OP-ED: What makes us better?
Once again, let me preface this with “I don’t know if it will work, but I just know that it will.” If I remember correctly, there are well over 100 different types of autoimmune diseases. These diseases are basically a manifestation of our immune systems attacking our own bodies. My brother died of an autoimmune disease that, at the time, was recognized in only about 370 patients worldwide.
One reason this is problematic is if there are not enough people afflicted with any individual type of autoimmune disease, there is no profit channel for pharmaceutical companies to encourage them to pursue drug discovery. Let me restate this with a quote from a scientist who was employed by a major pharmaceutical company. After touring our research institute where I talked almost incessantly about individual care based on the genomic makeup of each patient, he looked at me, smiled and said, “You really don’t understand the pharmaceutical industry do you?”
He went on to explain the pharmaceutical industry is similar to the movie industry in this manner. He said, “We are only interested in producing block-busters, drugs that you need to start taking when you are 5 years old that you continue to take until you die at 85 that never cure whatever disease or ailment you have.” Hence my alluding to the lacking profit mechanism for big pharma when autoimmune diseases are recognized as the cause of the illness.
Where am I going with all of this? Well, 25 years ago, I was introduced to Dr. Dean Ornish’s program for heart disease reversal. Seeing and meeting people who had controlled and in some cases reversed their heart disease complications through diet, exercise, stress management and social support was not only a game changer for me personally, but it was also a real eye opener. We’ve all observed what a good job our bodies do when it comes to healing a cut. Was it possible that our bodies could do the same things with diseases?
During my many years as a CEO at a research institute, I often asked my scientists these kinds of questions regarding genetic and proteomic interactions. If the genes are telling the proteins what to do, where’s the decision point? We know, for example, that the aging genes get more aggressive in our mid-50s, or so I’m told. Is there a biological switch that says, “OK, it’s time to start taking this guy out?”
One of the interesting comments that came from Dr. Ornish during his lectures related to the actual mechanisms involved in disease reversal went like this. He explained that by consuming high quantities of fats, hydrogenated and otherwise, plus large quantities of sugars and junk foods, we were exposing our bodies constantly to those elements that caused inflammatory disease, that magical component that eventually leads to either or both heart disease or cancer. His theory was relatively simple. Change your lifestyle. Stop doing that, or at least cut way down on doing that.
We ran the Ornish Program at our hospital for over a decade. Hundreds of cardiac patients went through the program. Regardless of their adherence to the program, after they finished, their psychological profile remained high. They were no longer depressed, scared, or sad. They had literally gotten their lives back.
The other notable outcome for those individuals who joined the program as non-heart disease participants was the following. If they entered the program with autoimmune disease, time after time, they told us they had gone into complete remission from the diet, exercise, stress management, and social support.
Once you give your body a break from the constant attack of inflammatory disease, bad make-believe foods, plus unhealthy fat intake, and do at least the minimum of exercise, stress management and social support, it has a chance to begin to heal itself. Just like that cut. So, what do you have to lose?
Nick Jacobs of Windber is a health-care consultant and author of two books.