Have you ever wondered what is that stuff coming out of your nose when you have a common cold? Such nasal discharges are composed of dead viruses that were killed by the body's defenses, dead white blood cells that were killed as a result of the infection, and a liquid substance known as mucus which the body deploys as a vehicle to remove this dead matter.
If you take a conventional over-the-counter drug for the common cold, these drugs "work" by reducing the body's ability to create mucus, which simply inhibits the body's own efforts to eliminate the dead viruses from the body. Although these conventional drugs may stop the nasal discharge temporarily, the side effects of these drugs are that they lead to bronchial congestion, headache, and fatigue, which can be more problematic and discomforting symptoms than the original simple nasal discharge.
The lesson here is that just because a drug is effective in getting rid of a symptom does not necessarily mean that this treatment is truly curative (or even helpful).
Wisdom of the Body
The basic assumption behind the broad field of natural medicine is that the human body has an inherent wisdom within it that strives to defend itself and to survive. Symptoms of illness are not simply something "wrong" with the person, but instead, symptoms are actually responses and efforts of the organism to defend and heal itself against infection and/or stress. Hans Selye, MD, PhD, the father of stress theory, once asserted, "Disease is not mere surrender to attack but also the fight for health; unless there is a fight, there is no disease."
Our human body has survived these thousands of years because of its incredible adaptive capabilities, and one of the ways that it adapts is through the creation of symptoms. Whether it be through fever and inflammation, cough and expectoration, nausea and vomiting, fainting and comatose states, and even the variety of emotional and mental states, each symptom represents the best efforts of the bodymind to fight infection and/or adapt to physical and psychological stresses.
Although symptoms may be the best effort of the organism to defend itself at that time, it is not usually effective to simply let the body try to heal itself. Most often, some treatment must be provided to help nurture, nourish, and augment the body's own wisdom. The challenge to physicians, healers, and patients is to determine when to help aid this inner wisdom of the body and when to intervene to make certain that the body does not harm itself.
The word "symptom" comes from a Greek root and refers to "something that falls together with something else." Symptoms are a sign or signal of something else, and treating them doesn't necessarily change that "something else." Ultimately, a symptom is a signal, a warning light that something is off-balance. It is akin to an oil warning light in your car. Although this light will go off if you unscrew the lamp, this simple action doesn't solve the more complex problem that led to the light turning on in the first place.
In 1942 Walter B. Cannon, a medical doctor, wrote a seminal book entitled The Wisdom of the Body. This book, which is a classic in medicine, detailed the impressive and sophisticated efforts that the body deploys to defend and heal itself.
Many leading scientists, including the late Dr. Hans Selye, have taken Cannon's work further, recognizing that symptoms are actually efforts of the organism to deal with stress or infection. And even more recently, Randolph Nesse, MD, and George Williams, PhD, authored Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (New York: Times, 1995) in which they link the important role that symptoms and disease have to the evolution of the human body. Nesse and Williams show how our symptoms and seemingly normal body functions work as important defenses:
Without having to tell the bodymind what to do, our innate survival instinct has developed sophisticated responses to both old and new infections and stresses.
Concepts in new physics offer further support for the notion that living and non-living systems have inherent self-regulating, self-organizing, and self-healing capacities. This ongoing effort to maintain homeostasis (balance) and to develop higher and higher levels of order and stability have been described in detail by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ilya Prigogine in Order Out of Chaos, Fritjof Capra in The Turning Point, and Erich Jantsch in The Self-Organizing Universe. In systems thinking, "perturbations" are understood as efforts of a system to re-establish balance and to increase its complexity so that there is greater dynamic homeostasis.
Why Homeopathic Medicines Make Sense
The implications of recognizing that symptoms are efforts of the body to defend itself are significant. Because some conventional drugs work by suppressing symptoms, these drugs tend to provide helpful temporarily relief but tend to lead other new and more serious problems by inhibiting the body's defense and immune processes. Such drugs should be avoided except in dire situations or in extreme pain or discomfort when safer treatments are not working fast or adequately enough.
Because symptoms are adaptations of the body in its efforts to defend and heal itself, it makes sense to use treatments that mimic this wisdom of the body. Ultimately, homeopathic medicine is a well-known therapeutic modality that honors this wisdom of the body. Homeopathy is a type of "medical biomimicry" that uses various plant, mineral, and animal substances based upon their ability to cause in overdose the similar symptoms that the sick person is experiencing.
It may be no coincidence that two of the very few conventional medical treatments that augment the body's own immune system are immunizations and allergy treatments, and these drug treatment modalities "coincidentally" derive from the homeopathic principle of similar (treating "like with like"). (Note: A future blog will feature descriptions of and references to clinical and basic sciences research that verify the efficacy and biological activity of homeopathic medicines.)
By using a medicine that causes similar symptoms as those of the sick person, the medicine is akin to being a "medical aikido" (the martial art that seeks to match and mimic the force of the attacker against the attacker).
It is not surprising that so many Eastern spiritual teachers have been trained in homeopathy or have simply become advocates for it. Swami Satchidananda and Swami Rama were formally trained in homeopathy, while Sri Aurobindo, Meher Baba, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Yogai Bhajan, Swami Muktananda, and Sri Chinmoy have been known to seek homeopathic care or advocate for it. The fact that many of these spiritual teachers also believe that life problems are not really "problems" but are opportunities for learning is part and parcel of the idea that symptoms are defenses in the body's efforts to learn how to adapt to the world around us.
The Latin words, vis medicatrix naturae," make reference to "the healing power of nature," and these words and concepts form the basis for naturopathic medicine. Despite maintaining a healthy respect for the healing power of nature, neither naturopaths nor homeopaths think that it is effective to just let the body heal itself. Usually, it is necessary to give the body specific tools/treatments that help in this healing process. Homeopathy and other natural medicines that nourish and nurture the body's own wisdom are good first steps to initiate a true healing beyond just symptomatic relief.
And when you consider that the most famous words from Hippocrates were, "First, do no harm." It seems that Hippocrates was instructing us all to first try safer methods before resorting to the big guns of more dangerous conventional medical methodologies.
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Dana Ullman: How Scientific Is Modern Medicine Really?
And as to the danger mongers concerning alternative health- over 27,000 people in the Unites states died as a result of Vioxx according to the FDA. Twenty seven thousand! And more drugs are showing deathly side effects and hospitals are full of individuals who suffer from the effects of medicine. So giving evidence of one or two problems as a result of alternative health is just plain hysteria.
Many people foolishly choose not to see a medical practitioner when they have a problem. You can't blame alternative health. And many people actually decide to engage with their health as a result of seeing an alternative health practitioner which makes them more likely to seek a diagnosis from a medical doctor.
Lets be a bit more balanced and little less hysterical. All of science is not at stake here. Homeopathy simply provides a wonderful alternative and Dana Ullman has done a great job in presenting a practical perspective.
How many car accident victims get sent to homeopathic hospitals? How does one dilute a bit of car to 1 part in a gazillion to save their life?
1) Water remembers the chemicals that are in it
This is nonsense, and considering all the chemicals that exist, it would be dangerous if this was true
2)Like cure like
This sounds like it makes sense. IT's sounds kind of like the way vaccines work. But ask yoursel,f does it make sense that a very small amount of caffeine will help with insomnia.
3) the higher something is diluted, the mroe it works
this makes the least amount of sense. Would you rather take two advil for a headache, or a tenth of one advil dissolved in a gallon of water, and then only drinking an eye dropper amount of that water.
Lastly, if you remember that zicam medicine being recalled, homepathic medicines do not need to be approved the same way even ovevr the counter medicines need to be approved. This means that there claims are not fully evaluated and the ingredients are not regulated.
knowing all these things why would anyone use it?
Remedies go through a potentizing process, similar to that used by nobel prize winner Luc Montagnier, PhD in his most recent work on Electro magnetic fields in substances that have been serially diluted. THere are many websites, to which the above commenter apparently has no access, which will explain the process of potentizing a remedy. It isn't a simple matter of diluting a substance as he would like to have you believe. And no, I wouldn't take a diluted Advil, because I would take an appropriate homeopathic remedy which would help the body heal itself, rather than suppressing the symptoms.
Zicam isn't really a homeopathic remedy. It isn't really even potentized, because it is only 1X, which means, basically, it is a 10% solution of zinc gluconate. The manufacturers are using buzz words to try to entice you.
BTW, many western medicines work on the principal of like cures like as well. Ever heard of Ritalin being given to hyperactive kids? Ritalin, being a legal dose of speed, given to a calm child will make him or her hyperactive. It is crudely homeopathic.
OF course, the above commenter also has nothing directly to say about the information Dana Ullman posted on the blog. Get a real job that makes a difference in the world!
Thanks for the advice Dana Ullman. While I will be sticking with "evidence based" medicine for myself, it's at least somewhat comforting to know that the Post is consistent on matters of health...
Thank you!
Susan Campbell, Ph.D, psychologist, author, relationship coach
Best wishes in this new outreach and education effort.
How about the millions of years of the evolution and crafting that our most magnificent bodies, immune systems and all of the self-regulatory processes that keep us mostly in balance and health?
YES! Symptoms are the signposts of our wellness and illness. Suppression is usually NOT the way to help healing.
Keep up the great work of getting the ideas and methodologies out to the world. You are a warrior for natural healing and I'm proud of you.
Steven Markell
Many people choose not to see a medical doctor out of fear or for whatever reasons. This cannot be blamed on alternative practitioners.
Engaging with an alternative medical practitioner can actually help someone who has a fear of doctors get engaged with their health and therefore actually seek the diagnostic skills of a medical doctor. Recently, we had a friend who had a great fear seeing a medical doctor for what was apparently some heart problems . She saw an alternative practitioner for the first time who encouraged her to go to a medical doctor and get tests done- she is now in the process of doing that. It was because of engaging with the practitioner that her life might be saved. So the argument that homeopathy is "dangerous" because someone may not seek medical help is a fallacious one.
You can always give examples of exceptions to this but then again you can always give examples of dangerous practices in conventional medicine. It does not mean that all of conventional medical practitioners are dangerous.
The very exciting and positive thing about this article by Dana Ullman is that because of his expert opinion as a Masters of Public Health and his intimate knowledge of homeopathy, health and disease we are getting a different way of viewing the body and illness. Bravo!
If homeopathy was so good, then it would be the mainstay of medicine, and we would be using it to cure meningitis, leukaemia, breast cancer, kidney failure and so on. The fact that we don't, and that it only seems to have a role in "helping" illnesses that are rarely fatal and often spontaneously improve with minimal treatment anyway should tell people something (namely that it doesn't work - except as a placebo that is, and several major scientific reviews have verified this fact).
We should embrace, in a methodological manner, ALL of the healing modalities - chemical, radiological, surgical, homeopathic, ayurvedic, herbal, psycho-social, spiritual, nutritional, indigenous, TCM, etc., ways of applying healing to each person as an individual.
We are NOT all the same, by any means. Our evolving medical systems MUST be opened up to considering all of the options, not just the pharmaceutical, surgical, and chemical.
If you studied the myriad of subjects that are complementary/whole person approaches, you would not have the attitude and approach of expression that you revealed in your comments here. Mr. Ullman, myself, and MANY others with orthodox AND natural healing credentials, you might become wiser in your commentary. It's not about throwing the baby out of the bath water. The idea is use the best of ALL of the healing techniques available.
The answer to orthodox and "unorthodox" medicine's shortcomings is found within inclusive, not exclusive, thinking combined with good science.