Integrative Medicine
Integrative Medicine
Integrative medicine is a healing movement that treats the individual, not the disease. It considers the whole person - body, mind, spirit and emotions - in the quest for optimal health and wellness.
Traditional allopathic medicine addresses the disease, rather than the individual. It seeks to resolve disease symptoms and does not necessarily address the root cause.
The practice of integrative medicine combines conventional and alternative therapies, including integrative nutrition, to prevent and treat disease, and most importantly, to promote optimal health.
“The best doctor gives the least medicine.” Benjamin Franklin
Allopathic Medicine
PROS & CONS
Modern allopathic medicine is very good at patching up sick people, but it is not as effective at ensuring health. It is vital in cases of trauma, serious accidents, broken bones, wounds, surgery and certain infections. It’s reactive and focused on drugs, radiation and surgery. Treatments begin after disease is diagnosed, and address symptoms, not the root cause. It does not emphasize disease prevention.
ASSUMPTIONS
Medical practices reflect the general beliefs of the society. Our assumptions about health and disease can be condensed into a few beliefs, namely:
1) physiological symptoms are faulty reactions of the body to normal stimuli;
2) surgical interventions and chemical substances can stop disease and restore health; and
3) nutrition is unrelated to symptoms and disease.
ERRORS
Our first error is believing that symptoms are meaningless phenomena. Symptoms are expressions of the condition of the body, and convey important information.
The second error is that drugs can always heal us. Medication masks symptoms, and cause side effects. More seriously, they do not address the root cause of the problem, and thus do not heal.
The third error is that nutrition is unrelated to disease. Food provides nutrients and acts as medicine, preventing and treating disease.