There's an old saying: "If you want to hide the treasure, put it in plain sight. Then nobody will see it."
We see what we can see, and what we can see is determined largely by our beliefs. If we believe that treasures are always hidden away in secret places, our belief can deceive us. Sometimes the treasure is actually staring us in the face.
History is studded with examples of blindness toward the obvious. As ethnologist and filmmaker Lawrence Blair describes, the natives of Patagonia could not see Magellan's ships when they arrived at the tip of South America in 1520. To the aborigines, the shore party appeared out of thin air on the beach. The shamans eventually discerned a faint image of the tall ships anchored offshore. After they pointed out the images and everyone concentrated on the concept of giant sailing ships for a while, the galleons materialized. Philosopher Michael Polanyi reports a similar incident when Darwin's ship, Beagle, anchored off Patagonia in 1831. The natives could see the tiny rowboats, but could not detect the mother ship. Their belief system had a place for small craft, but not for large vessels.
Selective blindness afflicts us as well, particularly in health care. Consider heart disease and cancer, the two major killers in our society. For decades we have waged war on these twin scourges, believing that the cure lies in the future. We imagine that someday, in some lab, an ingenious bioscientist will stumble upon a new drug or some novel molecular trick that will win the battle against these killers. Everyone hopes the breakthrough will come in his or her lifetime. It is a noble goal, but the fact is that we are like the natives on the shore, who can see the tiny rowboats but not the mother ship. Where cancer and heart disease are concerned, the treasure is staring us in the face, hidden in plain sight.
Our blindness was dramatically illustrated in February 2009 in the report Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention. This shocking document was prepared by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, and was presented to U. S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill with considerable media attention. The report states that better eating habits and physical activity could prevent a third of all cancers in the United States, and that smoking cessation could prevent another third. This means that a behavioral, non-drug approach to cancer prevention could eradicate two-thirds of the cancers in America.
In addition to preventing two-thirds of cancers by proper diet, exercise and smoking cessation, these same measures also prevent heart disease -- up to eighty percent of cases, according to most experts.
Ponder the implications. If a drug were suddenly available to accomplish these things, the entire nation would perk up overnight. Cost-benefit analyses would sprout like weeds. The drug's manufacturer would saturate television with ads urging consumers to badger their physicians to prescribe the new product. Pressure groups would attempt to make the wonder drug available to everyone, in the belief that no one should be denied its sweet benefits. This anti-cancer/anti-heart disease drug would be recommended for use from the cradle to the crematorium. And it would probably be so costly, like statins currently, that it would be out of reach for millions of Americans.
These therapeutic benefits are available now -- not in the form of a drug, but as the preventive approaches embodied in integrative, behavior-based medicine. These approaches are based in sensible, smart choice-making. They are something we do for ourselves, not something that's done to us by someone in a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck.
So the integrative, preventive approach is a twofer, because it can eliminate most cancers and heart disease, the top two killers that stalk Americans. But in fact, this approach is a "threefer" and a "fourfer." For not only will these approaches eliminate the majority of cancers and heart disease, but they are also an antidote for the twin epidemics of obesity and Type II diabetes now raging in America.
These implications should elicit jaw-dropping responses in anyone who retains the ability for wonder. Why can't we see this? Instead, we assume that the cures for these killer diseases lie in new drugs or biotech approaches. We need to wake up to the obvious: the solution is already here, and it rests on prevention, not invention. This does not mean we should abandon our search for better methods of treating those cases of cancer and heart disease that defy these approaches, but that we should focus on what works now in preventing the great majority of these illnesses.
How should we proceed? A way forward has been sketched often on Huffington Post and elsewhere. An example is the 9-point plan recently offered by Dr. Mark Hyman in his blog "How To Fix Obama's Health Plan Before It's Too Late." Additional advice is offered by physician-educator Andrew Weil's Huffington Post blogs "The Wrong Diagnosis," "Why I Am a Conservative on Health Care Reform," and "What's Wrong with American Medicine?," and Dr. Mehmet Oz's "What YOU Can Do About Health Care Reform."
If you have awakened to the treasure of prevention that is hidden in plain sight, help others awaken as well. In particular, target your representatives in Congress. Write letters, make phone calls, engage in e-mail activism, and contribute money if you can -- and do it now. Let's not let the curtain close on health care reform in America without becoming aware this precious treasure that is begging to be seen.
-- Larry Dossey, MD