The Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus addresses functional medicine in health care

WASHINGTON The Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus, in cooperation with two trade associations representing the dietary supplement industry — the Council for Responsible Nutrition and the Natural Products Association — recently hosted a speaker lunch briefing, “Functional Medicine: Frontline Against Chronic Disease,” in an effort to address the momentum behind functional medicine in the healthcare arena, CRN announced Friday.

With healthcare legislation recently being passed, prevention and wellness continue to be hot topics on Capitol Hill and in the news, CRN noted. Functional medicine can be described as personalized health care that incorporates both conventional and alternative therapies. The functional medicine model focuses on primary prevention and underlying causes for serious illness; assessing and preventing complex chronic disease. Dietary supplements would play an integral role in this model, CRN noted.

“The irony is that the current healthcare system will pay for expensive medical treatments, but it won’t pay for dietary supplements to keep our bodies healthy,” stated Mark Hyman, medical director of the UltraWellness Center. “As a nation, we are overfed but undernourished. Dietary supplements play an important role in functional and preventive medicine.”

Co-chair of the Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, opened the briefing. Reps. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Frank Pallone, D-N.J., were also in attendance.