Systems medicine
<p><b>Systems medicine</b> is an inter-disciplinary field of study that looks at the dynamic systems of the human body as part of an integrated whole, incorporating biochemical, physiological, and environment interactions that sustain life. Systems medicine draws on theories from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_medicine" title="Holistic medicine" class="mw-redirect">holistic medicine</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science" title="Systems science">systems science</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology" title="Systems biology">systems biology</a> when developing a comprehensive approach that considers complex interactions within the human body to promote an individual’s health in light of their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomics" title="Genomics">genomics</a>, behavior and the external environment.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_medicine#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Chopra_2-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_medicine#cite_note-Chopra-2">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_medicine#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup>
Systems medicine has been popularised by, among others, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra" title="Deepak Chopra">Deepak Chopra</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai" title="Shiva Ayyadurai">VA Shiva Ayyadurai</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Weil" title="Andrew Weil">Andrew Weil</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Chopra_2-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_medicine#cite_note-Chopra-2">[2]</a></sup> The earliest uses of the term <i>systems medicine</i> appeared in 1992, in an article on systems medicine and pharmacology by B.J. Zeng and in a paper on systems biomedicine by T. Kamada.<sup class="Template-Fact" >[<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a></i>]</sup>
Systems medicine draws from the conceptual frameworks of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory" title="Systems theory">systems theory</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism" title="Holism">holism</a>, which is a non-reductionist descriptive and investigative strategy for generating explanatory principles of whole systems. Attention is focused on the emergent properties of the whole rather than on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism" title="Reductionism">reductionist</a> behavior of the isolated parts. The approach typically involves and generates <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy" title="Empathy">empathetic</a>, experiential, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28knowledge%29" title="Intuition (knowledge)" class="mw-redirect">intuitive</a> understanding, not merely analytic understanding, since by the definition of the approach, these forms are not truly separable.</p>