Energy Med Paradigm

My Insights into the "Energy Medicine" Paradigm

This is very important to me. There are many writers on this subject, whom I may list in a future update to this page. I want to help the shift to this greater paradigm. Because of this I submitted a letter to the editors of the Scientific American magazine. The text is below, following the original letters which sparked my response.

I also submitted a letter to the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients on this.

The basics of my application of new paradigm thinking to helping people in my clinical practice could be summed up as "bio-electro-magnetic" interactions. With acupuncture theory we learn about energy lines running up and down the body. With the work of Nordenstrom, we learn about the ionic charges in the arteries and veins--which are different between arteries and veins. This charge difference means there is a flow of charge in the body. Along with movement of charge there is, by definition, the generation of an electromagnetic field. This leads to the fact that the body has many different electromagnetic fields. Some of these are measured in EKG and EEG testing.
This model shows the value in looking at the environment--including electromagnetic fields--surrounding organisms. [As an example, scientists know that the discoveries of genes as a way of assessing the form and function of living organisms must be combined with study of the surrounding environment and how it affects gene expression.]

An example of using an Energy Medicine Paradigm to explain observations that do not completely fit our current understanding is found in the information at this link to writing about the Rebounder Trampoline phenomenon. Click here for information on the Rebounder.

This field interaction paradigm helped me develop my concept of "Domain Modulation Medicine". This is a way to look at health care as a multifactorial approach to individualized care. The word "domain" has been used in physics to describe the area within which an entity exists. The phrase helps me to think of each person as having their own special place to exist. Our goal is to help each person function well and enjoy their life within their own domain. It helps to define our goal and keep focused on the things that are important.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

[page 12, March 1999]

Editors Preface: "Evolution and the Origins of Disease" by Randolph Nesse and George C. Williams [November 1998] , prompted mail from several readers who questioned whether evolutionary medicine is truly a science or just intelligent speculation. For instance, Christian Erickson, a medical student at Duke University, wrote that "analysis can provide evidence that coughing reduces pulmonary infection rates but cannot validate the further claim that coughing, by virtue of functional value, conferred a selective advantage in the past. For all we know, coughing may have been a spurious by-product of evolutionary whim."
Additional comments about the article follow.

EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE

"Evolution and the Origins of Disease," by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams [November 1998], described "bold guppies" that weren't afraid of facing< their bass predators and who were eaten as a result of this trait of low anxiety. Is it not possible that the guppies were instead lacking in the trait of "smarts" and just didn't realize the threat confronting them?

DOUG BERGER

Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Ness and Williams provide novel insights into evolutionary biology and make cogent arguments for its recognition as a basic medical science. Their comment regarding investigations into possible teratogenic effects of antinausea drugs deserves clarification, however. The authors assert that no consideration has been given to the possibility that an inherently nonteratogenic antinausea drug could still be associated with birth defects by suppressing morning sickness and thus permitting ingestion of harmful foods. In fact, much of the research on the most widely used morning-sickness medication, Bendectin, was epidemiological and therefore could detect such an association. This research consistently showed no convincing link between Bendectin use and an increase in birth defects. Nevertheless, the product remained a target of litigation until it was voluntarily withdrawn from the U.S. market by its manufacturer in 1983. In this case, scientifically sound research was insufficient to exonerate a useful medication.

RANDALL K. ABSHER

Wesley Long Community Hospital, Greensboro, N.C.

Nesse and Williams reply: A major goal of Darwinian medicine is to call attention to the subtle problems involved in deciding whether a trait is an adaptation, a trade-off, a defect or some- thing else. Could a coordinated, complex and obviously useful mechanism like cough be "a spurious by-product of evolutionary whim?" No way. That a future doctor thinks it might be only confirms the desperate need for evolutionary biology in medical curricula.

As for Berger's question about whether bold guppies might just lack "smarts": no, it is a trade-off. On average, bold guppies die young but have more off- spring per month, because females (for their own interesting reasons) prefer bold mates. Finally, could nausea in pregnancy be a mere mistake? Yes, and we thank Absher for pointing out that epidemiological research on Bendectin supports this hypothesis, at least in modern environments. Our point about Bendectin was that, despite a long controversy about its potential dangers, litigants seem not to have considered any possible utility of nausea during pregnancy.

MY LETTER IN RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE

to the Editors of Scientific American

The exchanges about Evolutionary/Darwinian Medicine and its potential value for medical school curricula [March 1999 issue] highlight the need for rapid inclusion of an important next step in developing our model of life and health. The letters show that western medical logic has probably reached its highest function under the current paradigm--which might be termed "Newtonian medicine". In the same way medical science looked at things differently after the discovery of bacteria made sense of Semmelweiss' practice of handwashing before delivering babies, applying knowledge of energy flows to the questions of how life got to where it is now will answer many questions and render others irrelevant.

Media reports of the growing public experience with non-western practices such as acupuncture and Ayurvedic medicine point out the positive results of these systems of diagnosis and treatment. Western science already has the elements to expand its health model to explain the success of these (ref. two books below). Nesse and Williams, medical student Erickson, and the doctors Berger and Abser would find their observations and questions transformed by reviewing them in light of an energy flow paradigm.

I withdrew from western medical education in the 1970s (I had been in the University of Michigan Medical School class of 1974) to pursue my own healing and later continued studies in nutrition, acupuncture, homeopathy and Ayurveda. I always wanted to reconcile my respect for science with the empirical success of non-western techniques that deal with "Qi", "Prana", "Vital Force" or life energy. Two key events that showed me this is possible were hearing Robert O. Becker, M.D. (The Body Electric) talk on his research into electricity, magnetism and cell growth and meeting Bjorn Nordenstrom, M.D. (Biologically Closed Electrical Circuits) from Sweden's Karolinska Institutes who researched the different electrical charges found in arteries compared to veins (and cured cancers by changing polarity of the blood flowing through them). If we take our knowledge of the magnetic fields that develop around wires conducting electrical charges we can see how the body is a complex series of overlapping fields, existing in a world of other energy fields, sources of ions, ways energies can be drained from us, etc.

The cough--one subject in the letters--has been explained in Oriental medicine as "rebellious Lung Qi". Rather than classifying a cough as the action of an anthropomorphized "evolutionary whim" (as did the medical student), we could examine it as the result of energy interactions wherein the Qi of the lung energy flow pathway(called a "meridian" in acupuncture theory) is temporarily redirected. The interactions of various energy fields would explain observations proponents of Evolutionary Medicine seek to explain. The fields of chaos theory, string theory, etc., which students are now learning in physics and mathematics should help explain health and illness in greater detail. The continuance of new biological phenomena for example would be explained as successful variation of energy patterns that can be sustained by the surrounding energy fields. In practical application, successful patient management would then be consistent with a term I coined, "Domain Modulation Medicine."

Darwin's mindset was one of openness and creativity in interpreting what he observed. If medical curricula included such books as the above I think the observations of Darwinian medicine might be more readily entertained by medical school faculty. This would give future health care thinkers the tools to help western medical theory and practice continue a big evolutionary advance.

We need to go beyond seeking to classify a phenomenon as "an adaptation, a trade-off [or] a defect..." I hope we can develop a new understanding of Nesse and Williams' additional choice of "...or something else".

Ralph Wood Wilson, N.D., M.S. Acupuncture

Graduate, Bastyr University of Natural Health Sciences, Seattle WA