For years, integrative therapies have remained on the periphery – the silent partners of traditional medicine, but for gastrointestinal conditions in particular, integrative medicine is speaking out.
Gastroenterologists are often facing off against the persnickety nature of chronic digestive diseases, particularly where treatments are concerned.
“It’s been our challenge that one patient will respond completely differently to a specific treatment than another patient with the same condition and symptoms,” says gastroenterologist Linda Lee. “Or that a treatment becomes ineffective or less desirable because of unpleasant side effects.”
Typically, those treatments are focused on pharmacologic solutions, but, for chronic gastrointestinal conditions like gastroparesis, dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome, for example, sustained answers are as complex as the human body itself.
Beyond drugs
“We often assume good medicine means using a hi-tech approach, but it’s not always just about prescribing a drug or scheduling a procedure, and it’s definitely not the same set of tactics for every patient,” said Dr. Lee.
Dr. Lee, a traditionally trained gastroenterologist, heads the new Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Centre, which draws on the expertise of both traditional and complementary medicine specialists in a single location. Integrating these two perspectives and the vast choice of therapies on both sides offers a powerful resource for patients who struggle with chronic gastrointestinal conditions, said Dr. Lee. The centre also emphasises the critical role of good nutrition in managing digestive symptoms.
Women outnumber men when it comes to conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and gastroparesis, and the centre focuses on those gender susceptibilities. Gastroparesis – a delayed emptying of the stomach that causes such frustrating and even debilitating symptoms as nausea, vomiting and bloating – is a classic example both of a condition that affects primarily women and for which physicians may reach first for the pharmacologic solution.
A closer look at patients
“The problem,” said Dr. Lee, “is that the only [US Food and Drug Administration]-approved drug for gastroparesis may cause terrible side effects.”
So, in this case, as in so many other gastrointestinal illnesses, doctors really need to be thinking more broadly about how they’re treating their patients, Dr. Lee added. That includes helping them to achieve a sense of wellness and improved quality of life despite their chronic condition.
The new centre has immediate access to the kind of Hopkins-based research into digestive diseases that can have an impact on those treatments, whether it’s molecular and cellular, physiological or behavioural.
“We learn from and have a healthy respect for that research,” said Dr. Lee. “We’re also very selective about the alternative therapies that we offer.”
She said it’s not about eschewing pharmacology and surgical interventions but about broadening the treatment approach and taking a much closer look at patients and their lives. “We really want to try to control their symptoms in a different way, through more choices that are wellness-based,” she said.
Dr. Lee is among the speakers at this year’s Cancer Health Fair at the Marriott Beach Resort on Saturday, 10 September.
This article appears courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
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