Functional medicine

Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments. Its proponents claim that it focuses on the "root causes" of diseases based on interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems to develop "individualized treatment plans." It has been described as pseudoscience, quackery, and at its essence a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine.

In the United States, functional medicine practices have been ruled ineligible for course credits by the American Academy of Family Physicians because of concerns they may be harmful.

Functional medicine was created by Jeffrey Bland, who founded The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) in the early 1990s as part of one of his companies, HealthComm. IFM, which promotes functional medicine, became a registered non-profit in 2001. Later, Mark Hyman became a leading proponent.

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