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By Kate Nolan
 As the national healthcare reform debate grinds on, Dr. Andrew Weil, the best-selling author and avatar of preventive medicine, is feeling the pain. He’s had enough of reform
proposals that equate disease prevention with costly high-tech medical screenings instead of simply teaching people to eat better, reduce stress and get enough sleep and exercise.
That’s why, when CNN’s Larry King asked the famed Harvard educated, Arizona-based medical doctor what he thought of healthcare reform, Weil cut to the chase: “We spend more on healthcare than any other country in the world, and have less to show for it,” he opined. “We need a new kind of medicine.”
 Weil has spent his life practicing and refining the new kind of healthcare he proposes, something he long ago dubbed Integrative Medicine. This preventive approach to health encompasses body, mind, and spirit and emphasizes nutrition, exercise and stress reduction. Weil founded and is director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson, where he is a professor. He’s spent three decades championing a simpler brand of health care, earning the sometimes-grudging respect of his peers along the way. Weil, whose advice has been sought by the Saudi royal family and whose last four books have topped The New York Times best-seller list, spoke with Generation Health from his home, an 80-acre ranch in the Arizona desert, about his less-costly, arguably more effective approach to medicine.
Kate Nolan: When switching to integrated medicine, does one need to change one’s
outlook on healthcare?
Dr. Andrew Weil: An individual moving into integrated medicine first needs a good understanding of what health is. Health is best defined as a positive state of dynamic balance in which a person functions well and interacts with their environment smoothly and efficiently. Health is much more than the absence of disease. Once this is understood, the recognition that it is their own responsibility to support their body’s unique and innate healing capacity comes naturally. Doctors can help, of course, as part of a healing partnership, but the primary responsibility for maintaining optimal health rests with the individual.
Nolan: How does a conventional doctor visit differ from a check-up with a physician trained in integrative medicine?
Weil: Integrative medicine restores the primacy of the healing relationship to healthcare, so an integrative physician will set aside ample time to interact and communicate with the person coming in for their check-up. I don’t feel that everyone requires an annual physical examination, though the appointment at least serves to deepen the relationship between doctor and patient. Any test results will likely be interpreted in the same way a more conventional doctor would view them, because conventional medicine is not rejected in an integrative medicine assessment. The integrative focus, however, is to treat the patient, and not just to correct the lab value.
Nolan: You propose institutional changes in the U.S. medical system to return medicine to its roots. What do you mean by “roots”? You’re not talking using leaches here, right?
Weil: At the root of good healthcare is an acceptance of each individual’s responsibility for their own health, and unfettered access to information and care that can support a healthy lifestyle. This type of healthcare should be available to everyone and focus on preventing illness, optimizing health, and identifying and treating the root causes of disease. This requires a renewed respect for primary care and the healing relationship between an individual patient and practitioner, as well as the time required to support that relationship. There should be equal emphasis on the science and art of healthcare, and less reliance on technology, invasive interventions and specialty care. The clinical benefits of dietary and lifestyle measures, as well as evidence-based complementary and alternative therapies, need also to be acknowledged.
 Nolan: How do you re-train physicians to not believe there is a pill to treat every symptom?
Weil: Allopathic doctors have been taught to have more faith in the power of pharmaceutical drugs than in the healing power of nature, and this is certainly one reason our current system of medical education needs to change. My colleagues at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and I have developed a model integrative medicine curriculum that exposes residents to new ways of thinking about health and healing. This program is currently in use at a number of medical centers, with the expectation that one day it will be adopted by medical schools and residency programs across the country.
Nolan: Are doctors likely to give up sustaining chronic conditions in favor of providing inexpensive cures if they lose money on the deal?
Weil: The notion that healthcare providers are just “in it for the money,” besides not being true, is offensive. Participation in the healing arts is a calling and a privilege that people aspire to. The doctors I know and respect do not make therapeutic judgments based on how much money they will make, but on how effective the intervention will be in helping their patient to heal. It is true that many doctors are saddled with huge debt upon graduating from medical school. This problem must be corrected, as it clearly impacts a doctor’s choice of a specific medical career, often driving them away from primary care into more lucrative fields of specialization.
Nolan: Your latest best-seller, Why Our Health Matters, gives some cases where an integrative treatment healed conditions that defied conventional treatment. Could you give an example?
Weil: An otherwise healthy young woman came to me after years of suffering with perennial allergies and recurrent sinus infections. Her doctors had offered many treatments, including antihistamines and long-term use of inhaled steroids, but she was aware of the potential side effects of these agents, and was concerned that such treatment only masked her symptoms, rather than addressed their root cause. Whenever she came off the medications she became symptomatic and would often develop a sinus infection.
After we discussed her diet and lifestyle, I offered a short list of recommendations. First, I told her to place a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter in her bedroom. Then, to irrigate her sinuses twice daily using a neti pot and warmed saline solution to soothe irritated mucosa and remove potential allergens. And, for three weeks, to exclude all dairy products from her diet, because people with allergic rhinitis are often sensitive to a pro-inflammatory milk protein called casein. Then, she could re-introduce dairy into her diet and note any difference in her symptoms. Finally, I suggested she practice breathing exercises to help manage stress.
Two months later, she shared that her symptoms had improved during the three weeks off dairy products, and worsened when she reintroduced them into her diet. She used this information about her unique biochemistry to limit dairy products. She practiced breathing exercises regularly, performed nasal douching daily, and purchased an inexpensive HEPA filter for both her bedroom and kitchen. Her symptoms of chronic congestion had completely resolved, she was off all medication for the first time in years, and she was feeling great.
Senior Wrier Kate Nolan feels especially integrated these days.
For more information about Dr. Weil’s principles, visit drweil.com.
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