Foundation Course in Functional Medicine — Chennai

Two days at the Quality Inn Sabari Grand in T Nagar, run with Prism Integrated Medical Academy, on the ground functional medicine actually stands on: what the concepts are for, where the evidence is firm, and where it is not.

Dr Mitra Basu Chhillar led the course.

The course was built around measurement rather than impression. Participants sat a pre-test at the start and a post-test at the end, and were re-assessed again at one month and at six months — on the view that a two-day course changes practice only if what was learned is still there half a year later.

The teaching covered:

• Diet and nutrition, revisited
• Hormonal optimisation — an option or a compulsion
• Neuroregeneration, and what can honestly be claimed for it
• Heavy metals, chelation and toxin removal
• Ozone therapy — basics, evidence, and the risk of overclaim
• Insulin resistance beyond sugar
• Microdosing and megadosing of drugs and vitamins
• Laboratory reference ranges — where the confusion comes from
• Formulation, and hands-on preparation of injectables

Much of this material sits in the same territory the Academy now teaches under Hormones, Toxins and Xenobiotics, and Ozone and Regenerative Therapies.