I was researching last week’s article, when I discovered something I had not noticed before. It seems the Mayo Clinic website has started putting alternative and home remedy information in their medical articles.
Ten years ago, this would not have happened. While I don’t buy any of the conspiracy theories about the medical industry in general, non-Westernized medical solutions were just not discussed in major public forums. The vast majority of what would be found in the library, the bookstore, the doctor’s office, and contemporary magazines and newspapers was tilted heavily towards the basic model of: go to the doctor; get a prescription; schedule a surgery if it might help. Alternatives, such as Eastern medicine, homeopathic or native disciplines, and home remedies were put down and ignored by the medical community.
There are many reasons for this.
First and foremost, our culture is one that is heavily tilted towards immediate results rather than solutions. It is often the case that long-term care or strategies are ignored by the public in favor of something that fixes the immediate symptoms right away. Take the common cold: most people refuse to ride it out, instead opting for doses of cough syrup, headache pills, and decongestants. Instead of letting the body fight the illness naturally, we fill ourselves up with drugs to ‘feel better’ and then plod along like everything is OK. Instead of resting and helping our body with the fight, we sabatoge the body’s ability to do it’s job in favor of incremental, immediate relief of the symptom. So when doctors are asked for a medical opinion, they feed the public what it wants to hear: how to fix the symptom in the moment.
Another reason is that modern, scientific approaches to illness sound cooler than their alternative counterparts. Telling your friends you are going to have an MRI and orthoscopic surgery, they ‘oooh’ and ‘ahh’ and sympathize and support you. They might not have any idea what it means, but it sounds impressive. So when something goes wrong, we look to what we’ve seen people respond to, even if the track record is not the best possible.
Also, it’s easier to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing rather than doing something different. If everyone else gets surgery and takes pharmaceuticals, well, then, you’d be crazy not to for your problems, right? Peer pressure plays a big role in our medical choices.
Western medicine has dominated our thinking for too long with regards to disease and sickness. Many surgeries are crude and dangerous, and the goals usually revolve around ‘lifespan’ rather than ‘life-quality’. But we haven’t had choices.
I’m not saying alternative remedies are the end-all. I’m just glad to see a major organization, with a proven track-record and high credibility, is now showing many possible ways to treat an illness or disease, rather than just the mainstream suggestions. Good job, Mayo Clinic!
Other news
- Looks like your Nalgene bottle won’t kill you after all: FDA: Chemical found in plastic bottles is safe
- What, like walking to the bathroom when you’re hungry? Can Physical Cues Signal Dementia?
- I never see these it the gym: Least Effective Exercises Pictures Slideshow: 9 Exercises to Lose
Quote for the week
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd. - Edith Sitwell
From the editor
The last three weeks have been vacation, and I’ve happily rested, relaxed, read, played on my computer, traveled, watched movies, and generally enjoyed not having any pressing work that had to be done.
Today, it’s back to work. My vacation wasn’t quite as long as I would have liked it to be. But that happens sometimes. Oh, well.
Healthy thoughts,
Jeff
