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Integrative Medicine • Vol. 10, No. 3 • Jun/Jul 2011
8
 Pizzorno—The Path Ahead 
So I think this is what struck memost deeply—the ability of thesespecial people to see and articulatethe “Truth” of the new medicine we are creating.I realize this is not politically correct when everything is sup-posed to be relative and the world is seen as shades of gray withno absolutes. Well, I have never been particularly politically cor-rect. The Truth resonates with us (at least those with an openmind) in a special way. And when a deeply wise clinician presentsus with a fundamental insight, we immediately recognize it.This problem of blinders was brought powerfully to myattention a few years ago. (Names withheld to protect the inno-cent—and the guilty . . .) A wealthy friend of mine whose lifewas saved by a highly skilled cardiac surgeon was asked to makea very large donation to fund a cardiac research center. He indi-cated his interest, but only if the proposed center engaged inintegrative cardiology research. They assured him it would.Well, he did not become wealthy by chance. So he invited thecardiologist and his colleagues—another cardiac surgeon andtheir fundraisers—to have dinner with him and his wife, as wellas my wife, Lara, and me.We had a great dinner, and they were certainly interestingpeople. The conversation then focused on the proposed integra-tive cardiology research center. I asked them what they had inmind and was told they were excited about including musictherapy and perhaps some yoga along with cutting-edge cardiacprocedures. I told them I thought this was fine, but that therewas a lot more they could do. I first suggested that they considersupplementing their statin drug treatment with Co-Q 
10
as itwould help alleviate some of statins’ potential for adverseevents. The cardiologist asserted that there was no research tosupport this, and he did not want to waste his patients’ money.Those who know me probably will not be surprised when I liter-ally pulled out of my pocket 6 abstracts documenting that sta-tins do indeed impair the production of Co-Q 
10
, that this resultsin side effects, and that supplementation prevents most of them.I thought he would find particularly interesting a study showingthat, in some patients, statins cause a decrease in cardiac output,which is reversed with 100 mg/d of Co-Q 
10
.
1
 I then told him I had another dozen references at homethat I would be happy to email him. His response, “Don’tbother; I won’t have time to read them.” Hmm . . . The conver-sation continued. I then asked him about his success withstents, and he regaled us with stories of men and womenwhose lives he had saved. There are situations where high-techmedicine can be miraculous indeed. I then noted, “But, as youknow, many, if not most, of those patients will restenosewithin 5 years.” He became quite angry and stated, “But they
A
s I listened to Bruce Ames,
PhD
—whose many contribu-tions to medicine had been recognized in 2001 with thefirst Prize for Health Research from the Linus PaulingInstitute—talk about his insights and discoveries during a specialroundtable event at the 18th Annual Symposium of the Institutefor Functional Medicine (IFM) this past April, I was struck withthe question: “Why?”How is it that Dr Ames made such advances to our knowl-edge—such as the Ames Test (a biological assay to assess themutagenic potential of chemical compounds) and his theory of nutritional triage (which I will discuss in a future editorial)—when others have not? He is obviously exceptionally intelligentand hard working. But so are others. He also likes to “get hishands dirty” doing real research on the bench and with animals.But again, so do others. Nonetheless, many of the others seem tohave instead dedicated themselves to what I can most kindlydescribe as obfuscation (more below).During this IFM roundtable event moderated by Jeff Bland,
PhD
(who received the Lifetime Achievement in FunctionalMedicine Award from IFM at this year’s symposium), those whohave been recognized with IFM’s own version of a Linus Paulingaward, the Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award (the list of past winners can be seen at http://www.functionalmedicine.org/news/generalinfo.asp), also had an opportunity to say a fewwords about their insights in medicine (including yours truly).Along with Ames, another notable speaker was Sid Baker,
MD
,who spoke about his “2-tack” and “get in/get out” rules. Istrongly encourage all to listen to his Principles Based Medicinelecture presented at the 2011 IFM Symposium—truly outstand-ing! (It’s available from Tree Farm Communications, https://treefarmtapes.com/default01.asp.)As I listened to one speaker after another, a possible answeras to why these individuals gained such transformative insightsbegan to emerge—each award winner seemed to have the ability(in addition to intelligence and hard work) to step back from,understand, and apply the importance of their work in a biggercontext of clinical relevancy. But that was not enough; they alsohad to have the courage to go against the customs and evenstrictures of the prevailing conventional medical system tospeak the truth they had come to believe. (And if you have anydoubts about the courage needed, look at what happened to theearly naturopaths who were prosecuted for such outlandishideas as the need for healthy diets and avoiding toxins.)Yet, there seemed to be 1 more criterion: Their conceptshad to be fundamentally “the Truth.” It reminded me of JohnBastyr,
 ND
,
DC
’s, adage to us young students back in 1973 whenall looked very grim indeed for naturopathic medicine: “No mat-ter the obstacles they place, the truth of the medicine will out.”
Brilliance versus . . . Blinders (?)
 Joseph Pizzorno,
 ND
 , Editor in Chief 
THE PATH AHEAD
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