The rise of nature-made medicine

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

~ Buckminster Fuller

Is it just me, or is anyone else beginning to see the trend toward the wide use of nature-made medicines?

Social media influencers are not only promoting dietary, exercise, lifestyle, and mindset interventions that inspire followers to take control of their health but nutraceuticals and other nature-made medicines. Could this be a glimpse of the future of healthcare?

Lately, I have had countless inquiries about plant-based medicines, ranging from psychedelics to vitamins and medicinal herbs.

Long before drugs became manufactured in labs, people used plants for medicine. In my formative years, when we were sick, my mother would go into the garden and create a lotion or potion from what nature provided.

Many blockbuster drugs are derived directly or indirectly from plants. Today at least a tenth of the 252 drugs considered to be essential by the WHO (World Health Organization) were exclusively derived from flowering plants. Click here for a list of plant-based medicines.

Synthetic drug development is time-consuming and costly. Rigorous regulations and strict clinical trial adherence are required before a drug is approved. Manufacturers go to great lengths to recoup costs and ensure profitability, prescribing widely, often to the detriment of society.

Many have lost trust in healthcare, having become skeptical about the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals.

Developing nutraceuticals and other nature-made medicines have several advantages, such as saving time and money and accelerating future clinical applications. I have renewed hope that the doctor of the future will prescribe nature-made medicine and involve the patient in the proper use of food, fresh air, and exercise.

Food is medicine. We can actually change our gene expressions with the foods we eat.

~ David Perlmutter