Man's World Issue 1 SFW Version

limitations are. Take nothing for granted and
keep an open mind. Use your experience as a
guide and don’t overspecialize. Aim for
optimal and not just sufficient. And never let
yourself get tunnel vision by ignoring the
interdependence of physiological systems.
One of the common features of modern
medicine in the Covid-19 pandemic has been
the insistence of practitioners on proving a
theoretical mechanism of action before using
it. This would be understandable in the case
of treatments with significant side effects, but
this complaint is seen even when patients
seek prescriptions for treatments with a good
safety profile. A friend recently showed me
his doctor’s reply to his request for an
ivermectin prescription. Ivermectin is an antiparasitic
drug most commonly used in the
United States for the treatment of head lice. It
has also had impressive clinical results in the
treatment of Covid-19. This doctor refused to
fill out the prescription, on the grounds that
'the serum levels achieved with Ivermectin
may not be adequate to suppress the virus
replicase'. No matter that study after study
has confirmed Ivermectin’s ability to lower
the severity and mortality of Covid, there are
questions around how it does this so we’re
going to deny you access to treatment. I say if
it works in practice, and you’re confronting a
life-threatening disease, just do it.
I can’t keep you from dying of
heart disease or diabetes if
you can’t keep yourself from
going to McDonalds.
Proactivity is another distinction of this
approach. Instead of the conventional way
Covid-19 is being treated — take Advil for the
fever and go to the hospital when you can’t
breath — this approach calls for fighting the
invading virus early and aggressively on the
beaches, denying it the foothold it needs to
mount a full invasion. When something
threatens your health, you need to mount a
shock and awe counteroffensive. This doesn’t
mean that we go nuts and attack wildly, but
that we have a disciplined and aggressive
mindset, following our plan of action with
discipline and focus. We have to move past
this dynamic of active providers and passive
patients, to a new dynamic in which the
doctor is a good general and the patient is a
good soldier. The tasks are different, but
both are disciplined and relentlessly focused
on defeating the enemy. The best general in
the world can’t win a war unless he has good
soldiers, and the best soldiers in the world
can’t win a war with crappy generals. I can’t
keep you from dying of heart disease or
diabetes if you can’t keep yourself from
going to McDonalds.
Modern medicine focuses on symptoms,
which is not bad in and of itself — these are
usually of the most pressing immediate
concern — but in practice tends to exclusively
focus on the symptoms. Functional medicine
addresses the causes, and if you catch it in
time this is generally sufficient. But this
usually goes out the window in acute and
emergency cases when the patient is thrown
into the modern medicine paradigm.
The clinical approach involves using
functional medicine to build a strong base
level of health and treat diseases where the
progression is slow enough to allow for this,
but also improving on symptomatic
treatment to buy patients and providers time
to work on root causes. In other words, by
all means put a band-aid on a bullet wound
if a band-aid is all you have and you need to
stop the bleeding, but this has to be followed
up with a better long-term fix. In Covid for
instance, serum levels of PUFA are indicated
MAN'S WORLD
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