Worship At The Altar

Of Modern Medicine

What modern medicine has evolved to is indeed deeply impressive. And these technologies will only get better as time goes on.

But has our reverence for modern medicine drawn us into complacency and lack of responsibility? If something happens, we go see the doc and get a prescription. Pills, pills and more pills. That'll take care of the problem.

But as we look around, we question why are we one of the richest nations on the earth and beset with obesity and many chronic diseases. For one to be healthy, (i.e. no high blood pressure, low cholesterol, no pains, etc.) is considered the exception rather than the norm.

When we go to a doctor, we go because he is going to make us better. The doctor's going to tell us what is wrong with us and what we can do to make it better. Usually after the diagnosis, pills are prescribed.

A doctor's role is threefold:
1. Find out what's wrong with you.
2. Find out the cause of your sickness.
3. Doing what's necessary to make you better.

Medicine if very good at doing that when it comes to stuff like broken arms, gunshot wounds, and emergency medicine.

But for many of our pains, medicine has failed. Most visits to a doctor now are for steps 1 and 3, but step 2 is bypassed--finding the cause of the sickness. And the cause of many of our illnesses today is our modern lifestyle. Our way of eating.

Many of these diseases have taken years to happen. They did not just happen overnight. It's comes from meal after meal, year after year, assaulting our system with foods our bodies were not designed to eat. And since medicine can't cure these diseases, we're given pills. And these pills are mostly palliative, focusing on removing the pain, not on getting better.

But a lot of people are starting to understand the role of nutrition in health. And it will only be a bottom up, not a top down movement that will drive this trend. Why? Because it's opposed to modern medicines's belief system.