Allopathic Reductionism & Chronic Diseases
These days chronic diseases are more prevalent than acute diseases – one of the reasons being – doctors are taught to read “numbers” and treat their patients accordingly.
People also use this band-aid-approach to treat themselves, all the time. It’s an easy approach, results are fast, everything gets under control (so it appears) – and both the parties, the doctor and the patient are happy.
This is the primary flaw in allopathy medicine. It follows the principle of “allopathic reductionism”, and this approach has no time, no inclination, or no concern, for anything other than “drugs and surgery”.
There is nothing wrong with drugs and surgery when they are used appropriately (evidence-based intervention), but in most cases, the pharmaceutical industry has biased leverage on what type of research is done in universities. It’s not medical research that’s done – it’s pharmaceutical research!
Is any in-depth research ever done by prestigious institutions on homeopathic medicines, or on Indian medicine? What about medical nutrition? No, it’s not done!
It’s all about inventing new drugs all the time to suit what the doctors have been trained for – that is, look at the numbers in the test reports and treat the patient by prescribing these drugs.
Have high cholesterol, take statins – you have high triglycerides, we will put you on fibrates – high sugar, here’s metformin for you – high blood pressure, take beta blockers, suffer from acid reflux, take proton pump inhibitors… and so on.
The tragedy is that this type of “knee-jerk” medical therapy is mostly aimed at reducing the signs and symptoms for the well being and comfort of the patient, which is good; but this approach also regrettably overlooks the underlying causes entirely.
A disease or medical condition which could have been easily nipped in the bud by adopting a preventive, holistic approach &/or by making lifestyle alterations has been totally overlooked. This leads to chronic diseases galore!
Zareer Patell
