Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. It takes a comprehensive approach to prevention, health, and well-being, and treats root causes of disease while being a vital partner to conventional medicine. Functional medicine practitioners spend time listening to patients and gathering their medical history to identify the root cause(s) of the illness, including triggers such as poor nutrition, stress, toxins, allergens, genetics, and microbiome. They then devise a "matrix" from these factors to serve as the basis for treatment. The functional medicine model evolved from the insights and perspectives of a small group of influential thought leaders who realized the importance of an individualized approach to disease causes based on the evolving research in nutritional science, genomics, and epigenetics. The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) was founded in the early 1990s by Jeffrey Bland, who created functional medicine as part of one of his companies, HealthComm. IFM, which promotes functional medicine, became a registered non-profit in 2001.

Functional medicine is not well-defined by its proponents, and the vagueness is a deliberate tactic that makes functional medicine difficult to challenge. Proponents of functional medicine oppose established medical knowledge and reject its models, instead adopting a model of disease based on the notion of "antecedents", "triggers", and "mediators". These are meant to correspond to the underlying causes of health issues, the immediate causes, and the particular characteristics of a persons illness.

Functional medicine doctors are medical professionals who specialize in finding the root causes of disease. They come up with a treatment plan to manage multiple factors that may be contributing to chronic conditions, which may include prescription medications, supplements, or other therapies. The functional medicine approach is different for each person since each treatment is tailored to that persons specific illness.

In summary, functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease, and it takes a comprehensive approach to prevention, health, and well-being. It 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. Functional medicine practitioners spend time listening to patients and gathering their medical history to identify the root cause(s) of the illness, including triggers such as poor nutrition, stress, toxins, allergens, genetics, and microbiome. They then devise a "matrix" from these factors to serve as the basis for treatment. Functional medicine doctors specialize in finding the root causes of disease and come up with a personalized treatment ...