Health optimisation

Your 45 minute appointment with a functional medicine practitioner will include a rapid assessment of your baseline health, discussion around your optimisation goals, and creation of a personalised optimisation roadmap. Your roadmap may include suggestions for further testing, protocols, and therapeutics, and some immediate steps you can take to start optimising your health.

‍Functional medicine is a revolutionary healthcare approach that focuses on optimising health through the most up-to–date science backed insights that largely address dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors that compromise health. It looks at the body as a complex, inter-related biological system rather than separate parts.

Biohacking is about taking control of your biology and optimising it to achieve peak performance. Many biohackers seek to improve healthspan and longevity, in addition to athletic performance too. There are many biohacking techniques, from nutritional biohacking strategies like peptides, nootropics, fasting and ketogenic diets to more lifestyle driven or experiential strategies like meditation, HIIT, cryotherapy, red light therapy and sleep optimisation. Wearable devices such as the Oura ring, WHOOP or CGMs are often employed to give real-time data on how a person’s lifestyle and diet impact key biomarkers.

In today’s health landscape, biohacking has emerged as a prominent buzzword and trend not only in Australia but also globally. However, many people are jumping onto biohacking protocols without truly grasping their impact or discerning their relevance to their unique needs. The evidence based data offered in our health optimisation service gives you the power to focus on and measure what matters most to your health to unlock your full potential. With data-driven insights and expert support from our biohacking clinic team, skip the self-experimentation and get the information you need to fine-tune your biohacking protocol with strategies that bring you a high return on your investment.

‍Read more about health optimisation here.

Our award-winning clinic has an unrelenting dedication to empowering our patients to their best health. We’ve been leading the way in healthcare since 2017, providing innovative, world-class care to Australians and people all over the world who want to feel their best and improve their healthspan.

We unite the latest technologies, skills and knowledge in a revolutionary model that gets results and rave reviews. The Melbourne Functional Medicine approach is personalised, collaborative, and focused on YOU.

Beyond providing you with comprehensive health insights, our team of functional medicine practitioners and health coaches can offer continuous support. Our practitioners will craft a personalised plan tailored to your needs, while our health coaches will guide and support you in effectively implementing the plan to achieve optimal results.

A functional medicine practitioner has access to testing beyond what you are usually offered by your general practitioner.

Because of this, we can match the world’s most powerful diagnostic offerings to your health goals, offering you access to the most advanced ways to understand the inner workings of your body.

Functional medicine has established a longstanding practice of over three decades, rooted in a comprehensive understanding of how modifiable lifestyle factors, including environment, diet, activity patterns, psycho-social-spiritual factors, and stress management actively contribute to strengthening your body’s resistance to chronic diseases and fostering optimal health. Hence the functional medicine way is the ultimate starting point to biohack your body to optimum health.

Our 6 month healthcare program is designed to treat people with chronic health conditions to get their foundational levels of health back on track. Only when health is on track is it best to start moving into optimisation.

This service is ideal for individuals who feel healthy, and want the data, guidance and protocols to take their health to the next level.

If you feel healthy yet want peace of mind or a detailed understanding of your current functional health status, this service is for you.

Through our complimentary discovery call or the strategy session, you’ll gain a clear understanding of how well our service aligns with your needs. In the event that it becomes apparent during the assessment that this particular service may not be the best fit for you, there is no obligation to proceed further. Instead, your practitioner may recommend an alternative option that can better support you on your health journey.

We have a range of practitioner only supplements such as NR, Berberine, NAC, and nootropics like Gingko, Bacopa and phosphatidyl nutrients like choline.

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Yes, we work with optimisation seekers across the globe and Australia via telehealth. Please note that not all labs are available in every country. If you would like to discuss your suitability before booking, please schedule a free discovery call here.

We access the world’s leading laboratories to perform your functional testing. Some of the tests on offer include:

• Comprehensive health status array: 230+ biomarkers that assesses your body’s state of play for vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids, as well as heavy metals, cardiovascular health, thyroid and sex hormone function, energy production, neurotransmitter metabolism, detoxification, antioxidant status, bacterial and fungal dysbiosis, fasting insulin, plus your full LDL breakdown plus apolipoprotein A-1 and B ratios (ApoA-1) and (ApoB) to assess metabolic health

• KBMO Food Inflammation Test 132: Chronic inflammation caused by food reactions can halt health in its tracks. This profile allows you to discover whether your body is creating an inflammatory (IgG + C3d) response to 132 common foods

• MyDNA genetic profile: Get clear on your disease risk factors and your body’s baseline blueprint. This reports on 92 genes and 113 SNP’s across digestion, energy, hormones, stress & cognitive performance, inflammation, athletic performance, MTHFR, ApoE variants, DNA protection & repair, and detoxification

• ‍MyDNAge epigenetics profile: The epigenetic expression of your genes is the most impactful predictor of long-term health. The myDNAge test can determine how old your body is on the inside. It does this by looking at certain patterns in your DNA that are influenced by factors like your genes, lifestyle, diet, and environment. By analysing these patterns, the test can predict your biological age, which may be different from your actual age. This information helps us understand how our choices and the world around us can affect how our body ages, as well as how fast you age, and our overall health. It’s like having a blueprint of our body that shows how different factors can impact how we grow and develop. This exciting field of study is called epigenetics, which is helping people make better choices for a healthier life

There are many other tests our clinic can access to understand how other pathways or systems in the body are functioning. These include comprehensive tests to explore digestive health, toxin exposure, hormone metabolism, parasites, and more.

We may also recommend blood chemistry from your GP for more basic tests too. For the more in-depth comprehensive tests, we use the world’s leading labs:

Precision Analytical

TruDiagnostics

Genova Diagnostics

KBMO

NutriPath

Metametrix

Mosaic Diagnostics

Many of these labs are overseas, so test results can take up to six weeks to come back.

After your initial strategy session, you’ll be clear on which additional tests might match your goals, and the pricing of each. Have some of these tests already? We’ll be happy to interpret them.

All the test reports and biomarkers will have been reviewed in advance by your functional medicine practitioner, so your interpretation session will be time dedicated to take you through the learnings, educate you on the inner workings of these core bodily systems as well as the opportunities you have to move your epigenetics in the direction of health.

You’ll walk away with more insight and clarity about your body than you may have ever been exposed to before.

If you have any functional testing or standard pathology reports or screens performed within the last 12 months, you are welcome to send these to us in advance of your appointment.

You’ll be provided with test kits and will send your samples off at least six weeks prior to your interpretation session. Some tests can be done in the comfort of your home, some will need to be taken into a pathology collection centre for a blood draw.

You’ll be assigned a HCANZA certified health coach from the Melbourne Functional Medicine team to support you to successfully complete the testing.

Results are usually back within six weeks. This is because a selection of the labs we use for these cutting edge tests are located outside of Australia.

There are many health assessment and screening services available on the market. What’s right for you will depend on your goals.

‍Some services offer disease detection and medical imaging using CT and MRI scans, usually focusing on people who have the goal of understanding their immediate cancer and cardio and cerebrovascular disease risk. This suits individuals who want to know if right now there is anything of concern progressing in their body.

Many services will include a more comprehensive lab analysis and blood profile than you may usually obtain with your GP. Yet some services may not be using the most up to date biomarkers of health (what is currently being expressed in the body) and many tests will not include functional analytes (offering clues as to why that might be).

An example is relying on HbA1c for metabolic health. Whilst many medical providers will offer this biomarker, and it can certainly be helpful, we at Melbourne Functional Medicine prefer to use several biomarkers such as glucose and fasting insulin as a far more accurate identifier of metabolic health than HbA1c levels.

Our testing service is for individuals who are seeking to actively pursue lifestyle changes to enhance or biohack their biology, yet first wish to understand their current biomarker and functional biomarker baseline to understand the areas to focus on. These individuals may also wish to more thoroughly understand which biohacking protocols may best match your health optimisation goals.

Unfortunately, Medicare coverage is limited to conventional medical tests, which often fail to provide a thorough understanding of your health, and use outdated markers that have been surpassed by more advanced markers supported by emerging research.

We use the most comprehensive, validated lab tests from labs that are privately billed. Most GPs are not familiar with these tests unless they are functionally trained.

$298 is payable upfront to book your 45 minute strategy session.

Costs for testing will be advised by your practitioner during your strategy session.

Ongoing costs include:

Functional medicine practitioner – $298 per 45 minute session. Please note that the duration of the testing  interpretation sessions is dependant on how many tests require interpretation. Your practitioner will let you know upon agreement of the test to be ordered.

Health coach – $198 per 45 minute session

Fees for supplements and therapeutics will be provided upon creation of your health plan. All are purely options for you, with no obligation.

Payment plans are not available for this offering.

Unfortunately, as of April 1, 2019, most private health insurers won’t offer rebates for our services. Some patients have successfully accessed rebates from their corporate employer under policies relating to preventative health endeavours. These policies will differ employer to employer.

Our clinic hours are:

9:00am – 5:00pm Monday to Thursday

However, you can reach us outside of those hours via phone or email.

Our clinic is located at 186 Buckhurst Street, South Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. We serve people from Melbourne, across Australia and the globe either in person or via telehealth.

If you’re outside of Australia, please enquire with us to see if the tests we offer are accessible in your location.

Yes. Medicine 3.0 is a term that’s been written about and popularised by longevity doctor Peter Attia, MD.

Medicine 2.0 as Attia describes, is allopathic medicine as it is offered today which is evidence based, is designed to diagnose and manage disease and acute illness. Medicine 3.0 is evidence informed, activates early preventative measures and is highly personalised. The principles of Medicine 3.0 and  functional medicine overlap.