Ecological Medicine and Health Disorders Suite101
go to original June 14, 2012

Neurological disorders, allergies, cancer, cardiovascular and endocrine diseases and other illnesses can be treated with ecological/environmental medicine.

Ecological medicine could be defined as the medical field that takes care of patients, taking into account the environmental factors that surround them and the effects it produces on their health. It also correlates with their behaviour upon the environment.

The BSEM states that, in order to understand what ecological medicine means, the following factors should be taken into account: nutrition, environment, immunity and individuality.

Nutrition is an essential parameter to keep ourselves healthy. The lack of certain nutrients rich in minerals, vitamins, and fatty acids can cause us to suffer a variety of disorders. In the first world, a high percentage of individuals have an unstable diet that directly influences their biological systems. An adequate food and nutritional supplement intake should be a priority to maintain our physiological and psychological health.

Environment

Allergies, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and many others are some of the illnesses provoked by toxicity. In our 21st century, we are surrounded by an array of polluted environmental factors, and this exposure to high levels of toxins makes us highly susceptible to disease. Toxic molecules can be present in the form of chemicals in many of the products we use in our everyday life as well as in the air we inhale, some of our food, water and other physical elements that surround us. These harmful elements can affect us at molecular level, producing changes in our DNA and disrupting our mitochondria, and such biochemical alterations induce the development of the disorders described above.

Immunity

Our body defences can become weaker due to a variety of factors such as low intake of nutrients, poisoning, and genetic differences between individuals. All these parameters can affect us and bring about certain types of disorders intrinsically linked to our immune and auto immune systems, for example: allergies, cancer, ageing, mutations…

Individuality

Though we have a similar pattern in our genetic expression, a series of mutations can trigger differences between the individuals’ genomes that in biomedicine is known as genetic polymorphisms (a discontinuous genetic variation). This variable in our genotype can make some of us more likely to have a tendency to experience certain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, diabetes, psychological disorders, neurod - egenerative diseases…

Scientific Research

An example of the importance of nutrition can be observed through the findings of researchers in The European Prospective Investigation and Nutrition-Heart study in May 2012. In relation to dietary fibre intake and ischaemic heart disease (IHD) mortality, they have established the following conclusion, “A higher consumption of dietary fibre is associated with a lower risk of fatal IHD with no clear differences in the association with IHD for fibre from cereals, fruits or vegetables.”

Robert Feil and Mario F. Fraga in Nature state, “Chemical pollutants, dietary components, temperature changes and other external stresses can indeed have long-lasting effects on development, metabolism and health, sometimes even in subsequent generations.”

Most probably in years to come ecological medicine, together with nanomedicine and stem cell therapy, will become one of the main pillars for all types of treatments, because human beings and all living creatures maintain a constant interaction with their surroundings. Those environmental factors are in many cases the key to our health problems. As a matter of fact, analysis to determine allergies, toxicity levels and nutritional deficiencies and their correspondent treatments can provide a real solution for a great majority of disorders and illnesses.

The Importance of Ecological Medicine in our Century

A report of the Committee of the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs of The European Council: Environment and health: better prevention of environment-related health hazards, in 2009 explains that illnesses and diseases such as cancers, neuropathies, reproductive disorders, allergies, hypersensitivity disorders, cardiovascular and endocrine diseases, and immune and neuropsychiatric disorders can be provoked by environmental factors.

In addition, the document reports the need for the recognition of ecological medicine as a new transverse medical discipline and emphasizes the importance of increasing the training programmes for students and doctors at European level.

Sources

• BSEM
• Crowe, FL. (2012) "Dietary fibre intake and ischaemic heart disease mortality: the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Heart study", Nature
• Feil, Robert. , Fraga, Mario. (2012) "Epigenetics and the environment: emerging patterns and implications", Nature
• Environment and health: better prevention of environment-related health hazards.

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