Earning an M.S. in Integrative and Functional Nutrition from Saybrook University can significantly enhance your journey to becoming a functional nutritionist. This degree will support your continuing education and board certification efforts and separate you from other holistic nutritionists by providing a comprehensive education. Our hands-on experience in diverse communities prepares graduates to consider life experience, external factors, lifestyle habits, and mental and physical signs of poor nutrition.

What is Integrative and Functional Nutrition?

Integrative and functional nutrition is the holistic approach to diet, going beyond basic dietetics and considering lifestyle factors that may affect their food choices. These factors can include one’s environment, physiological, mental, or genetic makeup. Standard nutrition is the general application of nutritional guidelines created for an entire population rather than specific to an individual and their needs.

What are the Benefits of Functional Nutrition?

Integrative and functional nutrition can help prevent, manage, and reverse health conditions through the medicinal use of food. Here are a few benefits of holistic nutrition:

  • Improved Gut Health: using food to embrace the gut microbiome and the immune system related to inflammatory bowel disease.  
  • Balanced Hormones: adjusting one’s diet can help regulate fluctuating hormone levels, which impact weight, insulin resistance, inflammation, and beta cell glucose sensitivity. Hormonal balance is crucial for reproductive functions and fertility, especially in girls. 
  • Combat Nutrient Deficiencies: using supplementations and a food-based approach to reduce macro and micronutrient deficiencies, help the body perform, and reduce the chances of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.  
  • More muscular Immune System: nutrition is associated with immune responses and infection resistance.  
  • Nutrient Absorption: improves the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from food to increase energy, growth, and cellular maintenance. 
  • Decrease Obesity: managing the quantity and quality of a diet can determine the obesogenic effects of foods and metabolic health.

When properly managed, these are only a few physiological changes a diet can have. Studies show that food can impact mental health just as much as physical health. This is why Saybrook teaches a whole-person approach to nutrition, considering mental, physical, and emotional factors that may be symptoms of something more significant, such as nutritional deficiency or inadequacy. 

The Role of a Functional Nutritionist

An integrative functional nutritionist uses an evidence-based, whole-person approach to create a blend of holistic medicine and health science. The practitioner makes recommendations and lifestyle improvements that can improve the patient's quality of life. 

A functional nutritionist will evaluate the patient’s emotional, physical, and mental state, as well as their environment and lifestyle habits, checking for symptoms of dietary-related causes. Food is believed to be naturally medicinal, so creating a food plan or determining any nutrient inadequacies can help resolve, treat, or manage short—or long-term diseases. 

Become an Integrative Functional Nutritionist

Becoming a certified integrative functional nutritionist combines the familiar and holistic nutritionist career paths. Although pursuing a graduate degree in functional nutrition is not required, it will help separate you from other applicants and other practitioners in the field.

  1. Earn your bachelors in a nutrition-related field. Attending an undergraduate program that the National Association approves of Nutrition Professionals to help qualify you for the national exam is recommended.
  1. Pursue your master’s in functional nutrition or a related program such as Saybrook University’s M.S. in Integrative and Functional Nutrition. A graduate degree may be required depending on the state you wish to practice. If it is not explicitly required, it will help set you apart from other applicants while furthering your education, professional confidence, and hands-on training experience.
    1. Optional: Earn your Certificate in Integrative and Functional Nutrition to help fast-track your professional development as a working or prospective nutritionist. This certification will expand on medical models for best practices, legal perspectives, and bioethics.
  1. Take the Holistic Nutrition Credentialing Board certification exam. This board certification will demonstrate the credibility of your practice and assure insurance companies and the medical community that you're qualified to practice.
    1. You must maintain your board certification by submitting 30 hours of continued education every two years.

Practical and clinical experience will be required at each milestone in your education to become an integrative functional nutritionist. It is best to complete as many hours of hands-on experience as possible for your one professional competency and your resume. 

Pursue Your Functional Nutritionist Degree

Saybrook University’s M.S. in Integrative and Functional Nutrition blends theories with practical applications to prepare our students for real-world situations. Our graduate nutrition programs create a solid foundation for future holistic nutritionists. 

Our Ph.D. in Integrative and Functional Nutrition prioritized leadership skills and a deeper scientific understanding of holistic nutrition to help our students advocate and influence the field.

Take the next step in your career with Saybrook University Integrative Functional Nutrition and become a functional nutritionist, where you combine nutrition and integrative medicine to prompt holistic health care.