Climate Change - The Uncertain evil

 THE CHANGING MODEL OF MEDICINE

 My inspiration to write this article -  In this covid 19 pandemic, our immunity and our environment in which we live in the main weapon against this virus and even have a positive mindset for the future is also necessary, if we see from the past until present there is a shift in the way of treating illness by use of our immune system, environment and even by our positive mindset against the disease. This change can perhaps be an indication that the primary source of medicine to fight against any disease lies in our own bodies and our surroundings.

The Global pandemic of Covid -19 in 2020 and in 2021  has put many developing countries to their knees, some are struggling for the economy while some for their people's lives, many developed nations had won the battle and some are near the finishing lines.

 But all these have made us realize that we are still far from understanding the nature of many viruses, their behavior, and even after a vaccine there is no surety to tackle the Covid -19 as it is mutating rapidly forming new structures and mechanisms passing a new challenge for the virologists.

 However “Health is Wealth” an old saying holds its practical meaning in a very strong sense in today’s situation when our immunity is our biggest weapon against the disease.

 Nobody is confident regarding the future and even if any other pandemic strikes to the world, would developing nations compromise their economy for sake of the citizen’s life and what would happen if the future pandemic proved to be more deadly.

Well, these can be answered only in the future. But at present, we can talk about the medicines, hypotheses, and models to tackle the disease.

In the history of medicine from where we started our approach to cure a disease with a pill/drug /chemical therapy, we follow a very simple model:-

Have diseaseà Take medicine àKill microbes.

The main reason for this model to get success is the antibiotic revolution around 100 years ago which operate in a lock and key manner and was exclusive specific to kill the target.

Example- Have pneumonia àTake penicillin à kill the microbe.

This model had swept all the areas of biology that we are replicating for over 100 years.

 

But the bitter truth is that, in the universe of all physiological reactions (1 million), our medicinal chemistry drugs can target around 250 reactions only (0.025%) , that’s why we are moving towards different therapies to cure the illness.

We have changed our approach to cure cancer by:-

·       1950-2000à kill the cancer cell.

·       2000-2005à Use of our immune system.

·       2005- Now à By providing anticarcinogenic environment.

 

Similarly in the case of depression.

1970à We target the molecules of the nervous system.

At presentà Talk therapy.

 

So, we are shifting our approach from killing microbe or target microbes to growing something or building a good environment.

 

Now we have a lot of interesting queries:-

Q1-Can our medicine be a cell, not a pill.

Q2-Can we use the application of our subconscious mind to treat illness.

Q3- Can our medicine be our environment.

 

Well, these questions require a lot of research and more importantly new ways of thinking for shifting towards a new model of medicine.

 

We need to think outside the sphere for creating and adopting different ideas and models of medicine to prepare the words for future uncertainties.

 

It’s good to have new medicines, but the need of the hour is new ways of thinking for treating illness.

Reference – Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee talk “ soon we will cure a disease with cell, not a pill “