If you’ve been told everything “looks normal” but you still don’t feel like yourself—you’re not alone.
At Cardea Health Integrative, we take a different approach. Functional medicine is about slowing down, listening carefully, and understanding the full story behind your health. Instead of chasing symptoms, we focus on uncovering what’s actually driving them.
If you’ve been feeling overlooked, frustrated, or simply ready for a more personalized approach to your health, this may be the right next step.
Functional medicine is for people who want more than quick fixes. It’s for those who are ready to understand their body, take an active role in their wellness, and build something that lasts.
Functional medicine looks at your body as a connected system, not a collection of separate parts.
Your energy, digestion, hormones, mood, and immune system are all constantly influencing each other. When something feels off, it’s often not just one issue—it’s a pattern.
Our role is to help piece that pattern together.
We take into account your history, your lifestyle, your stress levels, your nutrition, and even the environments you move through every day. From there, we create a plan that supports your body in a way that feels realistic, sustainable, and tailored entirely to you.
Many of our clients come to us after months—or even years—of not getting clear answers.
They’re dealing with things like low energy, stubborn weight changes, digestive discomfort, hormone imbalances, or just a general sense that something isn’t right. And often, they’ve been told to “wait it out” or manage symptoms without ever addressing the root cause.
This is where functional medicine becomes different.
It gives us the space to look deeper, ask better questions, and connect the dots in a way that traditional approaches sometimes can’t.
Your initial appointment includes 60 minutes one-on-one with Dr. Jennings, allowing us to fully understand your health story.
Unlike conventional visits, we take the time to explore:
This in-depth process helps identify underlying root causes of chronic conditions, including:
Our approach to integrative and functional medicine in Buffalo focuses on treating the whole person—not just symptoms.
Your customized plan may include:
We prioritize long-term healing and sustainable wellness for our Buffalo-area patients.
For added convenience, we offer telehealth functional medicine visits in New York, Florida, Virginia and Connecticut and beyond.
Through virtual appointments, you’ll receive:
– In-depth consultations
– Lab analysis and interpretation
– Personalized treatment plans
All from the comfort of your home—while still receiving the same high level of care.
Our practice, like most integrative/ functional medicine practices, is a fee-for-service (cash-based) model- and does not participate with insurance carriers or Medicare/ Medicaid for the purposes of reimbursement. We do, however, accept Flex spending/ health savings accounts which can be applied towards our fees. All major forms of payment (cash, check, Visa/ MC/ Amex/ Discover) are accepted at our facility.
All disease and healthy states are well suited for Integrative Medicine. Many patients want to maintain their youth and good health and desire knowledge on recommended supplements and lifestyle changes. We also see many patients that have seen numerous providers and have not found a cause for their symptoms. It’s not unusual for patients with autoimmune, fatigue, fibromyalgia, GI disorders, menopause, thyroid disease or cancer to visit integrative centers. Often times patients are seeking comprehensive care for a complex, long standing disease state. It is important to remember that it takes years for disease to manifest and it will take time to support the body to heal, however with a committed provider and patient partnership, positive outcomes will result. Often times patients say, “I wish I would have found you sooner”.
Although integrative providers often consult with patients that already have significant disease, prevention is practiced while halting existing disease progression, or better yet reversing disease; is ultimately the goal of therapy. Many patients we evaluate are healthy without manifestation of disease and want to maintain their current level of health. Typically they seek recommendations on supplements, lifestyle, nutrition, and disease surveillance. The treatment plan often includes recommendations on a realistic, attainable nutritive diet, cardiovascular and resistance exercise, restorative sleep and stress reduction. A significant amount of the visit includes education on evidence-based research and systematic reviews surrounding their particular condition. The patient provider relationship is truly a partnership, whereas they identify achievable and attainable goals, evaluated and measured in a stepwise approach.
To integrate means “To make into a whole by bringing all parts together; unify.” Integrative medicine is a term that describes a design of caring for patients considering mind, body and soul. Integrative practitioners globally assess patients, examining [in depth] the role of genetics, environmental exposures, risk factors for disease, the role of nutrition, exercise, stress and sleep on the manifestation of disease.
Many hospitals throughout the nation are developing Integrative Medicine Centers including the most recent at Cleveland Clinic, directed by Dr. Mark Hyman. Patients are willing to pay out of pocket to ensure comprehensive and detail oriented therapy. Research is promising and ongoing regarding Integrative Medicine.
Integrative medicine devotes time to listening to the patient and globally assessing the entire life history. This process can take 1 to 1.5 hrs. Much discussion surrounds genetics, childhood stressors or illness, environmental/occupational exposure, social habits, diet, stress, relationships and how this related to disease manifestation. The physical exam is detail-oriented. The plan of care is comprehensive, including but not limited to supplements, intravenous therapy, identification of a dietary plan, exercise, adequate sleep and stress management. A significant amount of time is devoted to education and explaining how to operationalize the treatment plan. Laboratory analysis is extensive and often involves testing of many nutrients and hormones that may demonstrate deficiencies. The plan of care is modified based on the laboratory analysis and any food allergy testing required. Often, patients can be titrated down and sometimes eliminate the need for certain pharmaceutical medications just through the comprehensive plan of care.
Integrative medicine is the future paradigm for holistic health care.The cornerstone of care is preventive medicine. The focus is identifying the root cause of disease or symptomatology. Patients are more educated than ever before and desire to be a partner in their healthcare decisions. Many patients that seek IM are interested in a patient-centered relationship, whereas there are informed decisions and treatment options. They value spending time with their provider, feeling heard and developing a trusting relationship where healthcare beliefs are considered and valued.
The CDC reports that baby boomers are between the ages of 50 and 68 as of 2014, increasing the possibility of multiple co-morbid conditions. IM has a particular significance in this day and age as our baby boomers have reached the age of typically having chronic medical conditions.
Due to the American lifestyle and diet, we are experiencing an increasing amount of pediatrics with chronic disease. In fact, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 44% of children have some type of chronic condition. We are also seeing increasing rates of autism, ADHD and mental health/behavioral alterations in pediatrics, which makes them excellent candidates for the comprehensive lens of IM.
The Affordable Care Act has put a strain on the medical system with an increasing population of patients entering the healthcare system, coupled with a primary care provider shortage. All of these developments support the comprehensive concept of IM, where there is a patient-centered paradigm along a seamless continuum that affords time to comprehensively evaluate the multivariate root cause(s) of disease manifestation.
