The practise of functional medicine discovers the ways in which all of the body’s systems are interconnected and how these connections affect illness and wellness. Instead of focusing simply on several distinct disease entities, functional medicine acknowledges disturbances of a web-like interconnected system and seeks to restore health and balance to the system’s basis.

Practitioners may employ any viable combination of traditional medicine, nutritional therapies, acupuncture, stress reduction approaches, and other methods to restore the system’s health. And instead of stopping there, the same approach would be applied to implement continuing preventive practises.

Consider the following example. Suppose someone develops chronic symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. In the standard concept, it would be simple to consider this an isolated digestive system issue. These symptoms may prompt an intestinal examination. Irritable bowel syndrome is a condition that is now understood to have a psychological component. Consequently, there is an instance of conventional medicine bringing up the potential involvement of stress, just as holistic gut health or integrative medicine physician might.