The human body is actually quite equipped to do just that. there is tremendous redundancy in tissues (skin, vessels), muscles (424) and organs (2 kidneys, lungs, eyes). Every human tissue has its own repair mechanism with progenitor cells, stem cells and others. after blood loss or blood donation, your bone marrow will eventually replenish your blood volume.Facts tell but stories sell: There are amazing such stories out there of survival in the ocean, in the desert, in the snow, with no food or water. The human body can endure a lot and given enough time will heal what is broken or diseased.
I have often presented this to my patients in the following way: The rate of recovery R (from a fracture, injury or even disease) is the ratio of healing H over reinjury Ri : R = H/Ri. The higher the rate of reinjury (reinfection or disease spread) and the slower the recovery. Similarly the higher the healing potential and the faster the recovery. Of course H varies with age, habitus, comorbidities and genetics (immune system, DNA). H can be maximized by adopting rigorous WELLNESS regimens (refer to previous blog), improving one's bad habits (smoking, alcohol, drugs), killing all free radicals with antioxidants and proper bio-available nutraceuticals and nutrients. One thing for sure, H does not apply to implants, hardware and prosthetics. The earlier you get one of those implanted in your body and the sooner you would be needing mechanical repairs versus biological. Food for thought.
Given enough time, the body will do marvels repairing itself but remember we are in a Fast Fix Immediate Gratification Society (refer to Pillpopper blog of 11/14). We want to fix it now, cut it out, make it brand new, even if it ain't broken or barely. This remind me of people who would make the damage to their car or home worse so as to get better insurance coverage and get beyond the deductible.
Several years ago, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine followed a cohort of 2,000 back patients for 2 years. They all had similar diagnoses but they followed two very different paths: one group had surgery early on; the other just conservative treatment or none. Both groups faired the same after 2 years of onset. Obviously the second group was an advocate of the Heal Thyself doctrine, while the first subscribed to the Heal Me NOW doctrine. The latter probably cost a lot more money and causes a lot more complications and morbidity for basically the sam result.
Today people are living longer and they want to do it without spare parts in their body. Heal thyself is considered as the safe way to go and it is one of the tenets of the ANTIAGING tsunami.
H (healing) can also just as well represent hormones. Indeed our healing powers are highest in our younger days when the hormones are plentiful and raging. They play a big role in healing and prevention of disease. Rarely you hear of a 20 year old who has cancer or a heart attack. One of the core principles of Preventive and anti-Aging Medicine is to restore the 40-50 year old hormones to their 20 year old levels. It is based on OPTIMIZING blood hormone levels (thyroid, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone) not just NORMALIZING, meaning shooting for the upper level of normal (for the 20-25 age group) for each hormone. Another core principle, is using BIOIDENTICAL HORMONE with molecules similar to ours and derived from natural substances such as soy and yam. The best way to obtain those is in compounding pharmacies. The pharmaceutical hormones on the market are synthetic thus often harmful...and a lot more expensive (refer to blog on PharmaEconomics).
May West said it best: "If I told you I like my body would you hold it against you?"...or something like that
