Functional medicine is a form of Western alternative medicine unrelated to the Western biomedical approaches.[1]
It focuses on treating individuals who may have bodily symptoms, imbalances and dysfunctions. Functional medicine seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease, and views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties.
Functional medicine practitioners provide chronic care management with the belief that "diet, nutrition, and exposure to environmental toxins play central roles in functional medicine because they may predispose to illness, provoke symptoms, and modulate the activity of biochemical mediators through a complex and diverse set of mechanisms."[2]
It was developed and originated by Dr. Helmut W. Schimmel.[3]
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Functional medicine reflects a systems biology approach which involves an analysis of how all components of the human biological system interact functionally with the environment over time. The Institute for Functional Medicine contrasts this approach with an organ system biology broken down into modern medical specialties.[4]
Functional medicine, in agreement with modern medicine, holds that the entire "patient story" needs to be heard and understood in context in order to truly help the patient.[5] Where functional medicine differs from mainstream medicine is its willingness to employ treatments and drugs which may not be well evidenced by clinical research [6], including homeopathy [7], orthomolecular medicine [8], and detoxification of unevidenced toxins [9].
Jeffrey Bland, PhD, and Susan Bland founded the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) in 1993.[10] IFM is a nonprofit educational organization that provides continuing medical education for health care providers. The Institute for Functional Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and achieved its accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education on September 12, 2006 and was awarded the status of Accreditation with Commendation for six years as a provider of continuing medical education for physicians. Stephen Barrett from Quackwatch describes it as a "questionable organization".[11]
In 1991, the FTC charged that two corporations led by Jeffrey Bland, HealthComm and Nu-Day Enterprises, had falsely claimed that their diet program could cause weight loss by changing consumers' metabolism and cause them to lose weight without exercising so that fat would be lost as body heat instead of being stored.[12] In 1995, the FTC charged Bland and his companies with violating the 1991 consent order by making further unsubstantiated weight-loss claims for several products, including the UltraClear dietary program, which had been falsely claimed to reduce the incidence and severity of symptoms associated with gastrointestinal problems, inflammatory and immunologic problems, fatigue, food allergies, mercury exposure, kidney disorders, and rheumatoid arthritis. The second settlement agreement included a $45,000 civil penalty.[13] The Institute for Functional Medicine was created as a division of HealthComm division.[14]