The central metaphor of medical reasoning is that of an infectious disease.

A microbe attacks the body and causes an infectious disease. Treatment ought to kill the bug (antibiotics) and save the (helpless) patient.

This metaphor ignores other factors in infectious disease:

  1. The same microbe may be harmless to some and deadly to others.
  2. Host defense, known as inflammation, mobilizes white blood cells to eliminate the microbe. Without white blood cells (known as agranulocytosis), even the strongest antibiotics cannot save the patient and he may succumb even to a harmless microbe.

Host defense is part of the Wisdom of the Body (WOB) metaphor. Accordingly the outcome of an infectious disease depends on the relationship between microbe and WOB. Antibiotics assist the WOB to do its job (mobilize white blood cells). If WOB fails antibiotics are of no avail.

This false metaphor nurtures the fable of the "killer bug" that resists all antibiotics. Are we doomed? Our WOB is smarter than the pharmaceutics industry, Throughout evolution it learned how to deal with all the bugs. Each of us carries in his gut, microbes that are resistant to antibiotics, and yet we are healthy. So when does a killer bug kill? If overwhelming the WOB. Any WOB can handle small number of microbes, and has difficulty resisting large masses. Antibiotics generally reduce their number so that the WOB can handle them, and finish the job.

The panic that medicine spreads ignores the fact that the outcome of an infectious disease depends on the relationship between microbe and WOB. Why not turn attention to WOB and train it to be able to handle all microbes even in large quantities? In other words to become a "Microbe Yogi". You can achieve microbe yogihood in several ways, e.g., immunization.

This metaphor fails in all chronic diseases. Take diabetes mellitus. It does not behave like an infectious disease. A bug is not involved, and no antibiotics help. In most patients it is incurable, and treatment is directed to replace a missing metabolite (insulin). Again, medicine focuses on insulin and ignores the WOB, otherwise it would devote its efforts to strengthen WOB, and avoid insulin treatment. Today this task is left to alternative medicine.

This metaphor fails in arteriosclerosis, essential hypertension and other chronic diseases. You do not cure a heart that was damaged in an heart attack, you simply strengthen it. Despite the fact that the infectious disease metaphor fails in all chronic diseases it is applied to cancer .

Carcinogens breed tumors in the same way as bugs cause infection. Chemotherapy, like antibiotics in infection, is the main treatment in cancer. Yet it has the same drawback as antibiotics. With time the tumor becomes resistant to treatment and the patient dies. Again, medicine ignores the fact that the outcome of cancer depends on the relationship between carcinogen and WOB. Medicine believes that the patient is utterly helpless and depends solely on chemotherapy. Yet our WOB is smarter than academic medicine. Throughout evolution it learned how to deal with all types of carcinogens.

Above all, cancer behaves like diabetes or hypertension, and not like an infectious disease. This is the background to the opening statement of this site: that there is more to cancer than just the tumor. There is Wisdom of the Body.

 

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