 Many patients with chronic diseases ask themselves and their doctors this question. The truth is, it is all individual. With some people and some diseases, cures do exist, and with others, they are only managed until a cure can be found or the right therapy implemented.
What is the Difference Between a Cure and Management? A cure entails that all aspects of the disease process are gone, and they aren’t expected to return. Management of a disease is the mainstay of medicine, and its primary function is to control symptoms while the original disease continues to ravage the body. Allopathic medicine, or traditional medicine, uses prescription drugs, topicals, and treatments to help manage bothersome symptoms while often looking for a cure. An example of a typical cure would be athlete’s foot, where the use of topical antifungal creams can get rid of the fungus, and the foot is cured of the infection. Other diseases have no cure, such as pancreatic deficiencies that cause diabetes. While treatments exist to control the blood sugar and ravages of the disease, there is no viable cure for this type of diabetes yet. When is Cure and Management at a Point of Disagreement in Medicine?Philosophies in medicine vary. Allopathic medicine is compartmentalized into a vast array of specialties, making it difficult for a practitioner to see the whole picture and how one system may relate to another when planning a treatment regimen. This also makes it more difficult to find a cure as opposed to symptom management. How often have you gone to the doctor for a simple problem only to be referred to a specialist who never asks you about other dimensions in your life that may be affecting your condition? After all, the doctor is a specialist and only focuses on his specialty. Thus, a specialist manages care but rarely cures the problem. Take hypothyroidism, for example. An endocrinologist will more than likely do a thyroid panel and, if awry, prescribe the appropriate medications to manage the symptoms. There will be no inquiry into whether the hypothyroidism is caused by iodine or selenium deficiency or both. Either deficiency, when treated, may cure hypothyroidism, but a focus on management means the origin of the problem is missed, and the patient continues to be a silent sufferer of a chronic condition that could have easily been cured. Grammar Often Leads to Confusion Cure implies there is a certainty that a medical condition will not be present after a medical intervention. However, many medical conditions have no cure, such as HIV, and management is the only option. Treatment involves examining the processes underlying the risks contributing to the medical condition. Cure involves certainty, and treatment is a process. A process can lead to a cure, but management does not lead to a cure. It only leads to managing symptoms with the underlying cause unidentified. So, when looking for a cure, you aren’t looking to manage your disease; you are looking for a practitioner, of whatever philosophy, be it allopathic, functional, or integrative, that will look at you as a whole person. A person that will not just manage your care but will get to know you as an individual and the variables that might contribute to your chronic illness. Thus, a comprehensive treatment plan is needed to get to the root cause of the problem and promote healing. Take Home Know when your care is only being managed and when you should look for someone who can cure your condition. Too many people settle for managed care when it is within the powers of the individual and the medical practitioner to guide the individual patient to a cure for their illness. Whether it is lifestyle change, taking supplements, or researching the literature, answers to healing many diseases are often within our reach, we just need to cooperate with and seek out those practitioners who look at a condition holistically and keep up to date with the scientific literature. With other conditions, we need to settle for management of symptoms. As with arthritis and heart disease, these chronic conditions have no cure yet, only symptom management and we need to recognize the difference. Even symptom management should be done holistically with a comprehensive treatment plan done by a practitioner who considers the whole picture.
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 3 Types of Diabetes Not Commonly Talked About Most people have heard of type I and type II diabetes, but what about the other three types? Prediabetes, Type 1.5, and Type 3 Diabetes are all common metabolic abnormalities, but little reference is made to them in the clinical setting. So, let us take a peek at these mysterious “lurkers” behind the metabolic curtains!
Prediabetes While many people look at this diagnosis as just a warning sign of an impending problem, it is actually far more serious than that. If you are at the prediabetes stage, the insulin resistance that got you there has been going on far too long, and the longer it has been rampant in your body, the more damage it may have done. Prediabetes is diagnosed when your blood sugar is ≥100-125 or the HbA1C is 5.7-6.4%. There may or may not be symptoms at this point. Treatment usually consists of weight management and lifestyle medicine. Occasionally a patient is started on metformin to decrease the chances of progression to type 2 diabetes. Functional medicines used in place of conventional medications may include recommendations for the herbal extract berberine at 500 mg three times a day or a combination of Banaba, fenugreek, cinnamon, Gymnema, magnesium, ginseng, or white mulberry. The best thing to do if you find yourself prediabetic is to find a functional medicine doctor who can probe into the why’s of how the insulin resistance got started in the first place. Once the source of the problem can be found and treated, the symptoms will disappear. Diabetes 1.5 This form of diabetes is thought to be autoimmune in nature and is a combination of type 1 and type 2 in its features. Latent autoimmune diabetes, also known as LADA, is a type of slowly progressing type 1 diabetes with the body slowly losing its ability to produce insulin and not requiring it pharmacologically for several months to years after diagnosis. People with LADA are often over 30, and since their body is still producing some insulin, they are frequently misdiagnosed as diabetes type 2. According to a journal article from Diabetic Medicine, “around 4%-14 % of patients classified with type 2 diabetes have "DAA” or diabetes-associated antibodies characteristic of LADA. Diagnosis can be confirmed by the presence of one of two autoantibodies in the blood of the patient and a low to normal C-peptide level and a progressive loss of pancreatic beta-cell activity. Initially, LADA can be controlled with diet and exercise, but eventually, insulin shots will be necessary. Patients with LADA should be treated with insulin as the first choice as opposed to oral hypoglycemics when diet and exercise fail to control the blood sugar. Sulfonylureas should not be used as they will increase the rate of C-peptide degradation. Treatments that may preserve beta-cell function include dipeptidyl peptidase-4 or DPP-4 inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide 1 or GLP-1 receptor agonists. Diabetes Type 3 Currently, there is a rapid growth in the literature pointing toward insulin deficiency and insulin resistance as mediators of Alzheimer's Disease (AD)-type neurodegeneration, but this surge of new information is riddled with conflicting and unresolved concepts about the relationship between diabetes type 2, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Type 2 diabetes causes brain insulin resistance, oxidative stress, and cognitive impairment, but its aggregate effects fall far short of mimicking AD; AD represents a form of diabetes that selectively involves the brain and has molecular and biochemical features that overlap with both type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes may not be sufficient to cause AD, although it could serve as a cofactor in its pathogenesis or progression. However, data referring to AD as type 3 diabetes is justified because the fundamental molecular and biochemical abnormalities overlap with type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes rather than mimic the effects of either one. The field of diabetology is growing as we understand more about the molecular and biochemical nature of diabetes. Sign up for my newsletter to get each updated blog right in your mailbox! I welcome all comments! #Alzheimer'sDisease #Diabetes #Prediabetes  Diet and Alzheimer's Disease Alzheimer's Disease (AD), a brain disorder that ravages your memory, robbed 5.5 million Americans of their quality of life in 2019. Two-thirds of those affected were women, the traditional caretakers of our society. African Americans are twice as likely as Caucasians to be diagnosed with this illness, and there is no cure. But there is hope.
Research is showing that diet may delay the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, and we all know that every moment we can spend with our loved one where we don't have to wrestle with the side-effects of this disease are precious and to be treasured. Studies from Rush University in Chicago have found that the MIND diet, a combination of the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet, may decrease the risk of Alzheimer's by as much as 50% and can still protect the brain even when not followed rigorously. What is the MIND Diet? The MIND diet was born out of blending the DASH diet for hypertension, which focused on limiting sodium in the diet while increasing vegetables and low-fat dairy with the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean Diet, a diet focused on increasing consumption of vegetables, monounsaturated fats from olive oil, fish, whole grains, and omega-3 fatty acids- the building blocks of this meal plan. Researchers believe that those who follow the diet for years will receive the most significant protective benefits. The time to start a MIND diet is when you find out you have Alzheimer's Disease in the family as it will lower your risk of developing it. For those who already have it, it's not too late to start the diet to delay the progression of AD. What Does the MIND Diet Do? The MIND diet emphasizes those foods that protect the brain and restricts those foods that affect the brain adversely. It works because it reduces inflammation of the brain and nerves; it acts as an antioxidant for the tissues it makes nerve transmission more fluid and decreases neuron loss while improving memory overall. How Do I Follow a MIND Diet? As with any major change, start slow. Make a few changes at a time until the MIND diet feels like your everyday routine. Soon even grocery shopping will become automatic, and you won't have to pour over lists of foods that you aren't used to eating or learning new recipes or ways of cooking because it has become a habit. It just takes a little time, one step at a time. When introducing starchy beans into the diet, do so slowly if it is a new food to the individual. Starchy beans like chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans, fava beans, etc., are not only high in fiber, they may be gas forming and cause bloating if introduced into the diet too quickly. Always introduce increased fiber slowly with 8 glasses of water per day to avoid bloating. Another trick to lessen gas and bloating from beans is to either soak them overnight, drain and rinse or bring to a boil and drain, rinse and then bring the beans to heat again. Draining the water gets rid of the gassy component present in beans. Also, some healthy foods can be expensive, a real consideration for most of us. One way to save money is to buy fruits and vegetables in season and freeze them. Don't use sugar or salt, just freeze them after they've been cleaned, label and date them and freeze for later. MIND Diet Guidelines The Rules of the Diet Are:
Application The MIND diet supports vascular health and is protective against vascular dementia. Certain foods used in the MIND diet have been directly linked to improved neurological function or reduced Alzheimer's Disease biomarkers in the brain. MIND diet foods reflect nutrients that have been shown in studies to slow cognitive decline, decrease the risk of AD, scour the brain of amyloid plaque, and decrease neuron loss. So, while a cure may not be here, hope is on the horizon for a better quality of life by following the MIND diet. #Alzheimer's Disease #MIND diet #cognitive #dementia |
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