{"id":2147,"date":"2015-03-09T15:12:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T15:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2015-04-23T15:17:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T15:17:21","slug":"un-sciences-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/un-sciences-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Un-Sciences of Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MedicalScienceBroken\"<\/a><\/strong>Is there a science of medicine? What are the fundamental theories of medicine? What are the fundamental theories of illness? Why doesn’t medicine have a\u00a0basic theory of cures<\/a>? What is the theory of prevention?<\/p>\n

Is physics a science? Yes. Any university, in many countries can provide an introductory text to the concepts and theories of physics. \u00a0Chemistry is a science. The main theories of chemistry begin with the periodic table but they are so well developed that they intersect with the field of physics. \u00a0Is biology a science? Of course it is. Biology is the study of life, and all aspects of life.<\/p>\n

Is medicine a science?<\/p>\n

In The Modern Scientific Physician Series<\/a> author Olli S. Miettinen tells us that \u201cPractice without solid theory actually is the reality even in modern \u2018scientific\u2019 medicine of the Flexner-codified sort.<\/em>\u201d In the first chapter of the book he gives his conclusion: \u201cthe practice of medicine (medicine for short), like farming, for example, is art and not science<\/em>\u201d\u00a0(Miettinen, 2001).<\/p>\n

In 1855, anatomist and psychologist Xavier Bichat wrote: \u201cMedicine is an incoherent assemblage of incoherent ideas, and is, perhaps, of all the physiological Sciences, that which best shows the caprice of the human mind. What did I say! It is not a Science for a methodical mind. It is a shapeless assemblage of inaccurate ideas, of observations often puerile, of deceptive remedies, and of formulae as fantastically conceived as they are tediously arranged.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Has much changed?<\/p>\n

Ben Goldacre, author of \u201cBad Science\u201d and \u201cBad Pharma\u201d, says: “Medicine is broken…. We like to imagine that medicine is based on evidence, and the results of fair tests. In reality, those tests are often profoundly flawed.<\/em>” Unfortunately, Ben is only looking at a very small part of the problem.<\/p>\n

Is the field of medicine scientific? \u00a0If you think so, test yourself. Can you answer some simple questions?<\/p>\n

What are the basic, fundamental theories of medicine?
\n… there are none…<\/p>\n

Is medicine is a\u00a0science, or the practice of treating illness?
\n… medicine is all practice. \u00a0It uses science, but it is not a science.<\/p>\n

What is the first principle of ‘illness’? There are many practices of medicine, from ‘so called’ modern medicine, and many other fields like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Homeopahty, Naturopathic Medicine, etc. Is there a common theory or principle of illness? No, there is not.<\/p>\n

I will answer this one:<\/p>\n

The fundamental principle of illness, which is acknowledged by the actions of every field of medicine, but documented and studied by none of them, is both trivial, and profound.<\/p>\n

Every illness has a cause.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Every illness has a cause, or causes. It’s so simple, it’s almost not worth stating. But by not stating this simple principle, by not studying this simple principle, every field of medicine finds it too easy to jump to treating symptoms of illness, rather than searching for cause.<\/p>\n

I’m not talking about x, y, and z causes cancer, and other modern medical nonsense. I’m talking about each and every specific case of an illness. \u00a0For every specific case of cancer, for each and every specific case of an illness, there is a cause, or causes. That is the first and fundamental principle of illness. Sometimes, it is acknowledged by medicine, but more often, it is not. Of the top 100 best selling medicines in 2013, only 4 actually cure the illness being treated. The others\u00a0address signs and symptoms of illness, but cannot cure. \u00a0Why not? Because they do not attempt to identify, much less address,\u00a0the cause.<\/p>\n

What is the definition of ‘cure’? \u00a0How can we cure? \u00a0How can we know when a cure is complete? MERCK’s manual of diagnosis and therapy does not have the word ‘cure’ in the index. It does not define the word ‘cure’. Neither does the authoritative Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. \u00a0If you search for cure in either, you will find that the meaning of ‘cure’ changes with the illness, changes with the breeze. \u00a0If you want to find cures, or claims of cure, you will find more of them outside the field of conventional medicine. Only ‘alternative medicines’ dare to speak of cures. Modern medicine is silent.<\/p>\n

Why is there no science of medicine? That reason is also trivial. Medicine cannot be a science, because it is incomplete by definition. Medicine is all about illness. Medicine is blind to health. If you are not ill, if you have no ‘diagnosis’, medicine has nothing to say – except perhaps to search for an earlier diagnosis. \u00a0Without a diagnosis, no treatment can be prescribed, except by random guesswork.<\/p>\n

Without studies of health, of healthicine, medicine is incomplete.<\/p>\n

What is the main principle of prevention of illness? \u00a0Pick up any medical news article and you’ll find the medical answer in a minute. \u00a0Eat a healthy diet. \u00a0Get lots of exercise. Don’t smoke. Wash your hands. \u00a0That’s it. Simplistic nonsense. We know that ‘health’ is the best preventative, but we don’t study health, we study illness instead.<\/p>\n

Eat a healthy diet. \u00a0But what is a healthy diet? If we were looking for the healthiest diet, where should we look? The obvious place to look for the healthiest diet is in the temple of medicine, a hospital, or in a long term care facility. That’s where a healthy diet is most necessary, and could be most effective. Is hospital food the healthiest diet? Why not? Because the science of nutrition, as part of the un-sciences of medicine, is entirely based on illness, not on health.<\/p>\n

Hippocrates said \u2018Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.<\/em>\u2019 What are\u00a0the differences between food and medicines? What is the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) official position on foods vs medicines? Answer: “(not a food)”. Which illnesses do we know that can only be cured by foods, and not by medicines?<\/p>\n

What is an alternative medicine? How many official \u2018alternative medicines\u2019 exist, according to the FDA? \u00a0Answer: none.<\/p>\n

Theory of Medicine?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no theory of medicine. There are many theories about causes of diseases, but none that are widely accepted by the medical profession.<\/p>\n

There are no theories about the best treatments for disease, nor how to find the best treatments for disease, nor about the best ways to prevent disease.<\/p>\n

The reason there are no theories of medicine is simple and clear.<\/p>\n

Medicine is incomplete.<\/p>\n

Medicine is a complex group of studies of illness, but no-one studies healthicine, the arts and sciences of health and healthiness. Without a science of healthicine, medicine jumps from one illness to another, from one treatment to another, from one side effect to another, from one patient to another, but never settles down to study fundamental concepts.<\/p>\n

Medicine is very effective – from a commercial perspective. \u00a0Medicine is very effective, in life threatening situations. \u00a0Disclosure: modern medicine has saved my life several times. But, medicine is becoming less and less effective every day. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Medicine is drilling a hole, spiraling downward in the ‘search for cures’ ignoring the search for health. \u00a0In many cases today, health is the only effective cure, but medicine does not pursue health.<\/p>\n

These questions, these ideas, are the foundation of the book I am currently writing: The Un-Sciences of Medicine. \u00a0Modern medicine has a blind spot: health. When we take a health view, a healthicine view, of modern medicine – we can see many omissions, many weaknesses, and even many solutions that are ignored, hardly noticed, much less acknowledged, today.<\/p>\n

Can we fix medicine? I believe we need to ‘grow medicine’ to include studies of health. Or to develop the sciences of healthicine, to include the fields of medicine. When we do that, medicine will heal itself.<\/p>\n

to your health, tracy<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there a science of medicine? What are the fundamental theories of medicine? What are the fundamental theories of illness? Why doesn’t medicine have a\u00a0basic theory of cures? What is the theory of prevention? Is physics a science? Yes. Any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2347,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions\/2347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}