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Alternative Medicine is Mainstream Medicine

Deepak Chopra - January 09, 2009

Co-authored by Dean Ornish, Rustum Roy and Andrew Weil
 
In mid-February, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the Bravewell Collaborative are convening a "Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public." This is a watershed in the evolution of integrative medicine, a holistic approach to health care that uses the best of conventional and alternative therapies such as meditation, yoga, acupuncture and herbal remedies. Many of these therapies are now scientifically documented to be not only medically effective but also cost effective.
 
President-elect Barack Obama and former Sen. Tom Daschle (the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services) understand that if we want to make affordable health care available to the 45 million Americans who do not have health insurance, then we need to address the fundamental causes of health and illness, and provide incentives for healthy ways of living rather than reimbursing only drugs and surgery.
 
Heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer and obesity account for 75% of health-care costs, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible by changing diet and lifestyle. As Mr. Obama states in his health plan, unveiled during his campaign: "This nation is facing a true epidemic of chronic disease. An increasing number of Americans are suffering and dying needlessly from diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma and HIV/AIDS, all of which can be delayed in onset if not prevented entirely."
The latest scientific studies show that our bodies have a remarkable capacity to begin healing, and much more quickly than we had once realized, if we address the lifestyle factors that often cause these chronic diseases. These studies show that integrative medicine can make a powerful difference in our health and well-being, how quickly these changes may occur, and how dynamic these mechanisms can be.
 
Many people tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser or high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle -- what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and social support -- can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. But they often are. And in many instances, they're even more powerful.
 
These studies often used high-tech, state-of-the-art measures to prove the power of simple, low-tech, and low-cost interventions. Integrative medicine approaches such as plant-based diets, yoga, meditation, and psychosocial support may stop or even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, prostate cancer, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and other chronic conditions.
 
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that these approaches may even change gene expressionin hundreds of genes in only a few months. Genes associated with cancer, heart disease, and inflammation were downregulated or "turned off" whereas protective genes were upregulated or "turned on." A study published in The Lancet Oncology reported that these changes increase telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres, the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. Even drugs have not been shown to do this.
 
Our "health-care system" is primarily a disease-care system. Last year, $2.1 trillion were spent in the U.S. on medical care, or 16.5% of the gross national product. Of these trillions, 95 cents of every dollar was spent to treat disease after it had already occurred. At least 75% of these costs were spent on treating chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes that are preventable or even reversible.
The choices are especially clear in cardiology. In 2006, for example, according to data provided by the American Heart Association, 1.3 million coronary angioplasty procedures were performed at an average cost of $48,399 each, or more than $60 billion; and 448,000 coronary bypass operations were performed at a cost of $99,743 each, or more than $44 billion. In other words, Americans spent more than $100 billion in 2006 for these two procedures alone.

Despite these costs, a randomized controlled trial published in April 2007 in The New England Journal of Medicine found that angioplasties and stents do not prolong life or even prevent heart attacks in stable patients (i.e., 95% of those who receive them). Coronary bypass surgery prolongs life in less than 3% of patients who receive it. So, Medicare and other insurers and individuals pay billions for surgical procedures like angioplasty and bypass surgery that are usually dangerous, invasive, expensive, and largely ineffective. Yet they pay very little -- if any money at all -- for integrative medicine approaches that have been proven to reverse and prevent most chronic diseases that account for at least 75% of health-care costs. The INTERHEART study, published in September 2004 in The Lancet, followed 30,000 men and women on six continents and found that changing lifestyle could prevent at least 90% of all heart disease.
 
That bears repeating: The disease that accounts for more premature deaths and costs Americans more than any other illness is almost completely preventable simply by changing diet and lifestyle. And the same lifestyle changes that can prevent or even reverse heart disease also help prevent or reverse many other chronic diseases as well. Chronic pain is one of the major sources of worker's compensation claims costs, yet studies show that it is often susceptible to acupuncture and Qi Gong. Herbs usually have far fewer side effects than pharmaceuticals.
 
Joy, pleasure, and freedom are sustainable, deprivation and austerity are not. When you eat a healthier diet, quit smoking, exercise, meditate and have more love in your life, then your brain receives more blood and oxygen, so you think more clearly, have more energy, need less sleep. Your brain may grow so many new neurons that it could get measurably bigger in only a few months. Your face gets more blood flow, so your skin glows more and wrinkles less. Your heart gets more blood flow, so you have more stamina and can even begin to reverse heart disease. Your sexual organs receive more blood flow, so you may become more potent -- similar to the way that circulation-increasing drugs like Viagra work. For many people, these are choices worth making -- not just to live longer, but also to live better.
 
It's time to move past the debate of alternative medicine versus traditional medicine, and to focus on what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under which circumstances. It will take serious government funding to find out, but these findings may help reduce costs and increase health.
 
Integrative medicine approaches bring together those in red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, because these are human issues. They are both medically effective and, important in our current economic climate, cost effective. These approaches emphasize both personal responsibility and the opportunity to make affordable, quality health care available to those who most need it. Mr. Obama should make them an integral part of his health plan as soon as possible.
 
Dr. Chopra, the author of more than 50 books on the mind, body and spirit, is guest faculty at Beth Israel Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dean Ornish, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His most recent book is The Spectrum (Random House, 2007). Mr. Roy is a professor at Penn State and Arizona State University. Dr. Weil is director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.
 

 

Deepak Chopra on Intent.com

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Posted by Deepak Chopra at January 9, 2009 10:45 AM

Comments


You are absoloutly right..

Love

Simon xx

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KznTgPdaMt8

just listen to this man if you are serious about being healthier. Everything he says is the absoloute truth.


simon xx

Dear Deepak, this article contains some truths and I agree with the intent and it echoes some of what I have been communicating for a long time “life style changes” are only part of the picture and solution regarding disease. The focus on stopping smoking as if it is the cause of disease is really a status quo approach, misleading and directing attention away from the understanding as to the real causes.

I am also wary of a status quo endeavor, to appear to embrace a natural systems approach in an attempt to control and filter it or distort information regarding the least profitable optimum methods. Much like was done with the word “prevention” which had been used to mean correcting imbalance to one of catching a disease early by taking lots of tests to detect it. In fact some medical industrial complex interests took over the once pioneering magazine called Prevention and warped it and it now even includes drug advertising. If it is an honest evolution and a new set of intentions one would see and be glad for it and support it.

The National Academy of Sciences and the majority of academics and credentialed people have failed humanity due to dissonant corporate influence and ignorance. This is not to say there has not been benefit in certain contexts I am speaking only in summary. For example collectively those that are supposed to be authoritative on health have actually created the leading cause of death in the United States which is the American Medical System, a system compromised system by profit and the achievement of monopoly; there is actually a name for the condition “iatrogenic disease” and now applies to any adverse effect associated with any medical practitioner or treatment.

There is a minority of exceptional doctors, researchers, and academics that are forthright regarding the truth and are committed to science not warped by the politics of profit and for them I know only gratitude. Quite often these individuals are ostracized by their colleagues that have sold out to the old consciousness system.

Lastly the vast detail knowledge and understanding required to practice both healing and prevention is not yet being taught in medical schools which by the way were originally established by drug companies.

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE NEW CONSCIOUSNESS APPROACH

I am working to establish on a new approach and system that I have named the Bio Logic Systems Approach to healing and preventing system imbalance which includes providing enough bioactive compounds, the raw materials in balance, to meet the demands stipulated by the organisms environment which may include toxins and nutrient poor produce and food (packaged chemical compounds) damaged by processing. These factors require unnatural supplementation with natural active compounds native to the body’s bio logic system. Let me demonstrate it. You mentioned wrinkles.


Wrinkles by the way are caused mostly by aberrant cross linking of proteins which based on my current analysis of the volume of research available are due to enzyme shortages or the defective manufacturing of enzymes in the body due to resource shortages causing bio logic systems imbalance. Cross linking is regulated primarily by tissue-specific enzymes and when they are lacking in number unnatural bonds are formed producing wrinkles. Another factor is photon induced damage which can alter the proteins causing them to bond inappropriately or do damage to the machinery that manages them including the DNA of individual cells.

In the New Bio Logic system approach we understand that the body produces it’s own sun tan oil which is called Melanin. The percentage of this pigment in the skin is often used to classify or identify people. This pigment is derived from the amino acid Tyrosine. The increased production of melanin in human skin is called melanogenesis. It is stimulated by the DNA damages that are caused by UVB-radiation, and it leads to the development of a tan which protects the body from further damage from UVB-radiation adapting to the environment.

What we find though is that due to 90% of the population suffering from nutritional deficiency and toxic loading the Melanin producing signaling response and the actual manufacturing of Melanin is impaired. In fact THE USE OF SUNTAN LOTION would actually interfere with the natural process and make one dependant on the Sun Tan Lotion for protection! Building dependency on a purchased product rather than supporting natural systems? This is not to say that used intelligently with understanding Sun Tan Lotion may provide benefit in some circumstances.

IS ANYONE GETTING THE PICTURE?
The photochemical properties of melanin make it an excellent photoprotectant. It absorbs harmful UV-radiation and transforms the energy into harmless amounts of heat through a process called "ultrafast internal conversion". This property enables melanin to dissipate more than 99.9% of the absorbed UV radiation as heat and it keeps the generation of free radicals at a minimum. This prevents for example the indirect DNA damage which is responsible for the formation of malignant melanoma. THIS IS TRUE PREVENTION.

Staying out of the sunlight which I was the one to point out (not those the public entrusts to do so) would lead to increased lethal cancers and disease mostly due to Vitamin D deficiency and was some of the most damaging advice ever given by the credentialed Medical Industry with tort damages in the billions and qualifies as iatrogenic disease.

Of course this ignorance sells a lot of sun tan oil doesn’t it and guarantees revenue flows from cancer treatment down the line.

A bio logic systems approach would seek to correct the imbalances and lack of raw materials in good form to allow the body to protect itself with the facilitated and enabled production of melanin. Not by telling people to stay out of the sun or selling sun tan lotion. I don’t use sun tan lotion by the way and I do not burn and do not have wrinkles because I understand the process and allow my body to adapt to increased sun exposure naturally and supply it with what it needs to do so.

It is also important to note that even though you may engage in the natural ways you may still be affected by this ignorance via excessive taxation to pay Medicaid and Medicare and inflated consumer product costs due to business Medical Insurance expenses to cover the unnatural profitable for industry approach to disease. So it is important if you want to increase your wealth to bring everyone one you know to understand what I am talking about.

I am also promoting a new modality I have conceived of called “ELECTRON LOADING” for the human body, this has all to do with the benefits of Anti-oxidants and more. Oxidation is the loss of at least one electron when two or more substances interact. Oxidation is the cause of rusting and fresh fruit spoiling for example. It is also responsible for damage in the body at the micro level. You can think of it all as Electron Strippers (free radicals, carcinogens most things that are toxic are electron strippers) and Electron Donors (Anti-oxidants, Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Vitamin C).

In the body we have a bunch of micro machinery and information carriers if they meet up with an electron stripper the function of the machine can be damaged or the information being carried can be damaged causing system malfunction. The idea is to have adequate levels of the Electron Donors available to feed the electron strippers so they don’t do damage to the essential equipment. If one lives in an unnatural environment containing manmade toxins and is subject to perpetual stress due to the flawed financial system and the artificial economy. Just eating normally cannot provide adequate electron donors and one will not be able to overcome the biochemical imbalances induced. Therefore supplementation with vitamins, amino acids, minerals, and other native bioactive compounds will be necessary for health.

Ideally we will restore the planet to a manmade toxin free paradise which it was to start with and will correct the financial systems with a new genuine value exchange accounting system. Then we will be fine eating fruits, berries, nuts, Amaranth and fish and perhaps some eggs and cheese there really is no reason to kill warm blooded animals.

One point to understand is that the natural means of maintaining or achieving health cannot be monopolized and therefore the profit margins are small so most corporate entities, there are some exceptions, would not bother to invest here due to low returns. This is why the public sector which is us that do benefit and profit from health must provide the investment and direction.


As some will come to recognize I have an advantage over many, not all, there are some exceptions, with status quo credentials because I did not follow the path with it's limitations laid out by the status quo which included it’s status quo indoctrination into the grand fiction which benefits a minority at the expense of the majority. I am also not being rewarded by the status quo for participating in the system as so many other are.

I like to think of it as a transfer from Apex control to Base control. Apex control was necessary for evolution until the general population achieved a certain level of sophistication and knowledge but now Apex control is a detriment to evolution and is being eliminated.

I like to think of it as a transfer from Apex control to Base control. Apex control was necessary for evolution until the general population achieved a certain level of sophistication and knowledge but now Apex control is a detriment to evolution and is being eliminated.

Deepak mentioned smoking. Smoking introduces a toxic load which requires among other things about 100 mg of Vitamin C to process and eliminate. However smoking is not actually as toxic as out door air pollution in some area’s and indoor air toxins due to very poor ventilation systems in buildings, and may improve the body’s ability to process other air toxins. Nicotine is actually harmless and can provide biochemical benefit as a both a central nervous system stimulant and as a stimulus barrier allowing improved concentration. So why is there so much focus on stopping smoking and not the ventilation systems of building which have amounted to billions in tort damages to the employees that have worked in them? (Casinos are exception! they actually have proper ventilation systems, they must because people smoke in there). Why is their not so much focus on air pollution produced by vehicles? How much tort damage have those profiting from a dependence on oil and delaying a transition to alternate energy sources done?

Why is there is not a focus on enabling the body to process these toxic loads until we get rid of them?

From a bio logic systems perspective we can actually assist the body in handling the toxic load from both cigarettes and the environment. If one were to take 100 mg of vitamin C for each cigarette they would prevent deficiency occurring elsewhere as a result of smoking. It is actually this deficiency that increases the risk of disease not the cigarette smoke itself. If we were to add B1 and the Amino Acid L-Cysteine it would allow for the proper processing and elimination of the AH (Acetaldehyde), which is the major toxin introduced due to smoking.

THIS IS PREVENTION OF DISEASE

Fortunately, applied nutrition science offers some protection against chronic AH toxicity, even when it is not possible to completely avoid the four main offenders that promote AH in our bodies: alcohol, Candida, cigarettes, and heavy auto exhaust. Herbert Sprince, M.D. and his colleagues published many articles in the 1970s detailing the results of their experiments which used various nutrients to protect rats from AH poisoning. Sprince fed a control group of rats an amount of AH sufficient to kill 90% of the control group in 72 hours. The experimental group of rats given the same amount of AH were also given various nutrients, either singly or in combination, that might detoxify the AH. After 72 hours, the death rate for rats given large oral doses of Vitamin C was only 27% (vs 90% in controls), 20% for rats given the sulfur amino acid L-cysteine, 10% for rats receiving Vitamin B1, and an amazing 0% for rats protected by N-acetyl cysteine or lipoic acid. A lower dose combination of C, B1 and either L-Cysteine or N-acetyl cysteine also gave near 0% death rates! (7) But, the nutrient doses Sprince administered were rather gigantic compared to RDA levels of nutrients, being equivalent to multi-gram doses for humans. Fortunately, however, most people are not subjected to such high levels of AH, so lower doses of these nutrients would doubtless provide significant AH-detoxifying power when used on a long-term basis.


Many of you don’t know that Seagram’s realized that by adding B1 and several other nutrients to alcohol for consumption it would prevent cirrhosis of the liver several decades ago. When they attempted to do so the FDA protecting the disease profiteers stepped in and said you can’t do that! So for several decades a lot of unnecessary damage and loss of life has occurred! Yes, you should be all be very upset especially if you lost a loved one due to this or are currently suffering financial strife.

I am happy to inform the citizens of the United State that each of you individually is on average and depending on several factors due about $250,000 each in tort damages caused by the owners and managers of the industries.

Because this is a Nation of Law it means that the citizens of the United States will own much of the commercial assets in the United States, not the wealthy people, this is a result of the damages caused by them in the process of becoming wealthy, this includes all the assets of the Academic institutions and the Media as well since they helped perpetuate the large scale fraud and perversion of science and economic means.

Then again if the wealthy all immediately fund the paradise restoration project and support the conversion to the new systems to eliminate the pain to the body of common people this may not be necessary and would be unproductive.

If they fail to do so immediate it will be a very productive thing to pursue.

Support the SAY NO TO DRUGS (as an approach to health) campaign that is coming, it’s going to ride on top of the neural burn in done as part of the War Against Drugs, which is moronic, because drugs don’t act, think or make decisions so as you can see it was simply a deception. The problem really is all about addiction to that which temporarily overcomes the pain that results from chronic societal, environmental, biological, and economic major and minor system imbalance. The human body produces opiates 100 times more potent then morphine. What we discover in the new Bio Logic System approach and understanding that during human body intelligent resource redirection and allocation as a result of scarcity of vitamin C, this is the first biological processing that is shut down the production of natural opiates. It makes perfect logical sense why should you feel good if there is an imbalance that threatens the operations of the body? How would the body communicate to it’s operator that something needs to be fixed or tended to? Bad feelings of course such that perhaps you might go consume some fruit and feel good again as natural opiate production is restored. Sure you could take a drug to feed the receptors that were naturally being populated before the imbalance but then you become dependant on the drugs and fail to correct the imbalance which causes addiction.

The wise seek to correct and maintain balance not hide or ignore the imbalance.

Crime and homelessness is a symptom of societal and economic imbalance. The mental problems associated with both are a result of the nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty and homelessness. Mental problems are not the cause of their situation but are a symptom.

Anti-depressants have subdued the natural response by the entire population to the great imbalance and have thwarted correction and further aggravated the imbalance. Anti-depressants cause an imbalance in the natural neurotransmitter regulation and feedback systems. When Anti-depressants are stopped abruptly due the inability to purchase the next prescription for example there is a major drop in serotonin levels leading to extreme bad feelings causing the person to lash out in violence. This is what caused people to act out what might have simply been a fantasy of retribution and actually commit things like school shootings and commit other domestic violence and crime.

In the Bio Logic System approach one would supply the body with Tryptophan, Vitamin C and B6 and magnesium to quickly restore serotonin levels to optimum levels.

Generally depression is natural and it is not a disease; it is a signal to create, change, or evolve. It’s only a disease when it is the result of deficiencies that degrades or impairs neurotransmission systems which can be healed by correcting the bio chemical imbalance involving native compounds. Something a drug cannot do because there are no natural regulating and information feedback systems in the body for artificial molecules or compounds produced by man and create more imbalances through out the system these are known as the side effects of the drugs which are better described as damage and malfunction indicators. The reason side effects vary so much is most related to the difference in the degree of biochemical deficiency and imbalance that exists in the body in the different individuals as well as the quality of each individuals diet their diet exercise etc.

By the way when I have a fever it is actually a somewhat euphoric expereince and I attribute it to increased vitamin C supplementation during that time and I don’t need to use any over the counter medication.

There is no cure for the common cold by the way and those searching can stop. You would not want to cure the natural response to the presence of a picornaviruse rhinoviruses or coronaviruse now would you? You would need to eliminate the existence of the viruses in the environment to cure it. An immune system operating at peak efficiency will detect and stop it dead in it’s tracks before it can even get started. If it does get started then fever will shut it down. But what is everyone taught to do? They interfere with the immune response with antihistamines shutting down production of antibody endowed mucous and fever with Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen.

If any of you are getting the hang of the Bio Logic Systems approach you might realize that if you are taking NSAIDS for something else your body will not be able to shut down viral replication by producing fever. But I bet your doctor did not know to tell you this and it probably doesn’t warn you on the label.

Decongestants (vasoconstrictors) and Cough suppressants all impair the bodies’ natural responses causing the condition to persist.

If you ever noticed the first response to the virus is a thin mucous and sneezing. If your bodies messaging system and antibody response and Macrophages are all at peak efficiency this is the only thing you will ever notice. If they are impaired as a result of operating system deficiencies it will then attempt to block the passage ways with a thicker mucous secretion as a secondary defense due to the failure of the first defense and so on.

You get the idea; keep your immune system in top operating condition and don’t interfere with it. There are natural compounds that can boost and enhance the performance of the immune system.

Stress which causes the production of cortisol shuts down immune system mechanisms as a part of resource reallocation needed to deal with the stress. Of course in a world of unnatural sources of stress, for example those due to an imbalanced and flawed economic value exchange system and the creation of artificial needs, and the fact you must participate in the man made system to get sustenance and have been deprived of access to the natural access once enjoyed by the American Indian that a few people did not control, the stress is perpetual for most and the immune system has little uptime. Natural stresses are short in duration.

Click my name and read "The End of Disease".

Lower your taxes and increase your wages.


Orac shreds Deepak Chopra's article to pieces. Enjoy.

The Three Musketeers of Woo meet d'Artagnan to fight for woo

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/the_three_musketeers_of_woo_meet_dartagn.php#more

Well, Irvine, this is how it always goes and it still is the darwinean direction of the ´ survival of the fittest´, in this case meaning, who can beat the other with words?

As long as we are staying stuck in this dualistic conversation, nothing will change in our world, whether it is the real world or the virtual internet world.

2009 is the year of Darwin in Europe, but also the European year of creativity and innovation.

What do you think will be our next evolution?


You don't have to take sides...just assess the arguments based on pure merit...

People like Deepak Chopra are a disgrace to any serious critical thinker.

The Chopra Bait and Switch

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2009/01/deepak-chopra_wall-street-journal_alternative-medicine.html

Orac's well supported take down is excellent btw.

Facts are just facts, that does not make them the truth.
There are times when magic happens and that is the truth for the moment.
1+1 sometimes = 3
It happens.
For some people alternatives are the norm and that works just fine in their lives. Some people stick strictly with modern medicine and they live sickly lives. I have witnessed both.
Some people get positive results from a placebo.

My point is that there is no one truth. What works for some does not work for others.
Critical thinking can let us down or help us just as much as magical thinking.

Sometimes when critical thinking bogs us down, it is a moment of magic that pushes it through.

So if critical thinking gets you through life, good for you but you don't have to be a buzz kill for those who live with magic.

derek

You are so right Derek.

The third factor to me is: spontaneity :)

Peace comes from peace!

Mieke

When medical science fails to heal we are asked to turn to God. The expectancy is healing. So why don't we do that in the first place. Why don't we turn to God.
I am blessed to be experiencing good health and instantaneous healings and i hope more and more of us turn to god rather than be subject to human opinions about health. human opinion keeps changing. God's love and care is constant and at hand.

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