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WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE?

The Functional Medicine Approach

Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.

As the graphic illustrates, a diagnosis can be the result of more than one cause. For example, depression can be caused by many different factors, including inflammation. Likewise, a cause such as inflammation may lead to a number of different diagnoses, including depression. The precise manifestation of each cause depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle, and only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.

Institute for Functional Medicine

Functional medicine was invented by chemist Jeffrey Bland. He and Susan Bland founded the Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991 as a division of HealthComm. That year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said that Jeffrey Bland's corporations HealthComm and Nu-Day Enterprises had falsely advanced claims that their products could alter metabolism and induce weight loss. The FTC found that Bland and his companies violated that consent order in 1995 by making more exaggerated claims. The UltraClear dietary program was said to provide relief from gastrointestinal problems, inflammatory and immunologic problems, fatigue, food allergies, mercury exposure, kidney disorders, and rheumatoid arthritis. The companies were forced to pay a $45,000 civil penalty.

The opening of centers for functional medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and at George Washington University has been described by Gorski as an "unfortunate" example of pseudoscientific quackery infiltrating medical academia.

Reception

In 2014, the American Academy of Family Physicians withdrew granting of course credits for functional medicine courses, having identified some of its treatments as "harmful and dangerous" In 2018, it partly lifted the ban, but only to allow teaching an overview of functional medicine, not to teach its practice.

References

1. "What is Functional Medicine? | IFM". The Institute for Functional Medicine. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
2. "Our Mission". December 2014.
3. Leyton E (2006). "Functional medicine". Can Fam Physician. 52 (12): 1540. PMC 1783750. PMID 17279230.
4. ^ Barrett, Stephen (September 11, 2013). "Some Notes on Jeffrey Bland and Metagenics". Quackwatch. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
5. "Founders". www.functionalmedicine.org. Institute for Functional Medicine. n.d. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
6. Gorski, David (September 29, 2014). "Quackademia update: The Cleveland Clinic, George Washington University, and the continued infiltration of quackery into medical academia". Science–Based Medicine. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
7. Bellamy J (26 October 2017). "AAFP: Functional Medicine lacks supporting evidence; includes 'harmful' and 'dangerous' treatments". Science-Based-Medicine.
8. Bellamy J (27 October 2018). "AAFP should publish research behind finding that functional medicine lacks evidence, contains harmful and dangerous practices". Science-Based-Medicine.

Further reading

• Gorski, David (14 April 2014). "Bill and Hillary Clinton go woo with Dr. Mark Hyman and 'functional medicine'". Science-Based Medicine.

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