The Role of Drugs in Disease. Where Do They Come From? Do They Cure?

 

I have already written a few articles about drugs and medicine.

 Below are just three examples  

1.      All On Drugs. How Do They Work? Are They Safe?

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2024/06/all-on-drugs-how-do-they-work-are-they.html

2.      The Dilemma Between the Doctor, the Patient and the Drugs They Take

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=pharmacology

3.      Synthetic Drugs vs Botanical and Herbal Medicines. Which is Better?

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2024/05/my-brother-in-law-ong-geok-soo-senior.html

However, two days ago some patients consulted me asking if they should continue to take their doctor’s medicine due to their long-term safety concerns as the drugs prescribed for them seemed to change over the years as they become less and less effective with their conditions becoming worse and worse needing higher and higher doses their doctors keep giving. Patients keep asking me all these questions.  

Before I proceed further there is a book entitled “Drugs Do Not Cure Disease” written by Dr Yukie Niwa, MD PhD (Medicine), who is a very famous Immunologist and Director of the Institute of Immunology in Tokyo, Japan. This book is an eye opener for all doctors.There are many other very eminent physicians and highly qualified specialist doctors too who wrote a lot of other books on natural healing without using drugs 

Let me now write more on all these drugs vs our body’s natural ability to heal itself if the doctor takes the trouble to treat the underlying root causes rather than using chemical drugs, especially attempting to manage lifestyle diseases that have absolutely nothing to do with drug deficiencies. All these chronic lifestyle diseases modern societies suffer today are so unlike those nutritional deficiency diseases generations ago where we can easily cure them using nutritious food only as their medicine. Today, they overeat causing all these incurable lifestyles diseases  

Most of the diseases today especially non-communicable diseases except diseases caused by infections cannot be cured using all these drugs. Let me explain to lay readers, patients and also for doctors using very simple non-technical language  

Drugs only support the natural healing powers of the body, but they do not directly cure the disease. Ultimately it is the body that heals and cures itself, because all drugs are chemicals from whatever the source, and being chemical in nature, they can temporarily inhibit, block, and suppress the pathological chemistry of the body when it is disordered. The chemistry of the body whether in health or disease flows continuously like a river, and in no way can we permanently block this flow. It is only the body that can permanently break a chemical pathology if we can stop the root cause. This is the ONLY way, no other way.

 Drugs cannot do this permanently as they can only be retained in the body temporarily for some hours before being excreted. Then you need to dose again. For how long do we want this?

 It is the innate nature of the body to heal itself, not the drugs. Even for antibiotics, antiviral, antiparasitic or antifungal agents, they merely kill or destroy the infective agents, but they do not directly cure the patient. It is the body that finally takes over with the healing, not the drugs. Drugs often work by reducing symptoms, killing pathogens, or modifying physiological processes, thereby providing the body with a better environment to heal itself. For example, antibiotics eliminate bacteria, giving the immune system a better chance to restore health. Anti-inflammatory drugs reduce inflammation, allowing tissue repair to proceed more efficiently. It only has a supportive role, not a curative role.

In contrast, the human body has remarkable self-healing mechanisms. For instance, wounds heal through processes like clotting, inflammation, tissue proliferation, and remodelling. The immune system is constantly working to detect and eliminate pathogens, often without any need for medical intervention.

Drugs only have temporary effects. They are metabolized and excreted from the body within hours or days, necessitating continuous dosing to maintain their therapeutic effects. This underscores that drugs often provide a temporary window during which the body can more effectively heal itself.

However, there is a synergistic relationship between drugs and the body's healing mechanisms. While drugs may not permanently alter the body's chemistry on their own, they can create conditions that allow the body's natural processes to work more effectively. For example, antihypertensive drugs manage blood pressure, reducing the risk of long-term damage to organs, thereby allowing the body to function better. There is a difference between curative and symptomatic treatment.

Having explained this, in some cases, drugs can be curative, such as antibiotics curing bacterial infections. However, the body’s immune response plays a crucial role in completely eradicating the infection and restoring normal function. In other scenarios, such as chronic diseases like diabetes or hypertension, drugs primarily manage symptoms and prevent complications, highlighting the body's ongoing role in maintaining health. Drugs cannot cure chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, autoimmune diseases and all lifestyle diseases. Please note this very carefully and permanently. We can only manage them effectively by addressing the underlying root causes such as through lifestyle changes, dietary and nutritional approaches, exercises and physical activities, cessation of smoking, stress management, adequate sleep and rest, avoidance of harmful environments...etc.  Prescribing drugs can neither cure nor remove or cause all these stressors to disappear. Note this very carefully. If patients as well as doctors are not prepared to address their root causes or change the ways we live our lives, nothing else can cure us. Just don’t expect all these chemicals masquerading under the gloried name as “medicines” prescribed by doctors can remove all these root causes and disease-causing lifestyles to “cure” us or cause them to disappear from our lives. Note this well once again.

However, as mentioned there are drugs that can kill pathogens (antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiparasitic) to facilitate the body's healing by removing the cause of infection. The eradication of pathogens allows the body to repair and recover, illustrating how drugs and the body's natural healing processes work in tandem.

An important aspect of medicine is the body has a natural ability to heal itself. Drugs often provide crucial support to these processes, making it easier for the body to regain and maintain health. The interplay between pharmacological intervention and the body's innate healing capacity is complex and multifaceted, underscoring the importance of both approaches in achieving optimal health outcomes.

Having emphasized the body’s own self-healing nature and said this, some classes of drugs can cure certain diseases, but their effectiveness and the nature of their impact vary widely depending on the disease in question and the specific drug being used. Let me illustrate some examples once again here to emphasize.

 Antibiotics are drugs that can cure bacterial infections by killing the bacteria or stopping their growth. An example includes penicillin for strep throat or a urinary tract infection. Antivirals can treat viral infections, but cures are rare. For example, antiviral drugs can manage HIV but do not cure it. However, some antiviral treatments, like those for Hepatitis C, can cure the disease.

We use antifungals and antiparasitics to manage infections caused by fungi or parasites. For instance, antifungal drugs can cure conditions like athlete's foot or yeast infections, and antiparasitic drugs can cure malaria although of them have shown resistance such as chloroquine

 For many chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and autoimmune diseases, drugs do not cure the disease but help manage symptoms and prevent complications. For example, insulin manages diabetes, and antihypertensives control blood pressure.

In some cases, drugs can cure cancer, especially if the cancer is detected early and treated aggressively. Chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy can sometimes lead to remission, which is considered a cure if the cancer does not return.

 While not a cure, vaccines prevent certain infectious diseases by inducing immunity. For example, the polio vaccine has led to the near eradication of polio.

To make it brief, drugs can cure some diseases, particularly infectious diseases caused by bacteria, fungi, and parasites. For viral infections and chronic diseases, drugs often manage symptoms and improve quality of life rather than providing a cure. The effectiveness of a drug depends on the nature of the disease, the stage at which it is administered, and the individual patient's response to the treatment.

In ancient times most diseases and illnesses were very effectively treated using natural medicines derived from plants. Drugs and pharmaceuticals today are derived and manufactured from various sources, with each contributing a different proportion to the total market. A rough breakdown of these sources along with estimated percentages are:

Plant sources (botanical), approximately 25-30% such as morphine (opium poppy), quinine (cinchona bark), paclitaxel (Pacific yew tree), digitalis (foxglove). Drugs derived from microorganisms (microbial) is approximately 10-15% such as penicillin (Penicillium mould), streptomycin (Streptomyces bacteria), erythromycin (Saccharopolyspora erythraea), while from animal sources such as insulin (pancreas of pigs or cows), Heparin (intestinal mucosa of pigs), hormones like thyroxine (thyroid glands) the percentage is approximately 5-10%.

Approximately 5% of the drugs come from mineral sources such as lithium (for bipolar disorder), Magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts), Sodium chloride (saline solutions).

Then we have drugs also coming from marine sources such as ziconotide (cone snail toxin), cytarabine (sponge) and trabectedin (sea squirt), but these are less than 1 %

This distribution is based on current estimates and can vary depending on advancements in drug discovery, development technologies, and market dynamics. Each category has its importance and specific applications in treating various diseases and conditions.

In the early 1900s John D. Rockefeller started to use petroleum to manufacture drugs. Through his control of Standard Oil, provided the impetus for the development of synthetic chemicals and pharmaceuticals from petrochemical sources. This shift contributed to the establishment of the modern pharmaceutical industry, with petrochemical derivatives playing a role in the mass production of drugs. Today, drugs derived from petrochemicals form a significant part of the pharmaceutical industry, particularly synthetic drugs. While exact percentages can be challenging to pinpoint due to the overlap between synthetic and petrochemical-derived drugs. It is estimated that petrochemical-derived drugs are approximately 30-35%

This estimate includes a wide range of synthetic pharmaceuticals produced using raw materials derived from petrochemicals, such as analgesics like aspirin, ibuprofen, antihistamines like diphenhydramine, antibiotics like ciprofloxacin, sulpha drugs. Petroleum-derived drugs can also include antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) and antihypertensives like amlodipine

Other synthetic drugs are (examples) aspirin, paracetamol, antidepressants like fluoxetine, and antihypertensives like amlodipine.

The pharmaceutical industry's reliance on petrochemicals stems from their utility as feedstocks for the synthesis of various chemical compounds. Petrochemical-derived intermediates and building blocks, such as benzene, toluene, and ethylene, are foundational in creating complex drug molecules.

Read here

How did John D. Rockefeller create Big Pharma?

https://www.quora.com/How-did-John-D-Rockefeller-create-big-pharma

Today, petrochemical-derived drugs remain a substantial portion of the drug industry, and it still continues to evolve despite the advancements in biotechnology, natural products, and other synthetic methodologies. To me, it is horrible, horrible to use petrol, diesel and petroleum dug up from underground to “cure” diseases, but they are aggressively doing just that for the sake of money. I think this is a sin.

But we have other ways to treat patients to avoid using diesel, petrol and petroleum chemicals as "medicines"

For instance, we as scientists have used biotechnology to produce drugs to give to medical doctors to use. We call them biotechnology and recombinant DNA technology (biologicals)

Approximately 15-20% of the drugs evolved today use biotechnology and recombinant DNA technology.

Let me give just one or two examples. Monoclonal antibodies, recombinant insulin, and vaccines like the HPV vaccine, and Infliximab are all biological.

Sorry, I have to abruptly stop here as I now have a visitor.

Take care!

Jb lim