The Physician Anthropologist: ANTHROPOLOGICAL VISION OF SCIENCE : AN ANCIENT METHOD

mercredi 1 février 2012

ANTHROPOLOGICAL VISION OF SCIENCE : AN ANCIENT METHOD

NATURE DICTATES AND SCIENCE PROVES

The role of the anthropologist is to act as a translator between cultures and thus make available concepts in a more appreciated and understandable form. Nowhere it is more urgent than the current monologue between the Health Care Providers including non-Physicians and the hapless patient.

As my Winnebago Indian Colleague once said to me: The Providers think that we as patients and indigenous people do not have any knowledge worth preserving or acknowledging.

Today I would take a concept that most doctors are unaware of (more than 95% at least) and try to translate it culturally, from its incredible science.

Chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) is a selective lysosomal protein degradative process that is activated in higher organisms under conditions of prolonged starvation and in cell culture by the removal of serum

The induction of CMA by ketone bodies may provide an important physiological mechanism for the activation of CMA during prolonged starvation.

Dr Levine and her team were testing a theory that exercise works its magic, at least in part, by promoting autophagy. This process, whose name is derived from the Greek for “self-eating”, is a mechanism by which surplus, worn-out or malformed proteins and other cellular components are broken up for scrap and recycled.

(From the Economist)

We have known for ages, that eating less and doing something physically active are both conducive to good health. From an indigenous point of view, these were built into the fabric of their lived in culture.

Both men and women were active from sun up to sun down, with women doing most of the heavy day to day chores and men assigned to occasional hunting as well as strenuous religious duties.

So here is one point to bring into discussion, taking into consideration, all indigenous cultures have deep respect for their ancestors.

You are an Indian, so try to live like an Indian, I would tell my patients from various tribes in the USA, and then explain what it means to live like an Indian surrounded by a fairly hostile society.

Remember what Chief Standing Bear of the Sioux Said:

In sharing, in loving all and everything, one people naturally found a due portion of the thing they sought, while in fearing, the other found need of conquest

So if you wish, I would tell them, decrease the suffering from the chronic inflictions of the western world, you have to live by the many principles that your ancestors lived by, including sharing, sacrifice and caring.

This I would tell them, in turn, would help your body repair itself, not waste anything that is being broken down, they pick it up and use it again, like a divine ecological machine.

This advice while I tailor it to the Native American Indians of the USA is applicable to all those people displaced by economic necessities to various parts of the world. (A sub continental professional tends to die earlier when he migrates to the USA). Physically and Emotionally we have to be loyal to our cultural roots while remaining committed to the land and country that we live in. Very few people have endured what American Indian, Australian Aboriginal Nations, Maori, San people have: that your country is invaded by outsiders and you are displaced within your own country. An Eternal Refugee in your own country!

Now to find out:

Can meditation help Autophagy?

Can Yoga Philosophy and abiding by it, not just Asana, help Autophagy?

Instinctively I feel that they could, but let me find out

A San Elder from the Kalahari