The modern medicine has done an outstanding job in managing the symptoms fast- relieving pain, decreasing fever, lowering blood pressure, stabilizing blood sugar levels within hours or days. Although this has been a life savior to millions, a very important question arises; are we only out to give the sick what they want, or do we seek to eliminate the causes of the illness?
Numerous chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension, and gastritis, migraines, anxiety, and metabolic disorders are being treated with long-term drugs, whereas such contributors as an unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, lack of sleep, and continuous stress in the environment are unaddressed. Drugs dim the symptoms of the disease, yet the biological causes do not diminish, but develop silently.
This may result in a dependency on life-long pharmacotherapy, polypharmacy, and unnecessary side effects, in particular, when it is impaired by the lack of lifestyle and preventive care. By masking symptoms, there are occasions where deeper pathology diagnosis can be even delayed.
It is not a medical failure, but a constraint of a system currently dealing with an acute care system struggling with a chronic disease epidemic. The healthcare of tomorrow is integrative, preventive, and root-cause care, in which pharmaceuticals will be combined with nutrition, exercise, psychological help, and early diagnosis of risk.
There is a need to treat symptoms but it takes something deeper to heal.
Do you believe that a greater emphasis on the prevention of medical issues and root-cause management, instead of the long-term control of symptoms, is the way to go in healthcare?
MBH/PS