What is functional medicine? 

Functional Medicine is the medical practice that more fully addresses the health needs of people in the 21st century. BODY-MIND-SOUL.

The focus of traditional medicine is disease-centered; Instead functional medicine focuses on the person!

Physicians who practice functional medicine spend a lot of time with their patients, listening to their stories and analyzing the interactions between genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that may have a negative influence on health and promote diseases.

In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of Health and Vitality in each individual!

Unfortunately this form of medicine is not the one practiced in our promote health entities!

Functional Medicine is the third form of medicine

I (Dr. Pedro A. González L), I have practiced Functional Medicine for more than 7 years and although it was not the model I learned in the university, this term was coined more than 30 years ago!

It is not an alternative medicine like homeopathy or acupuncture. And it is not an integrative medicine either!

Functional Medicine is a complementary discipline different from traditional practice!

... I simply strive not to ignore science, but I look much more deeply into the biochemistry, philosophy, genetics, environment and habits of my patients; To determine the real cause of their symptoms and to formulate a more rational treatment ... ALL WITH THE HAND OF GOD !.

The particularity of functional medicine is due to its strong dependence on certain basic sciences - toxicology, biochemistry, physiology, anatomy and genetics - which in many degrees are part of the curricula of all health professionals.

These basic sciences are also known as "pure sciences" because they fit more rigorously to the scientific method.

A method to be qualified as research must be based on the collection of observable, empirical and measurable evidence that is subject to the basic principles of reasoning.

A scientific method consists of collecting data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Once a hypothesis has been tested, new information can be added to that of previous cumulative studies and provide a predictable model that can then be used to formulate other hypotheses and experimentation.

Functional medicine differs from conventional or alternative medicine because it conforms to a much more rigorous application of the scientific method and uses a greater number of accumulated scientific data to investigate the cause of symptoms, disease and dysfunction.

Knowledge of cellular biology, physics, genetics, anatomy, toxicology, physiology, microbiology, biochemistry, clinical chemistry, medical anthropology, organic chemistry and / or endocrinology should be applied daily in patient care. In essence is to see the individual as an ALL!

When was the last time your insurer's doctor asked for a test to evaluate the intermediate products of the citric acid cycle to see if there are problems with the production of ATP, which is the fuel that drives life? O When was the last time your nephrologist measured your lipid peroxidation to see the degree of oxidative stress that affects the function of your kidneys? O Has your cardiologist measured the levels of carnitine, CoQ10, glutathione, or taurine, which are essential for heart function?

It´s an "scientific detail" attention...

Not the daily practice of conventional doctors!

And it's simply because the health model does not let it act this way!

We are trained to think pathologically, which means to make a diagnosis and prescribe a medication, surgery or radiological procedure to compensate for the diagnosed disorder. And although this model is very correct, especially for acute problems, it is not medicine that prevents diseases and increasingly for the treatment of chronic diseases, conventional medicine is obsolete.

And what about the management proposed by conventional medicine with drugs based on potentially toxic substances that do not regulate bodily functions but, in most cases, block them, turning them into frankly dangerous drugs.