products made to medicate and mask these minor illnesses. But cov-
ering the problem does not make it go away, and worse yet, it turns
off the body’s attempt to tell you there’s something wrong. These
types of signs and symptoms aren’t really addressed by mainstream
medicine, which usually deals only with disease, the after-effect of
functional illness.
Case History
John went to the company doctor for his annual physical exam-
ination. Many tests were performed — a very complete evalu-
ation. The next week when John returned for the results, the
doctor said, “Good news, everything looks great, there’s noth-
ing wrong.” True, everything from blood pressure to choles-
terol, clear lungs to strong heart was great news, but John was
now more confused. He asked, “Then why do I have these
headaches, and why is my energy so low? And why does my
stomach always hurt after eating?” The doctor had no answer
other than to say that he had ruled out disease.In ruling out disease, John’s doctor performed a vital service. But
it was only the first step in evaluating John’s fitness and health.
Though John didn’t have any disease, he had symptoms that made
him uncomfortable and were interfering with his quality of life.
What’s more, these symptoms could be pointing to bigger problems
down the road. This is a common example of functional illness.
Such functional illness — or dysfunction — is often the precursor
to disease. By assessing your level of function you can find and cor-
rect many problems before they become diseases. As a clinician, a sig-
nificant part of my initial examination of a patient was listening to his
or her problems. I heard the main complaints of “I’m tired all day” or
“my back hurts,” but I more closely tuned in to other details such as
waking in the middle of the night and being unable to get back to
sleep, or exactly at what time of day the back felt worse, and when it
was OK. Most of what I needed to know came from the patient telling
me things of which he or she was not fully aware. These kinds of
clues, the subtle and the obvious ones, and what they mean, are func-
tional problems discussed throughout this book.
ASSESSING FUNCTION AND PREVENTING DISEASE • 19