Nutritional Medicine and the Medical Monopoly

Many times people will say, they don’t ‘believe’ in so called ‘holistic medicines’ meaning that they don’t believe in the healing and medicinal values of plants, herbs, and vegetables. This just points to the fact that they don’t know much about medicines in general.

The fact of the matter is that most, if not all modern medicines, are based on compounds found in nature. The Aspirin you find in your local pharmacy, in the form of synthetic medication, for example, is a compound which has been used for century’s having first been extracted from the bark of the willow tree.

Of course, there is little money to be made from educating people about the benefits of natural medicines. It is, for this reason, the health benefits of curcumin (the main bioactive component of turmeric, which is commonly used in Indian cooking) have received very little promotion.

Pharmaceutical companies are however working to extract and synthesize these compounds to sell to medical institutions and patients around the world.

Nutritional Medicine and the Medical Monopoly

I use Turmeric a lot myself for its neuroprotective effects and for its ability to increase glutathione levels.(1) (Glutathione is an important transport molecule, protecting cells by allowing for the excretion of heavy metals. By which, protecting against the effects of factors which contribute to oxidative stress and neurological diseases). This is also the reason turmeric can be used to attenuate the effects of fluoride neurotoxicity.(2)

In addition to its antioxidant effects, Curcumin has also been shown to have anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic, anticoagulant, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antifibrotic, anti-venom and antiulcer activities. (3)

There is, however, one problem with curcumin and that is, its poor bioavailability; again we can find the solution to this in your kitchen. Piperine, the alkaloid responsible for the pungency of black pepper, can effectively up the bio-availability of curcumin by around 2000%, allowing your body to benefit from its range of effects. (4)

And that’s the key — not only could education about proper nutrition and how different substances affect each other and your body help to prevent and even treat physical illness, but many speculate that through proper diet, psychological illness and even autism spectrum disorders can be alleviated. (5) (6)

This is, of course, a dangerous path for any medical professional to take. Dr. James Bradstreet (and I’m sure many others) have proposed research into these areas and either had their funding cut, their work ridiculed or, as in the case of Dr. Bradstreet, end up committing ‘suicide.’ (7)

The problem here is that the medical monopoly, spearheaded by the pharmaceutical industry, has a very tight grip on all aspects of the healthcare systems which we know in the west as well as much of the political and regulatory boards of health.

The Austrian philosopher and social critic Ivan Illich (1975) suggested that modern medicine (the biomedical model of health) and the structure of the medical profession was set up to be purposely confusing in order to take power away from the layman into the hands of a privileged few (he used the example of scientific words being of Latin origin) and that the system was designed to perpetuate and even create illness among the people in order to turn a profit. Illich also saw the way western society looks at and attempts to treat disease as having caused more harm than good, Illich coined the term iatrogenesis to describe this wide ranging sociocultural and medical ‘conspiracy’.(8)

Or in fact, perfectly logical and very accurate observation. Illich was a rather good social critic and he noticed things about the society within which he lived that others simply did not have the capacity to see, that the same people who treat the ills within society have a vested interest in making sure there is plenty of illness to treat. That and the fact that in order to ensure continued innovation within the medical world a steady stream of money and test subjects is needed.

This is the way capitalism works, and when corporate interests dictate the direction of society, everything from politics to the public services we take for granted are corrupted and twisted to serve the elite members of society. This is especially relevant to global pharmaceutical companies and the American health service, for now. That is, until the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) and the American equivalent (TPP) are passed.

Illich spoke about iatrogenesis as having three stages, each of which interlinked, enabling and perpetuating one another:

Cultural iatrogenesis; the social structure which one finds themselves in, is not suited to the human body or mind; this leads people to become stressed and develop related illness such as stomach ulcers, heart diseases, depression and even mental illness.

Also that the society cultivates dependency on crutches such as alcohol, cigarettes and prescription medication and that the society encourages the consumption of foods and drinks which lead to health problems (it is interesting to note that, the same people lobbying for the laws surrounding these factors have monetary interests in their use within society and the treatment of the health issues caused by their use).

One such example is that in the United States, the pharmaceutical industry contributes heavily to the annual budget of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Cultural iatrogenesis also acknowledges that the powers of an individual (at least in popular belief and in the mind) to treat themselves are taken away in favor of seeking treatments in the form of synthetic medications (which often do more damage than good).

This takes the power out of the hands of the individual in two ways, firstly the individual is taught to believe that the answer to their problem is to treat the symptoms with medications rather than treating the causes or even preventive steps like changes in diet. Secondly, that the doctor or medical professional is the first port of call; the individual does not look at their own symptoms and try to change or improve themselves.

The medical professional is seen to hold all of the answers, and seeking healing outside of the patient role is labeled a form of deviance in a world where some of the most effective natural medicines have been made illegal, unobtainable or unknown to large sections of society.

Social iatrogenesis refers to the expanse of the medical profession into every facet of human emotion and behavior creating an artificial demand for its services. A perfect example of this is the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM) and the medical monopoly it has created.

The DSM pathologies human behavior when it does not fit into an organizational structure that suits the society. This is a form of social control. State sanctioned behavior is the only behavior allowed, and any other way of thinking or being is medicated for. Sad? Depressed? Anxious? Can’t sleep? Don’t want to sit in a room for eight hours listening to somebody who isn’t getting paid enough, to try and teach a room full of children who don’t care or respect her?... We’ve got pills for that.

Clinical iatrogenesis is present where medical treatment makes the patient worse or creates new conditions. Unfortunately, again, this may not be far from the truth. In the USA out of the 783,936 annual deaths from conventional ‘medicine mistakes’, approximately 106,000 of those are the direct result of prescription drug use. (9)

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 290 people in the United States are killed by prescription drugs every day. (10) And this is without looking at the slew of health problems caused by side effects of prescription and over the counter medications.

It is highly interesting to know that people living in less ‘developed’ countries actually live healthier and happier lifestyles than the majority of the populace in the western world. It seems we have a lot to learn when it comes to our approaches to health and illness, and preventive steps definitely seem to be the way to go.

Dan Buettner states that “citizens [who] think positively about their lives and report more happiness, enjoyment, interest, and respect...also report significantly lower rates of health problems, sick days, stress, sadness, and anger”. (11)(12)

In Buettner’s eclectic health and wellbeing books ‘The Blue Zones’ he draws inspiration from groups of people living in areas and populations which have high average life expectancies known as ‘blue zones;’ ironically a lot of blue zones don’t actually have access to health care as we know it here in the west. Instead, the people living in blue zones that Buettner talks about in his books simply live healthier lifestyles and focus on preventing illness rather than treating symptoms of it.

The people living in these ‘blue zones’ have very holistic approaches to their health, working within communities to provide stable sources of nutritious foods. Of course, it could be argued that one of the main contributors to the good health of these people, is that they don’t have access to processed foods or meat products and instead eat only organic fresh foods that they grow themselves. (13)

This lifestyle clearly benefits them in several ways; as they have to go out and cultivate the land they are constantly active (not sitting in cars or at computer screens like us in the West) also the foods which they eat contain no GMO’s, no artificial [toxic] chemicals such as the additives, preservatives, herbicides, pesticides, and slew of other chemical ‘ingredients’ which we find in the foods on our supermarket shelves.

We could all learn from this lifestyle and, where possible, implement tactics to up our nutritional knowledge and intake. In the process, you may find you feel better not only in body, but also in mind.

“When the diet is wrong medicine is of no use when the diet is correct medicine is of no need.” -Vedic proverb-

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” -Hippocrates-

Reference:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15650394

2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969660/

3. http://reset.me/story/10-reasons-eating-daily-turmeric-make-happier-healthier/

4. Shoba G, Joy D, Joseph T, Majeed M, Rajendran R, Srinivas PS. Influence of piperine on the pharmacokinetics of curcumin in animals and human volunteers. Department of Pharmacology, St. John's Medical College, Bangalore, India. Available online at; [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9619120]

5. http://reset.me/personal-story/looking-beyond-the-modern-mental-health-care-system-to-treat-depression/

6. http://drbradstreet.org/category/nutritional-therapies/

7. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143238/Family-cries-foul-suicide-anti-vaccination-doctor-Jeff-Bradstreet-open-community-fund-investigation.html

8. Ivan Illich. (2011). The Medicalization of Life. Available: http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/030313illich/Frame.Illich.Ch2.html. Last accessed 07/05/2015.

9. Null, G PHD. (2011). Death by Medicine. Mount Jackson, VA: Praktikos Books.

10. Starfield, B. (2000). The Journal of the American Medical Association Vol 284, No 4. Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

11. Dan Buettner. (2012). THE BLUE ZONES WAY. Available: http://www.bluezones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ThriveStudyGuide.pdf. Last accessed 07/05/2015.

12. Dan Buettner. (2010). Who’s best at living longest. Available: http://www.bluezones.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Nat_Geo_Longevity.pdf. Last accessed 07/05/2015.

13. http://reset.me/story/can-cancer-prevented-even-cured-diet-scientist-convinced-can/ https://youtu.be/mL9vzoBImWk