“Doctors routinely measure chemicals in the body to get health information, such as cholesterol and triglycerides. METABOLOMICS, however, involves measuring hundreds or thousands of chemical processes, such as the breakdown of nutrients from diet, going on in the body at the same time, which could yield a lot of information. [METABOLOMICS] can also account for environmental factors, such as how well a patient is absorbing medications. Since METABOLISM-energy generation and breakdown-gets disrupted in many diseases, figuring out how these metabolic pathways change could potentially yield better ways of diagnosing or treating a wide range of diseases.”[1]
If you have been following my newsletter and blogs you are familiar with the concept that ALL diseases start at the cellular level due to less optimal energy and information for cells (no matter what type of cell) to do their job and be properly structured. Despite volumes of evidence pointing in the direction predicted by physicists, the medical profession has been very slow in assimilating these concepts, which has resulted in much frustration for me. Instead, we continue to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic ship of Health Care Reform.
Nothing will improve in health care delivery, until we de-emphasize the pharmaceutical approach and focus on METABOLOMICS. This has been the central focus of my career, which I am strongly contemplating ending. It is not worth it to me when I am having chest pain out of sheer stress, since my excellent diet and exercise routine have shown my heart is physically quite healthy.
The only thing that keeps me going is flashes of brilliance, like the quote above; I found it while waiting to get on the air (KTALK 630 AM on Sundays at 4PM.) There was an old copy of the Wall Street Journal in the studio. The quote came from the editor of the Journal Metabolomics; he was commenting on an article on dandruff, of all things.
But, my isolation from society at large and the medical profession has gotten so unbearable that I fear my health is suffering.
Even though many doctors like what I am doing, I estimate that about 1/3 of them are bitterly antagonistic. Amazingly, I don’t have the support of many herbalists, naturopaths and other so called health workers. I feel it is because I have been known to condemn their over emphasis on the supplements and herbs they sell. There is nothing wrong with those items IF they are properly and honestly manufactured (a big IF.) But, when the sole emphasis is questionable marketing without emphasizing METABOLOMICS (nutrition, environment, and mind-body issues,) I fear this “natural approach” is not much better than treating with pharmaceuticals. For example, treating depression with St John’s Wort or Prozac only address symptoms, not the roots of the problem; Energy and Information, or METABOLOMICS are the best approach
To make matters worse, there are certain “patients” who do not come back to see me when they discover I don’t share the predominant faith in my state. There are also those “patients” who don’t return because they believe the misinformation planted against me in several sites. But, none of them are more hurtful to me than those “patients” who don’t return when they see that I am not as white as they are….
Added to all this is my social isolation, which I am not ready to share at this point. Suffice it to say that emotional and social issues are also Energy and Information issues.
This blog is not a pitty-party, but a realistic assessment of the struggles an Integrative Doctor faces in a protracted fight with a dysfunctional health care system. Added to this battle is the sense of never having belonged in a society whose main goal is profits and materialistic consumption. It is with these thoughts in mind that I, like all of us at times of existential crisis, muse about “what ifs…” Yes, maybe I should have become a Jesuit priest, when, as a child, I sensed modern societies do not care much about their spiritual, economic, physical, mental or political health.
There are three things that keep me going in this struggle: (1) the economy, since this is not the time to look for a second career at my age, (2) the sense of having been “called” to this work, and (3) all those faithful patients who express their support and love to me at each visit. To them, I say thank you from the bottom of my aching heart.
2011
