Hello. I’m Dr.Bernice Gonzalez, and I’m here today to talk about what functional medicine is.
Quite frankly, there are a lot of people in the community that really, truly don’t understand what the concept of functional medicine is and how that can impact their health. First, I want to say that functional medicine is evidence based and scientifically proven. I want everybody to know that the care that we extended, the patients within our practice and in Vital Life Wellness always has a scientific basis behind it. And it has been shown and proven to improve your health and the quality of your life.
In functional medicine, we are trying to be proactive about your health versus reactive, which is different than what most physicians have been trained in here in America. In America, most medical doctors are trained to identify a disease and to treat a disease with a pharmaceutical drug, paid no attention to lifestyle medicine and how nutrition and exercise and stress management can impact their health. With functional medicine, we actually want to pay close attention to these pillars of health. We focus on nutrition. We focus on exercise. We focus on the impact of chronic stress and the hormones such as cortisol and insulin that are reacting within the body. And we also promote good, healthy gut health and hormone balance. The science tells us that if we focus on these simple pillars of health, then our patients can live and lead a better quality of life. Now, I’m not saying that we don’t prescribe prescription medications at Vital Life Wellness Center. We are very well in tune with treating and managing all chronic medical illnesses. But our goal is to minimize dependence on the disease care system that we live in, is to minimize the prescription medications and use them cautiously when ever there is a need to do that
Our approach really is integrative, and we’re taking this functional medicine approach, focusing on these pillars of health, and we are treating the whole patient and not their symptoms. I’ve had the privilege of practicing medicine here in San Antonio for 25 years, and I have to say it has truly been rewarding to serve San Antonio and the patients that trust us with their health with this style of medicine, functional medicine. In 25 years, I have seen that this is the best approach to healthcare when we’re looking at prevention, and it has made a tremendous difference and a tremendous impact in the lives of our patients. We are so looking forward to serving your health care needs and helping you live your best, most active, most quality life ever.