Modern Medicine People versus

Profits
David Pratt
December 2015

Contents
Medicating society
Spreading disease
Natural medicine
Main sources

Medicating society
There was a time when people visited their doctor mainly because they felt ill and were
seeking relief. Nowadays, consultations often involve having our numbers checked:
cholesterol and lipid levels, blood pressure, blood sugar, bone density, respiratory flow,
and so on. If any of them happens to deviate too much from the latest norm, drugs are
likely to be prescribed, which frequently have side effects that are treated with further
drugs. Doctors feel compelled to follow official guidelines, which typically advocate the
latest expensive medications, resulting in escalating healthcare costs.
In his book Pharmageddon, David Healy, an expert on drug treatment injuries, identifies
several key factors that have contributed to the current state of Western medicine,
particularly in the United States:
First, restrictions on patenting medicines have been relaxed since the 1960s, and
companies can now take out worldwide patents on new drugs for a period of 20 years;
this monopoly position has led to the emergence of global blockbuster drugs (i.e. drugs
that make at least a billion dollars a year).
Second, these drugs are only available on prescription, and doctors have proved to be
easy prey for drug companies sophisticated marketing campaigns.
Third, pharmaceutical companies usually do all the testing of their drugs themselves
and are not required to disclose the raw data; articles on these drugs trials, mostly
ghostwritten by specialized public relations agencies, highlight the alleged benefits of
drugs while downplaying or concealing their adverse effects.

The global market for pharmaceuticals is now worth over a trillion dollars a year. The
profit markup on blockbuster drugs is up to 2500%, with the top 10 drugs accounting for
over $80 billion in annual sales. In the United States, annual healthcare costs have
increased faster than anywhere else: from $500 per person in 1950 to $9146 per person
in 2013. Yet in 2008 the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last among
developed countries in terms of healthcare quality.
Early 20th-century science discovered antibiotics such as penicillin, which enabled the
dying to rise from their deathbeds. Todays best-selling drugs, on the other hand, are
primarily aimed at correcting number disorders, such as elevated cholesterol and blood
pressure, in more and more people. This increases peoples health anxieties and often
results in unpleasant side effects, or even an early death. Such drugs are said to work
merely because the drug produces changes on some measurement of interest to a
drug company, rather than indicating the drug saves a life or returns someone to
employment, or is better than an older drug in the field, or even makes a person simply
feel better (Healy, p. 85).
Evidence-based medicine, as it is now called, is based on randomized controlled
trials. In these double-blind drugs trials, patients are randomly divided into two groups,
one of which is treated with a particular drug while the control group receives a placebo
(dummy pill), with neither the patients nor the researchers knowing who is in which
group while the study is in progress. The published results are then incorporated into
evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of different diseases. The problem is that
pharmaceutical companies are allowed to leave inconvenient data or even entire drug
trials unpublished and to report only what serves their interests. This makes a mockery
of science.
Research shows that around 30% of clinical trials remain unreported, and that 25% of
the published trials have been altered to the extent that negative results are transformed
into evidence that the drug is safe and effective (Healy, p. 252). Data pointing to
marginal benefits are hailed as evidence that the treatments are remarkably effective.
Patients suffering adverse effects in the initial phase of a trial are commonly excluded
from further participation and ignored in the study calculations.
A drugs trial is considered successful if the drug outperforms a placebo by at least a
minimal but statistically significant amount on a blood test or rating scale, even if the
findings are trivial and cannot be reproduced. In the United States and Europe, only two
trials with statistically significant positive results are needed to let a pharmaceutical
company put a drug on the market, even though there might be up to 98 negative
studies, and even though 5 in 100 studies could give positive results by chance (Healy,
pp. 76-7).
This means that a company can claim that its drug is effective even if in 50% of the
trials those taking the drug do not benefit more than those taking the placebo, or there
are more dead bodies in the treatment group than in the placebo group. David Healy
says that this is the case for the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, Cox-2 painkillers,
blood-sugar-lowering drugs, beta-agonists for asthma, along with various
antidepressants and antipsychotics (p. 74). For instance, antipsychotic drugs increase
rates of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and suicides, and reduce life expectancy by
decades, not just years (p. 89). The suicide rate among those being treated for
schizophrenia has risen 10- to 20-fold since the introduction of antipsychotics

(psychologytoday.com).
In the case of Lillys antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, the four clinical trials that brought it
onto the market gave rise to 234 publications, all advocating its efficacy, with none
containing data on the increases in glucose or cholesterol levels or rates of suicide
found in these trials that have since become the subject of legal actions. This drug is
now being given to children as young as 12 months, even though it produces massive
weight gain, triggers diabetes, raises lipids and causes premature deaths (Healy, p. 53).
Some clinicians are even contemplating in-utero diagnoses.

Pharmaceutical companies are among the most profitable corporations on the planet
and have no problem buying lobbyists and influence. Nowadays, regulatory authorities
act as a business partner of the pharmaceutical industry, and conflicts of interest are
rife. In the past, says Healy, it would have been considered scandalous to find senior
regulators sitting down with industry representatives, academics enmeshed in industry,
and patient groups that had been sponsored by industry to issue a ghostwritten
consensus statement advocating the detection and treatment of disorders in a manner
that can only increase the sales of drugs (p. 207). But this is now standard practice.
An estimated 90% of those who draw up drug-use guidelines have financial ties to the
pharmaceutical industry (Moynihan & Cassels, p. 4). Over half of the drug review work
conducted by the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) is funded directly by the
pharmaceutical industry, and a similar situation exists in many other countries, including
Australia, Britain and Canada (Healy, p. 19). In 2001 an editorial in the high-profile
journal The Lancet suggested that the FDA had become a servant of industry.
When faced with evidence that guideline-mandated drugs fail to make a difference,
guideline makers sometimes attribute this to a delay in commencing treatment. In 2008
the American Association of Pediatricians recommended screening children as young
as eight years old for raised cholesterol levels, and then possibly beginning treatment
with a statin. Similarly, advocates of mood stabilizers (which can cause brain damage)
suggest treating ever younger children. David Healy comments:
there is a growing disenchantment with the Western way of doing things.
And there is a growing likelihood that we in the West will be regarded as the

new barbarians as we feed antipsychotic drugs to infants and envisage

children as young as eight years old being put on drugs like the statins. (p.
263)
Drug-induced injuries are now the fourth leading cause of death in hospital settings and
possibly the greatest single source of disability in the developed world (Healy, p. 11).
Healthcare providers spend even more on remedying treatment-induced health
problems than they do on drugs. Doctors tend to attribute any improvements in a
patients state to the drug they prescribed and are more likely to blame any harm on the
disease than on the treatment. They report only 1 in 100 serious adverse events on
drug treatment to the regulator. Such reports are classed as anecdotal and unreliable,
even though over 80% have turned out to be correct (p. 252).
Medical journals now self-censor and rarely report treatment risks, to avoid being sued.
They rely heavily on drug-company advertising for their revenue and are eager to
publish the latest clinical studies. In the 1950s and 60s entire symposiums were
dedicated to the hazards of new treatments, whereas nowadays it is as difficult to find
mention of a treatments hazards at major academic meetings as it would be to find
snow in the Sahara (Healy, p. 100).
Doctors were once an independent voice, but are now under increasing pressure from
insurance managers, hospital bureaucrats, and others to hand out drugs in response to
medical problems. The role of the modern doctor, says Healy, is to educate, to cajole
or coerce us into treatment for conditions we never knew we had, with treatments that in
some instances are more likely to injure or kill us than improve our well-being (p. 13).
In drugs trials, companies tend to administer the drug in very high doses to reduce the
chance of it failing to beat the placebo; that dose is then later given to all patients, even
though it is likely to be too high in many cases. Up to half of all medical prescriptions are
off-label, meaning that doctors prescribe drugs for ailments for which they have not
been approved, because academic articles sponsored by the manufacturer have
convinced them that the drugs are effective for that purpose.
Getting people off their medications has been found to reduce hospitalizations, cut costs
and save lives, but doctors who take this approach are likely to be accused of
withholding effective treatment and risk being sacked.

Spreading disease
Pharmaceutical companies are keen to convince us that, even if we feel fine, there is
something wrong with us, and we can manage the problem by consuming their drugs
perhaps for the rest of our lives. In Selling Sickness, Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
write:
The marketing strategies of the worlds biggest drug companies now
aggressively target the healthy and the well. The ups and downs of daily life
have become mental disorders, common complaints are transformed into

frightening conditions, and more and more ordinary people are turned into
patients. ...
At a time when many of us are leading longer, healthier, and more vital
lives than our ancestors, saturation advertising and slick awareness-raising
campaigns are turning the worried well into the worried sick. ...
With many health problems, there are people at the severe end of the
spectrum suffering genuine illness, or at very high risk of it, who may benefit
greatly from a medical label and a powerful medication. Yet for the relatively
healthy people who are spread across the rest of the spectrum, a label and a
drug may bring great inconvenience, enormous costs, and the very real
danger of sometimes deadly side effects. (pp. ix-x)
Its been known for 50 years that very high cholesterol levels can be a risk factor for
heart attacks. In some cases this condition could be identified without a blood test by
the clinical gaze alone from cholesterol deposits around the eyes (though nowadays
doctors may spend more time looking at their computer screens than at their patients).
The key risk factors for heart attacks and strokes are: obesity, a history of heart attacks
or other cardiovascular events, smoking, and lack of exercise. Raised cholesterol is only
a risk factor when one or more of these more serious risks are also present. So the best
course of action is to lose weight, get fit and stop smoking.
In the 1990s statin drugs became widely used to lower cholesterol levels.
As guidelines on cholesterol management began to recommend ever lower
cholesterol levels, results that would not have been seen as problematic only
a few years previously, began to trigger panic in doctors. ... While the
cholesterol-lowering statins grew to become a $30 billion a year market in
the late 1990s, it was also becoming clear that simply lowering cholesterol
did not provide a person much benefit. (Healy, pp. 169-70)
Some countries have adopted cholesterol and lipid level norms which imply that 94% of
the population is abnormal which is good news for Big Pharma.
Clinical trials show that statins increase overall mortality if the patients have no other
significant risks for heart attacks.
In just the same way clinical trials suggest that Dianette or Ro-accutane for
acne, beta-blockers for hypertension, beta-agonists (reliever inhalers) for
asthma, blood-sugar-lowering agents for diabetes, rimonabant for weight
loss, and varenicline or buproprion for smoking cessation can all trigger
death, suicidality, or psychosis ... (Healy, p. 183)
As with cholesterol, high blood pressure has been redefined over time in a way that
has resulted in more and more healthy people being classified as at risk.
The number of people now said to be suffering from depression is thousands of times
higher than the number diagnosed with melancholia in the past. Clinical trials with
antidepressants, such as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), show that only
1 in 10 patients responds specifically to the antidepressant, whereas 4 in every 10
treated with a placebo show a response. The idea that depression is caused by a
deficiency of the brain chemical serotonin is completely mythical; it was invented by the

marketing department of SmithKline Beecham, the maker of Paxil (an SSRI) (Healy, pp.
83-4).
Antidepressants are associated with serious side effects and higher mortality. They
used to be rarely prescribed prenatally but are now among the commonest drugs given
in pregnancy, despite convincing evidence that they double the rate of birth defects and
miscarriages (Healy, p. 178). These drugs are used to treat a wide range of conditions,
including seasonal affective disorder (depression associated with late autumn and
winter), compulsive shopping disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic
stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, autism, and a severe form of
premenstrual syndrome.

The US leads the world in pill popping. It accounts for 5% of the worlds
population but consumes 75% of the worlds prescription drugs. Many elderly
people are on 10 drugs or more. There are more overdose deaths in the US
from prescription drugs than from street drugs. 20% of the population
regularly pops one or more psychiatric pills (psychologytoday.com;
wired.com).

In 2004, more than a decade after antidepressants first appeared on the market, the
FDA finally issued warnings that they might lead to suicide in children, and later
extended the warnings to adults. It was shamed into doing so by public hearings at
which the mothers of children who had committed suicide while on the drugs spoke out

against the pharmaceutical industrys dishonesty and the FDAs complicity. The FDA
has since issued suicide warnings for anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, and various
drugs for smoking cessation, acne, flu, asthma, weight loss and urinary incontinence
(pp. 228-31).
Manic-depressive illness was once a rare, serious condition affecting 10 people per
million, who invariably had to be admitted to hospital. It has now been replaced by
bipolar disorder, which is supposedly a global epidemic, affecting up to 50,000 people
per million. TV advertising in the United States and patient educational material in
Europe encourage people to complete self-assessments and then ask their doctor
whether they require medication for bipolar disorder. There are even clothes and
accessories available for those who want to celebrate their bipolarity. Moreover, efforts
are now underway to persuade primary care clinicians that a wide range of the minor
nervous problems they see are indicative of underlying bipolar disorder rather than
anxiety or depression, and that these patients should be treated with newer and more
costly mood stabilizers ..., rather than older and cheaper antidepressants or
tranquilizers (Healy, p. 37). The drug Depakote, for example, has become a billiondollar global blockbuster, even though no controlled trials have ever demonstrated its
effectiveness.
Based on the latest diagnostic criteria, there has been a huge surge in the number of
children being diagnosed with behavioural disorders, including bipolar disorder,
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, Aspergers disorder and
depression. Overactive and fidgety children are now classed as suffering from ADHD,
and feeding them pills to correct supposed chemical imbalances tends to take
precedence over more traditional, psychotherapeutic approaches. In the United States,
9.5% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. One
critic remarks: Vast sums of money are wasted on expensive ADHD drugs that would
better be invested in smaller class sizes and more physical education
(psychologytoday.com).
Young adults are by far the fastest-growing group of people taking ADHD medications.
In 2011 nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for
Americans aged 20 to 39. Dale Archer writes: Practitioners are handing out Ritalin and
Adderall like its Halloween candy, and perfectly healthy young men and women, be
they the college student cramming for a test or the football player looking for an edge on
game day, are becoming addicted to stimulants with tragic consequences. For example,
Richard Fee, an American student, persuaded his doctor to prescribe Adderall (an
amphetamine) for ADHD; his growing addiction led to a downward spiral of delusion,
anger and depression, and he hanged himself in 2011 (nytimes.com).
Archer comments:
Were turning all kinds of individual traits into medical conditions. ... Like
everything else, [ADHD] exists along a continuum from 1 to 10. At the 9 and
10 and 10+ extreme, it may well require meds, but for those lower on the
scale we need to mandate the inherent advantages of the trait. A love of
multi-tasking, resilience, high energy, willingness to take risks, outgoing,
optimistic and doing well in times of turmoil are just a few of the many
positives that may be seen with this trait. (psychologytoday.com)

Taking amphetamines will improve the concentration of virtually everyone, even horses,
but that does not automatically mean that it is a wise choice. Ray Moynihan and Alan
Cassels say that it is an obscenity that billions are spent every year diagnosing and
medicating children whose symptoms include often fidgets with hands or feet and
prescribing lifelong amphetamines to adults who drum their fingers while every year
millions of children and adults die early from preventable and treatable life-threatening
diseases (p. 81).
Nowadays, one-third of postmenopausal women are said to suffer from osteoporosis
and to be at greater risk of fractures. This is because scans show that bones in some
part of their body have densities that are a certain amount lower than the densities
found in women in their twenties. Women who fall in between the supposed optimal
bone state and the new diseased state are said to suffer from a new condition known as
osteopenia (literally, less bone). Like so many other ordinary aspects of life, the
thinning of bones that goes with age has been transformed into a widespread disease.
Bone density makes only a minor contribution to the risk of fractures; campaigns to
encourage physical exercise and prevent falls among the elderly are far more costeffective than prescribing biophosphonates. These drugs can cause pain, gastric
distress, bone death, eye problems and cardiac problems, and can also increase the
risk of fractures (Healy, p. 174).
Impotence in males and frigidity in females have been replaced by erectile dysfunction
and female sexual disorder respectively, which predictably have become far more
prevalent than they ever used to be. Experiments with rabbits have been used to study
the effects of poor blood flow to the female genitals, and drug-company campaigns
have suggested that nearly half of all women suffer from female sexual dysfunction
(Moynihan & Cassels, pp. 176, 184-5). As for restless legs syndrome, this disorder was
conjured up to provide a market for GlaxoSmithKlines Requip drug.
The upsurge in asthma over the last 30 years went hand in hand with the growing use
of peak flow meters (for measuring respiratory flow). The norms adopted mean that
many people are now diagnosed as asthmatic who would not have been diagnosed as
such 40 years ago. As a result, says Healy, many of us are now only one bout of
wheezing or coughing away from our GP discovering we have reduced peak flow rates
and then putting us on inhalers (p. 160). There is little or no research into how our diets,
lifestyles or environments might be contributing to the rise in asthma diagnoses; there is
no pressure to research a disease that is not usually fatal and for which the drugs
available are so lucrative.
After antibiotics had largely banished ulcers, some companies started promoting gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) yet another disease that has now become
widespread. However, many digestive discomforts might be better handled by changing
diet and lifestyle. Healy comments:
Quite extraordinarily GERD has even spread into infancy, incorporating colic,
a disorder that lasts a few months and responds to care in the real sense.
The first drug treatment for GERD in infants Prepulsid (cisapride) killed
significant numbers of children where colic had never been known to kill
children before. (pp. 53-4)
The side effects of drugs have triggered a string of lawsuits. For example, Lilly has

settled over $2 billion worth of claims concerning Zyprexa (a mood stabilizer), because
it raises cholesterol and causes diabetes and other metabolic problems. But side effects
also allow pharmaceutical companies to sell ever more drugs to manage the problems
caused. For instance:
Avandia and Lipitor are given to manage the diabetes and raised cholesterol
triggered by a guideline-mandated drug like Zyprexa rather than rejecting
this newer drug and returning instead to older, off-patent, less expensive
drugs that would be much less likely to cause these problems. (Healy, p.
238)
Lipitor is a statin, with all the hazards such drugs entail. Avandia is now known to
increase the risk of cardiac events and death, but the manufacturer (GlaxoSmithKline)
managed to conceal this evidence for years (pp. 232-3).
The mission of medicine is to help the sick and dying, restore function, and eliminate
diseases wherever possible. However, drug companies would suffer a drop in revenue if
they were to develop innovative treatments that eradicated a condition for which they
have profitable on-patent drugs that manage it to some extent. When the patent on a
drug runs out, a company can simply make a minor change to it and repatent it under a
new brand name. Large pharmaceutical companies like Lilly and Pfizer now spend more
on marketing than on research and development. They are interested not so much in
saving our life or improving our quality of life, but in inventing new disorders and giving
us a treatment for life. As David Healy says, the pharmaceutical industrys main aim
has increasingly been to protect its patents and its profits (p. 61).

Natural medicine
Conventional, allopathic medicine has undoubtedly had major successes. But given its
numerous failings and ongoing abuses, there is growing interest in alternative,
naturopathic forms of medicine. The roots of naturopathy (literally nature cure) go back
thousands of years, and draw on the healing wisdom of many cultures, including Indias
Ayurveda, Chinas Taoism and Greeces Hippocratic school of medicine.
Allopathic medicine focuses primarily on treating disease rather than on promoting
health and thereby preventing disease. In The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine,
Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno explain that natural medicine seeks to facilitate
and enhance the bodys innate healing power by means of safe, natural, nontoxic
therapies. It adopts a holistic approach, seeing an individual as a complex interaction of
physical, mental, spiritual, social and other factors. The aim is to identify and treat the
underlying causes of a disease whether physical or mental-emotional rather than
simply suppress the symptoms, which are expressions of the bodys attempt to heal
itself. Naturopathic physicians encourage patients to assume more responsibility for
their health by adopting a healthy diet, lifestyle and outlook. They apply a variety of
healing techniques, including clinical nutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy,
acupuncture, massage, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, counselling, and minor surgery.

Murray and Pizzorno write:

The fundamental difference between naturopathy and allopathy is that the
allopathic physician tends to view good health primarily as a physical state in
which there is no obvious disease present. In contrast, naturopathic
physicians recognize true health as the state of optimal physical, mental,
emotional, and spiritual well-being. ...
A naturopathic doctor tends to use treatments designed to enhance the
immune system, while most conventional doctors tend to use treatments
designed to kill the invading organism. (pp. 7-8)
The obsession with infective agents began with the 19th-century physician Louis
Pasteur, the father of the germ theory of disease. Other contemporary scientists,
however, such as Claude Bernard and lie Metchnikoff, argued that a persons
susceptibility to infection was more important than the pathogen itself. The best way to
deal with infectious disease was therefore to focus on enhancing the bodys own
defences. To demonstrate this, Metchnikoff and his associates consumed cultures
containing millions of cholera bacteria; none of them developed cholera thanks to their
robust immune systems.
There is no doubt that advances in conventional medicine can produce life-saving
results when used appropriately. This applies, for instance, to antibiotics, but
overprescription of them has led to the development of superbugs, which are resistant
to all currently available antibiotics. Murray and Pizzorno believe that the need to restrict
the use of antibiotics will force conventional medical thinkers to look more closely at
how to enhance resistance against infection. In doing so they might discover the healing
power of nature; a growing body of knowledge supports the use of whole foods,
nutritional supplements, and a healthful lifestyle and attitude in improving our immunity
(p. 9).

The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine provides thoroughly-referenced information and

advice on numerous medical conditions. The differences between allopathy and
naturopathy can be illustrated by how they tackle osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint
disease (Murray & Pizzorno, pp. 9-10). The main drugs used to treat osteoarthritis are
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which are associated with side effects
such as gastrointestinal upset, headaches and dizziness. About 7000 Americans die
every year from ulcers produced by the older NSAIDs, while newer versions increase
the risk of death due to heart damage, and carry a significant risk of gastrointestinal
bleeding. Over 60,000 people in the United States may have died from side effects in
the first five years after these drugs were approved. Clinical studies have shown that in
the long run they may accelerate joint destruction and block cartilage repair.
The natural approach to osteoarthritis, on the other hand, facilitates the bodys natural
healing process. Glucosamine sulfate, for example, increases the rate of cartilage
formation and improves the health of the cartilage, thereby reducing symptoms such as
pain, and helping the body repair damaged joints. Comparison studies with NSAIDs
(such as ibuprofen, piroxicam and celecoxib) have shown that glucosamine sulfate
provides comparable or greater benefit, while having no side effects. NSAIDS provide
faster symptom relief, but within a few months glucosamine sulfate results in greater
symptom relief.
More than 5.5 million children in the United States take amphetamine-type drugs for
ADHD every day. While these drugs relieve symptoms, studies have failed to
demonstrate long-term benefits. In fact, these drugs are associated with a high
prevalence of adverse effects, such as decreased appetite, sleep problems, anxiety and
irritability. The role of nutritional and environmental factors in causing ADHD is
increasingly being recognized, and various nutritional supplements have proved to have
beneficial effects (Murray & Pizzorno, pp. 345-6).
Over 28 million Americans take antidepressant drugs, yet 25% of them do not have
depression or a diagnosable psychiatric problem. Moreover, these drugs do not work in
most cases and can increase the likelihood of suicide in both adults and children. One
of the most powerful techniques for helping depressed individuals is teaching them to
be more optimistic. Increased participation in exercise, sports and physical activities
also decreases anxiety and depression. Over 25 double-blind studies have shown that
St Johns wort (a herbal remedy) is at least as effective as standard antidepressant
drugs and has significantly fewer side effects (Murray & Pizzorno, pp. 499-500).
Allopathic and naturopathic approaches can be used together.
In addition to being used as primary therapy, naturopathic medicine is
valuable as a complementary approach to conventional medicine, especially
in severe illnesses that require pharmacological and/or surgical intervention,
such as cancer, angina, congestive heart failure, Parkinsons disease, and
trauma. For example, a patient with severe congestive heart failure who
requires drugs such as digoxin and furosemide can benefit from the
appropriate use of thiamine, carnitine, and coenzyme Q10 supplementation.
Although there are double-blind studies demonstrating the value of these
agents as complementary therapies in congestive heart failure, they are
rarely prescribed by conventional medical doctors in the United States.
(Murray & Pizzorno, pp. 10-11)

The reason for the strong bias against natural medicine is that
many doctors are simply not educated in the value of nutrition and other
natural therapies. In fact, most were told during their education that
alternative medicines are worthless. Many doctors are not aware of, or
choose to ignore, data on beneficial natural therapies such as diet, exercise,
and dietary supplements, even if the data are overwhelmingly positive. (p.
13)
[S]cientific studies and observations have upheld the validity not only of diet,
nutritional supplements, and herbal medicines but also of some of the more
esoteric natural healing treatments, including acupuncture, biofeedback,
meditation, and homeopathy. (pp. 16-17)
Even in mainstream medicine there is a trend toward using natural substances rather
than synthetic drugs, including compounds naturally found in the human body such as
interferon, interleukin, insulin and human growth hormone.
According to Murray and Pizzorno, the body has two internal mechanisms to maintain
health:
The first is the inherent internal healing mechanism, vital force, chi, or
primitive life support and repair mechanism that operates even in a person
who is asleep, unconscious, or comatose. The second mechanism involves
the power of the mind and emotions to intervene and affect the course of
health and disease in a way that enhances or supersedes the bodys innate
vital force. (p. 19)
The placebo effect where a patient reacts positively to a placebo as if it were an active
medication is initiated by the mind but leads to a series of measurable physiological
effects. Studies have shown that both the placebo effect and particular emotions
produce demonstrable changes in brain activity. For example, expectation or hope can
stimulate a part of the brain activated by pain medications and associated with pain
relief. The placebo effect produces numerous changes in chemical mediators of pain,
inflammation and mood. In clinical trials about 32% of patients respond to a placebo, but
in some real-life clinical circumstances the figure may be as high as 80 to 90%. As
Murray and Pizzorno say, Rather than discounting and trying to avoid a placebo
response, modern medicine should be more intent on developing techniques and
practices designed to stimulate the same healing centers within patients as noted in
these studies with placebos (p. 20).
The placebo response depends on the belief and expectation of both the patient and the
physician, and on how these two individuals interact. The opposite of the placebo effect
is known as the nocebo effect, where negative beliefs and expectations adversely affect
our health. Patients of a warm, caring physician will experience better results and fewer
medication-related side effects than patients of a cold, uncaring physician. Numerous
scientific studies have confirmed the effectiveness of faith, prayer and meditation in
healing. Prayer and meditation can evoke the bodys relaxation response, which
involves decreases in heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, and sometimes blood
pressure. Over 50 studies have shown that religious practices can help decrease the
risk of death from heart attacks and strokes (Murray & Pizzorno, p. 24).

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
(Chinese proverb)

Life is full of events that are beyond our control, but what we can control is how we
respond to the challenges we face. A positive frame of mind is the real foundation for
optimal health. Positive emotions, such as joy, happiness and optimism, tend to boost
our immune system, whereas negative emotions, such as depression, sadness and
pessimism, tend to suppress it. Over 150 clinical studies have shown that stress impairs
the immune systems ability to fight infection and contributes to the development of poor
health and disease. However, stress can be controlled or overcome by, among other
things, learning to manage time and communicate effectively, good nutrition, regular
exercise, and learning to calm the mind and promote a positive mental attitude (pp. 2178).
If you want to have a healthy immune system, say Murray and Pizzorno, you need to
laugh often, view life with a positive eye, and put yourself in a relaxed state of mind on a
regular basis (p. 173). The first step is to take personal responsibility for all aspects of
our lives.

Main sources

David Healy, Pharmageddon, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California
Press, 2012 (e-book)
Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness: How the worlds biggest
pharmaceutical companies are turning us all into patients, New York: Nation Books,
2005
Michael T. Murray and Joseph Pizzorno, The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, New
York: Atria Books, 3rd ed., 2012 (e-book) (Google Books)

Health and disease: theosophical quotations

Vaccination and homeopathy
Malignant medical myths
HIV=AIDS=Death: a killer myth
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