Does it replace my current treatment?
No. Functional Medicine is practised alongside conventional care. No member should ask you to stop prescribed treatment without the involvement of the clinician who prescribed it.
What Functional Medicine is, and what it is not.
A systems approach to clinical care: the same diagnoses, examined for the mechanisms that produced them in one particular patient.
The method
From symptom to system to cause.
A presenting complaint is a signal rather than an explanation. Functional Medicine takes that signal and works backwards through the physiology that generated it, then builds care around what it finds in that person's history, biology and circumstances.
The symptom
Where the consultation begins, and where conventional workup, diagnosis and safety netting remain essential.
The systems
Immune, metabolic, endocrine, digestive and detoxification pathways read as one connected network rather than separate specialties.
The root causes
Genetics, nutrition, sleep, physical activity, stress, environmental exposures and the interactions between them, assessed in the context of one patient's history.
A personalised plan
Care built for that patient's biology and circumstances, delivered alongside, not instead of, appropriate conventional treatment.
Long term function
Outcomes measured over years: function restored, risk reduced, and the patient equipped to sustain both.
In practice
A difference of emphasis.
Functional Medicine is practised by qualified clinicians using conventional diagnostics and, where indicated, conventional treatment. What changes is the depth of the history taken and the weight given to modifiable drivers of disease.
| In the consultation | Standard emphasis | Added emphasis |
|---|---|---|
| History | Presenting complaint and relevant past history | Full life course history including diet, sleep, stress, exposures and the timeline of onset |
| Assessment | Diagnosis and staging | Diagnosis, together with the mechanisms plausibly driving it in this patient |
| Plan | Protocol appropriate to the diagnosis | Protocol, together with targeted change to the identified drivers |
| Review | Symptom control and complications | Symptom control, function, and progression of modifiable risk |
This describes a difference in clinical emphasis. It is not a claim of superior outcomes and it is not a criticism of conventional practice.
Common questions
Straight answers.
Written for patients and for colleagues in other specialties. Members of the association are expected to answer these the same way.
Is it a cure for chronic disease?
No. IAFM does not endorse claims of cure. Many chronic conditions can be improved or better controlled, which is a different claim and the honest one.
Who is qualified to practise it?
Qualified clinicians, and trained health coaches working in a supporting role alongside them. Membership of the association is open to both.
How strong is the evidence?
It varies considerably by intervention and by condition. Members are expected to say so, and to distinguish what is well established from what is plausible but unproven.