Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.

An individual or set of symptoms can be a result from more than one cause. For example, many factors can cause depression, including inflammation. Likewise, a cause such as inflammation may lead to several diagnoses, including depression. The precise manifestation of each cause depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle, and only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.

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. These thought leaders applied these new advances in the clinic to address root causes using low-risk interventions that changes molecular and cellular systems to reverse these drivers of disease.