Developing World Medicine and IPT

Developing regions: Where else in the world is medical treatment needed so much by so many people, and yet so unavailable? IPT offers much hope to the people in these places. In another part of this website, I suggest actions that can be taken -- clinical trials, research, and just making IPT available to people.

The IPT method can be modified for use in developing regions. An inexpensive butterfly needle (a needle and valve held to the arm with a butterfly-shaped bandage) inserted into a vein can replace the expensive intravenous bag and tubing. Glass syringes can be sterilized and reused. Where needed, a simpler low-tech protocol could be tried: intramuscular or subcutaneous injection of insulin, followed by oral medication, and finally drinking of sugar-rich liquids or eating of honey at the therapeutic moment. See Low-Tech IPT page. If a practical oral insulin is developed, the whole protocol could be done orally.

Here are some of the main applications I see for IPT in the developing regions:

Infectious diseases are rampant in so many parts of the developing world. Of particular significance are HIV/AIDS (especially devastating in Africa and southeast Asia), malaria, and tuberculosis. But there are many more of great significance in specific regions: many types of parasites, cholera, sleeping sickness, leprosy, meningitis, hepatitis, lassa fever, yellow fever, and others. IPT has a long track record of rapid and successful treatment of a wide variety of infectious diseases and their symptoms. As more doctors hear about IPT, get trained, and begin to practice it, new and better treatments of many of the infectious diseases of the developing regions may be found.

Starvation and malnutrition. I believe that IPT will be found to be a way to rapidly bring a person back from the brink of death by starvation, by enhancing absorption of nutrients into the cells, by stimulating regrowth of wasted muscle and other tissues, and by balancing blood chemistry. Dr. Perez Garcia 1's first experiments on himself with insulin suggest to me that this is indeed possible.

Dehydration. Many children die of this, especially as a side effect of dysentery. Oral rehydration solution, a mixture of sugar, electrolytes (salts), and water, has been a wonderful innovation. The sugar may enhance absorption of electrolytes and water by stimulating the body to release more insulin. In extreme cases of dehydration, I suspect that IPT (or at least administration of a small amount of insulin, perhaps of the slow-acting type) may be a way to accelerate even more the absorption of oral or intravenous electrolytes, carbohydrates, and water.

Other diseases. People in developing regions also experience the same range of diseases that people in developed regions do. IPT appears to offer the potential for simple, low-tech, inexpensive, more affordable, and more effective treatments for cancer, arthritis, and other diseases.