TAKE out your crystal ball for a peek in the future of modern medicine, and the picture that emerges is bright.

Science fiction is becoming fact as modern medicine embraces hi-tech advances, along with surgical, procedural and pharmaceutical developments that boost the power to save lives, and fight off a host of serious illnesses.

Its also true, though, that this "hymn of praise" is not the full picture. Medicine is increasingly being undermined by negative steps and doubts, a function in part of the relationship between doctors and drug companies that grows ever cosier, and which is proving to have an insidious effect on treatment guidelines.

Dr Eric Campbell is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who has researched conflicts of interest in treatment guidelines, and is quoted as saying: "At the end of the day, the drug companies own medicine. Weve created a system that allows this."

That gives new meaning to the words of the late Austrian polymath, priest, polemicist and "jet-age ascetic", Ivan Illich.

Illich, who died of cancer in 2002, worked in 10 languages and is widely acknowledged as one of the worlds great thinkers on education and medicine.

He once declared that the medical establishment "has become a major threat to health", and that the "disabling impact of professional control over medicine has reached the proportions of epidemic".

Still, the reality is many diseases once deemed untreatable now have a close to 100% recovery rate, and medical scientific breakthroughs continue to change lives and life spans for the better.

In my view, the most positive sign of a healthy future for modern medicine is the rise of what is known as "functional medicine".

South African-born Dr Frank Lipman, who now lives and practises in the US, is already firmly on board. On his website (www.drfranklipman.com) he describes functional medicine as "a true combination of Chinese medicine, western medicine and scientific research".

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Peek into the natural future of functional medicine