The Beginning Of The End Of The War On Medicine 4/2015 Life Extension

[*GG*]

(This seems to imply to me a more immediate impact to people in the Heart of the Country, since it is being tried by the Cleveland Clinic)

For nearly 100 years, there has been a serious war going on between the proponents of allopathic (conventional) medicine and those who support natural or functional medicine. Functional medicine in the form of herbal,1,2 Ayurvedic, and Chinese medicine was dominant around the world for hundreds of years.3-5 Then, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the germ theory6,7 of disease began to take over, along with technological advances such as x-rays,8 the electron microscope,9 and the use of antibiotics.10,11

cont'd

Dangerous Signs Of Failure

While natural and holistic medicine are getting a big positive push forward, equally negative developments are occurring regarding conventional medicine:

• The percentage of our GDP allocated to healthcare expenditures is gradually increasing; it was 5.2% in 196021 and is estimated to reach nearly 20% by 2021.22
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• The US spends nearly twice as much23 as other industrialized countries on healthcare (per capita) and yet ranks near the bottom in practically every measure of population health.24,25
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• About 95% of every healthcare dollar is spent on treatment and less than 5% on prevention, despite the fact that over 70% of many deadly diseases, such as type II diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, and colon cancer are preventable by lifestyle choices.26,27
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• An article in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that over $100 billion was spent on balloon angioplasty and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in 2007, yet only 3% of bypass patients experienced prolonged life span.28
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• Prescription drugs cause 700,000 emergency room visits each year29 and over 41,000 deaths.30
• Recent evidence estimates that there are over 400,000 avoidable hospital deaths each year.31
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• In the book Death By Medicine by Gary Null, et al., the total number of avoidable deaths by conventional medicine was placed at over 783,936 per year.32
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• Dr. David Eddy did a study on the scientific evidence behind conventional medical treatments. An article in Business Week Magazine in 2006 quoted Dr. Eddy’s study and declared that only 20 to 25% of what was being done to treat patients has been proven effective.33
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• The Journal of Clinical Evidence reports that only 11% of typical conventional medical treatments may be categorized as beneficial, by randomized controlled trials.34

There are a few positive things to report on the conventional medicine front. In terms of acute care, there have been tremendous strides made in the technology related to operations. Surgery has become less invasive with higher rates of success for many operations.

However, there is still a problem related to the number of unnecessary operations being performed and prime examples include knee surgery, back surgery, angioplasty, and heart surgery. If unnecessary operations were eliminated, acute care could become the shining star for conventional medicine.

cont'd

The Beginning Of The End

Conventional medicine’s house of cards is about to begin its big fall from grace with the recent announcement that the prestigious Cleveland Clinic is going “functional.” President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Dr. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove recently announced a number of significant actions including:38

• The establishment of the first functional medicine grand rounds titled “Functional Perspective on Food and Nutrition: The Ultimate Upstream Medicine,”
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• Research to test functional medicine models head-to-head against conventional medicine for a number of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, and autoimmune diseases,
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• The creation of a Wellness Institute and the appointment of the nation’s first Chief Wellness Officer,
• Creation of a Chinese Herbal Therapy Clinic, one of the first of its kind in the country,
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• The movement of the clinic’s $6.2 billion network of hospitals, family health centers, and outpatient clinics in a decidedly holistic direction

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[alex3619]

I have been interested in functional medicine for a long time. Its not up to the standard of conventional medicine, but it never will be until someone, or better an organization, takes the leap and pushes it forward. So kudos to the Cleveland Clinic. Testing their ideas head to head with established ideas is how you get progress outside of the box. Of course if something is proven useful, watch that conventional medicine will adopt it and still dispute the rest of functional medicine. In part this is justified by the issue of what is or is not valid science, but some of it is just medical politics.

I suspect calling it functional medicine is a mistake though. I think its one way forward for what has become known as individualized medicine. Look at the patient, not the concept of the average patient.

 

[IreneF]

What is functional medicine?

 

[alex3619]

Functional medicine is a big and complex topic. Basically they want to look at how the patient is functioning at a molecular level. So lots of specialized tests. Then they look at how those might impact the patient's diseases and symptoms. Its a more holistic approach while still being grounded in science. Its also about individualizing treatment to specific patients, not the assumed patient in textbooks.

As a result though it suffers from issues about not being fully grounded in science. Hence the controversy.