Dr. Jeffrey Edman Brings a Unique Combination of Talents to the Practice of Medicine.
Trained at UC Davis and UC San Francisco, Dr. Edman has been a scientist, a UCSF professor, an inventor, and a community clinic physician. His research focused on the molecular basis of hormone action and the molecular biology of human fungal infections. He is certified in Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine from the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. He currently is focussing on making better healthcare decisions through technology and good “old-fashioned” lifestyle changes.
While practicing as medical director of a community clinic, he grew to appreciate the failure of traditional medicine in the diagnosis and treatment of most chronic diseases. Traditional medicine emphasizes the treatment of chronic disease by treating symptoms and lab values (think about how pain and high cholesterol are treated). As physicians, we have kowtowed to the “evidence-based medicine” (EBM) model even when it conflicts with our intimate knowledge of the patient and with our own well-developed intuition.
Legal and insurance issues have made EBM a firm set of rules that must be obeyed. Financial interests of big pharma dictate the types of studies that get done and these studies end up being the very ones that dictate EBM guidelines.
Dr. Edman doesn’t accept that we just treat numbers and symptoms. He believes that the root cause of disease should be sought for and, when possible, treated. Sometimes, the cause is straightforward. Most often, however, it is a complex interplay of genes and environment. With recent advances in genomics, we can often dissect out the gene contribution and studies are beginning to tease out the effects of environment (most often supporting the importance of a healthy environment – both internal and external).
Dr. Edman believes in the Functional Medicine model (www.functionalmedicine.org). Unlike the cookie-cutter approach of EBM, Functional Medicine views each patient as unique with his or her own life experiences and genetic makeup. Functional Medicine dictates that a patient is not just simply another number to treat. Functional medicine requires a precise treatment plan that is developed for each patient.
