Wisdom, Science, Convenience & Commerce

Why modern medicine isn’t the villain and ancient medicine isn’t the hero

Yesterday I spent nearly an hour with a patient living with Parkinson’s disease.

We didn’t talk about miracles. We didn’t talk about reversal. We talked about slowing progression. We talked about dopamine, D1, D2, acetylcholine balance. We talked about mitochondria, redox stress, neuroinflammation, gut signaling, network resilience.

In other words, we talked about modern science.

Over the next two days, I was showered with praise.

“Modern medicine is so broken.”

“Doctors don’t think like this anymore.”

“You’re one of the few who look at the whole picture.”

The irony? Everything I said was modern medicine.

Mitochondria are modern science.

Redox biology is modern science.

Gut-brain signaling is modern science.

Neuroplasticity research is modern science.

And yet, modern medicine was being blamed. That’s when it struck me. We’ve confused modern medicine with modern healthcare.

They are not the same thing.

Modern Medicine Is Extraordinary

Let’s be clear.

If you have a heart attack, you want modern medicine.

If you have a fracture, you want modern medicine.

If you have bacterial meningitis, you want modern medicine.

There is no ancient equivalent to a catheter lab at 2 a.m. There is no herbal substitute for a ventilator when your lungs fail. The success rates of trauma surgery, antibiotics, and emergency care are not accidents. They are the result of decades of brutal, rigorous scientific work.

Modern medicine is one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

There. I said it.

But Modern Healthcare Is Something Else

Healthcare, on the other hand, is a system. And systems are built for scale. When you’re designing care for millions, you optimise for:

• Protocols

• Efficiency

• Standardisation

• Reimbursement

• Liability

• Throughput

Not philosophical nuance. Not individual metabolic variability. Not one-hour deep dives into mitochondrial redox states. Modern healthcare has to move fast. It has to reduce complexity. It has to be cost-conscious. It has to survive economically. That inevitably means:

• Short consults

• Symptom-based categorisation

• Algorithm-driven treatment

That’s not evil. It’s structural. But when patients experience that structure, they often blame “modern medicine.”

Ancient Medicine Had Something Different

Now let’s talk about the other side.

Long before anyone peered through a microscope, Ayurveda spoke about the gut as the seat of disease. Long before mitochondrial dysfunction was published in journals, acupuncture and Ayurveda described life forces like prana and qi as something that could be depleted or blocked.

Did they know about ATP synthesis? No. Did they know about microbial metabolites? No. Or maybe they did, but since they couldn't prove it, they thought it was easier to blame it on spirits. But they knew! Amazing, right? They had pattern recognition. They had observational wisdom. They had systems thinking. Ancient medicine had wisdom without microscopy. Modern medicine has microscopy without mythology.

Both have strengths. Both have blind spots.

The Commerce Question

Here’s the uncomfortable part. Modern healthcare doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in economies. Drug development costs billions. Hospitals have payrolls. Insurance companies calculate risk. Even wellness industries sell optimisation.

Commerce is not inherently corrupt. But commerce changes incentives. Quick fixes scale well. Preventive depth does not. A stent is billable. An hour-long lifestyle conversation is harder to justify in a throughput-driven system.

Again, not villainy, but structure.

The Parkinson’s Moment

When I spoke to that patient about mitochondria and redox overload, I wasn’t abandoning modern medicine but using it. But I was using parts of it that don’t always fit into 10-minute consultations.

Precision vs Convenience

There’s another layer here. We live in an era of convenience. We want:

• Precision-level care

• Instant access

• Minimal effort

• Low cost

All at once.

But true precision metabolic mapping, behavioural coaching, preventive systems thinking takes time. It takes depth. It doesn’t compress neatly into algorithms. So we oscillate. We criticise modern healthcare for being superficial. Then we demand speed and convenience. We romanticise ancient wisdom. Then we expect modern outcomes.

A View From Both Sides

I’ve been trained in Ayurveda and acupuncture. I’ve trained in modern medicine, functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, longevity science. From that vantage point, something becomes obvious:

Ancient systems were extraordinary for what they could observe. Modern science is extraordinary for what it can measure. Neither healthcare system was designed to solve for every individual nuance. Ancient systems couldn’t manage septic shock. Modern systems struggle with slow, lifestyle-driven neurodegeneration.

Each excels in different terrains.

The Real Distinction

Modern medicine is the science.

Modern healthcare is the delivery model.

Ancient healthcare is the wisdom.

When people say “modern medicine is broken,” what they often mean is: “I don’t feel seen in a system built for scale.” That’s a very different critique.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Maybe we start with the acceptance that the system was designed for convenience and scale? It was designed to help as many people who have trouble today and not designed to prevent trouble tomorrow. And that if we have been dealt with cards that we wouldn't wish on our enemy, we'll have to start finding solutions and every minute wasted blaming the system is time wasted in finding something that works for us. And we'll probably not find it at the cost of a 10 minute consult.

And perhaps a bit more humility on all sides. Because neither ancient nor modern healthcare was ever designed for immortality.

But modern medicine? It’s doing far more right than we give it credit for. And that deserves acknowledgment.