Practitioners of western medicine are often taught to view biological systems as being made up of nothing more than its physical constituents. A brain is only seen as a hunk of flesh, albeit heterogenous, made up of nerve cells, supporting cells, immune cells, and more granularly, a library of proteins, lipids, and every other colour of the molecular rainbow. Therefore, treating diseases must entail finding out which of those parts (ideally a protein or gene that is easy to target) can be tweaked or manipulated just enough to reverse symptoms, or even cure a patient. This reductionist approach has long been the bedrock of western medicine, spurring on revolutionary therapies for diseases long thought impossible to treat. By far one of the most notable examples of this has been the discovery of cancer immune checkpoint inhibitors. These cancer therapies use antibodies to block proteins that impair the immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells.
However, this approach is not fool proof, especially in the context of complex chronic diseases. For example, in Alzheimer’s disease, treatment with antibodies against pathological protein clumps in the brain do not work, and the disease itself is still largely untreatable. The impact that western medicine has had on our ability to treat disease is undeniable; however, it is not without its limitations. Therefore, it is pertinent to consider other perspectives in addition to our current approaches.
In opposition to western medicine, traditional medicine supports a holistic view of medicine. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Similarly, treating a disease involves addressing more than just individual genes, proteins, or cells; it involves addressing the entirety of a person, the interconnectedness of different biological systems, and their constituting components. In this sense, a neurological disorder like Alzheimer’s disease is as much a disease of the stomach, the intestines, or even of the mind, as it is of the brain. Consequently, traditional healing approaches for Alzheimer’s disease involve correcting perceived imbalances in all these aspects.
For instance, traditional Chinese medicine perceives Alzheimer’s disease as an imbalance in systemic yin and yang, and as such, decoctions aimed at regaining this balance are used to treat patients. According to the traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine, a healthy body is in a state of equilibrium between three “doshas” – “kapha”, “vaata” and “pitta”. This equilibrium is considered necessary to maintain a person’s physiological, mental, and emotional health. Treatment for Alzheimer’s disease involves various techniques to shift the equilibrium of the three doshas towards a healthy state. Patients are not only encouraged to maintain a balanced lifestyle, including consuming healthy foods and herbal decoctions, but support is also provided for their emotional wellbeing. While these are just two examples amongst a diverse array of traditional knowledge systems, both stress the importance of considering every aspect of the human experience in treating disease and form the basis of holistic medicine.
Western vs. Traditional Medicine: not so different after all?
At first glance, these two approaches might seem to directly contradict each other, however, western science has become more and more open to adopting aspects of traditional medicine. In 2024, a PubMed search of “traditional Chinese medicine” yielded 29,588 search results, and this number has been growing steadily over the past few years. For example, Tai Chi, a traditional Chinese mind-body exercise has been shown in clinical trials to be effective in treating dementia and cardiovascular disease. An assessment of western incorporation of traditional medicine is incomplete without mentioning the many contributions of the indigenous peoples of North America to drug discovery. Most notably, their use of willow bark as a painkiller was key in the development of the drug, ‘Aspirin’. In a more abstract sense, holism also underlies many modern approaches to western scientific inquiry. Systems biology and high-throughput molecular biology techniques are inherently holistic in nature, assessing tens of thousands of genes and their interactions simultaneously. Additionally, in animal research, differences in housing, diet, and stress conditions are considered as confounding experimental variables, demonstrating that western medicine and science acknowledge the need for holistic and unbiased analyses of different, seemingly unrelated systems.
Thus, it is apparent that opportunities exist for the integration of reductionist and holistic approaches to medicine, and by extension, western and traditional medicine. However, western medicine seems content to merely adopt parts of these practices rather than truly embrace them wholly. Western studies on traditional medicinal approaches still adopt a reductionist view, opting to ascribe singular mechanisms to traditional remedies rather than embrace the systemic effects that might explain their efficacy. Researchers also rarely attempt to assess the rationale of these approaches from the perspective of traditional medicine, and there is rarely any engagement or acknowledgement of practitioners or experts within the field. In fact, traditional medicine is often still relegated to the realm of pseudoscience, or “alternative medicine”. This only unjustly widens the gap between western and traditional schools of thought, despite how willing western science is to appropriate these traditional treatments, and it is only natural then, that such a rift exists between the two schools of thought.
Knowing this, how can we move forward? The answer lies within engaging with practitioners and experts in traditional medicine, understanding the pitfalls inherent to both spheres of thoughts, and truly embracing traditional knowledge systems. A valid criticism of traditional science and medicine is that it is not always supported by experimental evidence, and so opportunities should be made to appropriately assess these practices and treat them with the respect they deserve. While not every approach will hold up to scientific rigour, western medicine is similarly no stranger to failed clinical trials and pharmaceuticals. It is impossible to overlook the positive impact of western medicine on human life, both in terms of life expectancy and quality. However, accepting and incorporating the holistic aspects of traditional medicine has the potential to help open new avenues for modern medical discoveries.
Christopher Ryan Tan
