Understanding Modern Medicine

Health Care Efficacy World Health Organization Health care Ratings Health care costs per person per year Japan 10 th ($2514) Saudi Arabia 27 th ($607) Canada 30 th ($3672) United States 37 th ($6714) For every 1$ spent on health care in North America 0.78$ is spent on chronic disease. Yet, the burden of chronic disease continues to rise. Why are our health care costs higher than other nations, yet our health care systems effectiveness is ranked lower?

Modern Medicine Pharmaceutical medicine Pharmaceutical medicine – –The fourth leading cause of death in North American is drugs – –9 of 10 drugs are designed to treat the symptoms of disease and do not affect the progression of disease – –$1.63 is spent treating adverse drug reactions for each $1 spent on a drug Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998 Perhaps using drugs as the primary method of treatment is not the most effective way of treating chronic disease.

Experts recently in attendance at a US Senate Committee meeting agreed the rising tide of illness is due to the fact that the primary method of treatment, ie. pharmaceuticals do not affect the cause or the progression of disease. Symptomatic treatment alone is not enough, we need to combine this with medicines able to affect the progression of the disease.

What does this say about our present state of health? Why are we witnessing the forecast of a decline in life expectancy in the next generation in the face of being the most medicated society the world has ever seen? N Engl J Medicine 2005; 352: March 17. For the first time in human history, our children will not live longer than us, yet we are more medicated than ever before. Perhaps we need to start reevaluating our current approached to health and the treatment of disease.

“ Most people spend the first half of life acquiring wealth at the expense of their health and then in the latter years, spend their wealth trying to buy back their health” Continual use of quick fixes for nagging symptoms may not be in our best interest. These subtle, often initially mild concerns may be early warning signs of things to come.

If we continue our current path, what will we see in future generations?!

"Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness." - modified from : Edward Stanley ( ) from The Conduct of Life May. 26, Health is simple. Remove what is obstructing normal function and add what is necessary to maintain and restore health. The longer we wait to start the healing process, the more difficult the journey to recovery becomes.

The healing power of food “Molecular pathways involved in hormone action have been the target of a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical research effort. However, many of these pathways may normally be under dietary regulation.” Am J Clin Nutr 2007; Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was right all along. He said “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Food has shown be as powerful as drugs. How have we let ourselves come so far from the truth?

“ Lifestyle diseases now constitute the major cause of chronic illness. We need to focus our attention on non-pharmacological methods to manage these diseases that are safer and more cost effective than the procedures and therapeutics that are now being employed. The National Institute of Health recognizes the immense body of evidence suggesting chronic disease may not be just a genetic problem. Instead it is understood to be the result of an interaction of our genes with the diet, environment and lifestyle.

In complex chronic disease, there is often much more information buried in the story. Every patients journey is unique. The answers to chronic disease lie hidden deep within our patients. The time necessary to unfold every patient’s journey to a state of ill health must be understood, in order to make the patient well again.

“It is much more important to know what sort of person has a disease, than what sort of disease a person has” Sir William Osler The diagnosis is a result or an outcome. We don’t wake up with disease. Details surrounding the diet, lifestyle and environment that lead up to the disease is far more important.

A new model of care “There is a large gap between what physicians do for patients with chronic diseases and what should be done.” “There is a large gap between what physicians do for patients with chronic diseases and what should be done.” JAMA 2005;293: We cannot continue to treat patients with medicines designed to lock and control physiology; we must integrate with medicines capable of treating the mechanisms of disease and influencing disease progression.

The Future of Medicine “the network concept reveals a number of surprising connections amongst diseases, forcing us to rethink the way in which we classify and separate them.” “the network concept reveals a number of surprising connections amongst diseases, forcing us to rethink the way in which we classify and separate them.” N Engl J Med 2007;357(4); As more research emerges, we realize that the diagnosis is not the entire story. The refined view of patients with multiple, traditionally separate diseases is that these may be different manifestations of similar underlying causes.

Functional medicine should not be viewed as alternative medicine, but as a bridge to a more effective chronic-care model. Functional medicine is the next paradigm shift in medicine. It is an integrative approach that unites conventional and alternative medicine forming the most advanced, sophisticated and comprehensive health care system ever achieved.

Functional Medicine A science-based personalized medical system that relieves suffering, treats the underlying causes of disease and restores health The answer to the chronic disease epidemic.