By Soram Khalsa, M.D.
I am delighted to announce to my readers and patients that the world-famous Cleveland Clinic has opened a Center for Functional Medicine in Cleveland Ohio. My longtime friend and colleague Mark Hyman, M.D. is the director of the center. One of the patients who recently received tremendous benefit from the center, has already created an endowed chair for the center, which Mark Hyman sits in.
As most of my patients and readers know, functional medicine and integrative medicine are essentially synonymous.
The term functional medicine emphasizes that the goal of the physician is to restore proper organ function and a proper relationship of balance between all the organs in the body. This allows the patient to be brought back to health. As is commonly said functional medicine clinicians “think and link” instead of “naming and blaming”.
Remember that there is a weblike interaction between all the organs in the body. It is essential for a physician to look at the interactions between the different organ systems. Unfortunately, conventional medicine has broken organs into “silos”, where the doctor only knows about his or her silo. Attention is not paid to the interaction of that one organ system and the other systems of the body.
In creating this new Center, the Cleveland clinic is the first academic medical center in the United States to embrace functional medicine. Four research projects have already been started, comparing standard treatment for asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, type II diabetes, and migraine with functional medicine treatment. The results will be published in a major medical journal when the studies are finished.
Mark Hyman related at the recent Institute of Functional Medicine convention, that I attended, that Toby Cosgrove M.D., who is a 74-year-old cardiac surgeon, and the Head of the entire Cleveland clinic, came to him and invited Dr. Hyman to start this center as part of the Cleveland clinic.
Dr. Cosgrove was quoted as saying “We must consider new approaches to understanding and treating diseases”. He points out in his recent book the Cleveland Clinic Way, that chronic diseases “are now so prevalent and so costly that they’re threatening to destroy America’s broader economic health.”
My colleague Jeff Bland, who is the “father” of functional medicine is quoted as saying “In the last 40 years, a lot of progress has been made in defining the mechanisms that create disease. It’s different from the model that says, ‘here’s a pill for every ill’. It’s a systems approach to biology.”
He stated that the origins of disease can be found “in the interrelationship between environment and lifestyle and how those interact with a person’s genetic disposition.”
Dr Bland went on to say “At the turn of the last century, we started to understand the origins of infectious diseases.” Now, “we are sitting in a similarly exciting moment in time. We’re going to witness an unbelievable shift around noncommunicable diseases.”
The Cleveland clinic has long been on the cutting edge of medicine, setting standards for the future. The first blood transfusions were done at this hospital in the 1920s. Coronary angioplasty began there in the 1950s. In 2007, the hospital became the first to have a Chief Wellness Officer. And now they’ve created the Center for Functional medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
Already physicians from multiple subspecialties within the clinic are coming up to Dr. Hyman to tell them that they want some of the principles that they are using in the Functional Medicine Clinic, to be able to use in their departments as well!
To me, these are exciting times! What my colleagues and I have been practicing for so many years, is now getting recognized at a major academic institution. I know the research they will be doing will revolutionize the approach to disease care in America.
Here is an interview with Mark Hyman M.D. and Patrick Hanway, M.D., the new Medical Director of the Cleveland Clinic for Functional Medicine.
And I will always continue to bring you the latest information on what is happening in functional medicine, the medicine of the future!
My next newsletter will be on Pharmacogenetics and how this will revolutionize the use of drugs in modern medicine.
Links for more information on the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine:
Cleveland Clinic to open Center for Functional Medicine
Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine: A Test Kitchen for Healthcare’s Future
Pathways to Healing Article (PDF)
Investing in ‘functional medicine’ to cure disease, not soothe symptoms, for patients
To your good health!
Dr Soram
About Dr. Soram Khalsa
As an MD, Dr Soram specializes in Integrative Medicine combining diet, nutrition, acupuncture, herbs and nutrition. Visit Dr Soram’s Healthy Living Store where you’ll find high-quality nutritional supplements:
