Understanding Modern Medicine and the Future of Health Care

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Understanding Modern Medicine and the Futureof
Health Care

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Health Care Ratings

• Health care costs per person per year
• Japan ranks 10th (2514)
• Saudi Arabia ranks 27th (607)
• Canada ranks 30th (5200)
• United States ranks 37th (6714)

Why are our health care costs higher than other
nations, yet our health care systems
effectiveness is ranked lower?
World Health Organization, 2000
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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?
Projections suggest for the first time in human
history, our children will have a shortened
lifespan. This is not due to lack of quality
emergency care medicine, but the epidemic of
chronic disease. We may need to reevaluate our
current approached to health and the treatment of
chronic disease.
N Engl J Medicine 2005 352 March 17
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Modern Medicine
Modern medicine is powerfully equipped to
identify and treat disease. What is often
lacking in this model, is the ability to
understand how a patient becomes ill. The causes
of disease are scientifically identified, yet the
current health care setting does not allocate
the time or the resources necessary to teach
physicians or patients the determinants of
health and disease.
Perhaps using conventional medicine as the
primary and often only method of treatment is
not the most effective way of treating chronic
complex multi system diseases. Integration with
education on lifestyle, dietary and environmental
factors and medicine proven to treat the causes
of disease is paramount.

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Experts at a US Senate Committee on Health Care
Reform agreed the rising tide of illness is due
to the fact that the primary method of treatment,
ie. pharmaceuticals, do not affect the
progression of disease. 9 of 10 drugs are
designed to treat the symptoms of disease, not
the underlying causes.
Symptomatic treatment alone is not a long-term
solution, it must be combined with medicines
scientifically identified to treat the mechanisms
of disease.
http//help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_02_26/2009_02
_26.html
Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998
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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 symptoms may not
be in our best interest. These subtle, often
initially mild concerns, may be early warning
signs of things to come.
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If we continue our current path, what will we
see in future generations?!
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"Those who think they have no time for healthy
eating will sooner or later have to find time for
illness." - modified from Edward Stanley
(1826-1893) from The Conduct of Life
May. 26, 1930
Health is simple. Remove what is blocking 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.
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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.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said let
food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
Recent scientific research has confirmed
nutrients and phytochemicals found in food are
as powerful as drugs.
Am J Clin Nutr 200785 1169-70
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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 scientific evidence suggesting the
current chronic disease burden is not just a
genetic problem. Instead it is understood to be
the result of an interaction of our genes with
the diet, lifestyle and environment.
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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

People dont wake up with disease. The diagnosis
is a result or an outcome of subtle imbalances
over time. The course of disease can be
positively influenced, if the patients
environment, diet and lifestyle is understood and
adjusted.
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In complex, chronic disease, there is often much
more information buried in the story. No 2
diabetic, allergic, arthritic or any other
diagnosis are the same. This is why every
patients response to medication is different.
Every persons road to illness is unique. Time is
necessary to unfold a patients journey to a
state of ill health. This must be understood in
order to identify the sources of disease and
make a patient independently well again.
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A new model of care for chronic disease is
emerging

• There is a large gap between what physicians do
  for patients with chronic diseases and what
  should be done.

We cannot continue to treat chronic disease with
medicines designed to lock and control
physiology we must integrate with medicines
capable of regulating function, influencing
disease progression and restoring health.
JAMA 2005293 485-488
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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.

As more scientific research emerges, it is
becoming increasingly clear 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.
N Engl J Med 2007357(4)370-379
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Scientific research confirms

• Disease is the downstream effect of altered
  cellular signaling and gene expression in
  response to unhealthy messages, ie. the diet,
  lifestyle and environment. The origins of
  disease exists in the alterations of fundamental
  biological processes.

Recent advances in biochemistry have unraveled
the unifying mechanisms of disease. Once
identified these imbalances must be restored for
long term health to be possible.
Cell, 2006 Am J Clin Nutr, 2007
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An example of the Modern Medical Approach

• Patients complaints and diagnosis'
• Painful and arthritic joints
• Depression
• Headaches
• Ulcerative Colitis
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Difficulty concentrating
• Fatigue

• The patient would be seen by a
• Rheumatologist who would focus on the joints,
  diagnosis and then prescribe an anti-inflammatory
  drug
• A gastroenterologist would focus on the digestive
  system and may prescribe a steroid
• The endocrinologist may prescribe anti-diabetic
  medication for blood sugar
• The cardiologist may commonly prescribe high
  blood pressure medication
• The psychiatrist would often treat the depression
  with an SSRI

Is this the best approach for chronic disease? Is
each diagnosis a separate problem? Could they be
linked?
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Physiology is regulated by nutrients, stress,
hormones, toxins, etc. Restoring balance leads
to improvement in overall health. (proper air,
water, nutrients, etc.)
Instead of diagnosing separate diseases the
Functional Medicine Practitioner attempts to
identify the unifying mechanisms of disease.
(roots of a tree)
Functional medicine steps outside the linear
model of disease and looks at disturbances in the
web, ie. physiology. (signs and symptoms are the
branches of a tree)
Let us review the previous example for a better
understanding.
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The Future of Medicine

• Causes of diagnosis
• Dysregulation of protein kinases pathways result
  in arthritis, high blood pressure and type 2
  diabetes.
• Food allergens contribute to the inflammatory
  bowel disease and headaches.
• An altered stress response leads to an inability
  to produce serotonin and desensitized HPA
  feedback, due to excessive catecholamines and
  cortisol release causing depression, fatigue,
  poor focus and memory impairment.

• Treatment strategy
• Regulate kinase pathways using evidence based
  nutrients such as zinc, selenium and THIAA.
• Identify and remove problematic foods. Replace
  with anti-inflammatory, stress dampening foods
  such as turmeric and omega 3 fatty acids.
• Retune and balance sympathetic (stress) response
  using rhodiola, ginseng, magnesium and improved
  circadian rhythm.

Patient follows program and experiences
improvement in symptoms and renewed vitality.
After 3 months, health is restored, the patient
is weaned off the regime and continues to enjoy
their new found health.
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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
the treatment of chronic disease. It is an
integrative, personalized approach that unites
conventional and alternative medicine and
focuses on the unifying mechanisms of disease
forming the most advanced, sophisticated and
comprehensive health care system ever achieved.
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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.