An association built by clinicians, for clinical standards.
A non profit professional association representing Functional Medicine doctors, nutritionists and health coaches across India, working to advance the science, education and responsible practice of root cause medicine.
Our story
How IAFM began.
Functional Medicine reached India through individual clinicians rather than through institutions. Doctors trained abroad or studied independently, brought the approach back to their own practices, and found there was no shared professional structure around it, no national forum, no common standard of training, no organised way to compare clinical experience.
IAFM was established to provide that structure. It was co founded by practising physicians: Dr Anish Musa, who serves as its President, together with Dr Ashwani Garg, Dr Priti Nanda Sibal and Dr Ruhi Agarwala. From 2021, the association's annual conference, IAFMCON, became its academic centre of gravity, and has been held every year since.
Vision
Making India a healthy nation.
Chronic disease is now India's dominant health burden. Our vision is a country where that burden is addressed at its origin, through prevention treated as clinical work, and care that accounts for the whole of a person's biology and circumstances.
Mission
Science, education, community.
To advance research and evidence based practice; to educate and train clinicians and health coaches; to convene the profession nationally; and to improve public understanding of root cause healthcare without overstating what it can do.
What we believe
Nine commitments.
These principles guide how members are expected to practise, teach and communicate, with patients, with colleagues, and with the public.
Root cause thinking
Treat the mechanism, not only the manifestation.
Scientific inquiry
Follow the evidence, including where it contradicts us.
Personalised care
One protocol rarely fits two patients.
Prevention
The most valuable intervention usually happens early.
Education
A standard is only real if it is taught.
Collaboration
Work with conventional specialties, not around them.
Continuous learning
Clinical competence has an expiry date.
Patient centred practice
The patient is a participant, not a case.
Responsible communication
No promises of cure. No claims beyond the data.
Founding leadership
The founders still practise.
IAFM's co founders were not administrators who took an interest in Functional Medicine. They were clinicians running Functional Medicine practices in India who decided the field needed a professional body, and built one alongside their clinical work.
That has shaped what the association is: an organisation whose agenda is set by people who still hold consultations, still teach, and still answer for their outcomes.
Meet the leadership and core team
Co Founder and PresidentCo Founder and President
Dr Anish Musa
MBBS, MS, IFMCP
Dr Anish Musa is a Co Founder of the Indian Association of Functional Medicine and serves as its President. He leads the academic and professional agenda of the association: the annual IAFMCON conference, the standards expected of members, and the case for Functional Medicine as a rigorous clinical discipline rather than a parallel system of care.
He is a certified practitioner of Functional Medicine through the Institute for Functional Medicine, holds an MBBS with a Master of Surgery, and is the Founder of VitaOne. He has written three articles for the Knowledge Hub, on systems based reasoning, the clinical use of a patient timeline, and chronic inflammation as a shared pathway in modern disease.
- Co Founder and President, Indian Association of Functional Medicine
- Founder, VitaOne
- Certified through the Institute for Functional Medicine
Co Founder and Ex President
Dr Priti Nanda Sibal
MBBS, Functional Medicine A4M (USA)
Dr Priti Nanda Sibal is a Co Founder of the association and served as its President before the current term. Her Functional Medicine training is through A4M, the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine, in the United States, and she practises at Peak Wellness Functional Medicine Clinic.
Her stated areas of expertise are gut health, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and diabetes. She writes for the Knowledge Hub on what type 2 diabetes remission actually requires, and on hormone therapy at midlife, including the cautions that are usually skipped.
- Co Founder and Ex President, Indian Association of Functional Medicine
- Peak Wellness Functional Medicine Clinic
- Gut health, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and diabetes
Co Founder and Ex President
Co FounderCo Founder
Dr Ashwani Garg
Autism, metabolic and gut health, autoimmune conditions
Dr Ashwani Garg is a Co Founder of the association, a Co Founder of Functional Medicine Clinic, and the creator of the Autism Recovery Program. His stated areas of expertise are autism, metabolic and gut health, and autoimmune conditions.
He has written three articles for the Knowledge Hub. On autism he separates what the evidence supports from what it does not, and declines to describe any protocol as a treatment for autism. On metabolic health he sets out how insulin resistance can be recognised years before a diabetes diagnosis, and on gut health he separates the physiology of the intestinal barrier from what is marketed on the strength of it.
- Co Founder, Indian Association of Functional Medicine
- Co Founder, Functional Medicine Clinic
- Creator of the Autism Recovery Program
Co Founder
Dr Ruhi Agarwala
MBBS, Functional Medicine
Dr Ruhi Agarwala is a Co Founder of the association and a Co Founder of Functional Medicine Clinic and of Hormone Reset. Her stated areas of expertise are autoimmune conditions and women's health, two fields that overlap considerably given how much more frequently autoimmune disease affects women.
She writes for the Knowledge Hub on autoimmune thyroid disease, including why some adequately treated patients still feel unwell and what else should be looked for, and on polycystic ovary syndrome as a lifelong metabolic condition with reproductive features rather than a reproductive diagnosis alone.
- Co Founder, Indian Association of Functional Medicine
- Co Founder, Functional Medicine Clinic and Hormone Reset
- Autoimmune conditions and women's health
Co Founder