Quote from BeakerBoy:
Good discussion guys, there have been some nice posts made in the last few days.
I know that most people in this forum don't agree with me on these matters but I do have some credibility in the form of a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry. It seems that most people are very divisive between natural and traditional medicine. I would point out that the line between the two is in fact somewhat blurry - why? - well I'm not sure if you know but over 75% of the new drugs approved for use in the US in the last 25 years can have their origins traced back to a natural source. That is to say that the original lead compound for that particular drug came from a natural source such as a plant or organism. Nature is amazingly intricate and it provides scientist with wonderful scaffolds with which to build new treatments. Why the pills then? - it is not just so that a pharma company can patent, market, make money etc. it is because purity and dosage are very important for achieving the desired response. It is also due to availabilty - did you know that the common cancer drug Taxol was originally isolated from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree and that if the natural source was used for treatment, each patient would require several acres of land covered in the Yew tree (not to mention that the harvesting process destroys the tree). This is obviously not practical.
As has been pointed out, the human immune system is an incredible healer and I cannot stress enough that PREVENTION IS KING. AS BGP and ElCubano and others have touched on, our diets, lifestyles, exposures etc. have all deteriorated over time and these factors are undoubltedly responsible for many of the conditions that we are facing today. So my message is to embrace living a natural lifestyle but if you do develop a disease do not turn your back on medicine.