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"I believe nutritional medicine to be the mandatory medicine of the next century. It is extremely effective, particularly in the early stages of disease, where modern orthodoxy fails miserably. Its preventive approach is a guaranteed benefit; and last but not least, it is economically effective. " —Derrick Lonsdale, M.D. Why I Left ORTHODOX MEDICINE Healing for the 21" Century Derrick Lonsdale, M.D. With a Foreword by James P. Frackleton, M.D. This book is provided to patrons of the Soil and Health Library, http://www.soilandhealth.org, and is offered here with the specific authorization of Dr. Lonsdale. Further distribution of this book is not authorized and would constitute violation of Dr. Lonsdale's copyrights. Copyright © 1994 by Derrick Lonsdale, M.D. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review. Cover design by Marjoram Productions For information write: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc. 134 Burgess Lane Charlottesville, VA 22902 Or call: (804) 296-2772 FAX: (804) 296-5096 e-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.hamptonroadspub.com If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher. Quantity discounts for organizations are available. Call 1-800-766-8009, toll-free. ISBN 1-878901-98-2 10 98765432 Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America To my wife Adele Table of Contents Foreword 9 Introduction 11 Chapter 1 What Is Wrong With Orthodox Medicine? 17 Chapter 2 Inborn Errors of Metabolism 34 Chapter 3 Intermittent and Vitamin-Responsive Disorders 50 Chapter 4 The Case of J.V. 70 Chapter 5 Where the Experience Led 83 Chapter 6 Adaptive Mechanisms 104 Chapter 7 What Happens When the Adaptive Mechanisms Fail? 125 Chapter 8 Crib Death and Hyperactivity 145 Chapter 9 Oxygen Drives the Adaptive Machinery 167 Chapter 10 The Three Circles of Health 187 Chapter 11 What Is the Correct Fuel? 208 Chapter 12 How Does the Laboratory Help? 235 Foreword This book is must reading for this period of time of great confusion in the delivery of medical care. It takes the reader through the changes in philosophy experienced by a physician in an academic setting, based on his discovery of the logic of natural self- healing. In this chemically polluted world, drugs in general only add to the body's burden of poisons. The "new medicine" of the 21st century must be a paradigm shift from what was done in the 20th century under the title of "scientific medicine." The presently accepted traditional or orthodox medicine has taken on all the characteristics of a religion, and any threat to its status quo is unfortunately treated as heresy. Our present course will bankrupt our country without having the desired results of good, effective medicine. Though the developing science of nutritional treatment may appear, at first sight, to be an oversimplification, it actually influences body repair at the cellular level. Nutrition works, and this book provides a foundation for understanding why. James P. Frackelton, M.D. Past President, The American College for Advancement in Medicine Introduction This is not a do-it-yourself book. It does not tell the reader what nutrient supplement to purchase from the health food store. Hundreds of books like that are in existence. This book is different because it tells you why nutrition and nutrient supplementation represent a paradigm shift in concept. It describes why I believe that nutritional medicine is a paradigm shift. The last one occurred when germs were discovered as a common cause of many different disease conditions. In order to understand the nature of this book, it is necessary to review recent history in the development of medical science. Hippocrates, generally conceded to be the father of modern medicine, actually operated on principles which were far removed from our present approach. The foundation of his treatment was based upon rest and diet. One of his most important tenets was the simple statement "Thou shalt do no harm," essentially meaning that if the attending physician does anything at all for the sick patient, it must never be actively harmful. In this statement is implicitly the concession that the approach used by a physician might fail, but that it must not make things worse. This tenet would appear to be something which is so obvious that it barely needs stating, but we shall see why this approach may easily be lost with our present attitude in modern medicine. Hippocrates also said, "Let your medicine be your food and your food be your medicine." In the modern era, that remarkable piece of wisdom has been almost totally lost, and it is worth examining why this is so. Consider the development of medical thought over the centuries. The ancient Chinese people proposed and used advanced techniques for centuries, but by language and geography they were necessarily isolated, and their wisdom was never easily accessible to the Western world. In the meantime, development of scientific thought was proceeding at a painfully slow pace in Europe. For example, we think of Harvey as the genius who discovered the circulation of the blood. Obviously, Harvey was indeed a genius, for his discovery was brought to light in a time when current thought in Europe had no idea of the functions of the complex machinery now known as the cardiovascular system. Yet this concept was understood fairly well by the Chinese for as long as 4000 years before and was incorporated into their techniques as a matter of course. The real problem is the accumulation of collective wisdom in a cohesive and retrievable form. This is seen sharply with the obvious background of the short human life span. Consider the vast quantities of literature that has ever been written; it is impossible for any one individual to grasp even the smallest part of it. Hence, we develop our concepts in relatively small groups and easily become convinced that our own is the "only truth." It is a painful reiteration of the story of the blind men and the elephant. A group of blind men were asked to describe an elephant that each had examined to the best of his ability. One described the animal as a "long tube"; another as a "flat piece of material," and so on. Of course, each was describing a very limited view, depending upon whether he had touched the trunk, the ear, or other organ of the whole animal. It is paramountly human that each of these blind men was equally convinced that he had described the whole elephant. Of even greater importance, each was convinced that the others had made fundamental mistakes in their ability to observe the animal. It is also obvious that each was making an accurate assessment of his observation. The failure to perceive the big picture was the error common to all of them. This universal problem of mankind creates the collective failure to see the big picture. So we must now examine the development of our own particular "blind man" concept. That is, we must look at the mechanisms that led to our present views of the medical science that has come to be known as allopathy. The medieval period in Europe was associated with such nebulous things as evil spirits and witchcraft. There was no particular plan which referred to medical thought. No really good or practical ideas came until relatively recently when microorganisms were discovered to be a cause of a great many different diseases. Allopathy is defined as a medical technique which deliberately induces inflammation. This approach arose from the fact that research showed that a fundamental response of the body to infection was inflammation. What was more natural than to attempt to find ways and means of inducing inflammation as a defensive response? Physicians no longer do this, but the concept of killing the enemy has remained as the dominant theme that guides our collective thought patterns. Every effort was then made to find ways and means of killing the germs without killing the human being who was attacked. Penicillin did two things. It gave doctors a useful and practical approach to infections for the first time ever, at least with reasonable safety. But it also reinforced the "game plan," which was to kill the enemy. Nobody will contest the fact that the discovery of penicillin was dramatic, perhaps the most dramatic moment in the history of modern medicine. Like so many things, however, it had its "flip" side, unfortunately. It gave us the idea that Mother Nature had provided an inexhaustible supply of harmless germ killers. A vast research program was initiated to find other substances that had the same kind of effect as penicillin. Now we have a very large number of antibiotics, as they all came to be called. But not all of them were benign: far from it. Indeed, some of them were so toxic to our own cells that they were diverted to the treatment of various forms of cancer. In fact, the idea of antibiotics was so transparently supportive of collective modern medical wisdom that it blinded us to a whole array of associated factors. It is remarkably akin to the error that has been made in agriculture, in attempting to find ways and means of killing insect pests. Everyone, including the farmers, knows now that this approach perpetrated an ecologic phenomenon which threatens our very existence. The insects became resistant to insecticides and bred resistant strains in their progeny. As quickly as the ingenious chemist found a new chemical, the insect population adapted and became resistant to the lethal attack. Now we have hundreds or thousands of chemical substances and whole generations of insects that are unaffected by the array of chemicals. Ironically, however, our cells have not adapted to these chemicals, and we are the organisms that are feeling the effect of this barrage of chemical brinkmanship. Our water is heavily polluted, and our food is tainted with them. Nobody is yet able to assess the amount of disease in humans which is directly related to this use of pesticides. The idea of "kill the enemy" spread to the treatment of cancer. If the maverick cells that represent the cancer could be killed, then the disease would be cured. We are faced with the same problem. Can we kill the cancer without killing its owner? We are back at the conundrum that faced us when we were trying to find agents to kill germs. Unfortunately, we had forgotten that the body has its own defensive machinery, and no thought was given to finding means to improve or support it. In fact, our therapy often damages the situation to such a degree that we offend that fundamental rule preached by Hippocrates: Thou shalt do no harm. We have run into a very distinct and important mistake which permeates the whole range of crisis disease. We have become arrogant since we have come to believe that the modern era of medicine is the scientific bonanza of all time. Physicians are trained, and patients are taught, that this modern medicine is fantastic and dramatic and can produce miracles of healing that have never been dreamed of before. So gulled are we that it is sometimes extremely difficult for a physician to observe that his treatment is making things worse. In the excitement of the intensive care unit (terminology which glorifies the active participation of the physician as a healer), he sees the clinical decay of a patient and says to himself: "What a devastating disease this is. Even with the powerful medicines that I have at my disposal, I do not seem to be able to correct this inevitable decline. I must add yet another pharmaceutical miracle drug." He (the male gender is used for convenience only) has been duped. He has forgotten that he is not a healer. He is the servant of a "machine" that is able to heal itself, and he needs humility, not aggression. His training is against him, for the power of the drug companies teaches him constantly that he is in charge of a battery of miracle makers that must be used with increasingly honed skill. It is difficult for him to see that each drug compounds the clinical situation and that it is not the natural course of the disease that is the problem. This attitude has also given way to the idea that clinical observation is old-fashioned and of no value in the presence of modern technology. The diagnosis is made by finding evidence of structural changes in the body and this is the work-up which must be set in motion in every case. When no evidence of disease is found from this work-up, the patient is placed in a classification of "functional disease," tantamount to an accusation of fraud. This judgment has infiltrated into the patient's consciousness in the form of "the doctor said that it was all in my head." It is not particularly surprising that this classification, rightly or wrongly, has given rise to latent or explicit resentment, since the patient is convinced that the physician considers him to be a fake. Unfortunately, this is often exactly the opinion of the physician who believes that the physical symptoms are some kind of psychological protection for the patient, who is unwilling to face the world. If this is the model that we have set up and it is wrong, then we have to replace it with a better model. This book is to introduce the reader to such a model. It demonstrates why preventive medicine, which uses nutrition as its core therapy, has to be the medicine of the 21st century. Although a relatively simple model, it is built upon basic science which is well-known and understood. It is only a matter of moving this knowledge out of the laboratory into the clinic, a procedure which can take many years unless the physician is willing and able to be conversant with the patient's problem in both clinical and biochemical terms. It will show the reader that health can be maintained remarkably easily if the human machine is properly serviced and that the fuel that it receives is the most important of all health measures. I have tried to trace my own development as a physician. I was educated in the most orthodox and austere atmosphere, in a famous London teaching hospital. My early training is remembered with gratitude because it taught me how people tick. Progressing through family practice to the heady atmosphere of a major American subspecialty clinic, I became deeply involved with the fascinating complexities of biochemistry. It was there, in the mill race of hard- won experience, that I began to see the body as a biochemical machine which can repair itself when provided with its nutritional needs. I found that this principle applied to all illness, not just rare and exotic conditions. To make such a change in personal perspective is just as difficult as changing from one religion to another and demands repeated self-examination and confirmation. In a thousand different ways, I have put my model to the test in my own mind. It has yet to become unglued. I hope that, by tracing a personal event of such magnitude, as I see it, that I have provided the reader with a blueprint that enables that perspective to become visible to others.