This Form Of Medicine Works To Prevent Ailments, Not Just Treat Them

This Form Of Medicine Works To Prevent Ailments, Not Just Treat Them

A truly effective healthcare system focuses not just on treatment, but on prevention of chronic diseases.

James Maskell, host of The Evolution of Medicine summit, joined HuffPost Life host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani to discuss an "alternative" form of medicine on the rise.

“I don’t see a lot of physicians really loving their job who are in the system,” said Maskell, “but those doctors who are outside the system are actually building successful models that are community-oriented [and] that are wellness-oriented.”

Dr. Mark Hyman, founder and medical director of the UltraWellness Center, explained that these doctors, like himself, are practicing what is known as functional medicine.

“Functional medicine is a fundamentally different paradigm to understand the nature of diseases,” said Hyman. “Conventional care is about diagnoses by symptom and treatment of those symptoms by suppressing, blocking, inhibiting or stopping a normal body function. Functional medicine is medicine by cause. It’s not treating the symptom, it’s treating the root cause.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the full HuffPost Live segment here.

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