Hippocrates Spinning in His Grave

Hippocrates Spinning In His Grave

By Carl Lanore
July 22, 2008


Doctors today should not be allowed to take the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates dictated – “First do no harm” and “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Hardly the path of allopathic medicine today.

Allopathic medicine, or the term “allopathic” was coined by Dr. Samual Hahnemann around the 19th century. The term “allo” ( or dissimilar) was to be in direct opposition to the common and more accepted medical practice “homeopathic” (homeo, or similar to the body’s own functions), of which Hahnemann was the founder.

Homeopaths were considered empiricists and allopaths, rationalists. The difference is profound, and plays a role in how we ended up here in the debacle of national widespread illness and poor health.

Empiricists looked at symptoms as a sign that the body was overwhelmed by toxins or out of kilter with its natural healthy predisposition. They didn’t “treat” the symptoms. They used the symptoms as a guide as to whether or not the treatment was working. They believed that the symptoms were the body’s natural response, and a necessary response. To treat the symptoms alone eliminates the body’s cry for help.

They observed the patient, learned about the patient. Their habits, diet, activities, stresses, sleep, family, etc., all was taken into account. They looked at each person as just that, a person. Not one of a larger group. They then applied remedies that would balance the person. Those could be herbs, changes in diet, sleep, stress, etc. If the treatment was working the symptoms would begin to subside, giving sign that the treatment was on the right track. In short they looked for the root cause and eliminated it giving the body the opportunity to heal itself.

The rationalists took a different approach. The treated only the symptoms. They looked at the symptoms as the disease itself. They used drugs to eliminate the symptoms and thus the patient was “cured”. They also looked at groups. They found the common denominator in groups suffering from a particular disease. If all of “these” people who suffered from a particular disease also had this particular symptom, then that symptom was addressed and a drug that would eliminate that symptom would be the goal.

We see the rationalists approach today in modern medicine. Drugs are prescribed that solely address symptoms. Those exclusively lower blood pressure and cholesterol or increase bone mineral uptake to reduce osteoporosis without identifying and treating the root of the problem in the first place. The problem with these and many drugs like them is they carry side effects. And with some, the side effects are just marginally less then the negative effects of the diseases they treat. Practitioners and pharmaceutical companies will argue that the side effects are overstated or less life threatening than the actual disease itself – and in some instances this is true. But in most cases its not.

And more importantly, these drugs that carry negative side effects are doing harm. Regardless of the degree of harm, they are counter to the first edict of the Hippocratic Oath – “First do no harm”.

Now don’t be mistaken to think the empiricists were nothing more than voo doo doctors. They understood the science and substructures of the body to every degree as well as the rationalists. Perhaps even more so, since allopathic medicine was borne from within homeopathic medicine. What would catapult the rationalists would be a combination of an event and greed in concert with better organizational skills – but not a better mouse trap. Quite the contrary. I’m also not suggesting that the empiricists had it all worked out and just got railroaded either. Each group had its faults. What I am suggesting is that had greed not taken a front seat and these two groups worked together, we would have a better medical system and a healthier population as a result. More emphasis would have been placed on nutrition and physical exercise and less on pills and potions.

Here’s an example to substantiate my position. Lets look at a disease like Parkinson’s Disease. We know people suffering with the disease have cretin similarities, blank facial expressions, depressive disorder, motor coordination issues and neuro-muscular degeneration. As the disease progresses untreated, deterioration in neuro-muscular factors causes freezing and severe tremor. The rationalists look at the symptoms and look for a common denominator in a group of individuals suffering with the disease. One of the commonalities is a degeneration of the dopamine transporter neurons in the Substantia Nigra – an area of the brain responsible for the initial motor commands that allow us to move our bodies.

The rationalists decide that treating the patient with an external source of dopamine, in pill form to replace the dopamine the brain is no longer making, is the answer. Initially the symptoms do subside. The patient can move with greater fluidity. Some of the depression lifts and all looks hopeful. As time passes the dose of dopamine must be increased as more of the neurons in the Substantia Nigra die off. But this produces a vicious cycle as the higher doses of dopamine seems to cause the disease to progress faster till the highest doses have no affect what so ever. In fact, most practitioners now agree that it’s the prescribed dopamine that advances the disease faster.

So isn’t’ this in essence “doing harm”? If the “treatment” progresses the disease faster is it a cure? The brief suppression of the symptoms is a way to appease the patient. To enlist their trust in the magic of allopathic medicine.

A better alternative would be to look for a true cure. To look for the true source of the disease. The death of dopamine neurons in the brain is no less a symptom of the disease than is tremor. Learning why they die and looking at individuals as just that – individuals – to see what habits and traits they possess that predisposes them to these symptoms would be the answer. The problem is that this doesn’t fit our current medical movement. Finding a common symptom in large groups and treating that symptom is the home run the big pharmaceutical companies are looking for every day. How do you patent and sell life style changes, modifications in sleep or nutrition? Pharmaceutical drugs, for the most part, cure nothing. They allow us to live broken. Now you may say “what’s wrong with that if the symptoms are gone and I can move on?”. You wouldn’t treat you car that way, is what I would reply.

Let’s say you went to a mechanic and said your engine is making this loud ominous knocking noise. It’s so loud that you’re sure the engine is sustaining additional damage with every day that you drive the car. The mechanic looks at the engine and after a brief time gives you the disposition. He hands you a pair of ear plugs and advises that you should wear them each time you drive the car. His position is that you won’t be bothered by the noise any longer because you won’t hear it! Did he fix the problem? Will the engine surely fail - eventually? Would you seriously take his advice and drive off, ear plugs in place and a smile on your face? Then why do you take similar advice from your physician when he or she hands you a pill?

Now its not all allopathic medicine’s fault. You can’t blame them for capitalizing on our unwillingness to wait for change. We as individuals know that our illnesses and their respective symptoms took years to develop. We all know that poor lifestyle habits cause the majority of diseases. Yet we want to walk into our physician and demand to be fixed now! “Give me a pill and let me get back to living this poor life style” is what we demand through our impatience. Take type 2 diabetes for instance. It’s at epidemic proportions and so many companies are capitalizing on American people. Is it in their interest that you be cured? Type 2 diabetes can be completely reversed in 90% of those who suffer from it with simple modifications to diet and exercise and the other 10%, with the addition of some interventive hormone replacement therapies. But the nation will opt for a pill and a glucometer that will allow them to live broken, eat horrible diets and avoid exercise. These companies are banking on it. They want to supply us with our pills, glucometer, glucose strips and any other thing that the Diabetic will need for the reaming 50 or 60 years of their lives.

Ask yourself, what’s wrong with a medical community that doesn’t want to suggest a cure but rather make you nothing less than a junkie? Addicted and dependant on a drug. And here’s the best part to come full circle to my initial statement that doctors shouldn’t be allowed to take the Hippocratic Oath. Those medicines they prescribe. You pick the medication, diabetes, osteoporosis, cholesterol or blood pressure – some of the more popular ones – all have side effects that can be categorized as “doing harm”.

If you can cure your type 2 diabetes in six months without drugs and their side effects and the drug de jour cause harm, shouldn’t your physician be prescribing diet and exercise? If they want to live up to the Hippocratic Oath they should. And shouldn’t insurance companies be paying for that therapy?

I don’t pretend to answer all of the questions here – only to raise them. My hope is that this will give you some food for thought.

And like food, thought is powerful medicine as well.


About The Author
Carl Lanore is the host of Super Human Radio - an AM Talk Radio show broadcast weekly on a variety of radio stations in the US including Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The show covers all topics related to fitness and health with an emphasis on exercise, nutrition and longevity. Super Human Radio can also be heard streaming on the Internet at www.superumanradio.com or any of the top Podcast directories.

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