In search of a cure

Let's start with a quiz. You're sitting in a chair watching TV when you feel the urge to want to get up and go for a walk. Its cold outside, so your common sense tells you that its easier to just stay indoors. But you just have to go somewhere. You

a) Continue watching TV and hope that with time, the feeling will go away
b) Put on a coat and brave the elements
c) Just walk around indoors
d) Make an appointment to see your doctor to see if you have "Restless Legs Syndrome"

If you answered d), then the medical establishment has succeeded in its goal of advertising every conceivable ailment and making you want to buy their product to rid yourself of it. When I say establishment, I mean not just the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the pill, but also doctors, who are too scared of getting sued for using their common sense; the insurance companies, who are just looking at their balance sheets anyway; and the all powerful FDA, which is essential a dictatorial wing of the government that believes it has the right to tell you how to live your life.

The above example is just one of many that are changing the face of an industry that once was hailed as the savior of mankind.The roots of medicine go back several thousands of years, with ancient Egyptians and Greeks investigating cures for every disorder they could come across. Knowledge of the human body was quite primitive in those days - its possible that some form of autopsy was done to understand the organs, but for the most part, the ancients were content with philosophizing about the function of the brain, heart, liver etc. Even into medieval times, there were theories regarding the four humers that controlled the body (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile), and the liver was regarded as the most important organ rather than the brain or heart.

At the same time, understanding the root cause of diseases as the result of infection by bacteria or viruses was starting to become the mainstay of medical theory. This was a time when a disease did not kill just a few people, but wiped out entire regions - think the Black Death of Europe, which took out perhaps half the existing population. You had smallpox, malaria, cholera, polio, typhoid, TB - all of which conspired to keep infant mortality high and also afflicted a good number of adults through their lives.

From the mid 19th century onwards, rapid advances in the field of medicine started to give those fighting these diseases an upper hand. Vaccinations, starting with Edward Jenner's famous one for small pox, resulted in better resistance at a young age - so much so that in 1978, the WHO regarded small pox as having been "eradicated" (of course, we know today that its likely that a small pox virus exists somewhere in the world, mutating itself into a form that might not be curable by known medicines). The basic elements of personal hygiene, such as washing hands and boiling water, also improved things a great deal. And then there were medicines (drugs) - penicillin being the best known example, and which has spawned perhaps thousands of pills that are consumed every second across the world.

Ah - but why are these pills being consumed? Not to cure a life threatening disease in most cases  - no, a vast majority of what people are taking these days is to manage "supposed" ailments, some that have been invented by the medical establishment when they found themselves running out of truly deadly diseases to cure. After all, what good is a pharmaceutical company if there are no problems left in the world? Why would you go to a doctor if you were guaranteed a healthy life?

Enter the age of restless legs and irritable bowels - this is what we have been reduced to in the 21st century! The mother of all these has to be ED - what 50 years ago would have been regarded as "getting too old for strenuous physical activity" has today become the most popular drug sold with a prescription (and if you see the ads on the internet, perhaps double that number without a prescription). I'm sure there is a department within each drug company that exists solely to dream up new conditions for which they can then turn around and charge you $5 per pill. They probably walk around in shopping malls and eavesdrop on conversations between elderly people (an especially vulnerable demographic) or groups of women (who tend to share more information on medical matters than men). Maybe they are even part of local civic organizations and use that as their insight into your specific problem.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the collaboration of the FDA - the all powerful government body what was setup primarily to ensure that no one could peddle snake oil remedies and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting population. And I'm sure that's how it worked in the early days - but now, the FDA seems to have been reduced to a rubber stamp for the most part. How else would you explain such amazing screw ups like approval given to Vioxx? Or the fact that E. Coli seems to turn up in everything from spinach to broccoli to beef? There has to be someone with common sense sitting at the FDA who concludes that PMDD is really the same thing as PMS, and therefore does not need its own name! Or that acid reflux disease can be managed by not eating 5 burgers in quick succession!

Natural cures/remedies exist for almost all known ailments, but the FDA chooses to ignore or, in some cases, actively oppose them. The famous lines "These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to cure, diagnose, treat or prevent any disease" are tantamount, at least in the US, to shutting the door on anything but the most sophisticated drug developed by one of the big 5 manufacturers.

Take the case of Activia, sold by Dannon, which is intended to help regularity. What the FDA is not convinced of, but perhaps 2 billion people worldwide know through experience, is that yogurt with active cultures has been used for centuries to help with digestive ailments. You don't need a billion dollar research program to tell you that! The same thing goes for diets with leafy green vegetables or with lots of fruits. Of course, try suggesting to the average person that they give up McDonald's in favor of a trip to Whole Foods, and you risk a backlash similar to the one that resulted in Louis XVI losing his head.

Anyway, enough of this rant - I think you get the point. Use common sense and live healthy, and don't get suckered into believing that you have a problem when you don't. Take a walk outside, plan a meeting with friends - instead of sitting in front of a computer living your life through Facebook (a subject of an upcoming post!) Speaking of which, I feel my legs getting a bit restless.