Research Study on the Effect of Functional Medicine on the Health of Our Patients

Scientific anchoring is important in functional medicine. Every aspect of our way of working (lifestyle advice, interventions and treatments) have support in research. However, studies on true, personalised functional medicine are largely lacking. There’s a reason for that. Research studies commonly are based on traditionally designed study protocols applied on a group of participants sharing some characteristic. Most studies also have a treatment group and a control group. The challenge when studying functional medicine as a holistic approach is that it’s impossible to standardise treatments as they, per definition, need to be fully tailored to each individual.

Our patient group is heterogeneous and many experience a complex set of symptoms. They do not fit a singled out diagnosis, nor are they all suited to the same treatment. Nordic Clinic has therefore invested in a scientific study where we follow our patients over time to compare experienced health before and after the implementation of individualised treatment plans. The study will serve as an evaluation of functional medicine in general and as an internal evaluation of our methods. All new patients are offered to participate, but participation is voluntary. Study participants fill out questionnaires before the first consultation and then every month for one year. Subsequently, a follow-up is done after another year. We look at a wide range of factors to evaluate how our patients’ health develops from several different viewpoints, such as mental health, fatigue and gastrointestinal symptoms. We will publish our findings in a scientific journal. We conduct the study in collaboration with a researcher from Stockholm University.