Meet Dr. Sara Laudani, Internal Medicine and Functional Medicine and Human Nutrition Specialist
Tell us about where you’re from and how you ended up in Shanghai.
I’ve been living in Shanghai on and off since 2012 and love living in a city that feels like the beating heart of the world. I’m from Italy, born in Sardinia. I spent much of my adult life and did my medical training near Milan. We relocated to Shanghai for my husband’s job and also spent one year in Hong Kong.
What is your professional background?
I have over 20 years of experience in internal medicine and general practice, in Italy and China. During that time, I’ve dealt with a range of patient needs including diagnosing and treating chronic illnesses, ENT conditions, skin diseases and dysfunction of the nervous system and reproductive organs.
As I saw more complex chronic conditions affecting patients, I decided to further my study with functional medicine. I received my Master’s in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, allowing me to better help patients with conditions that have typically been difficult to treat. My combined experience provides an array of tools to service each patient best.
Tell us more about functional medicine, how it differs from conventional medicine and who it can help.
Functional medicine is evidence-based science about how the body functions as a whole, using high-quality testing to discover imbalances and/or genetic alterations in the patient physiology and pathophysiology. It’s important that patients understand that functional medicine is nothing magical. Functional medicine simply provides us more sophisticated tools to help identify underlying causes and, most of the time, naturally treat the patient and/or help reduce the dosages of medications.
Functional and conventional medicine are complementary. Having the combination of training allows me to apply a range of solutions to the situation. This offers the possibility to investigate deeply in a clinical picture that might not seem to be offering any clear solution. Often, through functional medicine, patients can reduce their need for pharmaceutical interventions.
Each patient’s health represents the unique interaction between their genes and environmental factors, creating a complicated puzzle at times. Most patients who seek, or are referred to, a functional medicine practitioner have already seen about 4-5 doctors. Nothing appears wrong on their tests, though they clearly have symptoms that are disrupting their lives, such as chronic fatigue, metabolic syndrome, weight gain, mood disorders, headache, insomnia, gastrointestinal symptoms (IBS), and skin disorders. Functional medicine’s testing protocols help better identify the root imbalances causing these “vague symptoms” which sometimes don’t show up on conventional labwork.
Functional medicine can be used to treat a wide range of health issues and improve wellness and vitality. Some of those include chronic illnesses, PMS, menopause, infertility, fatigue, mood disorders, and sleep difficulties.
Why do you emphasize a nutrition focus?
We all know the traditional adage “You are what you eat.” In modern times, we’ve moved away from eating what our ancestors would even recognize as food. Convenience and abundance have unfortunately led to a spike in obesity, diabetes, cancer and many chronic health conditions. This has been steadily happening in richer countries for years. And, now it’s spreading to places that have embraced the modern and industrial diet, also known as the Western or the SAD diet (Stand American Diet), on their way to becoming developed countries, like India, Africa and China.
Food fuels our bodies. Unfortunately, much of what we consume today is more damaging than helpful. By the time patients identify symptoms, the body has been suffering damage for years. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself when it has the proper nutrients. Once we’ve identified the specific problems, metabolic abnormalities and deficiencies, most of the time we can use nutrition-dense supplements to restore and rebalance the metabolism. At the same time, patients learn more about supporting their continued good health with lifestyle and dietary changes.
Dr. Sara Laudani offers consultation in internal medicine and functional and nutritional medicine in our Hongmei Road Clinic – Hongqiao. Click here to schedule an appointment with her and find out about how her holistic approach and protocols can help you resolve your health issues.