Western Medicine is the mainstream medicine in Western society and it is developing very quickly and successfully in some area. Its modern technology is being updated daily and has been applied to clinical diagnosis, acute emergency, intensive care, laboratory technology, surgery, prevention of certain diseases, etc.
Modern Medicine is very successful in these fields, especially in acute emergency and surgery, which can save many patient's lives.
But there are some deficiencies in Western Medicine, logical medicine is able to explain the 'why' and 'how' with common sense. By rectifying some of these deficiencies, we can help Western Medicine to develop in a more comprehensive way and cure many chronic disease they are unable to cure.
Seen from the point of view of Logical Medicine, Western Medicine's approach to diagnosing and treating chronic disease is deficient, because doctors and medical specialists usually focus on only one symptom or one disease in one human system and treat the symptoms rather than the patient (real cause of disease). They are unable to find the real cause of most chronic diseases because the medical system trains doctors to look at only a small part of the whole picture of the disease, neglecting the relationship between the disease and the patient's entire system.
In my view and common sense, most medical students are highlyintelligent, especially in most Western countries, where only the top students have the opportunity to study medicine. But their medical education gives them so many medical terms and so much theory to absorb and learn in a short time that their brains become overloaded. This leaves little room for medical students and doctors to think about and understand the real causes of disease, which limits their creative and logical thinking.
Through lack of use, medical students gradually lose their ability to think logically and they fall into the habit of following the instructions of the medical authority or medical text book in order to pass their examinations.
Many doctors simply follow instructions from head doctors, medical authorities or pharmaceutical companies in treating the symptoms of disease, without paying attention to the total health condition of the individual patient. Most doctors believe the results of research studies done by medical scientists and published in medical journals, but they do not ask the reason for the results or look for the real cause of the disease.
Logical Medicine believes most of the results from medical research are correct and valid, but these results represent only percentages and averages based on large groups of patients who have undergone different treatments, the conclusions of these studies may be inappropriate when applied to individual patients,leading to treatment that is ineffective or even harmful for the patient.
So even though medical scientists gather many statistics, they are still unable to explain why certain results occur or understand the real cause of many medical problems. Even Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on knowledge from clinical practice and observation that has accumulated over thousands of years.
But it is more important to look at the full picture and foucus on the relationship between the symptoms,results from medical tests, causes and the consequence of the disease, which can help us understand the problem and find the real cause of the disease.
For example, medical research shows that age is one of the main risk factors for osteoporosis. Logical Medicine does not agree with this, because some aged people are in good health and may have no signs of osteoporosis, even when they are over 80 years old. On the other hand, some people suffer osteoporosis when they are still children or adolescents. Logical Medicine views the real cause of osteoporosis as poor digestion, which means the patient can not absorb enough nutrients and minerals from the food that they eat. Thus the patientï's body lacks the nutrients it needs to build and strengthen the bones and increase bone mineral density (BMD), which is necessary for healthy muscles, ligaments and tendons. Research studies show that aged people suffer osteoporosis much more commonly than young people, so they conclude that aging causes osteoporosis. However, the studies really only tell us that the percentage of people who suffer poor digestion and poor health is higher in older than in younger people. The main cause of osteoporosis is not age; it is poor digestion, poor absorption and poor health condition.
The Western medical system separate many divisions for every human system to diagnose and treat disease that limits the doctor's ability to understand the full picture of the patient's body and the origin and development of chronic disease. It is more important to find the real cause of a disease or problem than to diagnose the disease by simply giving it a name. Logical Medicine can explain many results of research studies using common sense and general medical knowledge.
Why do some patients suffer a chronic disease but others do not?
The division of Western Medicine into specialty areas is one of the main limitations on the doctor's ability to look at the whole picture and understand the relationship between the symptoms, causes and the consequence of disease and how they relate to the function of body organs and the whole body system. Certainly, medical specialization can help doctors learn a lot of detail about one disease. But this can nothelp them understand thereal cause of the disease, because the real cause of any disease is related to the function of the entire system and the patient's health condition.
Many doctors and medical scientists would not agree that Western Medicine does not consider the real cause of chronic disease. because they only consider one party is the cause of the disease, such as bacteria, virus, fungus or out side environment or any materials, for example, the flower, the dust, animal furs etc. They do not consider the individual patient's every system or every organ's function and the whole function of individual health condition.
Western Medicine talks about the etiology ('cause' of a disease), but it considers the causes of disease to be genetic factors, stress, accident or injury, external factors* (such as air pollution, dust mites, animal fur and hair, allergenic foods, chemical pollutants, radioactivity, pollens, or certain perfumes), or germs* (such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, mites, insects and other microorganisms).
Western Medicine considers the name of the disease and looks for external factors that may have caused it, without trying to understand the patient's health condition as a whole picture and the relationship between the cause, symptoms and the consequence of the disease. This is the main reason why Western doctors are unable to find the real cause of many medical problems.
Doctors usually focus on the results of one or several laboratory tests as well as a few health measurements and symptoms of the disease. They try to control the numbers of data and treat the symptoms. But the thing measured is usually only a sign or symptom of the disease, not the real cause: for example, sugar (glucose) level in diabetes, blood pressure in hypertension, and cholesterol level in lipid disorders.
The pharmaceutical drugs used to treat such conditions only control the symptoms of the disease temporarily. In the longer term, they are the wrong therapy and wrong medicine, ther ultimately do not improve the patient's health condition or cure disease.
Logical Medicine considers that genetic factors, the external environment*, stress and microorganisms* all play a part in disease but that the main cause of chronic disease is poor condition of the patient's whole body system. We should see disease as the consequence of both these influences.
The variability between patients in the underlying health of their body system explains why some people may suffer chronic disease while others in exactly the same situation and environment may not. It also explains why some people, even if they do get sick, are able to recover quickly if they have good general health and strong immune system.
Logical Medicine's principles and methods can improve most weakened genetic situations and the patient's health condition.
From the viewpoint of Logical Medicine, some genetic and environmental factors are difficult or impossible to change, but it is always possible to compensate by improving the patient's blood circulation and strengthening the immune system to help the patient fight the disease. Germs are everywhere and we can not eliminate all of them, but we can try to avoid a dirty, polluted environment as much as possible.
By improving the health condition of the entire system, we can help the patient resist germs and overcome the effects of an unhealthy environment.
We can always improve the digestion, blood circulation, immune system and some functions of the human organs to compensate for, relieve or overcome the poor functioning of some organs, badly damaged or removed organs, and even emphysema and diabetes.
In Australia and some Western countries, medical legislation prohibits medical practitioners from advertising or saying they can treat emphysema, because the medical establishment believes that damaged lung cells are not repairable and emphysema is incurable.
Logical Medicine agrees that damaged lung cells are not repairable. However, some poorly functioning lung cells may able to improve their function by improving the blood circulation so that the cells receive enough nutrients. The lung cells are the site of gas exchange, where oxygen enters the blood and carbon dioxide is breathed out.
The main symptoms of emphysema are breathing difficulties and chest pains caused by pinching of the nerves. This arises from edema and swelling that increase the pressure in the lungs.
Patients who suffer emphysema cannot lie down to sleep, because when they are in a horizontal position, blood backs up in the heart due to pressure in the lungs, making it more difficult for the heart to pump blood around the body and deliver oxygen to all the organs. This can make breathing even more difficult. When patients with emphysema cough, they increase the pressure in the lungs, stimulating the sensory nerves around the chest and causing chest pain.
Logical Medicine agrees that we cannot repair the broken lung cells of emphysema.
However, we can improve the nervous system, so that the patient's body relaxes and consumes less oxygen under the same circumstances. When the lungs are relaxed, it allows more blood to circulate into the lungs to remove the swelling (liquid) and carry more oxygen to the body. Also, when the lungs are relaxed, oxygen from the air enters the lungs more freely. When patients with emphysema are able to breathe more easily and obtain more oxygen, their symptoms can be relieved.
Herbal medicines and tonics can also help patients with emphysema:
To clear mucus in the airway (bronchi), allowing more air (oxygen) into the lungs.
To improve the quality of red blood cells, so they have more hemoglobin and can carry more oxygen to the body.
To strengthen the cardiovascular system, allowing it to pump more blood round the body and thus carry more oxygen to the lungs and other organs.
To improve the immune system so it can control and prevent infection of the respiratory system.
We can use natural therapy, deep herbal massage treatment, electric-acupuncture and herbal medicine to stimulate the nervous system, which makes the whole body function better and helps the patient fight the disease.
The above treatments also stimulate the blood circulation to the lungs, allowing excess fluid to be removed and filtered out through the kidneys to reduce the swelling.
When a patient with emphysema is able to get more oxygen, and the patient's body consumes less oxygen, breathing difficulties are reduced. If the disease is in the early stages and not too many lung cells have been badly damaged, it is possible that in some patients the symptoms of emphysema will not recur. .
After having treatments of the kind described here, most patients who suffer emphysema are able to lie down and sleep properly without breathing difficulties. This doesn't mean that the damaged lung cells have been repaired. Instead, relieving the pressure in the lungs and reducing the swelling has helped the remaining, undamaged lung cells to function better and compensate for the lost function of the damaged cells.
Some may argue that the damaged lung cells of emphysema can not be repaired and therefore that emphysema is incurable.
Logical Medicine believes that helping the patient with emphysema to breathe more easily and feel much healthier than before is a successful outcome. No doctor can make a person's cells younger or prevent them from changing over time. But we can improve a patient's overall health to compensate for loss of function of damaged organs or overcome the symptoms and causes of disease.
A common saying from Chinese Medicine is 'If you are in good health, diseases and germs cannot hurt you'.
Logical Medicine views the main cause of chronic disease as the health condition of the whole body system rather than genetic or environmental factors. Certainly, the health and functioning of each body system varies from one person to another. One person may suffer poor digestion but have a strong cardiovascular system due to exercise. Another may have a strong nervous system, but poor digestion, poor blood circulation and/or a poor immune system.
Environmental factors are similar for all people working or living in the same area, yet some people suffer certain diseases that others do not. This means that the most important determinant of who will get sick and who will not is the health condition of the whole body (entire system), rather than environmental factors.
For example, of 10 people working in the same office, one person may catch a cold or flu from outside. When he goes back to work, another 4 people catch the cold from him, but another 5 people with stronger immune systems remain healthy.
Three of the five people who caught the infection recover from the illness in 4 or 5 days. The other two people who became infected may take over one month to recover completely or may develop a secondary bacterial infection or even pneumonia, because they have poor immune systems which are unable to kill the virus bacteria completely.
In the same environment, healthy people do not suffer disease, and if they do, they are able to recover quickly.
When doctors and medical scientists are unable to see the full picture, they cannot understand the real cause of a chronic disease and can only treat the symptoms by following the instructions on a packet produced by a pharmaceutical company., But this does not treat the underlying cause of the disease.
In Western Medicine, doctors prescribe antibiotics to treat infection, sleeping pills for insomnia, blood pressure tablets for hypertension,cholesterol pill for high cholesterol, etc. If a patient is experiencing pain, regardless of whether it is a sore throat, headache, abdominal pain or foot pain, a doctor usually prescribes a painkiller or anti-inflammatory medication to relieve the pain, but this only works temporarily.
Patients are accustomed to following doctors' instructions and taking drugs to relieve symptoms or treat a disease temporarily. In some cases, even when the doctor is reluctant to prescribe a drug because the doctor knows it maybe ineffective or cause harmful side effects, some patients still, out of habit, want the doctor to prescribe them strong painkillers or antibiotics.
Some patients continue taking certain drugs for years or for the rest of their lives, even though many of these drugs have harmful side-effects and eventually cause more damage to all the body organs than the original disease at which the drug was targeted. Damage from pharmaceutical drugs may shorten a patient's life in the long term. Medications used to treat one problem (eg, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, postmenopausal symptoms or cancer) all affect more than just the targeted disease or condition. They affect the whole body system.
It is widely known that many pharmaceutical drugs have harmful side effects, but the aim of many pharmaceutical companies is to make the highest profit they can. From the point of view of the pharmaceutical company, whichever drugs make the most profit are the best products for the company to produce. Therefore, drugs that patients have to take for the rest of their lives create huge profits for pharmaceutical companies.
But these drugs force the liver, digestive system and kidneys to work harder to eliminate the chemicals from the body. In the long term, these organs become damaged from overwork.
Some anti-depressants, sleeping pills and painkillers are narcotics, and patients can become addicted to them. If patients then stops taking them, they may suffer withdrawal symptoms and panic attacks. On the other hand, if they continue taking the narcotics, the brain feels numb and they may never feel happy. Some patients eventually become depressed or even suicidal.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) gives the patient artificial hormones. This increases hormone levels in the body and speeds up the metabolism, which increases blood circulation round the body and can help the patient overcome many symptoms of disease or other problems very effectively. However, these artificial hormones can also inhibit the patient's natural hormone production, causing the patient's glands to become 'lazy' and lose their ability to function normally. These artificial hormones can also cause damage the digestive organs, especially if taken long term.
Some patients who take medications containing multiple enzymes (the cholesterol tablet is a form of enzyme for cholesterol) can improve their appetite and digestion, but if taken for a long time, these medications can inhibit the patient's production of natural enzymes by the digestive system. The digestive organs become 'lazy' and lose some of their normal function.
If the patient takes pharmaceutical drugs for a long time, the drugs will not only damage the digestive system but also limit the patient's ability to absorb enough nutrients to build good blood circulation and support the body's needs. It can become a vicious circle, with the patient's health getting worse and the patient no longer able to recover their good health. (See details in other chapters about drugs)
Attention patients! If you are taking any of the above pharmaceutical drugs at the moment, you must not stop taking them straight away, because your own organs may have been damaged and may be functioning too poorly to produce enough of their own enzymes or hormones. If you suddenly stop taking the drugs, you may get worse, and in some cases this can be very dangerous, even life-threatening.
Logical Medicine strongly suggests that you consult your doctor to explain your situation and your concerns before you reduce the dose or stop taking the drug. You can also consult other doctors to obtain different opinions about your disease.
Logical Medicine recommends that you improve your own health condition until your chronic disease symptoms have diminished or disappeared before you begin to gradually reduce the drug dose under your doctor's instruction. Your progress can be monitored by improvement in symptoms or blood test results.
To give an analogy: If your computer is not working properly, how can you fix it if you don't know what's wrong with it? If you are lucky, you may be able to get it working again by trial and error, but on the other hand, if you don't understand what you are doing, you may just cause more damage.
If you do know what's wrong with your computer, you can easily fix it by changing the parts, but we do not have spare parts for the human body. So, when dealing with the human body, we must take a different approach. We may not be able to 'fix' the damaged parts, but by improving the health of the whole system, we can help the patient feel healthier and happier.
When a body or an organ becomes irreparably damaged, one of the few remaining options may be an organ transplant. But the human immune system identifies any transplanted organ as a foreign object and will continue attacking it or rejecting it, even if the transplanted organ is from a twin or a person with matching blood type and cell surface antigens.
So a patient who has had a transplant has to be given drugs to prevent their immune system from attacking the transplanted organ to allow it to survive in the patient's body.
If patients have a weakened immune system, they can easily catch infections. Some patients may even develop cancer.
This is why we should try to repair and improve the function of the damaged organ before it is too late. In the early stages of organ degeneration, it is always possible to improve or save a damaged organ through herbal medicine and natural therapy. If possible, organ transplants should be avoided and used only as a last resort.
In summary: In our daily lives and medical treatments, we should try to prevent and avoid any damage to our organs while trying to improve the function of the organs. Most pharmaceutical drugs have harmful side effects and cause damage to our organs, so we should not take these drugs for long periods unless absolutely necessary.
