can optimize medicine to promote healing and longevity.   

Merriam-Webster defines osteopathic medicine as “based on a theory that diseases are due chiefly to loss of structural integrity, which can be restored by manipulation of the part and/or supplemented by therapeutic measures (such as use of drugs or surgery).” In other words, the human body is a complex system in which degradation in one part creates problems throughout the entire mind/body system. To ensure excellent health, the entire system has to function properly.

A doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) would tell you that the body has a phenomenal ability to heal itself, if you can get to the root cause of disease and/or disability and fix it. The current medical system typically does not attempt to find and fix root causal factors, but instead treats symptoms with medication, accepting that the body has to adapt to the problem vice repair itself. Medication serves a role, but imagine a world in which the body heals permanently because the factors that inhibit healthy internal functionality are removed.

From my personal experience, I can definitely say holistic healing is possible. Sixteen years ago, while I was in Officer Candidates School, well-intentioned healthcare providers gave me medication to control blood pressure issues I was having during training. At the time, I was told I was in good health and living a healthy lifestyle, so medication was the only remaining option.

Fast forward 14 years. While dealing with other health issues, I developed a professional relationship with a talented civilian DO, who talked to me about the body as a system, the importance of gut health, the microbiome, DNA gene expression, and reducing/eliminating chronic inflammation and toxins so the body could start to heal itself on a cellular level. One of the DO’s first recommendations was a diet change aimed at reducing inflammation. In my case, I eliminated gluten and processed foods, reduced my sugar intake, and made a few other changes. Just 48 hours later my blood pressure went down without medication, and it has remained consistently excellent for more than a year now. Using food as medicine also fixed the vision issues, joint pains, brain fog, and sleep quality issues that I had simply associated with getting older. It makes me wonder if I would be healthier in general now if I had taken an osteopathic approach 16 years ago.

If we take a functional medicine approach and focus on health and longevity, getting older does not have to mean deteriorating.

I have talked to Marines who have trouble sleeping, chronic pain, hypertension, and a slew of other issues for which they believe nothing can be done except take medication that does not always help or sometimes even brings new symptoms. They may never be introduced to things such as photobiomodulation (Red Light Therapy), frequency specific microcurrent for pain management/elimination, body detoxification for mitochondria health, or food as medicine.¹ If knowledge—and application of that knowledge—is power, then the military can empower its healthcare system and professionals through functional medicine training to improve the general health within the Department of Defense.

Every year service members are required to do a physical health assessment (PHA) in which they talk to a doctor about what, if anything, is wrong physically or emotionally. I suggest that part of that yearly evaluation be a series of tests that look at nutritional levels, toxins, and the diversity of the microbiome, which has a tremendous effect on brain health. We already look at heart health, dental health, visual acuity, and hearing, because of their importance, and so we have a baseline from which to track unhealthy deviations. The additional tests recommended in an osteopathic approach would provide further insights. The health of each service member would be better assessed and addressed, and the PHA would become a more productive way to enhance member longevity, thus increasing the fighting strength of U.S. military forces.

There is always room for medical professionals and systems to grow and evolve. The military too must evolve in its management of the health of military personnel. My story of improved health while dealing with early onset Parkinson’s disease is evidence that an osteopathic approach can work. Let true healing begin!