Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World

Looking back, I can say that I had a quite unorthodox upbringing somehow. My mom was a nurse in a hospital in a small village and I was her only child. What happened in my childhood is probably unthinkable in modern days, I used to spend my school holidays half of the time playing on the street next to the hospital and the other half inside the hospital observing my mom working with patients. Conventional Medicine approaches were ingrained in me since childhood, first through direct observations but also through my own experience of how illness was dealt with at home. As a young adult, I ended up studying animal science with majors in biology, physiology and pathology what reinforced even more my conventional way of thinking about diseases. It was quite shocking for me to find out later on that there were Ancient Medicines in China, India, Greece, and Middle East that had created sophisticated medical systems at least four thousands years ago and their philosophy was quite different from the conventional one I grew up with. I was also surprised to discover that something called Functional Medicine that combines traditional wisdom with modern science is a growing health field around the world.

You may be asking now how functional & traditional health practitioners view health differently from conventional medical doctors. First of all, by definition and philosophy most conventional medical doctors practice Allopathic Medicine. It is a system of medicine that focuses primarily on treating disease rather than on promoting health.

Allopathic physicians tend to view good health primary as a physical state in which there is no obvious disease present. In contrast, functional or traditional health practitioners recognise true health as the state of optimal physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. The key difference between both philosophies is apparent if we look at how each type of doctor views not only health but disease.

Infections – Germ Theory vs Terrain Theory

To illustrate the differences, let’s take a look at how each views and addresses infections. A functional & traditional health practitioner understands that the most important part in the infection equation is the interaction of the host’s immune system with the infecting organism, so they tend to use treatments designed to enhance the immune system, to enhance the body response. While most conventional doctors tend to use treatments designed to kill the invading organism.

Conventional medicine has been obsessed with infective agents rather than host defence factors. This obsession really began with Louis Pasteur, the 19th-century physician and researcher who played a major role in the development of the germ theory. This theory holds that different diseases are caused by different infectious organisms, with the patient as a passive victim. Much of Pasteur’s life was dedicated to finding substances that would kill the infecting organisms. Pasteur and others following him who pioneered effective treatments of infectious diseases have given us a great deal, for which we all should be thankful. However, there is more to the infection equation.

Another 19th-century French scientist, Claude Bernard, also made major contributions to medical understanding. Bernard believed that the state of a person’s internal environment (the “terrain”) was more important in determining disease than the pathogen itself. Physicians, he believed, should focus more attention on making this internal terrain a very inhospitable place for disease to flourish. Bernard’s theory led to some rather interesting studies. One of the most interesting ones was conducted by a Russian scientist named Elie Metchnikoff, the discover of white blood cells. He and his research associates consumed cultures containing millions of cholera bacteria, yet none of them got sick. The reason: their immune systems were not compromised. Metchnikoff believed, like Bernard, that the correct way to deal with infectious disease was to focus on enhancing the body’s own defences. Ancient wisdom and modern Functional Medicine agree with this approach.

Unfortunately, Pasteur’s legacy is the obsession with the pathogen, and Conventional Medicine has largely forgotten the importance of the “terrain.” Conventional Medicine as we know it began less than two hundred years ago and pharmaceutical companies were formed around the same time. This partnership gave rise to an increasingly systematic and formulaic approach to healing – one that is focused on treating individual, superficial symptoms instead of addressing the true, underlying root cause of disease, and has forgotten that each human being is a complex, synergistic blend of body, mind and spirit. In doing so, Conventional Medicine turned its back on thousands of years of medical knowledge about how the body works holistically – and how best to support healing.

Now, I want to make it very clear that advances in Conventional Medicine produce lifesaving results every second of the day. If you are in a car accident or have a heart attack or brain aneurism or fall prey to a flesh-eating bacterial infection, there’s no better place to be than in hospital. But if you develop a chronic, preventable illness related to poor diet, stress, age, weight gain, or lack of exercise – the kinds of problems that routinely land most of us in doctor’s office – the pills your physician is likely to give you may not help. In fact, they’ll almost certainly create another problem that actually makes your health worse. Nearly every drug doctors prescribe has side effects, and some are severe. The more meds you take, the greater the risk of an adverse reaction.

As an example, long-term use of most medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, can cause serious nutrient deficiencies. Proton pump inhibitors for example, which are routinely prescribed for acid reflux, limit the bodies ability to absorb vitamins B12 and C as well as iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and beta-carotene. They also raise your risk of dying from heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and gastrointestinal cancer. Likewise, some diuretic drugs for high blood pressure deplete your body of calcium, magnesium, thiamine, zinc, potassium, folate, and iron. These nutrients are absolutely essential for the healthy functioning of your brain, heart, and muscles. And those widely used types of drugs are just two examples, among dozens, of pharmaceuticals that can cause dire nutritional deficiencies among other problems.

In contrast, ancient and functional protocols are never just about taking a pill. They normally combine medicinal herbs, whole foods and healthful life-style approaches that have a gentle but powerful effect, with no side effects. Of course, this approach requires more work and the recovery phase is slower. However, it targets the root cause of the problem instead of just putting a bandage that can make the problem get worse long-term. Imagine a person with high blood pressure, in natural medicine this is considered a sign of an imbalance in the body. The causes for these can be diverse and the approach is to find out what is the root cause/causes and address it. In Conventional Medicine, you are given life time medication that merely forces the pressure down in an unnatural manner. Because the root cause is not addressed, the underlying problem persists what often leads to the situation worsening (more medication or change of medication required) or other health problems appearing. In this case, your body would then need to heal from the medication toxicity (all medications have it), the persistent issue and the new one.

Hippocrates, considered the father of Conventional Medicine, practiced Traditional Medicine. He treated illness with fasting, diet and the use of herbs (something that feels ultramodern nowadays). He documented more than two hundred healing herbs, and he taught that plant-based medicine could save lives. Fortunately, there is an ever-increasing body of knowledge that supports this in modern days as well as an increase interest in finding alternative ways to manage ones health.

I have become a strong advocator for Functional Medicine and I do believe both Conventional and Ancient Medicines can complement each other. Before anyone is prescribed a drug to take, if the situation is not life threatening, people should be guided to manage the condition in a natural manner first. Recently a friend was prescribed statins to manage her cholesterol, a drug quite controversial that once started, you take it for life. We had a conversation and we agreed to use natural methods to lower cholesterol for three months before starting the medication in case the natural health plan did not work. She followed the plan, in less than 2 months, her cholesterol had dropped from 237 to much better levels (181) without the use of synthetic medication taken for life and without any side effect.

If you are in a health predicament related to your life style, consult with your doctor and ask for a few months to manage the condition naturally before starting medication. The chances are that it will work out and with a natural approach you will be addressing the root cause of the problem which long-term will lead to better health outcomes.

Sources:

Ancient Remedies for Modern Life, Dr. Josh Axe, Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Encyclopaedia of Natural Medicine, Michael Murray & Joseph Pizzorno, Simon & Shuster, Inc.