Opinion: Germ Theory of Disease: Re-Evaluating How We Treat Chronic Diseases After COVID-19, By Mukaila Kareem
The increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases and billions of dollars spent each year point to the ineffectiveness of the germ theory of disease alone. Medical curriculum, which is presently based on the germ theory of disease, needs to be responsive to modern times, and should include rigorous training in physical activities, fasting and nutrition.
John Snow, an English physician, who grew up in the poorest part of the city and whose street was regularly flooded with contaminated water, solved the problem of London’s recurrent cholera epidemic in 1854.
However, in the last 40 years, the germ disease theory has miserably failed to prevent the continuing prevalence of non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. This shortcoming is subtly acknowledged in the medical community through expressions such as “chronic diseases”, as drug therapy does not cure but only attempts to “control” and “manage” these diseases toward terminal or end-stage, in what has been described as “treat to failure” approach.
Before COVID-19, examples of silent pandemics and the limitation of the germ theory of disease abounded in the West and all urban centres in developing countries. In the United States alone, about 18.2 million adults have coronary artery disease and close to 647,000 of them die from this disease every year. Furthermore, 88 million adults American have prediabetes, a condition that raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Worse yet, 34.2 million U.S.
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