Functional medicine is a science-based field of health care that examines the core clinical imbalances that underlie various disease conditions.  Imbalances that could be a precursor to the disease.  Some of the tools used to uncover these imbalances include lab work, family history, lifestyle assessment, and physical exam.  Functional Medicine is dedicated to improving the management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to addess these core clinical imbalances and to restore each patient's functionality and health.  Functional Medicine is not a unique and separate body of knowledge.  It is grounded in scientific principles and information widely available in medicine today, combining research from various disciplines into highly detailed yet clinically relevant models of disease pathogenesis and effective clinical management.