Rachel Scheer:

Despite a traditional academic grounding in Dietetics from Baylor University and a successful career in physique competition and fitness modelling, things were not as they seemed for Rachel Scheer.

While appearing from the outside to be – quite literally – a model of health, the disconnect between image and reality couldn’t have been starker. Things became so bad Scheer remembers lying on her kitchen floor in tears suffering from such painful and severe gut issues she was unable to eat, and ready to consent to a colorectal surgeon removing her entire large intestine.

Enter functional medicine, and the root cause approach to health care – as opposed to ‘sick care’ – that Scheer credits for turning her into the woman you see today.

With multiple million-dollar businesses, her own functional nutrition certification, and serving as a mentor for women in business, Scheer’s mission is now to help as many people as possible address the root cause of their health issues rather than simply medicating the symptoms.

There’s often a tension between functional medicine approaches and those pursued in traditional western medicine but there needn’t be. In a full in-depth conversation Rachel explains to Unfiltered’s contributing editor Dr Jonny Rees, PhD, how the two can complement – not compete with – each other to empower you to live smarter.