Enriching Health

Explosive growth in complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies is bringing the most dramatic, far-reaching changes in medical care in nearly a century. More Americans are embracing health enrichment over doctoring disease. Some pioneering physicians are championing ‘integrative clinics’ offering both CAM and modern therapies. More consumers are seeking to enrich their health. Not only are most chronic diseases preventable, the skills involved in building health differ greatly from those used in fighting disease. As the US military learned in Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia and now Iraq, the skills required in destroying an enemy differ from those in building peace and harmony! Medical schools still largely prepare physicians to wage war against disease rather than promoting healthy lifestyles and behavioral change. The curriculum focuses on the biochemistry of disease, rather than promoting health. America needs more health promoters, empowering patients in the collaborative work of enriching health and preventing disease. Waiting to treat chronic disease after the damage occurs is costly, often ineffective and too often fatal.

This book is about a cultural shift in America from doctoring disease to enriching health. The popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) expresses this shift from a disease centric to a health centric model.

Plan of the Book          

Chapter 1 describes four major markers that signal a shift from doctoring disease to enriching health. This big shift moves from a fear-based focus on disease toward a positive goal of health, from reliance on quick fixes to adopting healthier life styles, from reactive to more proactive roles for consumers, and from an emphasis only on the physical to a holistic view of health. CAM therapies are used disproportionately by more educated individuals with higher incomes, insuring it will persist and be adopted by others.

Chapter 2 discusses the public’s many grievances with our modern conventional medical care system such as cost, side effects, mistakes, inability to treat chronic illnesses effectively and the failure to promote health. Chronic diseases increase as physicians over-medicate and under-educate patients for conditions that are mostly preventable. Disaffections are causing many to explore alternative therapies for their chr