The New Medical Paradigm for Health

          What do the ageing process and chronic degenerative diseases like hypertension, diabetes, pre-diabetes, arthritis have in common?  The answer is a resounding "a bunch!" 

          Let us start with a comment about ageing and getting older.  Getting older is a function of the passage of time.  Ageing is a result of loss of quality of our bodily function.  Eventually time and function collide and our body loses both.   

         The ideal medical paradigm would result in the maximum extension of life with the absence of problems of ageing.  The result would be dying at an old age but healthy!  You just wear out one day without disease.  If that sounds like it’s right for you, read on and join the “long livers.”

          Let’s continue this by talking a bit about the body’s physical function in generalities!

          This unit we call the body, is composed of numerous organs in various systems, very complex.  The most basic unit of function is the cell.  All the various organs and systems in the body are comprised of cells, the cell is its basic building block. As such,  cellular health determines the body’s health.  Cell health would also impact the ageing process and the incidence of diseases both acute and chronic. 

          It would seem that the more you knew about how the cell worked the more you could understand how the various organs and other body systems function.  Your decision about your medical choices would be more effective, right?  If we’re in agreement let’s do some study of cellular health.

          We eat and drink because we’re hungry and thirsty.  We get hungry and/or thirsty physiologically because cells need the nutrients from food and the water to make energy.  Nutrients are the cells’ energy currency and quality counts.

          In the early days of the computer there was a saying regarding the quality of a computer’s output which was "garbage in/garbage out".  Something that is true of your cells and organs and body, garbage in/garbage out.  You cannot expect your cells and organs to produce high quality function with low quality fuel.  Eventually the function of cells' and organs' ability to minimize cellular damage from free radicals diminishes.  Increased disease and internal ageing occur.   Oops!  I just used the term free radicals—let’s define.

          A free radical is any molecule that has one or more missing electrons in its outer ring of electrons.  Sources of free radicals are everywhere; chemicals in food, air and water are not recognized by the body as needed for life.   Free radicals initiate damage to cells, organs and bodies in general.  Preventing or putting out the free radical fires are essential for the maintenance of life quality and quantity. 

          The currently popular medical paradigm primarily addresses the symptoms of lost cellular and organ system function with a pharmaceutical drug to suppress the symptoms.  However, hypertension is not a disease but rather a symptom of malfunction of the circulatory system.  Elevated blood sugar is not diabetes but rather a symptom of diabetes, etc.  Taking a pharmaceutical drug does not change the disease status but suppresses symptoms.  A more effective paradigm might be one that addresses CAUSES  OF SYMPTOMS of cellular malfunction wherever located in our body. As a clinical result of this paradigm shift in treatment modalities patients often note improvement in symptoms and healing of ailments beyond what their primary chief complaint was.

Let me veer off topic for a moment.  The proof that the currently popular medical paradigm is disease and symptom oriented is demonstrated by the health questionnaire that is presented to an individual at a healthcare facility.  Often, one of the first questions asked is about your chief complaint, little or nothing related to your wellness.  The assumption being "why would you be seeking care of doctor if you were not ill?"  How about a new idea - see a physician because she/he knows how to keep you healthy!

          A large part of our ability to be healthy has to do with our immune system.  Our immune system’s job is primarily to handle agents that would be harmful to cellular or organ system function.  The majority of these agents are primarily bacteria, viruses and toxins, AND the majority of the body’s immune system is in the intestinal tract.  That makes sense since the things that we eat and drink aren’t sterilized and therefore the gastrointestinal tract is a major entry point into the body of foreign substances; including bacteria, viruses and thousands of environmental petrochemicals that we are exposed to in the form of insecticides, herbicides, pesticides, artificial food coloring and artificial food flavoring and thousands of others.  Therefore proper evaluation of the intestinal tract and effective improvement in its function will go a long way toward restoring and maintaining a strong immune system to aid health and healthy ageing.

          One of the currently popular medical methods of evaluating the GI tract is direct visualization, i.e., gastroscopic evaluation of the stomach and small intestine and, at the other end, colonoscopic evaluation of the large intestine.  These are fine for evaluation of the gross anatomy but they do not tell us much about function and the microscopic intestinal life, i.e., the bacteria and fungi and the immune system. 

To answer this conundrum, we have been utilizing a study called a comprehensive stool evaluation for decades.  This is performed on a stool sample that you collect at home. You mail in the vials to the lab that specializes in this examination. Due to the findings of that evaluation an appropriate initial treatment program is designed and started.  Addressing the GI tract comprehensively goes a long way in assuring that the system through which you absorb most of the nutrients that we must have for health is functioning properly.  It is an evaluation of the majority of your immune system, 60% or more. Utilizing these diagnostic modalities determine therapeutic paradigms  that assure you are getting on the right track toward dying at an advanced age, old but healthy.

          I would be remiss if, while on the topic of the GI tract I failed to mention the potential of a yeast overgrowth commonly referred to as candidiasis.  Candidiasis is a class of yeast that overgrow in the intestinal tract.  We have been identifying and treating  candida overgrowths for our patients for decades.  We find it in both sexes and all ages.  It is very rewarding to see a patient’s life quality improve, often dramatically and after a lifetime of symptoms of ill health.  04/07/2020

Conrad G Maulfair, Jr.  D.O.