new research thoughts/ was osler...

[Guest guest]

, wrote:

 

you could

> use chinese herbs and other natural supplements and enjoy not just long

> life, but quality of life. While WM may solve the problems of cancer

> and heart disease relatively soon, I doubt anything better than TCM for

> daily suffering will be on the horizon near as quickly.

 

Interestingly, one of the most often expressed concerns in the life extension

community is

that people will live for hundreds of years, but wracked in pain or crippled

either mentally

or physically in some way. Living for hundreds of years with Alzheimer's for

example. so

there is some real concern that even if some conditions that involve accumulated

genetic

defects or built-in self destruct mechanisms such as cancer and heart disease

are

eliminated, there may still be problems of daily life that remain intractable

for much

longer. Consider the common cold, a nuisance or worse for all of history. Yet

WM has

made little headway in handling this ailment. The symptomatic relief offered by

modern

OTC drugs is no better than the herbs used in past centuries. Yet during this

same era,

the development of antibiotics led to a dramatic change in the way a much more

serious

set of age-old ailments was handled by WM.

 

Now don't get me wrong. I am not an apologist for the overuse of antibiotics

and the

damage wraught by this. But there is the American model of stuffing all our

animals with

them and prescribing them for every ailment under the sun. and there is the

euro model

where neither of these things is done. While we are certainly aware of herbs

and herbal

strategies that purportedly also save lives in serious infections (such as

SARS), this clearly

never became widely known in ancient times. If so, why the plague, TB and every

other

scourge that is now treatable? Probably because practicng wen bing medicine

required

such a degree of scholarship and intellect that it could never spread very far

due to

widepsread illiteracy and lackof ability. Antibiotics on the other hand,

reliably save lives,

even in untrained hands. That is one of the great victories of modern medical

science -

sometimes one size does fit all. So a single drug like penicillin could turn a

96% infant

death rate from cholera into a 96% survival rate overnight, with no other

changes at all.

 

The misuse of antibiotics has done alot of harm but also have probably prevented

more

suffering, morbidity and mortality than all other therapies in history combined.

And yet

headaches, joint pain, stomach ulcers and depression remain common. So it is

not

unreasonable to assume another great leap in lifesaving technology may be made

(this

time in the realm of chronic illness) and yet the trials of daily suffering will

still be left

largely untouched. The strength of TCM will be what it has always been, the

noniatrogenic

relief of the sufferings of daily life. This should be our public relations

campaign. We

don't need to wait for research to prove we are effective, just roll out the

existing data to

prove we are safe. Our biggest problem right now is not lack of insurance

coverage or

research of what we can cure, it is a growing public and institutional

perception that either

chinese herbs, chinese herbalists or chinese herbal medicine are unsafe in some

way.

However, the reality is our impeccable safety record, to date. In addition, our

customer

satisfaction. Our patients feel better and they do not get hurt when we treat

them. Don't

underestimate the value of those selling points in these days of phen-fen, vioxx

and HRT

scandals. This is the easily provable truth that needs to be heard.

 

How about one or all of the pro orgs doing a proper study of the public to

demonstrate

this point. We are in an era where experts do not seem to matter anymore, so

let's ride

the tide. If we can show that our patients are healthier in all ways than a

matched group

who relies on solely on WM, there's our ticket. I am sure there are a few

thousand long

time patients out there who could easily be compared to a similar group (that

may eat

right and exercise, but relies primarily on dangerous drugs to relieve daily

suffering as

they age). In other words, if you have stomach problems, how are you doing

after thirty

years of acupuncture and herbs versus 30 years of maalox, tums and pepcid AC?

It is

probably now possible to do such a retrospective analysis and prove something

important

if it is true. when we treated AIDs in the early 90s, patients who had a late

stage dx lived

no longer with TCM, but they did live better (according to the use of

statistically valid

lifestyle questionaires). WM has saved many of their lives, but quality still

remains an

issue. Those who still work with HIV patients on the cocktail know that this is

the main

focus of treatment - daily issues, not the disease itself. This would be a

profound and far

reaching discovery if the data supported it to be true for other illness in

general. Far more

profound than proving we can cure this disease or relieve that symptom. If TCM

leads to

decreased morbidity and mortality in the long run than WM alone, that along with

a cadre

of happy patients should be enough to convert all the rest. Such a study would

be far

cheaper than clinical research and would not involve all the barriers that

currently exist.