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THERE MAY BE NO ROOT CAUSE
This is the gospel of root cause. I have said “find the root cause” more times than I could count. It is practically a religion in functional medicine. Don’t just treat the symptom. Keep digging. Figure out why it happened in the first place. It makes sense, and for years I never really questioned the premise. Lately, though, I have.
What if there is no root cause?
That is probably not something someone who works in holistic and functional health is supposed to say out loud. We are supposed to believe something started this. Something disrupted the system or tipped that first domino. Find it, address it, and eventually the rest starts making sense. I’m just not convinced human biology is that polite.
Give us fatigue, and we start looking at thyroid function, iron, hormones, cortisol, sleep, glucose, and nutrient status. Bloating sends us toward the gut and microbiome. Weight won’t move, and now we are talking about insulin, hormones, stress, and inflammation. Those are reasonable places to look. I look at them too. What I am starting to question is the assumption underneath all that looking. Somewhere in there, we believe there has to be the thing. Find the thing, and we have our answer.
Of course people want that. When you have felt awful for months or years, there is enormous relief in hearing someone say, “We figured…
