THE MISSING PIECE oF MEDICINE
Terry Leder
August 26, 2008
The world of modern medicine has made miraculous strides in the last 25 years or so. The diagnostic tools, surgical methods, and advanced research techniques have truly revolutionized today´s medical care. Cancers are more treatable and have a higher survival rate, Open Heart Surgery finds the patient sitting up in a chair the night of the surgery and home after several days. The list of these advances could fill a textbook, and countless people have been blessed to be the recipients of these most admirable medical efforts.
Yet, there remains one missing link, one area of medical diagnosis and treatment that has been overlooked, missed, forgotten among all of these miraculous advances. It is one of the most basic systems of the human body and has been recognized as part of the human anatomy since 1905 when Ernest Henry Starling coined the name in lectures to the Royal College of Physicians. This original thought goes even further back when Claude Bernard (1813-78) and Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817-94) had introduced the idea of internal secretions.
That missing piece of our complex human body is known and taught in grade schools as the body´s messengers, hormones. Hormones have not been completely ignored; there have been significant advances in this area of medicine as well. We have Endocrinologists to investigate and research how all of these substances behave, the role they play in our body´s synchronized dance. There have been dramatic advances in diabetes which is the result of insulin, a hormone gone wild to name one.
Currently when scientific talk turns to hormones, most news stories get lost in the abuses of athletic performance hormones such as Human Growth Hormone or the debate that rages over treatment of menopause with synthetic pharmaceutical hormones versus the natural Bioidentical Hormone Therapy or the newly recognized male counterpart, Andropause. Still, even with these lively debates raging, the missing medical link remains hiding behind the doors of the most advanced intellectual minds.
Logic, and simple logic at that, is the core of this forgotten and critical element of medicine. This logical thought ended in grade school when we assumed that the role of the hormones was, as phrased earlier, the body´s messengers. That´s it. Everything stalled with this phrase. If we follow this logic forward, what is a messenger? What role does a messenger have? In order to help understand this simple concept, just imagine how quickly a successful business would file bankruptcy without a finely tuned messaging system?
When does an average person, that is one without Darwinian flaws, perform at his or her peak? Most everyone in medicine would agree that would happen around the age of 20. It is at this age that our hormones are being produced at their highest levels and our bodies, likewise, performs at its best. It is a widely held theorem and proven medical fact that the production of our hormones decline after our bodies have reached this peak performance age. It is in the years after this that we begin to see the beginnings, the origins of disease processes. Is this just coincidence? Following the simple logic put forth, is it not possible that the symphony of hormones that was so finely tuned around 20 years of age is now becoming flat , sharp , and out of rhythm with our bodily demands due to the lack of these vital substances?
The answer is quite simply yes. Hormone supplementation at the appropriate levels balance the body enabling it to perform like a symphony. Replenishment with natural, bioidentical hormones, back to the levels of that peak performance age has been proven time after time to promote a better quality of life. Many advertise this practice as "Anti-Aging", promoting the idea they can turn back the hands of time. Many advertise and sell snake oil hormones and therapies for monetary profit only. They harm the good that true professionals are trying to achieve in this rapidly growing field of medicine. No one can stop aging, time will continue to march on.
It is long past the time to retool the way the medical world is structured. It is time to be proactive instead of reactionary. Proactive medicine, especially hormonal balancing, can save lives, prolong them, and even save the insurance gougers the almighty dollar. It is time to return to simple and basic reasoning. Now is the time to make the addition of simple logic a leading part of the complex mystery of the human body. Restore our basic functions in a natural way instead of adding additional foreign chemicals that only create more hormonal disharmony and actually cause more illness.
Yet, there remains one missing link, one area of medical diagnosis and treatment that has been overlooked, missed, forgotten among all of these miraculous advances. It is one of the most basic systems of the human body and has been recognized as part of the human anatomy since 1905 when Ernest Henry Starling coined the name in lectures to the Royal College of Physicians. This original thought goes even further back when Claude Bernard (1813-78) and Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817-94) had introduced the idea of internal secretions.
That missing piece of our complex human body is known and taught in grade schools as the body´s messengers, hormones. Hormones have not been completely ignored; there have been significant advances in this area of medicine as well. We have Endocrinologists to investigate and research how all of these substances behave, the role they play in our body´s synchronized dance. There have been dramatic advances in diabetes which is the result of insulin, a hormone gone wild to name one.
Currently when scientific talk turns to hormones, most news stories get lost in the abuses of athletic performance hormones such as Human Growth Hormone or the debate that rages over treatment of menopause with synthetic pharmaceutical hormones versus the natural Bioidentical Hormone Therapy or the newly recognized male counterpart, Andropause. Still, even with these lively debates raging, the missing medical link remains hiding behind the doors of the most advanced intellectual minds.
Logic, and simple logic at that, is the core of this forgotten and critical element of medicine. This logical thought ended in grade school when we assumed that the role of the hormones was, as phrased earlier, the body´s messengers. That´s it. Everything stalled with this phrase. If we follow this logic forward, what is a messenger? What role does a messenger have? In order to help understand this simple concept, just imagine how quickly a successful business would file bankruptcy without a finely tuned messaging system?
When does an average person, that is one without Darwinian flaws, perform at his or her peak? Most everyone in medicine would agree that would happen around the age of 20. It is at this age that our hormones are being produced at their highest levels and our bodies, likewise, performs at its best. It is a widely held theorem and proven medical fact that the production of our hormones decline after our bodies have reached this peak performance age. It is in the years after this that we begin to see the beginnings, the origins of disease processes. Is this just coincidence? Following the simple logic put forth, is it not possible that the symphony of hormones that was so finely tuned around 20 years of age is now becoming flat , sharp , and out of rhythm with our bodily demands due to the lack of these vital substances?
The answer is quite simply yes. Hormone supplementation at the appropriate levels balance the body enabling it to perform like a symphony. Replenishment with natural, bioidentical hormones, back to the levels of that peak performance age has been proven time after time to promote a better quality of life. Many advertise this practice as "Anti-Aging", promoting the idea they can turn back the hands of time. Many advertise and sell snake oil hormones and therapies for monetary profit only. They harm the good that true professionals are trying to achieve in this rapidly growing field of medicine. No one can stop aging, time will continue to march on.
It is long past the time to retool the way the medical world is structured. It is time to be proactive instead of reactionary. Proactive medicine, especially hormonal balancing, can save lives, prolong them, and even save the insurance gougers the almighty dollar. It is time to return to simple and basic reasoning. Now is the time to make the addition of simple logic a leading part of the complex mystery of the human body. Restore our basic functions in a natural way instead of adding additional foreign chemicals that only create more hormonal disharmony and actually cause more illness.
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