STS 297C: Integrative Medicine - Overview
(3-credits, all majors)

Course Goals:
A critical examination of the history, politics, social impacts and policies of our allopathic medical system in contrast to those of a more integrative approach. This course will introduce a vast array of medical alternatives, their viability in treating a host of disorders, the current state of research on them, and prospects for a revised health care policy. Taking into account a variety of perspectives, a new framework for understanding healing and our health will be considered.

Intro: What is Integrative Medicine?

Roots of our allopathic medical system (Hippocrates; Heroic Medicine)
Pros & cons of this approach: where it succeeds & where it fails
What medical problems we face in our country:
- health care - policies, effectiveness, world ranking, deaths/year from medical drugs and mistakes.
- threat of new epidemics & disease outbreaks
- pharmaceutical & medical industry’s control/agenda - who benefits & who loses
What are our alternatives?
- The rise of Integrative Approaches & key advocates
- Andrew Weil / Leo Galland / Gary Null + others
- Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) by David Eisenberg showing 1 out of every 3 Americans use alternative approaches and more out-of-pocket money is spent on CAM than on conventional medicine
- National Institutes of Health’s new initiatives/research into alternative approaches
Overview of approaches to be covered - categories of alternative therapies
- Physical, body-based approaches
- Emotional/mental approaches
- Spiritual approaches
- Eastern medicine (meridian approaches)
- Bioenergy approaches
- Other frameworks: Structural, Biochemical, Energetic, Mind-spirit

Fundamentals of Physiology & Biochemistry

Basic anatomy with focus on organs and their functions
Allopathic understanding of how the body functions - physiology and biochemistry
- the cell & cell division;
- how cells receive nutrients
- red and white blood cells and their roles
- the complicated process of building bone
- the endocrine, lymphatic and digestive systems
- the brain and the central nervous system
External threats to our health
- environmental toxins in food, soil, air, water, etc. (e.g., endocrine disrupters, neuro-toxins, mutagens, carcinogens, unknown hazards of genetic engineering - especially transgenic, etc.)
- new antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria
- effects of environmental degradation (loss of nutrients in soil, genetic engineering, climate change, chronic exposure to radiation in many forms)
The body as a machine - pros & cons of this model (no “mind” or “spirit”)
Allopathic treatment approaches which are questionable
- disguise or mask the symptoms
- kill all the bacteria (good & bad)
- Joyce’s Law: If you can’t explain it, name it

Integrative Medicine: Philosophical Overview

What does it mean to be healthy?
What are the signs of a well-functioning body?
How can one diagnose & treat CAUSE rather than SYMPTOMS
Are all causes of illness physical? From outside the body?
Placebo effect and other contrary examples
Development of “Whole Person Healing” - mind/body/spirit interactions

Alternatives: Physical, body-based approaches

Good habits
exercise
“The Chemistry of Success” approach
role of Diet & Nutrition
Nutritional approaches
Diagnostic tools:
- Overt symptoms: condition of hair, nails, skin, tongue, eyes
- Trace mineral (hair) analysis
- Detailed information on health, emotional & life history, including seemingly unrelated symptoms and quirks
various diets: macrobiotic, raw foods, etc.
contemporary diet-based approaches
- Ann Wigmore & the Hippocrates Institute (raw foods, importance of enzymes)
- Gary Null’s “Ultimate Anti-Ageing Program” (benefits of juicing; possibility of reversing key biomarkers for age)
- “Eat Right for your (Blood) Type” (ancestral reasons for recommended diet: O bloodtype = carnivore; A-bloodtype = vegetarian; B inbetween)
- Barry Sears’ “The Zone” diet (protein and veggies with little or no grains - ancestral basis: eating grains is evolutionarily recent... only 12,000 years ago with the invention of settled agriculture)
Nutritional Supplements
- Vitamins
- Other supplements (flax oil, MSM, glucosamine sulfate, enzymes, etc.)
- Nutritional therapies (chelation, DHEA, glandular, hormone, ascorbic acid)
- “Cleansing” programs (colon, blood, fasting, enemas... )
- Plant-based Remedies
- Herbal medicine & supplements (teas, capsules, tinctures, etc.)
“plant spirit medicine” of Native American Indians (Eliot Cowan)

Non-traditional Mechanical & Chemical Approaches

Homeopathy (Samuel Hahnemann)
- Key Laws: Law of Similars (“like cures like”) and Law of Infinitesimal Dilution (the more dilute a remedy, the more potent).
- Historical context relative to the rise of Allopathic medicine
- Physiological Law of Homeostasis and theory of why most of our over-the-counter symptom- relieving drugs are actually making us worse, prolonging illness and/or exacerbating chronic problems, rendering dependencies on said drugs.
Osteopathy / Cranio-sacral / Chiropractic / Kinesiology
- Neuro-muscular system and its role in diagnosis and treatment
- importance of the meninges and the cerebral-spinal fluid
Massage Therapies
Alexander Technique - proper use of the body
Light, Color or Sound (Music) Therapies

Alternatives: Emotional/mental approaches

Psychotherapy / neuro-linguistic programming
cellular memory & neuro-cellular therapies (Caroline Myss: Your biology is your biography)
visualization & meditation
hypnotherapy / biofeedback
Shamanism

Alternatives: Spiritual approaches

New studies on the effectiveness of prayer
Edgar Cayce phenomenon & other documented “spiritual” healings

Alternatives: Eastern Medicine

Meridian-based physiology: origins & principles
Meridian-based treatments:
- Acupuncture / Acupressure / Jin Shin Jyutsu
- Reflexology / Iridology (diagnostic)
- Health & Healing through Movement: The breath / Yoga / Tai Chi
Traditional Chinese Medicine: methods for assessing health
Ayurveda (3 doshas: vata, pitta and kapha)

Alternatives: Bioenergy Approaches

bioenergy “physiology”
- our “energy bodies” - auric, etheric, etc.
- chakras (Barbara Ann Brennan; Caroline Myss)
Magnet & electromagnetic field therapies
Bioresonance therapies (“zapper” and “Rife Machine”)
QiGong / Bigu / Reiki / Pranic Healing
Health connection to Astrology
Bioenergy healers
- Uri Geller (Spoon-bending; Mind Medicine)
- Ze’ev Kohlman (Israel & NY: Distance Healing) / Jan Holland (Centre Hall, PA: Distance Healing)
- Miatek Wirkus (Rockville, MD) / Norman Wengert (Williamsport, PA)
- “The Yoga of Nutrition” approach of Mikhael Aivanhov (Bulgaria) - feeding your various “energy bodies”
Other unexplained abilities
- Ms. Sun Chu-lin, China - strong bioenergy fields/abilities
- David Morehouse - Remote Viewing

Integrative Medicine Initiatives and Actions

Research & programs of study
- U. of Arizona Integrative Medicine program
- Centers for research on medical alternatives & healing arts
- White House Commission on CAM policy
Journal & web-based information
- JAMA + 5-7 new CAM journals; use of Science Citation Index
- LIAS: Medline and PubMed
Texts:
- Essentials of CAM by Wayne Jonas & Jeffrey Levin
- Fundamentals of CAM by Marc Micozzi.
Local resources
- Mt. Nittany Institute of Health (Bellefonte)
- Center for Well-being (Lemont)
Local practitioners
- Healthy policy changes needed (Friends of Health / Circles of Health)
- Construction of new framework for understanding our health