Most Americans realize that health care in this country is expensive. But for our money, we get the best medical care in the world, right?
Far from it.
The fact is, Americans spend more per capita on medical care than does any other developed country, yet our health is among the worst in the developed world. In 2001, the World Health Organization looked at the 23 countries that spent the most for health care.
The United States spent by far the most in that group - about $6,000 per capita, twice the average of the other high-spending countries. But we had nearly the lowest healthy life expectancy - that is, years of life free of debilitating illness. Only the Czech Republic ranked lower.
Why? Virtually all of our efforts are aimed at identifying and destroying the agents of disease. Unlike other medical cultures, such as that of China, we do almost nothing on the other side - supporting the body's natural, safe, sophisticated systems of resistance to promote healing.
In my view, the answer to America's dilemma is integrative medicine. This philosophy employs the best conventional medical therapies when appropriate, such as in cases of acute injury or life-threatening disease. If I were hit by a bus, I would want to be taken to a high-tech conventional emergency room immediately.
But for chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, migraine headaches, skin conditions and many others, integrative medicine promotes the use of natural, lifestyle-based therapies such as dietary changes, herbal preparations, guided imagery and other gentle, generally inexpensive measures. There are now 31 programs in integrative medicine at medical schools around the nation. More than 200 doctors have graduated from the first such program, which I started at the University of Arizona's School of Medicine in Tucson in 1994.
As standard American medicine collapses, we are working hard to have a corps of doctors at the ready to step into the breach. I fully believe that integrative medicine is the medicine of the future.
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