Science Matters
Functional medicine
“functional medicine is dysfunctional medicine and has no basis in science”
HISTORY
“Functional medicine” was created by a single individual, Jeffery Bland, a PhD who sells dietary supplements.
The “guru” of “functional medicine” is Dr. Mark Hyman, the founder of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.
DESCRIPTIONS
What was once “alternative” medicine, became “complementary”; then “inte-grative” and now “functional”. It is all basically the “rebranding” of the same thing—Trojan horses to sneak non-scientifically based medicine into conven-tional medical practice.
Buzzphrases & buzzwords in the functional Medicine lexicon include:
“The body is naturally intelligent and has the capacity to self-regulate.” “Func-tional medicine treats the individual, not the disease”
“Adrenal fatigue”, “leaky gut” “hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalance” “ox-idative imbalances and mitrochondropathy” “de-toxification imbalance” “Gut microbial imbalance” & “mind-body imbalance”
Though using modern jargon, the “functional medicine” crowd is a direct echo of the “imbalance of four humors” in ancient history as well as “the five imbalances of traditional Chinese medicine”
If scientific medicine is math; functional medicine is beat-nik poetry.
THE BUSINESS of FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE
Internet companies such as Thorne, EverWell, and Foundmyfitness have labs you can order yourself with home tests using saliva for micronutrients.
Functional medicine depends upon running a massive battery of tests result-ing in a massive amount of over treatment.
It is telling that on the packages and commercials are the words “the tests we offer are not intended to diagnose or treat disease or to substitute for a phy-sician’s consultation.”
Functional medicine sells herself by preaching the unique biochemical indi-viduality of each patient which allows each practitioner to do whatever they want without needing to follow any general scientific rules based on large populations of people.
SCIENTIFIC RESPONSE
The American Academy of Family Practice has placed a moratorium on CME for any programs related to functional medicine stating there is “a lack of ac-companying evidence that exists to support the practice of functional medi-cine.”
references
1. McCartney, M et al. “The scam of Integrative Medicine” BMJ July 13, 2011: 343
2. Hall, H “Functional medicine: pseudoscientific silliness” The Skeptics soci-ety and skeptic magazine
3. Gorski, D. “Functional Medicine:reams of useless tests on one hand; a huge invoice on the other” Science-Based Medicine Dec. 17, 2018