Medicine in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s developed a transactional approach: a single type of treatment for problems that appear to be due to single causative factors. This approach works well for addressing bacterial infection with antibiotics or for surgical approaches to injury. But, this simple model had little success when applied to multi-factorial chronic problems such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, asthma and cancer. That same 30-year period saw a renaissance in science – immunology, neurobiology, pharmaceutics, physiology, nutrition, environmental toxicology and early genomics – all emerging along with much valuable information regarding disease prevention. Yet, little or no discussion about personal responsibility or contributing lifestyle choices for disease prevention was evident.
Medicine in the 1990s and 2000s led to more improvements in targeted pharmaceuticals and more disease prevention education and awareness, yet health care costs continued to spiral due to rising epidemic levels of chronic disease. Researchers continued to develop huge databases based on population data, with little insight into how each individual specifically fits into the data pool: in other words, which of the data pertains to the treatment of a specific person.
In this environment, health care consumers, fueled the development of integrative medicine to address their personal concerns: the fact that their healthcare needs were not being met.
Now in the 2010s, we have the Affordable Health Act– system reform designed to gain transactional efficiencies out of what many agree is an obsolete medical approach to chronic illness.
As the disconnect between what patients need and what the prevailing medical system delivers widens further, some scientists and practitioners are investing in integrative medicine models that address biochemical and bio-emotional individuality.
Effectively preventing and treating chronic disease requires genetics, nutritional and environmental data, and more. Convergence Medicine drives to pinpoint the root cause of disease with two additional essential factors:
Each individual’s energetic footprint: the energetic patterns each individual was born with (basic personal constitution); and,
How that basic constitution interacts with the environment.
Perhaps in another 20-30 years, the fields of genomics and epigenetics will provide greater clarity, but, in the meantime, the two above-mentioned drivers of individual strengths and vulnerabilities, and how they interact, are best understood with ancient Eastern medical science and European medicine under the broad heading of Naturopathy. Combined with modern clinical, structural, and nutritional sciences, a powerful model is emerging.
Continued growth of current epidemics, and the levels of toxic exposures and stressors (environmental, dietary, mental and physical) that trigger them should be more than enough to drive humility and inspire further inquiry. We must find new ways to collaborate together to deal with unprecedented health challenges; no single medical system can stand on its own.