Is There Healing Beyond Drugs?

Written by Matthew Little on August 7, 2023. Posted in Current News

Then she finds a new drug and everything changes. She rides her bike happily to meet her son at school. He smiles as she tussles his hair.

Then the voiceover starts reciting the side effects, a grim list that goes on for the longer part of the commercial.

Meanwhile, the video montage shows the woman and her son riding bikes together through an idyllic park.

The lengthy list of side effects fully divulged, the woman looks at the camera beaming about how the drug made her life better.

You’d think such ads would do more harm than good, but research suggests the mind-numbing list of side effects has an almost hypnotic effect.

Besides, when it comes right down to it, most people just want something that will make them feel better—fast.

And many drugs can do that, to an extent. But just as the voiceovers warn, there are side effects.

Those side effects get compounded by the problems surrounding standard medical practice. Doctors are rushed and barely have time to learn their patient’s medical history, let alone the broad lifestyle factors that are often key contributors to disease.

Many doctors are forced to practice a “fast and loose” form of modern medicine that has them sending patients for tests or treatments with little more than a quick inspection and cursory discussion.

The results are disheartening.

Almost eight years ago, a Johns Hopkins study found medical errors could be the third leading cause of death in America. Then two weeks ago, another batch of Johns Hopkins researchers warned that “medical misdiagnoses cause 795,000 American deaths or permanent disabilities each year,” according to reporter Vance Voetberg, who wrote about the new study.

Because drugs are such potent interventions, you would think we would be careful about taking them, but that often isn’t the case. We often take too many, for too long, for the wrong things.

Drugs are even prescribed to treat the effects of other drugs. Most older Americans are on several medications.

Fortunately, there are many ways to treat our ailments that offer side benefits rather than side effects.

Just ask the residents of Linda Loma, California. They live 10 years longer than the average American. So do people in certain areas of the Mediterranean and Japan, so-called Blue Zones. It’s not drugs that keep them well, it’s their lifestyles.

They do things like spend time with loved ones; enjoy music and dance; eat delicious and nutritious foods; relax in the sun, garden, or enjoy nature. They use their hands and hearts to make arts and crafts or help someone in need. Or they just keep working.

We can’t all turn into Okinawans and transform our diets and lifestyles to better our chances of reaching a healthy 100, but when ailments strike, we can think more holistically.

After all, our ailment didn’t arise from lacking a drug. It arose because of stress, poor food, toxic exposures, and so on. Drugs are powerful interventions that often act quickly, but there are gentler options that work as well, if perhaps slower, and without the potential consequences.

There are plenty of herbal remedies you can try with little risk, and you can seek out a variety of treatments with known efficacy for your condition. Just eating more fruits and vegetables can have such a significant effect that researchers are suggesting programs to “prescribe” these foods, saying it could save billions of dollars and tremendous suffering.

If you’ve got a bit of money, you can also seek out functional medicine doctors or others who practice a slower form of medicine, one where doctors actually find out what is happening in your life and body so they can cure you more completely—and often more quickly.

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