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I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. (from the original Hippocratic Oath)
The American medical industry would shoot itself in the foot if it promoted nutrition for healthy heart support. Consider the loss of a $3,000,000,000 – that’s THREE BILLION dollars – annual stream of revenue. With close to one in three patients being treated for heart related issues – from those ever-present statin prescriptions to balloon angioplasty assembly lines to bypass surgeries that run around $50,000 each – hospitals, doctors and pharmacies have a vested interest in TREATING, not in actually preventing or healing coronary disease. Nutrition, after all, cannot be patented and doesn’t require a prescription. Sure, the medical industry will make the standard – and often woefully inadequate – dietary recommendations, but this is nothing more than a token nod to the role of nutrition in supporting heart health.
Most mainstream physicians are not really trained in the biology of healing and strengthening the human body, including the heart. They are trained in the mechanics of patching things once they are broken and the chemistry of dolling out often toxic drugs that do nothing more than ease a few symptoms (while frequently causing even worse side effects in the long run). And a long run it is – most cardiologists leave their patients alive but drug dependent for the rest of their days. This is a steady income stream for even the most well-meaning physician. It’s an even larger source of money for the big pharmaceutical companies that provide him or her with “continuing education” to ensure he stays within industry control.
We perhaps can’t entirely blame the doctors – by the time they emerge from at least eight years of formal and difficult schooling, they are well-trained in conventional medicine as the only viable option for treating patients. (Brainwashed, some might say.) They have studied religiously under some of the most financially successful doctors who came before them, educators that may not have looked at a new study in years but continue to dole out the same stale “expert” opinions that they have taken to be gospel for decades. It’s sort of an “it was good enough for grandpa so it’s good enough for me” approach towards a field that has made remarkable – but not necessary mainstream – discoveries in recent years. New and exciting discoveries about preventative medicine, nutrition and the remarkable ability of the human body to heal itself with proper support just aren’t on the curriculum.
In further defense of well-meaning but perhaps lopsidedly educated medical school graduates, a medical education is time consuming, costly and not the easiest choice of majors. Who among us wouldn’t want to be handsomely rewarded for all those years dedicated to study, followed by many sleepless nights on rotation as a resident where failure to follow set protocol will result in death of a career before it even starts? On top of this, most new doctors entering practice are also likely many tens of thousands of dollars in debt and need to start making the real money. To the student loan burden, add the cost of likely relocating, getting set up in practice and obtaining malpractice insurance. Becoming a physician is not cheap.
Much of the idealism that many new would-be healers started out with as first year students has likely been polished away over the years of indoctrination by instructors who are devoted to maintaining the industry status quo. Any enthusiasm to “change the world” that may be left will no doubt also give way in short order – a doctor who dares to go against standard procedures not only makes himself open to malpractice suits but will soon be ostracized by his peers as well. Success in the medical field is defined by income and income is determined by adhering to existing protocol. This is not a culture that readily embraces change or assimilates cutting edge new developments. Even a doctor that is motivated by something other than greed learns quickly that there is no place for individualism in the medical field.
Any physician brave enough to explore medicine in terms of prevention is taking his or her career into his own hands. Those with the vision to escape the standard career path and venture into the study of nutrition quickly get termed “quacks” as their fellow “healers” circle the wagons against an outsider. There are just too many country club memberships and Mercedes-Benz payments to risk the general public learning that much disease – including heart disease – can be prevented or even reversed without thousands of dollars in medical bills. If the average American had access to true, current information and nutritional support to protect their own heart health, then much of the medical industry’s income would dry up and the Godlike status most doctors – particularly cardiologists and other specialists – enjoy would evaporate. The big insurance industries, big pharmaceutical companies and all those over-paid lobbyists in Washington would lose their strangleholds on our wallets as well.
If a holistic nutritional approach – already proven to be effective in preventing and reversing much coronary artery disease - was accepted in America, then perhaps 5% of the world’s population wouldn’t continue to experience the pain, debilitation and even disfigurement of undergoing 50% of the world’s coronary bypass procedures – procedures that generate a fortune over the often poor quality lifetimes of these patients. Maybe millions more of us would enjoy a lifetime free from the specter of heart problems – disorders that will eventually kill a fourth of us, often after many years of enduring discomfort, fear and painful medical interventions that leave us exhausted and depressed at best.
If the more in the medical industry would investigate current studies and endorse proven ways of supporting heart health with nutrients and supplements such as L-arginine, fish oils and a multitude of other substances provided by nature for our health, then quite likely our current epidemic of heart disease and its precursors would be tamed. Expensive drugs and their toxic side effects could be replaced by gentler, more intelligent approaches to treating high cholesterol and blood pressure, keeping arteries pliable and providing vibrant quality of life instead of constant fatigue and illness. Millions of heart patients and potential heart patients could be spared the agony of invasive surgery and all too frequently, death, in the hands of conventional medicine. The absolute dismal failure of conventional medicine to prevent and actually heal heart disease should stand as proof that we need a change. It’s time for the cure not to be worse than the disease.
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