I have attended at least three health talks in the past week with Dr. Rolando “Doc Oyie” Balburias, founder of Go2Health and featured doctor in GMA TV’s Pinoy MD, as the resource person and it got me thinking about what kind of health care system we have.
The three talks I listened to were: (1) “Age Management Medicine for Healthy Aging” at Huni Farm in Barangay Wangan, Calinan last September 30; (2) “Functional and Health Optimization Approach to Longevity and Vitality” at Young Living Experience Center in Azuela Cove last October 5; and (3) “Preventing Cancer Even When It Runs In Your Family” at the Pink October Health Forum in SM City Davao last October 6.
Doc Oyie is a pioneer in the practice of functional medicine in the Philippines. He is Board Certified in General Internal Medicine and inducted as Fellow in 2005. He became a Certified Practitioner in Functional Medicine in November 2018 after undergoing years of training with The Institute for Functional Medicine, which included training in the famous Cleveland Clinic in the United States. He also trained in nutritional medicine and anti-aging medicine in Brussels, Belgium. He is European Board Certified in Nutritional Medicine; European Board Certified in Anti-Aging Medicine; and has Professional and Advanced Training in Mind Body Medicine in San Francisco, California.
I just devoted a paragraph on Doc Oyie’s professional credentials because a lot of people still think of functional medicine as “alternative” medicine like it is not a real evidence-based science and, therefore, an “inferior” practice. Actually, it is more real and makes more sense to me than the way medicine is practiced in most hospitals now where the patients are treated according to the different organs of their body and not as a whole interrelated system.
Functional medicine is a “systems biology-based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease.” It evolved from the realization of the importance of an individualized approach to disease causes based on the evolving research in nutritional science (the science that studies the physiological process of nutrition and how it affects our bodies), genomics (the study of genes of organisms), and epigenetics (the study of how our behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes work). The intervention goes beyond the symptoms and delves on the molecular and cellular systems to reverse the drivers of disease.
I don’t know about you, but I believe I am special and unique so the one-size-fits-all approach may not be very effective for me. I want my doctors to know me and take time to learn about my habits, the food I put inside my body, the stressors I am exposed to, the quality of my sleep, and my genetic makeup before they put me on any type of drug. Because I may have a similar illness to other patients but the root cause as to why I got that illness may be different from theirs. Following that logic then I must have a different plan to address my illness — something that is personalized to my unique situation and it has to involve more than just drugs, right?
Once people listen to Doc Oyie’s health talk something clicks inside their heads. Especially those who have been suffering from chronic illnesses and have been to multiple specialists and taking multiple “maintenance” medicines for multiple years. They have many doctors and are on many drugs for many years, how come they still do not feel better?
Because what we have is a system designed for illness, not wellness. It is a system focused on diagnosing and treating diseases rather than understanding why you got the disease in the first place and what you can do to be healthier. It is disease management instead of health management.
When I google “health system in the Philippines” what I find are mostly about the state of hospitals, medicines, latest technology on treating diseases, even health insurance. Nothing on how healthy we are, only a glimpse of how sick we are getting each year.
Even discussions on Universal Health Care are focused on how the government subsidizes hospitalization, medicine, and diagnostic tests and laboratory costs. Nothing on government funds for nutrition education, for promoting universal access to affordable healthy food, for investments in public parks and creating green, healthy spaces where people can exercise, meditate, and just breathe unpolluted air.
So when faced with alarming statistics on increasing incidence of cancer among Filipinos, the knee-jerk response is to build more and bigger hospitals to treat cancer patients. Rising number of patients with chronic kidney diseases? More dialysis centers.
How about we find out why more and more people are damaging their kidneys and developing cancer and then invest money in preventing them from happening instead?
If there is anything I learned from the three health talks I listened to this week, it is that most chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and even cancer, can be prevented and often reversed. Yes, reversed. It is not true that we are doomed to take our “maintenance” medication forever (sorry, Big Pharma).
Doc Oyie explained how our health is a spectrum (yes, like the political spectrum). We can go from left to right and vice-versa. It means that the health of an individual is not static but a dynamic phenomenon that is in a process of continuous change. Health fluctuates within a range of optimal wellbeing to various levels of dysfunction, including the state of total dysfunction, which is death.
Another thing I learned is that the human body has an amazing ability to heal itself. We are intelligently designed. So brilliant is our body that we can help it to heal just by eating the right food. Yes, food as medicine is a real thing. We can boost our body’s own defense systems against disease with what we eat.
My main takeaway from Doc Oyie is that health is achieved when the body is able to protect itself against imbalances, breakdowns, and foreign invaders. The human body has evolved powerful defense systems that help it maintain optimal physical, mental, and emotional states. New research has revealed clear links between our body’s systems and specific foods that activate them.
For our system to be truly called a “health system” then it must go beyond treating diseases. It must include awareness, education, and nutrition. It must also include promoting access to affordable healthy food for all communities. It must involve rethinking our agricultural policies, environmental practices, urban planning, and even our educational system.
To solve our health problems, we must shift our thinking from illness to wellness; going to health instead of going to hell.
