Not even about 'diet', nutrition..

We desperately lack 'generalists' and our clear preference is for.. breaking problems down into manageable bite-size pieces and farming those out. And that is certainly a convenient approach..

Works well enough for a Boeing 777 and lots of other concepts. But it is already clear that allopathic medicine consists of a massive compilation of bite-size areas.. where we have thought to look for correlations (often mistaken for causality - though that is a larger topic yet).

The 'Holistic' idea is manifestly a Better idea, given the nature of of our scatter-gun lore about homo-sap, full of many holes; rich in certain favored areas of investigation.

But being a Better idea (?!) doesn't mean that we can develop people capable of 'practicing' effectively, especiallly in the West. (And we tend to be automatically skeptical of those approaches from elsewhere, no matter how well / less-well these fit in with that population's overall health, as we try to measure that also imprecise idea.)

I think we're so enamored of the analytical, we shall continue to rationalize its sole application, even re medicine. The cost is too high, to rethink matters on so massive a scale as to begin asking..

Not, "how shall we treat This __ disease", but.. what do we know about "what constitutes robust health" and what can we do to aid the body in maintaining that?

To phrase the questions in that direction, would also be to frankly admit for the first time: how little we understand of the overall interactions of which we are 'made' (physical and emotional, other- and inner- affected, and so on).

My merely personal opinion is that, only the immune system IS smart enough to 'manage' us / maintain health. We can learn how not to hinder it! Less easily and only maybe.. how to help it. We understand its functioning in only the vaguest of terms. And that understanding is spun.. to imply that MDs know Lots which - they have no idea about.

Interesting reading is ~ how the AMA became the M$ monopolist of health care in the US, by ridiculing all other approaches and via similar astroturf to Billy's: liberally spiced with invective of the ~ quack sort. A sordid history not unlike many other episodes since we stole it all from the original inhabitants. And most new research remains:

"Let's try this on some animals and see what happens". The theory of how/why is invented much later. Then we thrown in the MBA-Pharm Chem connection and words morph in all dimensions.

I can live with seeing a bit of how all the agencies handle things, use some of their diagnostics and - shop elsewhere. (but if I had Bizness insurance, I'd find non-AMA reimbursement a tough sell. Bizness demands uniformity - as well as that 24/7 attentiveness).

Nope, see no sane prospects a-tall. Pity.


Ashton

PS Olestra was the perfectly typical Murican approach: "how to do exactly what we know screws up our bodies" - but via this little tomfoolery: Hah! now we can eat More of the Fun stuff and still - live as if we were eating the Right stuff. Hey - we cheated the System!

Can't get more Murican than That!