Why Today’s Medicine Will Never Cure a Chronic Illness?

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As I dive deeper into nutritional medicine, I never stop asking why we in main stream medicine are different when the starting points are the same and honest smart people are present in both schools. I think, I finally came to a plausible explanation. I cannot state that this explanation is fully addressed by either schools of medicine. The coming three paragraphs will take you through my new understanding. I beg you to halt passing judgments before finishing the three paragraphs. Once you’re done, pass what every judgment you want. However, please do that after giving yourself few minutes of imagining the picture that I am trying to draw.

Before I start with my first of the three paragraphs this is the wards that started it:

The main error of the biomedical approach (today’s medicine approach) is the confusion between disease process and disease origins. Instead of asking why an illness occurs, and try to remove the conditions that lead to it, medical researchers try to understand the biological mechanisms through which the disease operates, so that they can then interfere with them.

Fritjof Capra (1982)

What is a ‘Disease’

In a book I am reading by Martin L. Budd: Low Blood Sugar (Hypoglycemia) the 20th Century Epidemic?; he defines a disease entity as a condition producing symptoms. (page 23)

The book argues that hypoglycemia is a disease entity that exist in non-diabetics and that this disease has many detrimental effects on health. The main cause of this disease according to him, is a combination of  a genetic make up and the diet we eat.

I do not agree with the definition he has for ‘disease.’ I think that ‘disease’ should be defined based on the cause and not the manifestations of a condition. Having said that, defining a disease by the collection of symptoms produced is an excellent starting point. It is the definition I have been searching for to describe the symptoms produced by having excess amount of stool in the large bowel that is relived by passing it, when the symptoms do not fit with any agreed on description of constipation or IBS.

The Best Explanation for the Trivial Effect of Hereditary Factors on Disease

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I just read the best explanation for the fruitlessness of the excessive focus on hereditary and genetic factors in disease. The book is the saccharine disease by T.L. Cleave (1975). You can download a copy of the book from here. The explanation I am pointing to is on pages 9 and 10 in this downloaded copy and pages 3 and 4 in the printed book.

Consider the infantry assault against enemy entrenchments in the First World War of 1914-1918. In that war it was found, as would be expected, that during these assaults tall men were shot down by machine gunners considerably more often than sort men were.

Being taller is a hereditary factor that has many advantages but not with infiltrating solders in First World War. More, we would not care if this tall solder's father died in a similar situation. We need to focus on the true causes of disease, the factors that interact with our make-up and results in disease. Focusing or hereditary factors distract us.

We Must Consider all Perspectives to Propel Medical Science: Another Shot at Practiced Evidence Based Medicine

I am reading a book by Richard D. Moore, M.D., Ph.D. called the high blood pressure solution: a scientifically proven program for preventing strokes and heart disease.
The theme of the book (which I will not discuss in detail here) is that the main cause of essential hypertension is an imbalance in the Potassium Sodium ratio in our cells that is caused by the disproportionately  high sodium to potassium ratio in our western diets.
In the chapter titled ‘Why Haven’t You Heard of These Developments?’ he reveals his explanation for the current prevailing medical practice philosophy. The main philosophical position he addresses is the under-play of the effect of diet and the overuse of drugs. He sees one of the main reasons for this erroneous philosophical position as being what he calls the 'golden triangle'; an unholy alliance between medical schools, drug companies, and politicians. He describes the history of the development of this alliance, as he has firsthand experience with the detrimental effects of this alliance.

He also has written a section titled: ‘The Confusion of Empiricism with Science’.  Here is a long quote:

Part of the problem is that many in academic medicine confuse empiricism-just collecting and analyzing facts- with science. But although empiricism is part of science, this alone isn't science. It is just taking measurements and doing statistical analysis of the results. Some think that is all there is to science. But as quantum physicist Roland Omnes says:
Statistical methods are a valuable tool to accelerate the discovery of empirical rules, but it would be a mistake to assume that they are sufficient to attain the consistency afforded by the full scientific methods.

The approach Dr. Moore used to come with a cure for hypertension is what is deficient in the medicine we are applying: the use of the largest possible perspectives and taking in all possible points of view and then testing them against nature. Yes, this would include empirical/evidence based testing. Dr. Moore used the following six points of view to come up with this treatment: anthropology, vegetarianism, animal studies, clinical studies, drug studies, and biophysical research. The second step is to ignore all authorities other than Mother Nature. He particularly warns against experts/authorities in minutiae that lack the perspective to see the big picture.
Needless to say that this is what is needed to propel medical practice. The only science is the one that considers all possible perspectives weather or not are hard to assess empirically.

Leonardo's Call for Holistic Reasoning

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Leonardo used the term "abreviators" to describe the reductionists of his time:

The abbreviators of works do injury to knowledge and love ... of what value is he who, in order to abbreviate the parts of those things of which he professes to give complete knowledge, leaves out the greater part of things of which the whole is composed? .. oh human stupidity!... You don't see that you are falling into the same error as one who strips a tree of its adornment of branches full of leaves, intermingled with fragrant flowers or fruit, in order to demonstrate that the tree is good for making planks.

 

I read this quote in Fritjof Capra’s latest book: The Science of Leonardo.These are Capra's own comments:

Reducing the beauty of life to mechanical parts and valuing trees only for their lumbar is an eerily accurate characterization of the mind-set that dominates our world today.

 

As illustrated in my previous post, Leonardo relied on detailed observations of nature and of his many experiments. Yet, he kept the whole in his mind. In this era of medicine this is what we need. We need not learn more and more about less and less. Instead, we need to step back, and have a deeper look into how things are inter connected. Omeprazole effects on the incidence of pneumonia and Clostridium difficile collitis is a call to step back and connect things.

 

FORA.tv - Fritjof Capra: The Science of Leonardo

EBM wrongly Instated Epidemiological and Statistical Laws as Clinical Laws

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Having thought deeper about how I have been practicing, I realised that there is an overarching law in practice Medicine. This contradicts what I alluded to in my previous post. The overarching laws in today’s practice are the laws of evidence based medicine (EBM). These are laws of statics and epidemiology. For example, I believe I have been practicing under these two Laws:

• randomised controlled trials are to be meticulously applied.
• our clinical decisions should be based on randomised controlled trials whenever possible.

As the title of this post suggests, I don't believe that evidence based medicine should be or is capable of having the status of a law. Yes, EBM offers the best available tools for us to discover nature’s laws. The laws of nature, if true are 100% correct. Unlike statistics, laws have no confidence intervals. We should be 100% confident in laws.

We Need Laws and Not Just Rules

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This post is another step in my efforts to state my opinion on how should medicine evolve.
Recently, I started learning about medical nutrition from a naturopathic perspective. Before falling into preconceptions, you must realise that naturopathy as a philosophy started with
Hippocrates, as he states:

It is only nature that heals and wherever and whenever possible nature should be given the opportunity to do so.

A modest way to address the naturopathic philosophy is to trust our body's innate capability to heal itself and only intervene when it is deemed necessary.
Having said this, my intention in this post is not to advocate for or defend the naturopathic medicine philosophy. But, there is an intriguing point of view that naturopathy offers that we should seriously consider:
Naturopathy has a law called the Law of Cure that collects dispersed facts into one simple law that once well understood can be applied in treating most if not all conditions. This law is stated by Lindlahr (1913) as

‘Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of nature. ‘

You may not agree with this law. However, the endeavor of  deciphering nature’s laws is to be respected. In the medicine we practice we do not have a superseding law, all what we have are dispersed rules. Rules such as - appendicitis is treated by surgery and those with suspected MI need to chew an aspirin pill. Having rules and not laws is a sign of immaturity in the science of medicine. All mature sciences, such as astronomy, physics and chemistry have laws.  We should not come up with laws just for the sake of it, however, we should think critically about what laws ought to influence our work. I think one of the main hindrances to the advancement of medicine is that we do not seek the discovery of laws.

For the advancement of medicine I am proposing to:
1. Focus research on finding nature’s laws, the laws that govern health and disease.
2. Train physicians in the proper application of these laws to real life situations.