Contingency, modern medicine, and God’s providence

 

There is no apparent limit to medicine’s ambition to control the circumstances of human life and death by bringing them under human control. Billions of dollars are invested each year in research that has as its ultimate aim the elimination of contingency from the biological circumstances of human existence, and few people seem interested in asking whether or to what extent such an aim is appropriate for creatures of a providential God.

Joel Shuman and Brian Volck, M.D., Reclaiming the Body: Christians and the Faithful Use of Modern Medicine (p. 35)  

Rodney Dietert on Microbiome-First Medicine

The origin of asthma, autism, Alzheimer’s, allergies, cancer, heart disease, obesity, and even some kinds of depression is now clear. Award-winning researcher on the microbiome, professor Rodney Dietert presents a new paradigm in human biology that has emerged in the midst of the ongoing global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases.

 The Human Superorganism makes a sweeping, paradigm-shifting argument. It demolishes two fundamental beliefs that have blinkered all medical thinking until very recently:

1) Humans are better off as pure organisms free of foreign microbes.

2) the human genome is the key to future medical advances.

The microorganisms that we have sought to eliminate have been there for centuries supporting our ancestors. They comprise as much as 90 percent of the cells in and on our bodies—a staggering percentage! More than a thousand species of them live inside us, on our skin, and on our very eyelashes. Yet we have now significantly reduced their power and in doing so have sparked an epidemic of noncommunicable diseases—which now account for 63 percent of all human deaths. 

Ultimately, this book is not just about microbes; it is about a different way to view humans. The story that Dietert tells of where the new biology comes from, how it works, and the ways in which it affects your life is fascinating, authoritative, and revolutionary. Dietert identifies foods that best serve you, the superorganism; not new fad foods but ancient foods that have made sense for millennia. He explains protective measures against unsafe chemicals and drugs. He offers an empowering self-care guide and the blueprint for a revolution in public health. We are not what we have been taught. Each of us is a superorganism. The best path to a healthy life is through recognizing that profound truth.

Source: The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531468/the-human-superorganism-by-rodney-dietert-phd/

Audio Interview: Rodney Dietert on Microbiome-First Medicine https://youtu.be/nCshOFnRVZU

Exposed but not infected

Image: Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Mass. (ca. 1905-1920)

“In an attempt to approximate field conditions, ten of the [healthy] volunteers were taken to the influenza wards of the Naval Hospital in Chelsea, where each one was exposed to a deluge of respiratory disease organisms. Each of the ten shook hands with, sat by the bed of, talked with, and, at a distance of two inches, inhaled the normal exhalations and then the coughed exhalations of ten separate flu patients. Only one of the ten volunteers so exposed developed any kind of respiratory illness, and that was mild and probably not influenza.”

Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic (p. 267)