koolman, I agree totally. Here is a piece I recently wrote on the subject that illustrate an understanding of Holism. While not every patient in the US has the same need in terms of what will "cure" them, I think it illustrates the complexity of trying to understand a disease process within the context of a patient's life.

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I recently attended a conference and had the honor and privilidge of listening to three young doctors who have graduated this program (Latin American School of Medicine). Among them, was a young man from Honduras who shared with us his vision of returning to Honduras and creating a health care infrastructure that meets the needs of the indigenous peoples of Honduras. He testified that the people of his village and region have not had health care of any type for the past 118 years. He talked at great length about the type of medicine he wants to establish as regular practice in his country. The following is a summay of an illustrative story he shared.

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A woman comes into the clinic complaining of severe back, neck and shoulder pain. She has this pain because she has to carry water and firewood great distances every day in order to feed her family. The doctors at the clinic examine her. They then prescribe a 5 days course of anti-inflammatory medication and order her to rest for 15 days so that her muscles can heal.

She returns two weeks later and requests more medicine because she has to be able to feed her family. The doctors realize that she took the pills that were prescribed, but did not take the 15 days of rest because if she did there would be no one to feed her family. They give her another prescription for anti-inflammatories and again tell her that she absolutely needs to rest. She returns again 15 days later in the same circumstance.

How then should we (as physicians) treat this problem? If we continue to give her anti-inflammatories, she will develop a whole host of problems including liver disease, kidney disease and stomach ulcers. If she takes the rest from hauling the water, her family will starve. If she takes the rest from hauling the firewood, she will not be able to cook the food anyway plus the water will not be purified and many diseases and medical conditions will arise from contamination.

We propose that if we instead provided this woman with a passive-solar oven instead of medicine and rest, she would be able to cook her food without having to carry wood. Additionally, she would be able to purify her water without having to carry wood. She also would not need the anti-inflammatory medications.

In this manner, we have eliminated all of the diseases, recognized the real illness this woman suffers from and treated the whole patient.

Not to mention that anti-inflammatories ultimately damage your pain-response and body-repair systems, ultimately creating even more inflammation, or a painkiller addiction, or both.

Other solutions: teaching the patient how to carry wood differently to make it therapeutic instead of damaging (it IS possible). Getting the village women organized so everyone collects wood together and walks it back on a wagon.

So many "medical" problems need help from social services.

I agree.

Many problems need more than one solution and the whole community to become involved rather than just throwing a pill at them.

Diabetes is another good example. Type 2 was previously unheard of in youths and adolescents. Now, it may soon have potential social consequences that could eclipse those of smoking tobacco.

Just one quick question:

What happens when the trees are gone?

You organize a profitable reforestation program runs by the villagers, of course!

Damn right, coolman.

I agree cures. Makes me wonder if because of the money factor thats why they dont search for cures. why bother discovering a med that could cure millions of people when more money can be made treating the symptom

A change in the healthcare system would have to take place. One where instead of docs who have about 3-4 minutes to sit with patient and apply a bandaid to SYMPTOM. A change to looking for ROOT CAUSE by looking at the whole person. Maybe taking MANY tests of HEALTHY people: Vit, Mineral, check not only bad but good fat(ie fish oil, olive oil, essential fatty acid) tests and absorption process. Then compare this to patients with disease. If many of the disease patients come up with numbers in certain areas that are MUCH higher or lower than that of healthy population then address those numbers as a FIRST line defense in the disease to see if this goes toward ROOT cause.

Check out my MS group post "Absorption Cycle" on the fisrt page of 25 posts or my MUCH longer "B12:Synthesis of Myelin" post about 12-13 pages in.
-Best Wishes

The FDA knows that prevention and herbal remedies that work will put them out of business and they would have to regulate Food as cures. They don't want to do that. they don't want us growing our own food or buying them at health food stores because all the major drug companies would be out of commission.

I just finished reading "The Last Well Person" and it reminded me that there's another layer to this. The author points out that MDs now treat EVERY symptom as a diagnosable illness -- and very often that comes with a lifelong label and an expensive course of treatment.

Small example: I once mentioned to a nurse that I hadn't been sleeping well the past two nights and she immediately told me to "get a prescription for Ambien," an addictive drug. It didn't even cross her mind that it might clear up by itself, which was my (correct) thought.

You go in with chronic heartburn, they say you have gastric reflux and order an upper GI series instead of telling you to lay off the meatball sandwiches with beer for breakfast.

I have suffered with chronic tension headaches for the last three or four years, some so severe they absolutely cripple my ability to function. Apparently I fall within this rare 3% of the population who get them so bad they interfere with day to day living. It aggravates me to no end that when I go to my doctor all they do is prescribe me high-powered painkillers that will dull my pain for about six hours but do absolutely nothing to address the root cause of my pain in the first place. I started trying to treat myself, getting massages, making sure that I exercise and stuff like that. But things have gotten so bad I am going to have to go to a headache specialist. I would really like to try acupuncture. The more I have gone to the doctor for my problems the more I have come to realize that they really don't care about me, and a lot of the time I think they just don't know what's wrong with me but pretend that they do. I feel blown off, as if all they really want to do is placate me and keep me coming back for a follow-up visit so they can get one more office visit fee.