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In the Telegraph today. The cause of most serious illnesses remain tantalisingly elusive
A spirochete at the root of a confounding disease? Imagine that. (And before you toss out whataboutisms, I thoroughly eliminated EBV as a potential cause of MS in Chapters 48, so it isn't that.)
For all that medicine has progressed in recent times, the primary cause of most serious illnesses remains unknown.
Whether they be neurological, such as Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease, rheumatological such as rheumatoid arthritis or polymyalgia, dermatological such as psoriasis, gastrointestinal such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, these conditions emerge in patients in a way that we do not yet understand.
Their symptoms may be alleviated, to a greater or lesser extent, by modern treatments, but the lack of understanding of what accounts for them in the first place is a barrier to any realistic prospect that they may be prevented or cured.
It is difficult to imagine how different modern medicine would be if we understood the origins of these conditions. But the 40th anniversary this year of the discovery of the role of the bacterium helicobacter in peptic ulcer (and other acid induced stomach ailments) provides a glimpse of what could be achieved were we to trace their causes back to the very root.
Whether they be neurological, such as Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease, rheumatological such as rheumatoid arthritis or polymyalgia, dermatological such as psoriasis, gastrointestinal such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, these conditions emerge in patients in a way that we do not yet understand.
Their symptoms may be alleviated, to a greater or lesser extent, by modern treatments, but the lack of understanding of what accounts for them in the first place is a barrier to any realistic prospect that they may be prevented or cured.
It is difficult to imagine how different modern medicine would be if we understood the origins of these conditions. But the 40th anniversary this year of the discovery of the role of the bacterium helicobacter in peptic ulcer (and other acid induced stomach ailments) provides a glimpse of what could be achieved were we to trace their causes back to the very root.