Since the dawn of civilisation, across countries and cultures, doctors and healers used a variety of treatments based on natural remedies. Over the centuries, new discoveries were integrate with existing knowledge in order to improve clinical outcomes. However, in the last few decades almost all diseases are treated using a mono-therapeutic approach, with disappointing results.
Over the past fifty years, we have witnessed advances in physiology and medicine, as well as changes in treatments, technology and surgical procedures. Nonetheless, the heart of clinical practice largely remains as it has been for many decades.
Resistance to change has hindered the translation of scientific findings into clinical practice, which is an important issue that must be addressed successfully to ensure that treatments become more effective, purposeful and practical.
The nearly exclusive reliance on a single therapeutic approach to tackle complex, chronic disease may represent an unintended rejection of other clinical practices vital to ameliorating the response to today’s urgent health problems.
Although the mortality associated with some serious diseases is reduced, however, the prevalence of other complex, chronic conditions such as diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic problems, heart disease, cancer, and mitochondrial disease has increased, rather than diminished.
This has provided the evidence to suggest that “one size fits all”, mono-therapeutic approach is inefficacious to combat the different chronic diseases that afflict modern societies in many countries worldwide.
The need for a change in the treatment approach appears to be the only logical conclusion. It would be highly desirable that doctors, physicians and healthcare providers work in concert to define and refine the most appropriate therapeutic, patient centred approach.
It is extremely important to depart from a “quick fix” method that has failed to tackle the present chronic diseases crisis, and implement a personalised medicine approach in order to deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.
It is also important to broaden the treatments repertoire, implementing a multidisciplinary approach and selecting the most appropriate and efficacious therapies with the least side effects, according to the specific needs of the patient.
Orthomolecular medicine and precision nutrition nourish the body from within, which is essential for promoting optimal physiological functions, and therefore, creating the right environment for supporting healing and repair, and for preventing disease.
In addition to these disciplines, other therapeutic components that are most likely to benefit the patient could be incorporated within the treatments to maximise positive results.
Using an integrative medicine, personalised approach, targeting the root cause of disease and not just managing the symptoms, would increase the likelihood of tackling more effectively the current chronic diseases crisis. The optimal implementation of this approach would help improve clinical outcomes, impact positively on patients’ quality of life, and offer enormous potential savings to struggling healthcare systems.