Talk about health

I was thinking about why I veered towards alternative therapies and came up with this piece which tries to explain my thinking. I hope you like it.

It’s a breakthrough! Some scientific expert has created a drug to treat one of the silent killers of the modern age. Good news all round … or is it?

It’s probably more relevant to look at a word that isn’t there - cure. It struck me a few years ago that treat and cure were rather different. I hadn’t really thought very much about it. I spent many years of my life recommending and dispensing medicines that, in my innocence, I had taken for granted as a form of cure. My regular (ill?) customers returned on a routine cycle for their supplies.

Over the years I built up many happy relationships with people who were quite unwell but survived. Their condition was kept under control so they could live a reasonable life, assuming their drugs continued working and that the side effects could be kept in check.

The seemed happy enough and the fact they kept coming back showed the treatment worked. At the time I was keen they did come back because it was the foundation of my business, and I took it for granted that it was best for everyone concerned. The patient was being kept in reasonable health and I was scraping a living.

I was in the middle of it so didn’t take a step back to review exactly what was going on. In a ‘wood from the trees’ moment I happened to read a book on modern medicine. It discussed the breakthroughs in medicine over the 20th century, and pointed out the fact that few modern drugs cure anything. It is only the antibiotic that cured bacterial infections – and even that boast is losing out with the superbug problem.

From that beginning, it didn’t take much research to conclude that the author was right. Most of what I dispensed didn’t cure anything. Or even try to. The drugs had been developed by chance or design to control one specific aspect of some particular condition. Trials confirmed that they worked as expected for most people.

The patient appears at the surgery with symptoms of high cholesterol, raised blood pressure, diabetes, depression, osteoporosis or whatever. The doctor prescribes the latest (although not necessarily the best) drug treatment and everybody’s happy.

The doctor has used his expertise to diagnose and prescribe, the patient has his prescription, the pharmacist earns his fee and the system is satisfied – but crucially, nobody is cured. The sticking-plaster approach to health - cover it up and hope it goes away.

I have to agree that, from the patient’s perspective, being alive with a few tablets to take is infinitely better that being dead. And if I were in that situation, I confidently predict that I would rather take the tablets, too.

So, why am I banging on about it? I am not criticising drug research per se. There are millions of people around the world who are alive today purely resulting from it. My point is that I am disappointed the rest of us are quite happy with treatment rather than cure as an aim.

We take it for granted that treating the symptoms is the one and only option. We sit and wait and hope that the drug industry will come up with a new drug for every ill, eventually! It’s only a matter of time when those hard working, philanthropists at the multinational drug companies can tell us of their latest revelation and swell their coffers at the same time.

It’s bound to be hugely expensive and have a longer-than-ever list of side effects. But, it’s approval for use will open spell survival for another section of the population. Hoorah!

While you’re waiting for that day, don’t hold your breath and consider whether you really need to sit on your hands. There are other ways – the CAM ways (complementary and alternative medicine). It depends on what you perceive is the cause of disease.

Is it some external force that distributes illness like some health lottery? Meaning that whatever you, personally, do in life your health remains or deteriorates anyway. What will be will be. Drug treatment may keep you relatively well for the rest of your days, and who knows, one day there may be a cure. You might die before your time, but what the …

Or do you think your lifestyle choices have a bearing on your health? In which case, just by changing the way you live will change your health for good or ill.

And, if you do suffer some illness it isn’t inevitable that a cure is out of the question. Once more, drugs may treat you successfully, but there could be some alternative approach to lead you to a cure. Conventional holding treatment can buy you the time to investigate the options.

‘Body, mind and spirit’ is the new mantra. Just looking after the physical body is important, but it is also true that mind and spirit play vital roles in the overall health picture. To continue my random song lyrics – ‘You can’t have one without the other’.

I know which view I take. Get out of your rut and take a look at what is available.

Check out my site at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk and sign up for my F ree newsletter. If you would like to let me have your thoughts on any health matters just post them here.