What are your thoughts on doing both nutrition coaching and Functional Medicine within a clinic? Is it okay to have a separate nutrition coaching side of the clinic for those who are not sick and/or cannot afford Functional Medicine?’

Absolutely, Gavin. I mean, there’s really no right or wrong way to set up a clinical practice, and there are lots of different options depending on what your interests are and the population of patients that you’re working with. As you probably know, I’m a huge believer in both nutrition and health coaching. If you think about it, really, the vast majority of our health problems are caused by diet, behavior, and lifestyle. If we can support patients, particularly those who don’t yet have significant chronic disease, if you can support them with those things, then they may be able to avoid chronic disease in the first place. As Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and that’s definitely true health in the health context, too. But even with patients with chronic disease, we’re often doing very deep dives into different nutritional strategies, and having a nutritionist now with [a] coach on staff [who] are working with those patients, I think, is ideal.

The way that medicine has been delivered so far in this country, in the [United States] and in most other industrialized countries, is the doctor is the focal point, and I don’t think that makes a lot of sense when you consider that most chronic diseases are driven by diet, lifestyle, and behavior. It did make sense when the main issues that people were going to see doctors for were all acute issues like infectious diseases, appendicitis, or broken bones; going straight to the doctor in that case makes a lot of sense. But for issues that are really driven by diet, behavior, and lifestyle, it makes a lot more sense for people to start working with a nutritionist and a health coach ​___ [3:41]​ progress they can make, and then go to the doctor if it’s necessary to get a diagnosis, a prescription, etc., so we’re kind of in the process of shifting our clinical setup where we’re using nutritionists and health coaches more intensively upfront, and I think that’s a better structure over the long term.