The concept of “Functional Medicine” is one that treats the patient as a whole and does not focus on disconnected parts.
This is driven by the idea that a person is where they are as the result of their genetics, environment and lifestyle choices, and it is a collaboration between the patient and the practitioner.
By addressing the symptoms only, conventional medicine doesn’t always get to the root cause of the issue. And it often doesn’t empower the patient to take charge and actively participate in their health and well being.
Dr Mark Hyman is a practicing functional medicine doctor, and is the author of several books on diet and nutrition. He is also the Chairman of the Board for The Institute for Functional Medicine.
He says that functional medicine wants to know why it is happening in the first place and treat that rather than shutting down the process (like inflammation). It’s better to treat the cause: toxins, infections, stress, allergens, poor diet.
This video points out the differences between Functional Medicine and Conventional Medicine.
This seems to be a similar approach to Eastern Medicine in the attention to the whole, which has always seemed to be a better one. And Dr. Hyman arrived here after suffering from host of symptoms himself.