Yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) a first ever retrospective, cohort study(Association of the Functional Medicine Model of Care With Patient-Reported Health-Related Quality-of-Life Outcomes) regarding quality of life outcomes, comparing functional medicine interventions with conventional interventions was released! The study was done by the Functional Medicine Center at the Cleveland Clinic and looked at a very large sample size of 7000+ patients, treated with either functional or conventional medicine. The outcomes reported reflected significantly larger improvements in those patients that received functional medicine interventions at 6 months, compared to conventional. Symptoms that were significantly improved included GI issues, emotional wellbeing, fatigue, physical function and pain. This is huge when you consider that chronic illnesses are the leading cause of medical costs, disability and death in this country. With chronic disease being so prevalent in the United States, functional medicine offers a comprehensive and detailed approach aimed at prevention and reversing illness, with the main goal of promoting optimal health. Looking for the root cause of symptoms, addressing imbalances and analyzing where the body's physiology is going wrong can help identify gene-environment interactions, lifestyle factors, nutrient status, human micro biome imbalances, problems with energy production, emotional barriers, toxic exposures and more. The benefits of functional medicine have the potential to improve the chronic illness epidemic in the US and help people get back in control of their health.