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Integrative medicine is not new, the order of the day in Sumeria and Egypt, thousands of years ago, was the integration of multiple modalities aimed at improving patient's health and relieves the suffering of all people. Unfortunately in our days not every patient has the opportunity to receive integrative medicine, which is the practice of ancient and modern medicine used in conjunction to bring the patient to optimal health. Many patients do not have access to integrative medicine because they do not know about it, but when they do; their insurance companies do not cover integrative medicine. As a result many patients are discouraged, disappointed and will remain for the most part, with chronic diseases which the ultimate cause is unknown. The treatment of their diseases is only masking the symptoms. Many of these patients will suffer polypharmacy syndrome, leading to many secondary effects, combination effects of the drugs, which will be treated for the most part by other drugs.

There are many tests that main stream medicine do not use routinely, which are truly helpful in aidiong the patient to get well for example it is my experience that many patients suffer from minerals and vitamin D deficiencies, heavy metals environmental toxicity . Chronic headaches can be caused by magnesium deficiency. Drugs that deplete the minerals for example potassium and magnesium can have a profound effect on health, leading to stroke, restless leg syndrome, cardiac problems and many others. Our bodies have not changed for thousands of years, our livers, brains and all the organs .for that matter have not increased in capacity to adjust to the polluted environment, we have the same body that we had thousands of years ago to detoxify our system from an environment that was pure but is now saturated with thousands of toxins that are liver, kidney toxic and carcinogenic. Autism is here and we must not ignore it, these kids are our children and we must develop strategies to help them medically and be conscious of what we are injecting in their bodies which can have a profound effect on their under-developed brains, www.NVIC.org, Thanks for the mothers who have led a critical movement to form DAN (Defeat Autism Now) doctors

Developing food allergies, environmental sensitivities leading to chronic diseases, are mainly created by a deficient immune system, due to toxicity of the colonic mucosal barrier which is then compromised leading to intestinal permeability of "leaky gut". Insurance companies restrict freedom of choice for medical care. We have lobbyists for cigarettes. Lobbying for integrative medicine as standard of medical care needs to be led by conscientious physicians to help patients, Hospitals are full, chronic diseases increasing exponentially despite our technical advancement, and cancers are epidemic. Integrative medicine must be considered as legitimate, safe, and cost effective.

We can no longer ignore the benefits of natural medicine which many generations of different people have experienced over the years with great benefits. "We must embrace hew paradigm in healthcare, there are new advanced biotechnology for the analysis and repair of the human body field, the body-field is the master control system for the physical body" .com .It is the responsibility of the physicians to remain informed, scientists, researchers, advocates for their patients, and. to be of integrity to create no harm. Most patients complain of hot spending enough time with their doctors, not being able to reach them in need, being placed on many medications and the root cause of their illnesses not being elucidated. Let us return to the kind of medicine that places the patient at the center of the medical team.

Clinical and Cost Outcomes of an Integrative Medicine IPA

Richard L Sarnat, MD,

President, Alternative Medicine Integration Group, LP, Highland Park, IllUSAJames Winterstein, DCb

Abstract

Objective

We hypothesized that primary care physicians (PCPs) specializing in a nonpharmaceutical/nonsurgical approach as their primary modality and utilizing a variety of complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) techniques integrated with allopathic medicine would have superior clinical and cost outcomes compared with PCPs utilizing conventional medicine alone.

Design

Incurred claims and stratified randomized patient surveys were analyzed for clinical outcomes, cost offsets, and member satisfaction compared with normative values. Comparative blinded data, using nonrandomized matched comparison groups, was analyzed for age/sex demographics and disease profiles to examine sample bias.

Setting

An integrative medicine independent provider association (IPA) contracted with a National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)-accredited health maintenance organization (HMO) in metropolitan Chicago.

Subjects

All members enrolled with the integrative medicine IPA from January 1, 1999 through December 31, 2002.

Results

Analysis of clinical and cost outcomes on 21,743 member months over a 4-year period demonstrated decreases of 43.0% in hospital admissions per 1000, 58.4% hospital days per 1000, 43.2% outpatient surgeries and procedures per 1000, and 51.8% pharmaceutical cost reductions when compared with normative conventional medicine IPA performance for the same HMO product in the same geography over the same time frame.

Conclusion

In the limited population studied, PCPs utilizing an integrative medical approach emphasizing a variety of CAM therapies had substantially improved clinical outcomes and cost offsets compared with PCPs utilizing conventional medicine alone. While certainly promising, these initial results may not be consistent on a larger and more diverse population.