On a flying visit from the states, Bob Duggan gave a talk at the new SustainCare Cafe at the Integrated Health Centre, Cullompton.

read more about Bob and Tai Sophia here 

• Modern medicine tries to prevent death and suffering - a quote - a society which tries to prevent death and suffering will quickly outspend itself - US spends 17% GDP on health - and increasing - therefore unsustainable
• need novel way of thinking about health
• Bob’s main message is that the body is wise
  • self-knowledge of ‘disease’ and dealing with associated issues can prevent illnes and expert intervention
• Everyone should be able to think of their personal 5 teaching symptoms - minor problems which can be indicative or predictive of bigger issues
  • physicians would say just watch it
  • physicians are trained to treat pathology - whereas these are ‘subclinical’
  • groups of people who work on these ‘teaching symptoms’ no longer need to go to doctors
  • often we run past warning signs - pharmaceuticals teach us to treat and ignore
• US National study of health outcomes
  • 91% had symptoms relieved
  • but no correlation with patient satisfaction
  • patient satisfaction correlates with words in their own responses such as:
  •             ‘I understand the meaning of my disease’
    • recover empowerment
    • don’t get satisfaction from drugs/treatment, because then dependent on the drugs and expert intervention
• Bob Cougalman(sp?) Texas did a word analysis of ‘stress’
  • in the 19th century this was purely an engineering term
  • then what we mean by stress would be described as grief, or grieving the human condition
  • 1920’s the body was made analogous to a machine - with parts that could be analysed, replaced, fixed,
  • hence the mechanical term of stress, followed by stress managers and stress reduction
  • previously people were allowed to grieve and suffer, now we’re expected to be analysed and fixed
• US expert in complementary medicine, advising Senate, said you could empty hospitals by 50% if you taught people to breathe
  • no-one teaches us to breathe, yet people who do yoga etc will know the value of breathing properly
  • many chronic diseases could be linked to lack of oxygen deep in tissues
• Do we need books to tell us how to eat because we have lost the commonSENSE of smell and taste?
  • Physicians used to be able to smell-diagnose
    • now losing sensory perception - cardiologists can’t hear heart - read ECG instead
  • Bob reads menu then puts it down and carries on conversation, 10min later picks it up and ‘asks his body’ what would my body feel good about AFTER eating
    • always end up better choice than ‘minds choice’ because the mind is full of ideas
• Infant survival - bad all over US - but best poor hispanic areas in Texas where older women are taught to be midwives (Harvard study)
• Modern medicine was invented 1908 by John Hopkins and John Radcliffe
  • Bob’s mentor from 12yr old, Ivan Illich said
  • ‘The idea of HEALTH is one of our most cherished and destructive certitudes’
  • all the messages, advertising slogans etc are ‘if they only lived right, they would be healthy’
  • ignoring the fact that suffering and death are part of life
  • can we learn to ride suffering (and learn from it)
  • 60-80% of people shouldn’t be in hospital
  • Blue zones - areas in world where people live to 90-100
    • eg Sicilly where an old man riding his vespa would stop to pick a plant - knowing it was good for him (not specifically as a ‘medicine’)
  • 70% of hospital admissions are due to previous medical interventions
  • understand the natural order of our inner selves
• In US the White House is setting up an office of wellness, in parallel with the health service
• Call on your GP to teach you what the disease is telling you
• General Motors are going bust due to healthcare costs
  • DuPont saved 42 mill following introduction of a wellbeing programme
  • this makes financial sense in the US system where companies basically fund the health system
• Hospitals in Baltimore had terrible problems with lack of nursing staff - turnover due to low morale
  • working with Bob’s centre they developed a more positive environment - acknowledgement and encouragement - huge savings in recruitment
• A hospital in Maryland was about to close due to high repeat visits by patients
  • now they are being told they have to have a wellbeing clinic at the front door of the hospital.
  • e.g. a chef who was repeatedly in hospital, overweight, diabetic, vascular problems, on cocaine, drink smoking. Had a chat with him when he wasn’t in hospital to explain ‘lifestyle factors’ - and he finally realised the connection - he hadn’t understood before because every time he was told he was stoned or drunk.
• Michael Poland (sp?) - wrote ‘rediscovering food’
  • so many additives in food confuse the brain - lack of control - leading to obesity
• A GP at the practice asked about the ‘double edged sword’ of symptoms - some symptoms can be useful and teaching, others are destructive and need treatment
  • If public could be taught difference between symptoms that can be useful and those that are ‘pathological’ huge amount of GP time would be saved
• Flu pandemic, talking to junior doctors effective action of medics compared to complementary therapists
  • Bob suggests best way to deal with it - switch off electricity supply between 8pm and 8am and force everyone to rest!! i.e building up personal resilience
• We need to discover inner topology before we can know the plants - which plants to grow and use