Problems with the Principle of Interventionism
Dr Vernon Coleman
The following essay is taken from Vernon Coleman’s book `The Health Scandal’ which has been republished as a paperback.
The vast majority of orthodox doctors are committed interventionists. They treat their patients as battlegrounds, the illness as an enemy and their own armoury of drugs or techniques as weapons with which to.fight illness.
The interventionist philosophy is so strong that many patients hesitate to deal even with mild symptoms without first asking for professional advice. The interventionists have gained total control of our health.
In many cases ignorance and fear combine to produce powerful and debilitating hypochondriasis. And yet calling in a professional is not always the right approach. The human body is equipped with an enormous range of subtle and sophisticated feedback mechanisms. The capacity of the human body to heal itself is far greater than many of us imagine.
Left to our own devices many of us could look after ourselves efficiently and safely.
We need doctors. We need doctors to look after broken limbs. We need doctors to remove ruptured appendices. We need doctors to prescribe antibiotics for pneumonia. We need doctors to treat a wide variety of specific medical problems. But in the last century or so doctors have taken on an increasing amount of responsibility for the health of their patients. Treatment has become doctor-orientated; patients have been encouraged to abandon themselves in the hands of their physicians. Instead of teaching us that our lives are in our hands doctors have taught us that our lives are in their hands. We have been taught to become dependent.
What doctors have not taught us - and what we have ourselves forgotten - is that the human body is well equipped to look after itself when threatened with disease and infection. The body's defence mechanisms and self-healing mechanisms are so effective that in at least ninety per cent of all illnesses patients can get better without any form of medical treatment. Among that ninety per cent of patients interventionism is only likely to lead to unnecessary side effects and unwanted problems.
Even the responses which seem relatively straightforward aren't always as simple as we imagine them to be. Our bodies are far more sophisticated than we expect. If you cut yourself, for example, you expect the blood to clot and the wound to heal. It doesn't seem like anything special or particularly complicated. In practice, however, the blood-clotting mechanism that you take for granted is part of a defence system that they would be proud to match in any science laboratory. A network of failsafe mechanisms ensures that the system isn't accidentally triggered into action when there is no leak. More safety checks ensure that the clotting system doesn't begin to operate until enough blood has flowed through the injury site to wash away any dirt which might be present. Once the clot has formed and the loss of blood has been stopped, the damaged cells will release into the tissues chemicals which are designed to make the local blood vessels expand. The expansion of the vessels ensures that extra quantities of blood flow into the injury site, the additional blood making the area red, swollen and hot. The heat will help damage any infective organisms and the swelling will ensure that the injured part is not used too much. By immobilizing the area, the pain and the stiffness will act as a natural splint. White blood cells brought to the injury site help by swallowing up any debris or bacteria. These scavenging cells, bloated with rubbish, will allow themselves to be discharged from the body as pus once they have done their job. Then, once the debris has been cleared and the threat of infection removed, the injury will begin to heal. The scar tissue that forms will be stronger than the original skin. All this assumes that the injury is a fairly small one and that the clotting mechanism can deal with the potential blood loss effectively.
If there is an appreciable blood loss, however, your body has a number of other mechanisms designed to help you stay alive. Arteries supplying the injured area will constrict so as to limit further blood losses. Peripheral blood vessels supplying the skin will shut down to ensure that the supply of blood to the more essential organs can be preserved. The kidneys will cut off the production of urine so that fluid levels within the body can be kept as high as possible. Fluids will be withdrawn from your tissues to dilate and increase the volume of the blood which remains. The red-cell-producing sites within your body will step up production in order to replace the cells which have been lost. Finally, as an added refinement, the loss of blood will trigger off a thirst intended to ensure that the missing fluids are replaced as soon as possible.
I have described the blood-clotting mechanism at some length not because it is particularly sophisticated or impressive, but because it is one of the simplest of all the body's defences! There are many more impressive defence systems.
Go out for the evening and drink several pints of fluid and your kidneys will get rid of the excess. On the other hand if you spend the day hiking in the sun, and you drink very little, your kidneys will reduce your fluid output. While they are regulating fluid flow your kidneys will also ensure that the salts, electrolytes and other essential chemicals in your body are kept balanced. Eat too much table salt, for example, and your kidneys will ensure that the excess is excreted. There are mechanisms designed to keep your internal temperature stable. Sit in the sun and your skin will go pink as more fluid flows through the surface vessels of your body. This increase in superficial blood flow will enable your body to get rid of heat simply because the blood will lose heat to the surrounding air. You'll sweat, too, as your body cunningly uses the fact that, when water evaporates, heat is lost. As the sweat pours out, so the amount of saliva you produce will fall, thus making your mouth dry. You will get thirsty
and drink more fluids to replace the fluid your body is losing.
Should a speck of dust find its way into one of your eyes, tears will flood out in an attempt to wash the irritant away. The tears contain a special bactericidal substance designed to kill off any infection. Your eyelids will temporarily go into spasm to protect your eyes from further damage.
When you have a fever, the rise in tissue temperature is probably a result of your body trying to help you cope more effectively with any infection that may be present. The temperature rise improves the capacity of the body's defence mechanisms while at the same time threatening the existence of the invading organisms.
And it seems, too, that there is sense in the old theory that it is better to starve a fever than to force food down an unwilling patient's throat. It seems that whereas the human body can survive without fresh food, living on its stored supplies, the bacteria which cause infection need fresh food if they are to live and breed.
Researchers have shown that the brain contains a natural form of Valium designed to help suppress anxiety; that pain thresholds and pain-tolerance levels increase quite naturally during the final days of pregnancy; that breast milk contains a substance designed to tell a baby when he has had enough to eat; and that during the years when a woman is fertile the walls of her vagina produce a special chemical designed to reduce the risk of any local infection developing.
Do a lot of kneeling on a hard surface and your kneecaps will acquire a soft, squashy, protective swelling. Eat something infected and you will vomit. Get something stuck in your windpipe and you will cough it up. Spend a lot of time in the sun and special pigmented cells will migrate to the surface of your skin to provide you with a layer of protection against the sun's rays.
The human body cannot always cope with disease itself, of course. There are times when even these immensely sophisticated self healing mechanisms are overwhelmed and need support. But to dismiss the effectiveness of these mechanisms and to deride the body's natural healing powers on the grounds that they don't always work is silly: it is like arguing that it isn't worthwhile learning to swim because occasionally you may need the help of a lifeguard. And yet that is just what doctors frequently do: they dismiss the body's healing powers as feeble and irrelevant. And they insist on intervening whenever infection or disease threatens.
What doctors tend to forget is that all symptoms are merely external signs that a fight is taking place inside the body. Unless the interventionist treatment is carefully designed to support and aid the fight, the treatment applied may well end up damaging and even weakening the body's internal mechanisms and eventually making the patient more vulnerable and more reliant on interventionists and their treatments. Twentieth-century interventionism is making us physically weaker.
We are less capable of coping with minor infections, minor anxieties and minor inflammatory problems because we have been treated with powerful drugs which have taken over from our natural healing mechanisms.
This problem is easily illustrated by referring to steroid drugs - extremely powerful products which mimic the action of the cortico steroids produced naturally within the human body in response to threats of many different kinds. During the last few decades an increasing number of doctors have got into the habit of using artificial steroid drugs to treat problems such as arthritis and asthma. These drugs are powerful and effective and can suppress uncomfortable symptoms very quickly. But when a patient takes steroid drugs regularly his body's natural production of steroids falls. Eventually his body will not be able to respond to normal threats in the normal way. He will become dependent on artificial steroids. He will become exceptionally vulnerable to disease.
Twentieth-century interventionism is not only making us physically weaker and more vulnerable. By making us more aware of our frailties and vulnerabilities and at the same time making us more dependent on health-care professionals (particularly doctors) the interventionists are turning us into a race of hypochondriacs. We are taught to fear disease but we are also taught to expect the professionals to look after us. We are repeatedly told that we live in a dangerous world but we are not told how to look after ourselves. We are told to be on the lookout for disease, but we are not told which symptoms are important and which can safely be ignored. This combination of fear and ignorance leads directly to hypochondriasis.
We are told to take more exercise. But we are told that exercise can kill. We are never told how much exercise we need and how much can prove fatal. We are told that coffee can cause cancer. We learn that tomatoes can cause cancer. We learn that animal fats cause heart disease. Then we read that fats are safe, that we should eat more tomatoes and that coffee is good for us. We are told that over-the-counter medicines are dangerous but the adverts tell us differently. We are told that we need vitamin supplements, iron supplements, zinc supplements, calcium supplements, and magnesium supplements. We are told to eat less salt but to eat more potassium. We are told to eat more fibre and to avoid overcooking our greens. We are told that too much vitamin C causes kidney stones. We are told to drink more milk. We are told to eat butter. We are told that milk causes heart disease. We are told that vitamin E can kill. We are told to take up aerobics. We are told that aerobics are dangerous. We are told to watch out for skin blemishes that change colour. We are told to keep out of the sun. We are told to get lots of fresh air. We are told to walk as much as we can. We are told to take up cycling. We are told to keep off the roads. We are told that we should take indigestion seriously. We are told to watch out for head pains because they can be a sign of developing tumours. We are told that breast lumps need identifying quickly. We are told that boredom kills millions. We are told that a low-fibre diet leads to bowel cancer.
It goes on and on and on. We are given thousands of conflicting warnings. We are given very little comfort, advice or encouragement to take responsibility for our own health. Is it any surprise that a recent survey showed that ninety-five per cent of the population say that they have had at least one bout of illness in any fourteen-day period?
Taken from The Health Scandal which is now available again as a paperback. To buy a copy please go to the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
Copyright Vernon Coleman 1988 and 2024
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