Saving Evolution
Medicine

I love cauliflower prepared in the Indian way with fennel seeds and root vegetable puree. Back in the 80’s when I first developed bowel problems, it was a regular part of my diet. Last week I ate had something similar at a vegan restaurant in my neighborhood. In retrospect I’m not sure what I was …

The other day I went across the street to a farmer’s market and bought a block of my favorite cheese, a lightly smoked artisanal cheese from an organic creamery in a nearby town. Having consumed small amounts of New Zealand cheddar without developing symptoms, I decided to try two big slices of the smoked cheese. …

When I had learned to avoid foods that showed any signs of mold or blight, and to reduce my umbilical hernia after eating carbs and fats, I turned again to trying new foods. At a favorite neighborhood restaurant that was not too expensive, but that served dishes that I could eat with minimal symptoms, I …

When I first consulted a gastroenterologist, she asked me what was wrong. When I said that I had bloating, she literally threw up her hands and exclaimed, “Everybody has it!” Half an hour later, she prescribed medicines that blocked stomach acid production and relieved the symptoms of reflux. I took them. They offered relief but …

This has been a bad health year for me. Like other bad years, it began with an interval of adrenal stress and a series of fall viral infections that triggered a flare of illness that has lasted for months. I eat only a few hypoallergenic foods, rely on vitamins and probiotics, and sometimes take antibiotics …

Evidence-based medicine has developed to oppose the tendency of drug companies to increase profits by making false or harmful claims. It takes the point of view that if something hasn’t been proven to be true, it is false, and suspect. Together, the problem and response, which sustain otherwise unworkable complex systems, inhibit individual observation, spontaneity, …

The conventional medical response to illness is a pill that eases symptoms. Such pills often perpetuate problems. For example, overwork can cause depression, for which a pill can be taken to enable continued overwork. In such cases the pill is a maladaptation that perpetuates the problem even as it creates dependence. It can also prevent …

Medical research is for proving what you already know. We like to imagine that our ideas come from evidence, but they don’t. How could they? Evaluating evidence presupposes a robust theory, a plan for gathering the necessary data, and a database worth analyzing. The analysis rests on the assumption that complexity is random, and on …

When doing medical research, we often ignore that we are an integral part of the web of life. We reason destructively. We draw artificial lines that separate our bodies from our surroundings, and that break our bodies down into systems, organs, tissues, cells, metabolic pathways, and molecules. We forget that we are more than the …

There is a psycho-spiritual teaching that what is outside is inside. It is often used to mean that when we look at the world we see it through the lens of the organizing principles by which we simplify a natural world that would otherwise overwhelm. Like most popular teachings, it reflects a literal truth: the …

In 1996 I developed what the Centers for Disease Control labeled “chronic fatigue syndrome.” Since 1996, American doctors have labeled my illness as chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme disease, borrelliosis, and bartonella. The Aussie ones call it M.E., or myalgic encephalomyelitis. Whatever the label, the signs and symptoms …