Page 20 - Fall2020
P. 20

My training      LOST WISDOM AND LOST RESILIENCY          declining by age twenty-seven.  Compared to
                                                                                                  3
                                 Before I discuss iron further, let’s consider  what the previous generation (born in the 1960s
              taught me       the traditional wisdom that we have lost—  and 1970s) faced at the same ages, millennials
           that patients      wisdom that I believe to be divine in origin.  experienced double-digit increases for eight of
           experiencing       In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr.  ten health conditions from 2014 to 2017.
                                                                                                         3
              symptoms        Weston A. Price discusses the Indians of the   This dismal picture is not for lack of medi-
                              Yukon (pages 279-80), describing how white  cal intervention. The U.S. spends more on health
          had only two        prospectors eating canned foods died of scurvy,  per capita than any Organisation for Economic
          options: take       thought “[a]ny Indian man or woman, boy or  Co-operation and Development (OECD) coun-
               a drug or      girl could have told [them] how to save [their]  try and leads the world for performance of
                              life by eating animal organs or the buds of  MRIs, CT scans, tonsillectomies, coronary
            continue to       trees.” Dr. Price also recounts the story of an  bypasses, knee replacements and caesarean
         suffer. I didn’t     engineer-prospector who “nearly went blind  sections.  Compared to other countries, Ameri-
                                                                               4
                                                                                                     5
            understand        with so violent a pain in his eyes that he feared  cans also rely more on medication.  After age
                              he would go insane.” The cause (though he did  twenty, it’s essentially normal to be on multiple
               that there     not know it) was vitamin A deficiency. One  medications.  In short, we spend a whole lot of
                                                                                  6
             was a third      day, while weeping “in despair of ever seeing  money, we do a whole lot of interventions, we

                option—       his family again,” he encountered an old Indian  go to the doctor the most—and we get the worst
                              who recognized the problem. After catching a  outcomes. The current system is failing.
                 address      fish, the Indian “threw the fish out on the bank
                 the root     and told the prospector to eat the flesh of the  BEYOND SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT
                              head and the tissues back of the eyes, including   Both of my grandfathers were small-town
                   cause.     the eyes, with the result that in a few hours his  country doctors who could do everything from
                              pain had largely subsided. In one day his sight  deliver babies to fix broken bones. I went to
                              was rapidly returning, and in two days his eyes  medical school because I wanted to be like them.
                              were nearly normal.”                     However, my training taught me that patients
                                 Of course, modern science has since estab-  experiencing symptoms had only two options:
                              lished that animal foods—and particularly the  take a drug or continue to suffer. I didn’t un-
                              tissues in back of the eyes—are one of the rich-  derstand that there was a third option—address
                              est sources of vitamin A. However, the reason I  the root cause.
                              share Dr. Price’s stories is to underscore the fact   In my early years of practice, I perfected
                              that we’ve lost wisdom that we urgently need.  the seven-minute visit and the art of billing.
                              Consider what the U.S. health picture looks  With high patient volumes and reimbursement
                              like today. Compared to other wealthy nations,  rates, I helped my county pay off a one-million-
                              U.S. infant mortality and life expectancy are  dollar clinic within a year. Things were going
                              both rock bottom—more of our babies die, and  so well that the clinic even got written up in
                              Americans as a whole die younger than those  The Washington Post. I thought I was living my
                              from other wealthy nations. American children  dream as a small-town family doctor. But there
                              now “are destined to live shorter lives than  was one problem: no one was getting better, and
                              [their parents].”                        that bothered me.
                                           1
                                 When it comes to the percent of the popula-  Looking for answers, I met an integrative
                              tion over age sixty-five with two or more chronic  doctor who told me that there is no such thing as
                              diseases, we’re number one. Autoimmune  “disease,” only “consequences” and inflamma-
                              diseases, obesity and cancer have skyrocketed.  tion. After I sent him ten of my sickest patients
                              As Bloomberg put it a couple of years ago,  and they all came back better, our clinic began
                              Americans are “retiring later, dying sooner and  focusing on going after “bugs” and toxins:
                              sicker in-between.”  Equally worrisome, a study  Candida, mold, heavy metals, glyphosate and
                                              2
                              of millennials (born in the 1980s and 1990s)  more. (In the U.S., the list of potential toxins is
                              released by Blue Cross Blue Shield in April  long: Over eighty thousand different chemicals
                              2019 showed that millennials’ health starts  are registered for use, but almost none has been
         18                                       Wise Traditions                                    FALL 2020
   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25