World's Greatest Medical Advancements

[Guest guest]

World's Greatest Medical Advancements

Date:7/7/2008

Posted By: Jon Barron

 

 http://www.jonbarron.org/newsletters/07-07-2008.php

To be sure, over the years, I've tweaked medical doctors in my newsletters and

blogs. But truth be told, unlike many in the alternative health community, I'm

actually a huge fan of doctors -- not so much the organizations that represent

them -- but the doctors themselves. Yes, there are doctors who are incompetent

or unethical, but for the most part, the vast majority of medical doctors that I

have met in my life are extremely competent, highly dedicated, and often even

heroic. And make no mistake, no matter how into alternative health you are,

there are times you absolutely need a doctor. If your name is John Wayne

Bobbitt, you needed a doctor after your wife " altered " you, not an herbalist.

That said, when it comes to most catastrophic illnesses, medical doctors are

clueless. They merely manage symptoms and push test numbers up and down. And

when it comes to health and nutrition, for the most part, things are even worse;

doctors are often arrogantly ignorant. On average, the typical doctor spends a

total of 6-8 hours in their entire medical career studying health and nutrition

-- and yet they feel free to dogmatically pronounce on all aspects of diet and

supplementation with less knowledge than any lay person who has read two good

books on the subject. For shame!

In the developed world, we have grown up trusting our doctors. They are

frequently the heroes on our favorite TV shows, and we have largely turned over

to them complete responsibility for our health. And yes, modern medical science

has made incredible advances and contributions which have alleviated much pain

and suffering. Surgical technique (the cutting apart and repairing of the human

body) has made remarkable progress. Identification of germs that cause disease

and improved sanitation, which aids in preventing that disease, have also seen

epic achievements. Burn treatment, trauma, and emergency room care are nothing

less than miraculous. When it comes to these areas of medicine, the value

doctors bring to us is impossible to measure.

It occurred to me, it might be fun in this issue of the newsletter to examine

some of medicine's great achievements and see how they stack up when viewed with

a skeptical eye. To do that, however, I needed to identify those discoveries

that modern medicine takes the most pride in. It would be nice if there were a

list of achievements of which the medical community was most proud of so I

didn't have to arbitrarily choose them myself. I cringe when the tables are

reversed and the medical community evaluates alternative health supplements or

procedures by setting up its own protocols for evaluation, and then dismisses

the supplement based on that flawed protocol. An example would be evaluating the

cancer benefits of laetrile as an isolated supplement, even though every clinic

that claimed success with it used it as just one piece of a multi-faceted health

protocol. Testing laetrile out of context, then, is like deciding that heart

transplants actually

involve two separate procedures:

* Removing the damaged heart

* Then replacing the empty space with the donor heart

And once you've made that false assumption, it would be easy to make another,

that since they are separate procedures, you need to test them independently of

each other -- like deciding to test laetrile as a standalone supplement. But if

you separate the pieces from the whole, it should not be surprising that the

outcomes disappoint and that you come to the conclusion that heart removal by

itself is 100% fatal and therefore should not be recommended in any

circumstances. It's nonsense obviously, as is most medical evaluation of

alternative health protocols and supplements.  In any case, I did not want to be

accused of the same kind of hypocrisy by arbitrarily choosing a list of medical

accomplishments that were handpicked by me so that I could trash them.

Fortunately, the British Medical Journal solved my problem. Last year, it ran a

surveyamong its readers (mostly doctors) to determine the biggest medical

advancements of all time. (Thank you BMJ.) So,

based on their list, here, with my comments on them, are the top ten.

1. Sanitation: 1,795 votes. The importance of clean drinking water and waste

disposal was recognized in the late 1800s, as diseases began to be linked to

impure water. However, the World Health Organization says there is still a long

way to go. More than 1.1 billion people now lack access to drinking water from

an improved source; 2.6 billion do not have basic sanitation.

 

I'm not actually sure if this qualifies as a medical breakthrough. It's more of

a public health issue. And heck, the people who run most of these operations are

bureaucrats and PHDs, not medical doctors. But hey, medical doctors were

involved in some of the discoveries, so let's give them credit for what is truly

a major advance in health. Then again, if they take the credit for improved

sanitation, shouldn't they also take the blame for the proliferation of all of

the antibacterial wipes and soaps that have flooded the market -- and all of the

problems associated with their indiscriminate use?

 

 

2. Antibiotics: 1,642 votes. Alexander Fleming, a British bacteriologist,

discovered penicillin in 1928 by accident when he sloppily left a Petri dish of

bacteria unwashed in his lab. He found a substance (later named penicillin)

growing on it that killed the bugs, and modern-day antibiotics got its start.

Fleming shared the Nobel Prize in 1945 for the discovery.

 

I'm happy to give doctors the credit for this advancement, as long as you also

give them the blame for trashing it. Thanks to overprescribing, overuse, and

poor management of patients, the medical community has created a situation even

worsethan existed before the advent of antibiotics. Welcome to the world of

medically created super-bacteria. You don't need a military conspiracy to create

Outbreak-like disasters. Medical arrogance works very nicely, thank you.

 

 

3. Anesthesia: 1,574 votes. In 1846, a Boston dentist used ether during

surgery, putting an end to much of the pain of operations. Since then, general

anesthesia has become a mainstay.

 

Oh, a big thumbs-up on this one. However, it's not quite the advance you might

think it is. The use of opiates and herbs to kill pain before surgery goes back

to ancient Rome, and the use of acupuncture and chilling of limbs before surgery

goes back even further in time to ancient China. Yes, modern anesthesia is an

improvement -- but true credit for this discovery belongs to alternative healers

who came along well before the modern medical fraternitywas even a glint in its

founders' eyes.

 

 

4. Vaccines: 1,337 votes. Vaccines have helped prevent a variety of diseases --

including polio, whooping cough, and measles. The first was Edward Jenner's

smallpox vaccine, in 1796.

 

This too is a nuanced issue. For every positive you can point to when it comes

to vaccination, you can point to a corresponding negative. Look, I'm not saying

vaccines should be eliminated (besides, that's not going to happen anyway) --

just that we should use a lot more discrimination than we are at the moment in

their application. And with that said, I'm not sure they belong in the top 10

medical advances.

 

 

5. Discovery of DNA structure: 1,000 votes. Scientists James Watson and Francis

Crick presented the structure of the DNA helix, the molecule responsible for

carrying genetic information from one generation to the next, in 1953. It earned

them the Nobel Prize in 1962.

 

It certainly is profound, but I'm not sure you can call it a great medical

advance… yet. At the moment, only one disease has actually been cured using gene

therapy, and a rather obscure one at that. At this point in time, the benefits

of gene therapy are more promise than reality.

 

But there's another potential benefit to the unraveling of DNA:  predicting the

likelihood of disease by looking at your genetic code. Billed as a major advance

in medicine, it unfortunately has a dark side. First, it can potentially be used

to deny people access to insurance, based on the risk factors discovered in

their DNA. But more importantly, as is already happening, it can cause a medical

overreaction. Consider breast cancer, where after testing positive for the

" breast cancer gene, " women are opting to have their breasts prophylactically

removedrather than risk a future cancer. But studies have shown that diet and

lifestyle can turn cancer genes on and off in a matter of days. A recent study

of men with prostate cancerfound that diet and lifestyle changes could " switch

off " some 453 cancer-promoting genes, while simultaneously " switching on " some

48 cancer-fighting genes.  If you're going to claim the discovery of DNA as

number 5 on the list,

then don't you have to list the discovery of alternative health as number 4 or

higher because the study proves that diet and lifestyle trump DNA?

 

 

6. Germ theory: 843 votes. In the late 1800s, Louis Pasteur was the first to

suggest that disease is caused by exposure to microorganisms. Others furthered

the theory, showing that specific diseases are caused by specific " bugs. "

 

Come on! How many times can you take credit for the same discovery? Aren't

Sanitation (#1) and Antibiotics (#2) expressions of germ theory? Sanitation

reduces exposure to germs, and antibiotics kill germs. It's all based on germ

theory.

 

 

7. Oral contraceptive pill: 842 votes. The pill arrived on the U.S. market in

1960. For women who use it correctly, oral contraception can be up to 99%

effective at preventing pregnancy.

 

I'm not sure what to say about this discovery without offending some large

segment of my rs. Suffice it to say, that for whatever benefits may be

ascribed to this discovery, the tremendous increase in female cancers we've seen

over the last couple of decades may not be unrelated. Synthetic hormones wreck

havoc with the body.

 

 

8. Evidence-based medicine: 636 votes. As the name suggests, evidence-based

medicine involves making use of the current best evidence (such as research),

combined with a patient's values and a doctor's clinical experience, to make

decisions about patient care. The term was coined in the early '90s and the

concept has been evolving ever since.

 

Ah, one of my favorites. In principle a huge winner. In practice, not so much.

First, far less medicine is evidence based than you might believe -- only about

15% as it turns out.  And don't forget the practice of off-labeling drugs, which

bypasses all testing -- and of which the FDA feels so highly that they've

decided to eliminate virtually all restrictions. And then, there's the fact that

much of what we think is evidence-based, turns out, on closer examination, to

actually be based on very weak evidenceand is often contradictory. Bottom line:

evidence-based medicine is great in theory, not so much in practice.

 

 

9. Medical imaging: 471 votes. The X-ray was accidentally discovered in 1895.

Since then, the field has expanded, giving us computed tomography (CT scans),

positron emission (PET scans), magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), and

ultrasound.

 

What can you say bad about medical imaging? Oh yeah, right -- the fact that

continued exposure to X-rays is a contributing factor to cancer. But other than

that….

 

Then again, MRI's certainly avoid that problem.

 

 

10. Computers: 405 votes. From medical records to insurance, to making sure

your new medication isn't going to clash with an existing one, computers are now

considered as important as their stethoscopes by some doctors. They've been in

use in medicine since the early 1960s. Doctors can access information on new

drugs and interactions, new medical studies, and clinical trials, and keep

patient records stored at their fingertips.

 

Okay, I'm not sure how this qualifies as an advancement in medicine. It's an

advancement in technology that has been incorporated into medicine. You might as

well claim automobiles as a major advancement in medical technology since they

allow ambulances to reach hospitals more quickly. Or for that matter, what about

telephones and fax machines that allowed doctors in different cities to confer

about the same patient in real time. I'm sorry, computers are a great

advancement, but do not qualify as a medical advancement per se.

 

Or if they do qualify as a medical advancement, then computers qualify equally

as an " alternative health advancement. " Think about it. Thanks to computers, I

can communicate the principles of alternative health, recommend supplements and

therapies, and call government health agencies to task -- and broadcast that

information to my r base, which is located in virtually every country

in the world (hello, all of you in Iran, Zambia, and Malaysia) with the push of

a button.

Conclusion

But enough playing around. Let me list what I consider to be some of medicines

greatest advancements… yet to come.

The medical hit parade according to Jonny Nostradamus

1. Stem cell research: Despite a great deal of resistance to stem cell research

outside of the medical community, advances have continued -- and in most cases

without the need for embryonic stem cells. Tests on mice for treatment of

diabetes have shown that stem cell therapy can indeed stimulate the regeneration

of lost beta cells to produce insulin. And companies are now gearing up to begin

marketingthe use of umbilical cord stem cells in the " theoretical " treatment of

a whole range of disease. Although more wishful thinking than practical at the

moment, stem cell therapy is likely to begin asserting itself as a major medical

treatment for a multitude of diseases in the next 10-20 years.

 

 

2. Emergency surgery: It doesn't matter how many supplements you take or how

good your diet, after a major accident, you're going to be thankful for all of

the great advancements in surgical technique and body part repair that we have

witnessed over the last 50 years. Sadly, much of the great advancements in

surgical technique have come as the result of treating battlefield wounds and

automobile accidents. Truly, there is almost no limit to the types of wounds and

injuries that can now be successfully treated by surgeon.

 

 

3. Prosthetics: The advancement in prosthetics is almost mind boggling --

again, something beyond the capability of alternative medicine. In fact, Luke

Skywalker's prosthetic arm in The Empire Strikes Back is looking less like

science fiction by the day. And it's not just limbs, the vision goggles that

allowed the blind Geordi LaForge in Star Trek to see are also becoming reality.

 

 

4. Sub cellular intervention (gene therapy, metabolomics, and metagenomics):

Even though I made fun of it earlier, gene therapy is coming. Yes, diet and

lifestyle can turn genes on and off, but gene therapy will ultimately be able to

replace missing genes and repair defective genes. Again, we're talking 10-20

years down the road before we see any significant number of practical

applications, but they're coming.

 

But gene therapy is just the tip of the iceberg. Metabolomics is the study of

all of the byproducts produced by your body's myriad metabolic processes. These

metabolites are easily found in the urine and blood and provide a wealth of

information as to the state of your health, and more importantly, where your

health is headed. Certain patterns of metabolites can easily identify

schizophrenia, and more importantly, how a patient is likely to respond to a

particular drug when treating that schizophrenia. Metagenomics, on the other

hand,  is the study of the bacteria that live in and on our body. That's right,

we are not alone. Over 1,000 species of bacteria live symbiotically not just in

our guts, but in our noses, mouths, urinary tracts, and on our skin (6 different

species in the crook of your elbow alone).  We now know, for example, that the

bacteria on your skin moisturize it and that the bacteria in your gut moderate

inflammatory bowel problems and

may determine whether or not you become obese.

 

 

5. Crisis intervention and options for those who won't take care of themselves:

Even though we know that diet and lifestyle can prevent and/or reverse much of

the catastrophic illness we see in the world today, that doesn't matter to huge

segments of the population. Heck, everyone knows smoking is unhealthy, and yet

vast numbers of people throughout the world still choose to smoke. The bottom

line is that we need options for those people who are too undisciplined or

unwilling to take control of their own health. And we need options for those

people who need to buy time while pursing an alternative option when their

condition is discovered late in the game. Medicine can play an essential role in

buying time in times of crisis and in providing options for people who won't

take care of themselves.

The role of medicine

As we look back, it is easy to see that modern medical science has indeed made

incredible advances and contributions which have alleviated much pain and

suffering -- and will likely continue to do so as humanity stumbles into the

future. However, in our exploration, we we have seen glimpses of medicine's

darker side-- chinks in the armor of its accomplishments if you will. For now,

though, let's give medicine its due and leave on a high note. Congratulations to

doctors and all they have done!

In our next issue, however, we will explore some of the less positive aspects of

modern medicine's " achievements. "