As a man who considers himself extremely fortunate to be alive during this amazing time of transformation in health care, from the moment I wrote the first word of the first sentence of this book, I felt an overwhelming sense of indebtedness to the tens of thousands of health-care researchers and clinicians who are making the transformation happen. Their discoveries are shaping the future of global health and defining how medical care will be delivered to my children and grandchildren. Writing the book presented me with the humbling challenge to describe their work accurately and imposed on me a heavy sense of responsibility to do it well, for the work can profoundly reduce the incidence of unnecessary and premature disabilities and deaths associated with chronic diseases. So to the major innovators in this revolution, many of them noted in this book, and to the thousands of unnamed contributors who have dedicated their professional lives to this endeavor, I extend my first acknowledgement and my great gratitude.
In many ways, the process of writing the book was a personal and nostalgic “travelog,” complete with sights, sounds, tastes, even smells, that transported me back through countless medical and scientific conferences, research briefings, formal discussions and casual conversations, meals shared with associates, presentations delivered and listened to, and heated debates with scientists and clinicians in the medical field about the future of health care. I consider myself blessed to have met and come to know so many people over the past thirty years and, logging more than 6 million miles of air travel, to have shared with them so many aha! moments about the revolution in health we are now living through. I claim very few original ideas, but rather I see myself as a “mosaic” of the thinking I’ve shared with these many associates, friends, colleagues, and family members over the years. I take responsibility for any errors in interpretation, but I honor them for stimulating the ideas in the book.
The first person to provide that stimulation was my mother, Marjorie Bland. Still a health advocate at eighty-eight years of age, as this book goes to press, she has been discussing health care with me for more than sixty-five years, asking hard questions and provoking hard thinking. My sister, Christie Clark, who has worked with us for the past thirty years, has taught me the power of the application of the lifestyle health-care model as she has applied it in her own family. Continuing to light the path of discovery for me is my wife, Susan, cofounder of the Institute for Functional Medicine and my essential sounding board and even more essential partner in life. My sons Kelly, Kyle, and Justin have contributed greatly to the evolution of my ideas and have always been an inspiration to me. Our daughters-in-law, Melissa Kiffin Bland, who worked for us for more than ten years in developing the medical food field, and Judith Bland are both exemplars of personal responsibility for health and are the mothers of health-conscious children who are carrying forward the concepts of personalized lifestyle health care in their own lives. Yet I think my most important teacher about health is my youngest son, Justin. His personal story of overcoming health challenges from birth to become an “old soul,” as described in the book, has truly been a guide for me every day of his thirty-one years.
Reinforcing what I have learned from my family are special relationships with three amazing medical doctors: Graham Reedy, David Jones, and Scott Rigden. Dr. Reedy has been a friend, family doctor, medical innovator, visionary, and spiritual guide who taught me that a concept can be made real through dedicated, courageous commitment. Dr. Jones has been a comrade in arms in the creation of the functional medicine concept and in working with Susan and me in the establishment of the Institute for Functional Medicine in 1990 and serving as its president through 2013. Dr. Rigden and I first met in the late 1970s at the founding meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association, and we have been close friends and colleagues ever since. An expert in both chronic fatigue syndrome and obesity, Scott Rigden has also been a collaborator with me and my research group in many clinical research projects. I am grateful to all three of these friends for shaping my view of what constitutes good medicine and good medical practice. I also owe a deep debt of gratitude to Laurie Hofmann, MPH, chief executive officer of the Institute for Functional Medicine, for creating the organization that Susan, David, and I hoped for at its inception—one that contributes every day to the global revolution in health care.
Among the multitude of researchers, clinicians, and thought leaders from many different disciplines who have influenced my thinking—far too many to acknowledge individually—I extend particular thanks to those whose connection with me helped shape this book. First among them are two giants of science, Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Abram Hoffer, both of whom deeply imprinted my brain with “a better idea” for the future of medicine. Dr. Sidney Baker and Dr. Leo Galland, master clinicians, also became mentors to me and many others in the intellectual evolution of the medicine of our future. As told in these pages, Dr. Dean Ornish, whom I met in the early 1980s, set the standard for the importance of good clinical research in advancing a new approach to health care, while my friend Dr. Mehmet Oz has set the standard for courageous dedication in spreading the news about the power of the new medicine to address chronic illness. I am indebted to them all.
A chance meeting in 1976 with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, founder and past president of Bastyr University, led to an essential intellectual collaboration in developing the model of health set forth in the book. It was through the efforts of Dr. Pizzorno and his naturopathic medicine colleagues that a scientifically sound approach to natural medicine was born.
Translating the science into effective systems for delivering care requires management skills and cross-disciplinary expertise. In 1994, I met the special person with a natural talent for doing so, Dr. Mark Hyman, who has been as much a younger brother as a colleague ever since. Mark pioneered the evolution of functional medicine and is today acknowledged as such in his role as chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Functional Medicine.
None of my work would have been possible had it not been for Dr. Darrell Medcalf, chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Puget Sound, who hired me in 1971 for my first academic position, and who gave me not only his friendship but, later, his business leadership when in 1990 he became the president of my first company, HealthComm International.
To the thousands of people who worked with me at HealthComm International, to the thousands of health-care practitioners I have learned from around the world as a result of my founding the Institute for Functional Medicine, and to my colleagues at Metagenics and its research and development division, MetaProteomics, which I headed from 2000 to 2012, I extend my deepest thanks. My MetaProteomics research team, headed by Dr. Matthew Tripp, consisted of some of the most innovative, skilled, and productive researchers and clinicians I could ever have hoped to work with. To this group—including Deanna Minich, Robert Lerman, Jack Kornberg, Joseph Lamb, Daniel Lukaczer, Lincoln Bouillon, DeAnn Liska, Gary Darland, Veera Konda, Anu Desai, Margaret King, Barb Schiltz, Pamela Darland, Tracey Irving, Lewis Chang, Dennis Emma, Kim Koch, Jeff Hu, Lyra Heller, Brian Carroll, Jan Urban, Clinton Dahlberg, and Peter Nelson—my deepest thanks. I believe that the eighty peer-reviewed research publications and two hundred patent applications this group produced over a ten-year period helped define the field of nutritional medicine for all time.
Finally, I am glad to have the chance to acknowledge and thank the colleagues and collaborators who helped me bring this book from an idea to an expression of my view of the future of medicine. The thanks start with my colleague of more than fifteen years, Trish Eury, who has been the curator of my publications and of Functional Medicine Update, the audio newsletter that I have produced each month since 1982. As the director of content for the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute, Trish has been my “second brain” in the writing and editing of this book. I also want to recognize the special contribution of my executive assistant, Kathy Sawyer, who for seventeen years has managed the complexity of my scheduling, professional connections, travel, and family life balance. Without her help, I never would have found time or space to write this book.
Nor would it ever have happened were it not for Robert Levine, my wonderful agent, who found a wonderful home for the book. I am grateful also to Susanna Margolis, who helped make my thoughts understandable, and to my amazingly talented and dedicated editor at HarperCollins, Karen Rinaldi, who was kind enough to support the book’s message and tough enough to manage me and my ideas in the process of its development. Without all of these amazing people, the story I tell of the revolution in health care that we are now witnessing would not have seen the light of day. I am grateful.
JEFFREY BLAND
DECEMBER 2013