Functional Medicine is a dynamic approach to assessing, preventing, and treating complex chronic disease. Functional Medicine helps clinicians identify and improve dysfunctions in the physiology and biochemistry of the human body as a primary method of improving patient health. Functional Medicine acknowledges that chronic disease is almost always preceded by a lengthy period of declining function in one or more of the body systems.
Returning a patient to health requires reversing or substantially improving the specific dysfunctions that have contributed to the disease state. Those dysfunctions are for each of us the result of life long interactions between our environment and our genetic predispositions. Each patient therefore represents a unique complex and interwoven set of influences, intrinsic functionality that has set the stage for the development of disease or the maintenance of health.
(c) 2005 The Institute for Functional Medicine. Used with permission granted by The Institute for Functional Medicine, www.functionalmedicine.org. No part of this content may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written consent of The Institute for Functional Medicine, except as permitted by applicable law."
