Top: Hippocrates, one of the founders of Western Medicine. He is one of the key founders of holistic medicine from which today’s official modern allopathic medicine has deviated
Question A: To alleviate human suffering and durably resolve diseases and heal, is it better to have the conventional allopathic medicine status or the status of a non medical health professional ?
Proposed Answer: Christian’s experience compels him to answer as follows: if the practitiner wants to make lots of money, it’s better to be a medical doctor. If he or she has the passion to heal and serve the Hippocrates Oath, it’s better to be a non medical health professional.
Question B: If the patient can’t cope with pain and-or has some other emergency for which holistic techniques do not respond sufficiently, should the non medical health professional refer to a medical allopathic doctor ?
Proposed Answer: If we are dealing with emergency and acute care and the patient can’t take charge of his or her own condition via the self-repair homeostatic mechanisms of holistic healing, it’s important for the non medical health professional to team up with competent conventional allopathic medical doctors and work together with enthusiasm.
Notwithstanding his formal training in conventional allopathic and acupuncture medicine. Christian prefered to practice with a “ naturopath” status instead of an allopathic medical lience, this way he was not obliged to prescribe dubious allopathic synthetic prescription drugs and implement symptomatic and often deleterious allopathic procedures and standards that for him were not in his client’s best interests. (1)
To serve his passion for the healing arts and avoid being forced to harm patients, this status was the best strategy to adopt. (2)
And as a bonus, Christian was able to honor Hippocrates’ oath “primum non nocere” (first do no harm) (3) with gusto.
In this perspective, the Holistic Justice Institute, one of our sister institutes, confirms that today, in most Western countries and in particular in the United States, a non medical health or wellbeing professional status is the best way to serve science-based medicine, thanks to which we can alleviate human suffering and minimize diseases.
“On the other hand, the non licensed holistic practitioner (1) is relatively free to practice alternative and holistic techniques as long as these techniques are not accompanied with medical claims or use allopathic interventions” (Source) (4)
Although it is ok to include an allopathic doctor in one’s team, be it a health clinic, a hospital, a family or individual, this should be done on the basis of employing an allopathic doctor as a “coach” for most of his labor hours, dispensing up to date information on the chemical, surgical and technological innovations of his-her profession.
Securing informed consent with the best available information on all credible options is always a must in medicine.
The facts confirm that allowing most conventional allopathic doctors to impose the conventional standards of care they learn in formal medical schools and allopathic symposia on under-educated (medically speaking) patients is too dangerous and fraught with costly complications, both for the patient and for Society. (Evidence)
If the goal is to get the patient to better activate his self-repair and homeostasis mechanisms, it is crucial to first help the patient avoid anything and everything that will undermine (harm) any of his physiological functions, including his or her happiness status.
The evidence shows that the best way to do that is to adopt lifestyle and holistic protocols.
As a bonus, these life-enhancing protocols will also improve the patient’s major biological functions, including his-her “Joie de Vivre” consciousness. If we really want to durably reverse diseases and energy blocakages, it is crucial to first and foremost optimize the patients wellbeing via detoxification, heat therapy, vibrant clinical nutrition, herbology, aromatherapy, meditation, musicotherapy, balneotherapy, clinical massage, acupuncture, heliotherapy and the like.
In the rare cases where the patient is not thriving with holistic protocols, the non medical health team should combine holistic protocols with the best of what the mainstream health sciences have to offer, which may include, on rare occasions, conventional allopathic medicine.
If this is the case, then the allopathic conventional doctor would change “casquettes’ he or she would shift from being a coach to a drug and surgery technician.
In emergency and acute care, there are some allopathic procedures that can be necessary, especially if the patient is not able to take charge of his or her emergency and pain.
So differently from most allopathic medical doctors who quackify and exclude en bloc all of “alternative medicine”, holistic health practitioners do not, there are times when allopathic medicine can be necessary.
However, since the data shows that over 95 percent of ailments and chronic diseases can be resolved holistically, notably when the patient actively complies and takes charge of his-her own health, (5) the allopathic medical doctor’s standards of care should only be adjunctive, used when needed and first with small doses.
And this should be done under holistic and happy conditions (ie, with chronobiology, biophysics principles, strengthening the liver to deal with these synthetic chemicals, hyperthermia and fasting with cytotoxic chemo and radiation and other modalities). See the Institute’s workshops and content for greater details.
Section
Finding of Facts
Finding of Facts:
Chronic disease affects one out of two Americans and causes seven of 10 deaths in the United States. One in 45 children now has autism spectrum disorder, up from just one in 500 in 1999. More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes, and cancer combined. 50 million Americans (approximately one in six) have an autoimmune disease (more than cancer and heart disease combined) Alzheimer’s is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States; the number of deaths has increased by 89 percent since 2000. Alzheimer’s kills more people than prostate and breast cancer combined. 100 million Americans—nearly one in three—have either prediabetes or diabetes.
The rate of type 2 diabetes in children
and teens is increasing by almost 5 percent a year
Costs
Chronic disease will generate $47 trillion in healthcare costs globally by 2030 if the epidemic is unchecked. That’s more than the annual GDP of the six largest economies in the world.
The United States spends $3.2 trillion a year on healthcare.
That’s the equivalent of 18 percent of our gross domestic product,
or roughly $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.
And while it’s lining plenty of people’s pockets, it’s doing little to stave off the slow-moving plague that is chronic disease.
It’s enough to take your breath aay, isn’t it?
As of this writing, the collective cost of medical care in the United States today has topped $3.4 trillion per year. In 2016, the average amount spent per person on medical care was $10,000. In 2018, that figure is expected to rise sharply by 34 percent. And by the year 2023, American society can expect to be shelling out $15,000 per person to cover individual medical costs.
Is this truly sustainable? Absolutely not. It isn’t even sustainable
.
SOURCE: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2016; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2015, 295; Johns Hopkins University Partnership for Solutions 2000. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control; American Autoimmune-Related Diseases Association
France HOL MED
NEW MODEL
Prevent and reverse chronic disease, instead of just managing it SPA
Provide that vital (and missing) layer of support to help patients make lasting diet, lifestyle, and behavior changes, to cope with stress, and to provide moral and emotional support
Section
A worldwide epidemic of chronic disease, and complications thereof, is underway big time, with no sign of abatement. Healthcare costs have increased astronimally. tremendously, principally because of the need to treat chronic complications of non-communicable diseases including cardiovascular disease, blindness, end-stage renal disease, and amputation of extremities. Current healthcare systems fail to provide an appropriate quality of care to prevent the development of chronic complications without additional healthcare costs. A new paradigm for prevention and treatment of chronic disease and the complications thereof is urgently required. Several clinical studies have clearly shown that frequent communication between physicians and patients, based on electronic data transmission from medical devices, greatly assists in the management of chronic disease. However, for various reasons, these advantages have not translated effectively into real clinical practice. In the present review, we describe current relevant studies, and trends in the use of information technology for chronic disease management. We also discuss limitations and future directions.
Keywords: Ubiquitous, Healthcare, Diabetes mellitus, Quality of care
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INTRODUCTION
The incidence of chronic disease, including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and cardiovascular disease, has increased rapidly as industrialization becomes ubiquitous [1,2]. The worldwide diabetic population is projected to increase from 366 million in 2011 to 552 million in 2030 [3]. Diabetes is already a major healthcare burden; the annual mortality is estimated to be 4.6 million [4]. In South Korea, the prevalence of diabetes among adults aged 30 years or over is about 12.4%, and the estimated number of diabetic subjects 4 million [5]. It is essential to improve medical services to ensure effective high-quality medical treatment; this obviously increases both demand and cost. Further increases in the incidence of chronic disease and accompanying complications are inevitable unless the current system is changed. The social and economic expense of change must be accepted.
In patients with chronic diseases, prevention of various complications is generally more important than treating the disease per se. However, this is extraordinarily expensive. For example, the annual cost of treating diabetic complications in the United States is 45 billion US dollar (USD) [6,7]. Complications can be prevented if chronically diseased patients maintain healthy lifestyles. Thus, an ideal management system would allow remote 24-hour communication between the patient and a medical support team, to jointly plan lifestyle behavior and to monitor aspects of the disease. However, this is currently impossible.
Current healthcare systems focus on treatment-based care. A new focus on the prevention of chronic diseases is essential. Healthy high-risk subjects must be taught how to manage their lifestyles; they need information on diet and exercise. Current medical systems lack the resources to focus on lifestyles, being restricted in time, by place, and by cost. Diet and exercise interventions must be integrated into the daily lives of all diabetic patients. In South Korea, only 29.5% of such patients attain the target glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level (below 6.5%); diabetes management is thus generally unsuccessful.
1. Yoon KH, Lee JH, Kim JW, Cho JH, Choi YH, Ko SH, Zimmet P, Son HY. Epidemic obesity and type 2 diabetes in Asia. Lancet. 2006;368:1681–1688. [PubMed]
2. Chan JC, Malik V, Jia W, Kadowaki T, Yajnik CS, Yoon KH, Hu FB. Diabetes in Asia: epidemiology, risk factors, and pathophysiology. JAMA. 2009;301:2129–2140. [PubMed]
3. International Diabetes Federation. International Diabetes Federation 2011 [Internet] Brussels: International Diabetes Federation; c2014. [cited 2015 Jun 3]. Available from: http://www.idf.org.
4. International Diabetes Federation. IDF Diabetes Atlas Fifth Edition [Internet] Brussels: International Diabetes Federation; c2014. [cited 2012 Jun 25]. Available from: www.diabetesatlas.org.
5. Jeon JY, Ko SH, Kwon HS, Kim NH, Kim JH, Kim CS, Song KH, Won JC, Lim S, Choi SH, Jang MJ, Kim Y, Oh K, Kim DJ, Cha BY Taskforce Team of Diabetes Fact Sheet of the Korean Diabetes Association. Prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes according to fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c. Diabetes Metab J. 2013;37:349–357. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
6. Caro JJ, Ward AJ, O’Brien JA. Lifetime costs of complications resulting from type 2 diabetes in the U.S. Diabetes Care. 2002;25:476–481. [PubMed]
7. American Diabetes Association. Economic consequences of diabetes mellitus in the U.S. in 1997. Diabetes Care. 1998;21:296–309. [PubMed]
Section B
NEW MODEL
How hol med works
Many of you may be disillusioned with traditional medical practice and may be curious about Functional Medicine— one of the approaches that Chris will be discussing at length in this book.
Functional Medicine is a comprehensive theoretical framework for medicine that incorporates a modern understanding of the body as a complex adaptive system, an integrated biological ecosystem, an interdependent, web-like network of biological functions. It provides a new set of lenses through which to interpret and orga- nize complex biological and social information so that we understand much better why we get sick and how we heal. Functional Medicine guides the clinician to a more comprehensive view of the whole organism, not just organs—the whole system, not just the symptoms.
Functional Medicine also provides a practical clinical framework for how the body’s physiologic systems are linked together and how their functions are influenced by both environment (diet, lifestyle, microbes, aller- gens, environmental toxins, and stresses) and genetics (Loscalzo et al. 2007). Applied in practice, it can more
Foreword · 11
effectively prevent, treat, and often cure chronic condi- tions, at lower cost, through a new way of seeing disease based on underlying causes, and by developing treatment models that can restore balance within dysfunctional biological systems and networks.
A classic patient story highlights the failure of our cur- rent model and the power of Functional Medicine to solve complex chronic illness. At fifty-seven, the patient described himself as in general good health and was eager to climb Kilimanjaro. He took fifteen different medica- tions for his colitis, asthma, alopecia areata (total hair loss), and hypertension. He was well treated by an internist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, and dermatologist, all of whom made the correct “diagnosis” for each discrete disease based on symptoms (not causes) and provided the appropriate medications for the symptoms or diagnosis. All of his “diseases” were inflammatory in nature, but no physician had investigated the underlying cause of the systemic inflammation that was manifesting in so many ways. Clearly, knowing the names for all his diseases did not help him get better or provide a path to understanding the root causes.
A Functional Medicine work-up that looked at common underlying pathways of disease and dysfunction revealed that each of this patient’s diagnoses could be explained
12 · UNCoNVeNTIoNAL MedICINe
by the inflammation caused by something he was eating—
Functional Medicine also provides a practical clinical framework for how the body’s physiologic systems are linked together and how their functions are influenced by both environment (diet, lifestyle, microbes, aller- gens, environmental toxins, and stresses) and genetics (Loscalzo et al. 2007). Applied in practice, it can more
Foreword · 11
effectively prevent, treat, and often cure chronic condi- tions, at lower cost, through a new way of seeing disease based on underlying causes, and by developing treatment models that can restore balance within dysfunctional biological systems and networks.
A classic patient story highlights the failure of our cur- rent model and the power of Functional Medicine to solve complex chronic illness. At fifty-seven, the patient described himself as in general good health and was eager to climb Kilimanjaro. He took fifteen different medica- tions for his colitis, asthma, alopecia areata (total hair loss), and hypertension. He was well treated by an internist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, and dermatologist, all of whom made the correct “diagnosis” for each discrete disease based on symptoms (not causes) and provided the appropriate medications for the symptoms or diagnosis. All of his “diseases” were inflammatory in nature, but no physician had investigated the underlying cause of the systemic inflammation that was manifesting in so many ways. Clearly, knowing the names for all his diseases did not help him get better or provide a path to understanding the root causes.
A Functional Medicine work-up that looked at common underlying pathways of disease and dysfunction revealed that each of this patient’s diagnoses could be explained
12 · UNCoNVeNTIoNAL MedICINe
by the inflammation caused by something he was eating— gluten. Tests confirmed the diagnosis of celiac disease, which had been missed for more than forty years. Within six months, he was off most of his medications, had lost twenty-five pounds, his blood pressure had improved, he had no more asthma symptoms, he had normal bowel movements, and his hair was growing back. A review in the New England Journal of Medicine (Farrell 2002) cata- loged the myriad diseases that can be caused by celiac disease, from anemia to osteoporosis, from autoimmune diseases to thyroid dysfunction, from schizophrenia to psoriasis. Because each of these conditions may be triggered by multiple factors, not just eating gluten, con- sideration of him as a unique individual was critical. His genetics required that he not eat a specific food protein to maintain health, while another patient with the same
“disease” might need an entirely different treatment.
Clinical medicine can shift to applied systems medicine— personalized, predictive, preventative, and participatory (Snyderman and Langheier 2006). Most chronic disease is preventable, and much of it is reversible, if a compre- hensive, individualized approach addressing genetics, diet, nutrition, environmental exposures, stress, exer- cise, and psycho-spiritual needs is implemented through integrated clinical teams based on emerging research (ACPM 2009).
Foreword · 13
chronic, complex, multi-systems illnesses that were poorly understood and even more poorly treated
The answer to this challenge was a new, collaborative model of care that uses allied providers—both licensed clinicians like nurse practitioners and physician assis- tants, and non-licensed practitioners like nutritionists and health coaches—to provide a much-needed addi- tional layer of support for patients. These allied providers hold the patient’s hand through every step of the process, including answering questions about how to complete the lab testing, providing recipes and meal plans, offer- ing guidance on starting a meditation practice or a new exercise routine, or simply providing moral support
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