Allopathy is an expression of industrial medicine based on Cartesian mechanistic principles that suggest that the body is a machine, and that by dividing things down to the smallest ‘atomic’ level, you can solve all problems. Both are wrong. The body is not a machine, individuality matters greatly. So you need to customize medicine to the particular person, not a generic symptom. By giving symptomatic treatment, you are merely suppressing that symptom, and possibly causing something to break elsewhere. And a drug may only work statistically for 70% of the population, not 100%, even in fixing symptoms. Holistic ayurvedic style medicine tailored to the individual, with precise testing and measurement, must be the wave of the future. This can be an alliance between allopathy and ayurveda. More likely, though, is that #BigPharma and #BigMedicine will steal and #digest all the good stuff in ayurveda and sneer at it, too, that it is not “evidence-based”. Well, neither is allopathy: it is “statistics-based” which means it only works on probabilities, not certainties. And it has no Theory of Disease.
Rajeevji, I had read somewhere that genes may be present but not expressed. If this is true and genome sequencing only captures the genes available/present (but not expressed), do you think tailoring treatments based on genome sequencing may be chasing a mirage?
my feeling, karthik, is that individualized genome-based medicine is an order of magnitude better than RCT/statistics-based drug therapy, even if it may not be perfect. after all, a person is nature+nurture+experiences. there is a trend towards customized medicine in the west too.
Oh, yes, indeed. No doubt about that. It will also be interesting to see if that leads to the wholistic, Ayurvedic view of health at some point in the future.
Rajeevji, I had read somewhere that genes may be present but not expressed. If this is true and genome sequencing only captures the genes available/present (but not expressed), do you think tailoring treatments based on genome sequencing may be chasing a mirage?
my feeling, karthik, is that individualized genome-based medicine is an order of magnitude better than RCT/statistics-based drug therapy, even if it may not be perfect. after all, a person is nature+nurture+experiences. there is a trend towards customized medicine in the west too.
Oh, yes, indeed. No doubt about that. It will also be interesting to see if that leads to the wholistic, Ayurvedic view of health at some point in the future.