Hello everyone! This is my blog on preventative medicine and the use of integrative medical strategies for healthier living. My belief is that as medical professionals, we should be preventing disease rather than just treating the symptoms of disease. As I have discovered and realized throughout my training, we are taught to recognize signs and symptoms of disease states and then formulate strategies (usually pharmacological) to treat these signs and symptoms. We hardly ever place the emphasis on strategies to prevent disease in the first place.
Think about this example. In most medical schools, there is no formal instruction on proper nutrition or how it affects our health other than “don’t eat foods high in fat or high in sugar because they’re bad” or “fruits and vegetables are high in fiber and can help lower cholesterol”. However, there are countless hours devoted by professors to the teaching of pharmacology and classification of drugs in the treatment of disease. Is this not backwards thinking? If medical schools place the emphasis on drugs as “the cure” and place a diminutive value on proper nutrition, then what more can be expected from their graduates other than to prescribe medications to treat symptoms?
Why are most people frustrated with the medical system, other than the fact that they have to deal with insurance companies? It’s because as our population continues to age, they are encountering more disease processes, which in turn, are diagnosed by their physicians who prescribe medications as “cures” for their symptoms. But people still don’t feel better or get any better? Why is that the case? Why are so many people seeking out alternative or natural therapies for their health and refusing pharmaceutical drugs and procedures? It’s because they’re never truly healthy. It’s because of the assumption that most physicians make– if they “treat” patients with drugs they think they are “curing” their patients; but they are mistaken! On the contrary, they are just treating symptoms, not the person. How unfortunate and frustrating that must be for people who come to the doctor to help them get better and feel healthier!
What if you could actually prevent the symptoms from occurring in the first place? Sounds idiotic in the present day medical community because much of our medical system and teaching is focused on the secondary or even tertiary model of prevention. What that means is that we deal with the medical conditions that already exist. In some cases, we “eagerly” await for new symptoms or problems to arise so that we can diagnose them and treat the problem, thus making us feel better and justifying our own existence. However, such thinking and strategy to combat disease is backwards in approach if you want a person to be truly healthy.
What we need to do is revamp our current medical model. We need to move from the paradigm of a secondary prevention model to a primary prevention model. In essence, a shift from a disease-based model to a health-based model. We need to place an emphasis on primary prevention and healthy living; educating our patients while they are young and on into adulthood.
What if we didn’t have to suffer from diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, high cholesterol, etc. In fact, if we could teach our patients how to change their lifestyles for the better rather than waiting for them to develop signs and symptoms of such diseases then we could cut back on overall health care costs. We could make people not only feel better, but BE better human beings!
While some can argue that certain illnesses may be inherited, like high cholesterol, etc., I feel that genetics plays only one part in the total equation. While genetics may load the proverbial “gun”, environmental cues and decisions we make can “pull the trigger” of that “gun” and set off a cascade of genetic susceptibility that can make it easier for us to succumb to illness. But what if you never “pulled the trigger” by living healthy from the start (i.e. choosing a healthy diet, exercise, stress reduction techniques, proper rest, etc.)?
This blog is for all of those who truly want to practice and experience the art and science of good medicine; who want to fulfill the ultimate goal of making people healthy again…not just finding disease. Our goal as physicians IS to find health; anyone can find disease.
I think you are right on the money about finding health, especially through both classic alternative methods and “unrecoginized” alternative methods such as change in nutrition and lifestyle. However, the biggest roadblock we, as physicians, face in trying to find health, is the society we live in that craves the satisfaction of the tangible reward and feels “invincible” until tragedy hits. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people in this day and age to change a lifestyle habit until they actually experience the downfall of that habit. As an example, many people know that smoking is bad and they need to quit; but many also don’t make a serious attempt until after a bad case of bronchitis, or worse yet, after the heart attack.
Finding health requires a good effort on the part of everyone. Our laziness is what is killing us. It’s just so much easier to sit on the couch and eat chips, especially when the pizza you’re eating it with is so tasty.
Comment by Dheeraj Taranath, DO, MBA, MS — January 11, 2008 @ 4:48 am
Hey bro…very cool blog! Your points are so true…the pharmaceutical companies would not endorse this model because the current one is lining their pockets! LOL!
(who cares about them anyway?!)
You’re a great doc, bro…keep up the good work!
Comment by Jessica Newman — January 11, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
Nicely said!
Comment by Your wife — January 18, 2008 @ 12:02 am
Very well put, Dr. Newman. It’s a very refreshing to hear a physician write like that. You’re up against a pretty significant “wall” of money, power, and big egos but I encourage guys like you to stand your ground, especially when you know what can work. Unfortunately, too many of us (the patients) buy into the “medical model” and don’t know there are other ways to keep or get healthy. (I’m not against the medical model, just the way some apply it.) It’s a huge thing your doing but I think you can be one voice in, hopefully, a chorus of voices that will bring about some change. It’s possible! I remember the story of a “little guy” called, David, and the giant name Goliath. Let’s see now, remind me again… who won that one?
Comment by Dan (the massage guy) — January 18, 2008 @ 12:57 am
Roland,
I can’t agree with you more. I haven’t gone through med school and have only had about 9 credits of health and nutrition education but based on personal experience, I believe that eating well and exercising regularly would prevent the vast majority of our health problems as a society. Some headaches, backaches, IBS, acid refulx, and many other very common health problem could be prevented with a change in lifestyle. These are just some of the minor issues, a healthy lifestyle can also prevent heart disease and certain types of cancer too. We keep buying medicine to treat symptoms of problems instead of preventing the problems to begin with. With so many well-educated people in the western world, why are we collectively so stupid?
Comment by Chuck Davis — January 18, 2008 @ 2:41 am