All hail insects

Having just started to reread Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" for the first time, it was a pleasure to read an article today on the potentially immense health benefits to be derived from the benign cockroach. Turns out the cockroach, locust, and likely other insects, have within their bodies a compound so toxic to bacteria that it kills ~90% of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E.coli). This is striking because MRSA kills ~20,000/year in the US alone, while E.coli kills 250 more Americans per year. Tens of thousands more are infected per year, of course, and the global impact of these two lethal-to-human organisms is very difficult to calculate.

Kafka's novel metamorphosis from human to amorphous (but very cockroach-like) insect represented his decision to leave the 'normal' world of humanity behind and to become a writer to the exclusion of almost all other activity. To Kafka, both insect and writer are destined to be reviled, isolated, and ultimately killed by mainstream humanity. Fulfilling his prophecy, Kafka died prematurely and in typical hermitic isolation -- from the effects Mycobacteria tuberculosis or one of the few other bacteria types that cause TB.

Tuberculosis we can treat with a rigorous antibiotic regime in our more modern times. But MRSA is a nemesis, and sometimes is resistant to every single antibiotic within our hospital arsenals. Hence MRSA patients are usually isolated and often hooked to last-resort IVs. Another insect is used for treatment when MRSA can begun to kill human skin tissue. Maggots are applied to the wound, as they ingest dead tissue and speed healing time significantly.

Within our lifetimes we may be saving human lives via insect power in many different ways. Maggots to eat dead tissue; cockroach/locust compounds to treat resistant bacterial infection; and whole insects, caught by massive nets and nicely disguised, as a way to help feed the 7+ billion folks on our ever more challenged planet. Saving graces often come from the most surprising places, and I look forward to what other insect remedies present themselves as I make my way through my own metamorphosis.

Lifestyle Medicine gets an allopathic nod

Percentage wise, there are few MDs putting their reputations on the line to stand up for integrative medicine. Mark Hyman is one of these few and far between, and here he reports on the American Council of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) Lifestyle Initiative Program.

"Lifestyle medicine is not just about preventing chronic diseases but also about treating them. It is often more effective and less expensive than relying exclusively on drugs and surgery. Nearly all the major medical societies recently joined in publishing a review of the scientific evidence for lifestyle medicine both for the prevention and TREATMENT of chronic disease. That report is called the ACPM Lifestyle Initiative..."

Within this initiative are the core competencies required for physicians to practice their trades while prescribing the appropriate amount of lifestyle changes for each patient. This increase in lifestyle change prescription will be huge for most doctors, as most of our doctors are MDs and most MDs dont learn the connection between diet, exercise, stress reduction, sleep, interpersonal relations, environmental toxins, spiritual practice, etc, during their lengthy course of study. Naturopathic Doctors (NDs) do, but they are only licensed in ~13 states, and most residents of these states don't know we exist because most insurance doesn't adequately cover our services.

Thus, despite the overwhelming evidence-based reasoning for using lifestyle medicine in the treatment of every acute and chronic disease, now approved by the conservative Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), many millions of people in the USA suffer or die unnecessarily because our doctors don't know how to fully doctor.

The title of Hyman's article on this topic is,

"Millions Die Due to Withheld Medical Treatment" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/millions-die-due-to-withh_b_705114.html , though Hyman acknowledges that most doctors don't have enough awareness of lifestyle medicine to prescribe it in the first place. They aren't withholding treatment, since they're not holding this knowledge in the first place. Yet our MDs make 6 figures yearly, on average, while our NDs barely make 5 figures on average -- when they try to be NDs. Instead, they involuntarily withhold their knowledge as most end up paying their bills via work as UPS drivers, nurses, cooks, massage therapists, et al. A modern day tragedy, affecting the well being of every human, every day...