PhyMedica
PhyMedica is a physician oriented company with a co-ownership program that brings together physicians as entreprenuers – leveraging capital, influence and intellectual resources to accomplish two objective.
Phytomedica program is an integrated approach to the use of nutrition, herbal medicine, and preventative medicine in clinical practice, drawing upon several traditions and aspects of medicine, including Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and clinical nutrition. It is divided into twelve modules, each of which details a specific area of clinical work such as gastroenterology, immunology, anti-aging, and cancer. Each module provides a detailed anatomical and physiological review of each body system, traditional medical perspectives on each system, and a review of medical and holistic treatment protocols for specific health issues. Based on 20 years of clinical experience, the Phytomedica program provides a solid foundation for anyone wishing to establish or enhance their clinical practice.
ACCORDING to a recent report released by Commonwealth Fund, the US Health care system is per capita the most expensive among developed nations, yet ranks at the bottom in terms of quality of care. Compared with many undeveloped nations, the US has a higher prevalence of chronic disease such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disease. All in all, the US Health care system is the third leading cause of death, which is an odd statistic, considering that the health care system is supposed to protect and save lives. With the comparatively huge resources the US spends on health care, something about this picture is very wrong!
food represents the soul of a nation, what does this say about the soul of modern nutrition?
Why are people so unwell? Not just patients, but also doctors, who now top dentists among professionals with the highest rate of suicides in the country? The reasons are manifold, but in essence the issue relates to something so intrinsic that we forget its importance: the health of the body and mind is dependent upon nourishment. This is a basic principle of both Hippocratic medicine as well as Ayurveda, and other systems of health: all except modern medicine. For most doctors, who receive very little training in nutrition, food is nothing more than a collection of chemicals, as humans themselves are nothing more than walking, talking bags of even more chemicals, all involved in a dizzying array of complex chemical interactions. Despite this very real complexity, many medical professionals continue to make pronouncements about diet in simplistic terms, such as “don’t eat red meat”, but can’t really address inconsistencies and problems with the reasoning behind these admonishments. Likewise, dietitians and nutritionists are taught an industry-funded approach to food that, in large part, caters to the corporatized reality of the 21st century diet, instead of taking a critical eye and addressing the ample evidence which amply demonstrates that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a miserable failure. Anyone that has eaten in a hospital knows all too well what I am talking about…
Profit over tradition
If we accept that nourishment is the source of all living things, is it any surprise with the way diet is regarded, that modern medicine ends up causing so much harm and suffering to both patients and doctors? When modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the US, we cannot simply ignore the problem. Perhaps the only saving grace of other Western countries such as France, which experiences a generally lower rate of chronic disease, is that it maintains food traditions that predate modern medicine. Thus, while the food industry easily convinced naive North Americans to give up butter in favor of margarine, such an idea in France was tantamount to cultural treason: health risks be damned. And like it almost always does, the tradition got it right. Butter is better. In my 20 years of practice, I have consistently maintained that butter and ghee are excellent fats, encouraging all of my patients to avoid margarine as well as cooking oils extracted from newly introduced oil crops such as corn, canola, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, grapeseed, and soy.
