Alternative medicine is the fastest growing sector in medical field in the United States and its popularity is reaching new highs year to year, while mainstream medicine goes lower and lower. This trend is driven by patients disappointed with the results of the treatments and skyrocketing costs of medicine. More and more patients come to the conclusion that the only hope to restore their health is take charge of their health, fire the PCP, neurologist, rheumatologist or even oncologist and look for alternative solutions. 

Internet comes handy bringing all necessary information to the personal laptop. Education becomes the key on the road to recovery. 

This trend doesn’t come cheap. Patients who decide to go this way cannot rely on their health insurances to pay for the services and treatments. Doctors on the other had who dare to come off the grid of mainstream medicine, face sanctions from state and federal authorities or bureaucrats from medical licensing bodies, lose support of their pear and referral sources dry up.

It is obvious that this trend doesn’t go unnoticed by the mainstream sector of medicine. Big pharmaceutical industry fights back seeing loss of sales of statin drugs, useless vaccines, antacids, antidepressant or sedatives. They have repeatedly attacked supplement and vitamin industry. Few years ago, they tried to ban Vitamin B6 for they found that it prevents complications of diabetes such as kidney failure, neuropathy and retinopathy by blocking process known as glycation. Reason? They wanted to sell Vitamin B6 as a drug at high price of cause. 

Insurance companies often cross-invested with big pharma, are not staying behind. They deny payment for any treatments they don’t approve. It is not enough that patients pay $1000 per month premium, alternative therapies no matter how inexpensive and effective, will not be paid for. By controlling what is reimbursed, they control the whole medical industry. While the insurance companies making record profits, year after year, medical care falling to record low year after year.

My advice to patients is: buy the least expensive insurance, type of “catastrophic”, signed up for health saving account and pay doctors out of pocket and you will save money and have better care. In our center patients, often despite of having medical insurance decide to pay out of pocket finding this alternative less expensive.

As a matter of fact, insurance reimbursement is the defining line between mainstream and alternative medicine. Why we gave the power to decide what treatment patients should have to the bureaucrats? Shouldn’t this be a choice between a patient and his or her physician?  

One could ask if alternative medicine is scientific for it has not practice in Universities or Medical Schools. Before we answer it, let’s reverse the question: how scientific is mainstream medicine? The answer lies in the understanding how medical “knowledge” is developed and propagated. It is based on so called “evidence based” medicine. It sounds great; however, I suggest you to do your own carful research and you will be set for a surprise because it has nothing to do with science.  

Fort example so called safe upper level of cholesterol in the blood was set at 200 mg of LDL per deciliter arbitrarily without any scientific evidence nor a single study and in 2015 was further lowered to 126. And this was done just to push more statin drugs. Another one is low sodium diet which has been pushed by American Heart Association (AHA) against their own studies showing that low sodium diet is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. How about the eggs fiasco? The AHA was changing recommendations every few years until recently, when they found that 80% of cholesterol is produced by the liver any way and dietary intake doesn’t matter. This fact was known to me from bio-chemistry class at medical school 35 years ago. So, mainstream medicine is not scientific but dogmatic. 

How about science in alternative medicine? Let me explain: new developments in science don’t automatically enter mainstream medical field because of the insurance bureaucrats who control the industry. It takes on average 20 years for new discovery to be applied in medical practice. Because alternative medicine doesn’t have these limitations, these advances can be made available to the public immediately. 

Sure, you must be very careful and skeptical choosing an alternative medicine center of you want to be. Check professional credentials of the doctor and his scientific background. Make sure he has a license. Check patient’s testimonials. Be careful of amazing claims. There are no miracles in alternative medicine as much as there are no miracles in the mainstream medicine. Look for solid science. It is all about science, because science explains or attempts to explain nature and the living matter to which we belong.

Medical Frontiers is a center of alternative therapy focused on chronic pain and degenerative diseases in a holistic approach. It was established in 2003 and over time has developed expertise in regenerative medicine. 

Regenerative medicine focuses on healing and restoration of function of cells, tissues and organs to restore health, and prolong life. They are researchers looking of the magic pill a compound that will revitalize the body and even bring immortality and surely fortune for the lucky one who found it. I wish them good luck but.

I believe that the secrets to regenerative medicine are hidden in nature and in our bodies, themselves by our creator who equipped in healing mechanism. For this purpose, we have the entire immune system and stem cells in our disposal. 

Why we don’t heal then?

For the regenerative processes to take place it is required a perfect bio-chemical environment in the cells and tissues which are commonly compromise by: inflammation, environmental toxicity, metabolic problems, nutritional deficiencies, stress, toxic food and a lot of other factors.

Once the body environment is restored, to jump start the healing process it is time to apply regenerative technologies such as: laser therapy, platelet reach plasma (PRP), stem cells therapies, ozone prolo-therapy, intravenous vitamin infusions, nutraceuticals.