The Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine Foundation (IIMF) is a Bangalore-based Section 8 company committed to furthering integrative healthcare solutions in India and globally. Founded in 2020, IIMF, which is built on the principles of integrating various systems of medicine, is powered by research excellence, education, and community engagement. IIMF aims to foster a culture of holistic well-being and empower individuals to take charge of their own health through integrative healthcare and treatment solutions.

The strengths and weakness of each system of medicine is explored for a careful amalgamation for treating various diseases. In many medical condition, one system’s weakness is the other system’s strength. By scientifically evaluating this, we have been designing many disease protocols and process for integrating the right combination and thereby reducing long term medication and risks.

Through a collaborative approach to health care, integrative health care solutions promote better health, with lower health care costs and achieve extremely high levels of patient satisfaction. Other major benefits that we could achieve are reduced dependency on long-term medication, reverse or cure disease / disorder and reduce long term complication and reduction in the progression of the disorder. This we believe will eventually transform mainstream medicine by improving patient outcomes, reducing costs, improving safety, and increasing patient satisfaction.

Integrative medicine is an approach that focuses on treating the whole person, considering not only the physical health, which is a tiny fraction of an individual, but also their emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Integrative medicine is defined as a medical practice that reaffirms the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person's wellness, is supported by evidence, and utilizes appropriate therapeutic and lifestyle approaches with healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing. Integrative medicine includes modalities such as Ayurveda, yoga, traditional Indian medicine, meditation, herbal medicines, nutritional supplements, movement therapies, and other mind-body practices. Integrative medicine bridges the gap between conventional medicine and complementary therapies, emphasizing a whole-person approach to healthcare, empowering individuals to actively participate in their well-being, and promoting optimal health and healing.

IIMF is the brain behind the social movement that promotes, educates, and enables individuals to adopt integrative medicine as a way of life. This social movement encourages individuals to take care of their bodies inside and out, including their physical and mental health. The movement promotes sustainable and safe health management. While addressing existing healthcare challenges with compassion and integrity, IIMF’s team of experienced doctors and support personnel is committed to providing research excellence, community engagements, education, and training programs for professionals and individuals, ensuring that IIMF is a catalyst for positive change in the field of integrative medicine, thus influencing medical practitioners to practice medicine better. This social movement of IIMF will propagate building a healthier society and shaping a more sustainable future for all. IIMF is responsible for interpreting Ayurveda in today’s scientific language, catering the age-old wisdom of the seers of yore to generation X, and ensuring that the practice gains its rightful place in the scheme of things. IIMF aims to create awareness about the importance of lifestyle modification in alignment with the body's requirements, supported by apt research findings, and share the information in bits that can be easily understood. IIMF also intends to integrate ancient Ayurveda and its methods with today’s scientific world. The holistic approach of IIMF is backed by integrated medicine, where doctors from various systems of medicine (Allopathy, Ayurveda, Yoga, and Naturopathy) work functionally together to enhance the quality of medical treatment and provide sustainable solutions to ensure a better and healthier lifestyle. Redefining India’s ancient medicine practices, unveiling the secrets of India’s traditional medicine practices, and providing scientific evidence supported by research and strong documentation is one of the main objectives of the IIMF. IIMF mainly focuses on bringing to light the knowledge, experience, and successes of practitioners, specialists, doctors, and Vaidya's in India in treating chronic lifestyle disorders.

Integrated medicine is based on the fact that every medical system has merits and demerits and also has its limitations. Under such circumstances, the only alternative is to take the best of all possible available systems together and develop their research, teaching, training, treatment and implementation system which could promise the better of two worlds. This is the attempt of IIMF.

Over the past centuries, several advancements have been made with regards to the treatment of injuries and wounds, and doctors have learned how to perform surgical procedures in a safer and more effective manner in modern medicine. We’ve also been able to prevent the spread of many infectious diseases via mass-vaccination and interventions aimed at improving public sanitation and hygiene.

However, we have also seen that modern medicine alone hasn’t been able to stop the spread of chronic diseases and health problems such as obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver, diabetes, menstrual irregularities, reproductive and fertility defects, asthma, food allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, kidney diseases, cancer, autoimmune conditions or immune intolerances, autism and many others.

Integrative Health and Medicine offers a comprehensive prevention-based approach to effectively treat chronic disease and enhance health promotion. Integrative Health and Medicine embraces a multi-disciplinary team of licensed health care providers working at the highest level of their scope of practice. This includes health practitioners such as Allopathic doctors, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, nurses, nutritionists and massage therapists.

From basic discussions through seminars and CMEs, to treating patients by most advanced diagnoses, risk analysis and treating patients, all processes are being designed, documented to influence and train many doctors for safe medicine management. Here, the doctors work together influencing each other to practice medicine better.

The focus is on patient-centered care, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease. By listening to the patient and learning his or her story, the practitioner brings the patient into the discovery process and tailors’ treatments that address the individual’s unique needs.

We look “upstream” to consider the complex web of interactions in the patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness. The unique genetic makeup of each patient is considered, along with both internal (mind, body, and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect total functioning.

The emphasis is to evaluate the patient and identify their specific disease but also evaluate probable causes to their individual illness.

Once the chronic illness has been thoroughly evaluated a comprehensive treatment program is designed specific to the patient and their illness. Treatment considerations combine a wide variety of conventional and alternative therapies to address both the disease and it probable causes(s). A variety of health care disciplines and different treatments are utilized to treat a chronic illness (the picture below is an illustration of how chronic pain is managed.

Basically, the Integrative medicine approach looks at how all of the systems interrelate. We remove what is making you sick and replace what you are deficient in. Through nutrient-dense whole foods, proper supplementation, and attention to the dynamic interplay of mind, body, and spirit, optimal wellness is well within your reach.

Diabetes Reversal Program designed at WELLBEEING Integrated Clinic

Diabetes is a systemic disorder with many layers of dysfunction, yet treatment is often focused on lowering the blood sugar levels, but that should not be the only goal. The root cause being insulin resistance, goal should also be to normalize the body’s ability to respond to insulin again by healing the cellular wall and allowing the system to balance itself again. Correcting and reversing the insulin resistance will enable the body to use the sugar in the food and reverse the progression of complications and organ failures. Considering all the above context, there is a need to consider an approach to amalgamate the strengths of integrative medicine, create evidence and adapt newer treatment protocols and train our health professionals on these various approaches.

WELLBEEING Integrated Clinic and SUNANDI Holistic Elder Care are backed by quality and processes from IIMF, and have designed many protocols for Reversal of diseases, and care of Critical care and various chronic lifestyle disorders.

The fundamental principle of Integrative Medicine is the fact that the patient and practitioner are partners in treating and healing process where all factors that influence health, wellness and disease are taken into consideration. The approach focuses on the whole person, and makes use of well researched appropriate therapeutic approaches, healthcare professionals of various evidence-based disciplines to achieve optimal health and well-being.

Despite significant advancement in medicine and healthcare technologies over the century, for the first time in human history, chronic disease has surpassed infectious disease as the reason for death. In addition to accelerating the biological ageing process, these illnesses such as autoimmune diseases, metabolic diseases such as Diabetes can gradually decrease the quality of life contributing to large scale socioeconomic burden and chaos, until we reach our final resting place.

When we meet patients for the first time, we tell them you being here is not an event, it is the beginning of a journey. Our team approach guides patients to take their health meter from wherever it is and bump it up.

This has potential to save our healthcare system because it is a preventative approach. It is low-cost and allows patients to care for their bodies in a way that syncs with its unique needs. By taking proactive steps to manage your health naturally, you lower or eliminate the cost of prescriptions, testing, unnecessary surgeries, etc.

A case of root cause analysis

For example, consider a patient who complained of heart palpitations. Instead of giving a prescription that would regulate the heartbeat, the doctor will ask questions leading to the root cause. It will turn out that the palpitations were a side effect of a medication taken to treat Restless Leg Syndrome. Restless Leg Syndrome is caused by iron deficiency. The iron was low because the patient was on acid-blocking medications for the heartburn. Heartburn, in turn, is caused by sensitivity to gluten. Ultimately, the root cause was gluten.

It is a logical approach that empowers patients to take charge of their own health. After all, why wouldn’t you look for the root cause of the problem instead of taking medications? Granted, there are times when medications are absolutely necessary. For example, let us consider an individual suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The disease is the tremors, but one needs to address the whole bunch of associated illnesses affecting the quality of life of the individual, which is often ignored and not addressed with conventional medicine and drugs.

In general, our approach involves understanding the origins, prevention, and treatment of complex, chronic diseases.

The emphasis is to evaluate the patient, identify their specific disease, and also evaluate possible causes of their individual illness.

Once the chronic illness has been thoroughly evaluated, a comprehensive treatment program is designed specifically for the patient and their illness. Treatment considerations combine a wide variety of conventional and alternative therapies to address both the disease and its possible causes. A variety of health care disciplines and different treatments are utilized to treat a chronic illness (the picture below is an illustration of how chronic pain is managed).

These and many, many other health problems have increased dramatically in prevalence lately – not just in the developed world, but also in many developing countries. Not only that, but people’s also general health status is on the decline. Virtually nobody is truly healthy anymore; we all seem to be suffering from some type of health problem, whether it’s irritable bowel syndrome, low libido, skin rashes, chronic fatigue, or frequent headaches.

In our conventional system, for the reference ranges doctors use when the measures and interpret their patients’ blood pressure, cholesterol, iron status, and so forth, which are not based on what is the evolutionary norm for our species; rather, they are based on what is normal today. Unfortunately, though, what is normal today is typically quite different from what was normal in the past. Today, it is normal to be overweight; to feel stressed – all of us do sometime during our life; and it’s normal to never feel fully healthy, experiencing mild colds, gastrointestinal distress, and fatigue on a regular basis.

This implores the question: Should we really strive to be normal? Or strive to be healthy?If so, then we must change our approach to counter disease and the practice of medicine.

Researches and many evidence across the globe have been exploring this area for the last few years now, and have been practicing ‘Integrative medicine’, CAM, etc. in many eminent health centers, universities and well known hospitals in US and UK.The consortium consisting of several academic health centers including Arizona, Duke, Harvard, John Hopkins & Mayo Clinic in the US strongly advocates this new system of medicine. Countries like Africa, Europe, Latin America, Australia &Chinahave initiated this system of approach already. One of the pioneers in Integrative medicine Dr. Weil says, “A Physician practicing Integrative medicine is not wedded to any particular dogma- Eastern or Western - but only to “get-the-patient-better”. About 50% of people in developed and developing countries use some kind of complementary medicine for health.

Studies suggest that it takes an average of 17 years of research evidence to reach clinical practice, which means most medical practices are outdated!

Our disease processes are highly individualistic and overly complex, with many so many layers to the symptoms, therefore the solutions cannot always be linear.

Chronic diseases are COMPLEX and therefore require an unusual way of thinking. Let us consider the following facts about chronic diseases. Chronic diseases cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, nor do they just disappear.

Some of the major health damaging contributors that lead to chronic illness include tobacco use, lack of physical activity, and poor eating habits. Therefore, one should seek immediate help and attention to remove these risk factors from day-to-day life.

Chronic diseases tend to become more common with age. Therefore, we need to predict the risks and prevent them from affecting our quality of life as we age.

Chronic diseases are an imbalance in our system. Therefore, we need to remove what’s causing the imbalance and provide what creates balance.

Non-communicable diseases cause 61% of deaths, with 23% risk of premature death from NCDs in India: WHO reports. 58.17 lakh is reported of NCD deaths, including diabetes, heart disorders, cancer. UN agency has warned countries, including India, against pre mature deaths caused by NCDs and said governments must immediately step up efforts to tackle them. The burden of NCDs is rapidly increasing because of changing lifestyles and factors like pollution, food adulteration/unhealthy diet, tobacco and alcohol consumption. The major metabolic risk factors are obesity, raised blood sugar and raised blood cholesterol levels, the report says (Ref: TOI, Sept 26, 2017)

We can’t solve non communicable disease with the tools we have in regular medicine. Integrative medicine is the solution, but providers can offer these new models only when they are adaptable. Management of chronic diseases requires a different approach with more emphasis on personalized prevention, hand holding for inculcating habits, health promotion and lifestyle interventions. It reaffirms the importance of the therapeutic relationship between practitioner and patient and that focuses on the whole person (body, mind and spirit) including all aspects of lifestyle.