The path not taken...
In the
early history of any new technology, there is a time when all the different
possibilities are being explored. It is not yet clear which configurations
will predominate in the years to follow. Think of the early days of cars
or airplanes. Looking back, we can see that we may have lost certain
valuable ideas that were present at the beginning, but were forgotten when other
ideas overshadowed them and became the norm. Sometimes, we can see in retrospect, the winners
and losers were somewhat arbitrarily chosen, perhaps due to certain
personalities, or economic interests, or socio-political trends. Sometimes
forgotten forms from the past become relevant again and are rediscovered for new
applications. For example electric cars and fuel cells are coming back, and flying wings
have returned as stealth aircraft.
Similarly
with the use of insulin. From the very beginning, its use in
treatment of diabetes grabbed all the attention on the world stage, . That
was set in motion by the interests and intentions of the discoverers of insulin,
Banting and Best. But other uses of insulin were quickly discovered, too,
and ran in parallel streams. Insulin was marketed in the early years for
both weight loss and for weight gain. In Mexico, Donato Perez Garcia MD developed
his system of pulsed hypoglycemia, what we call IPT. (History of IPT) In the United States, a postal study
group (today's equivalent would be an email discussion group) of 62 physicians and two
dentists discovered many uses for slow-acting insulin, ranging from rapid
healing of skin wounds to reduction of gum infections and union of difficult
bone fractures. Hal Huggins DDS rediscovered the work of this group in the
1970s, but it was forgotten again rather quickly. (Huggins' article about this group)
Pharmaceutical historians may find that there were still more pockets of
non-diabetic insulin experimentation in the early days, and that others have
arisen since. But in the rush of history, only the diabetic use of insulin
survives in the global consciousness today. It is the only use featured in
the marketing literature of the insulin manufacturers. And the drug
companies largely shape the day-to-day perception of drugs by doctors and
patients. So here we are in 2000, and the prevailing wisdom is
that Insulin = Diabetes. Many other uses for insulin,
some of them intriguing, some of them incredible treasures, have been ignored,
forgotten, and, at least for now, lost.
IPT and ICT...
Now for
the main point of this page: Even insulin potentiation therapy (IPT)
itself has its branches and trends. And if we are not careful, if we do
not pay attention to the value of all of them, we are in danger of losing some
precious IPT observations, insights, theories, and practices in the flow of
history.
Dr. Perez Garcia 1, discoverer of IPT, called his method "Cellular Therapy".
He saw himself working on the level of the cell, treating every cell in the
body. Based on his observations and understanding of insulin and human
physiology, he felt that he was doing three main things:
1. Balancing the biophysical and biochemical systems of the cells
and the body.
2. Detoxifying the cells and the body by allowing transport of toxins
out of the cells. And
3. Increasing the effectiveness of medications (potentiating) by
enhancing their transport into cells.
By always
thinking of all three of these mechanisms, he chose medications that would
promote each of them, within the context of the basic insulin and glucose
protocol. In treatment of any patient, he would administer a complex,
carefully chosen custom mixture of medications that would not only treat all the
causes and symptoms of the disease directly, but would also assist the
detoxification and the balancing of the body so as to no longer support the
disease process. Dr. Perez Garcia 1, in effect, created a very holistic low-dose
drug-based medical therapy.
When I
publish books by Drs. Perez Garcia 1 and 2 on IPTQ.org
(soon I hope), this thinking process and procedure will be explained much more
clearly, and in detail. In the mean time, you can read Medicine
of Hope, by Jean-Claude Paquette MD, a French-Canadian doctor who learned
the method from Dr. Perez Garcia y Bellon 2 in 1976. Dr. Paquette
treated hundreds of patients with this method over 17 years, and remained true
to this original spirit of treating the whole patient, not just the
disease. Dr. Paquette called the technique "Insulin-Cellular
Therapy", or "ICT". In creating this very
good and elegant name, he kept the emphasis on the cell, and just added, for
specificity, the name of the agent (insulin) that was enabling the process.
Unfortunately, by practicing this technique on a daily basis, he drew the ire of
his regional medical society, and suffered the indignity of losing his license.
SGA MD also documented the technique
of Donatian Therapy as practiced by Dr. Perez Garcia y Bellon 2, in 1975, but took a
slightly different path. Instead of practicing the technique, he decided instead to further develop the scientific
understanding of it, and to communicate this scientific understanding to the wider
medical community. He has been practicing IPT since
training by Dr. Perez Garcia 3 in 1997.
In the 1970s, Dr. SGA decided to give the therapy a new name, "Insulin Potentiation Therapy", or "IPT".
This name has long been adopted by Drs. Perez Garcia 2 and 3, and has been the only name
used in the medical literature in recent decades.
IPT is a
good name, and has served the therapy well. We need to be careful,
however, that the simplicity of this name does not have an unintended side
effect. It focuses on the third mechanism of the method of Dr. Perez Garcia 1
(drug
potentiation), and does not specifically mention the first two mechanisms (bio-physico-chemical
balancing of cells, and detoxifying of cells).
There
is something very exciting about getting better results from drugs given at only
5% to 50% of the normal dose. And it grabs your attention when insulin
makes methotrexate 10,000 times more toxic to breast cancer cells in a petri
dish. But what about all the other actions of insulin in the body?
What about all the other beneficial effects that can be created in a patient
while viruses or bacteria are being killed, while inflammation is being
quenched, while tumors are melting away? What about including medications
that boost the immune system, that help remove the toxins from tumor cell or
bacterial die-off, and that bring the body to a higher state of health within 90
minutes?
The
trouble is that medicine has gotten used to the idea of treating diseases with
just one or two drugs, or perhaps a three drug cocktail, as in current
treatments for AIDS. The idea of creating a custom mixture of many
medications to use during one IPT treatment may seem foreign to many
doctors. How strange, they might think, to not only give much
smaller doses of drugs, but to simultaneously give a complex combination of
drugs that addresses all the symptoms, not only of the presenting disease, but
of all the problems of the patient, PLUS immune boosters, detoxifiers, and
nutrients. Not only might this complex prescription process seem strange
to them, but it is also more time consuming to do, and it is harder to
learn. The answer to their discomfort is for them to see for themselves the unbelievably
good results in patient after patient when the full method is applied.
Then they will understand. Then they will want those benefits for their
own patients, in their own practices.
I sense
that there is a danger that, because of this
name, IPT, future doctors might focus entirely on the drug potentiating effects of
insulin-induced hypoglycemia, and will forget and lose the benefits of the other
two mechanisms used by Dr. Perez Garcia 1, the balancing and the detoxifying. I do
regret that some doctors may be tempted to potentiate only one or two drugs in
an IPT treatment. They might be satisfied with merely good results, while
not realizing that their results could be much better. If
potentiating just one or two drugs can help wipe out a malaria or tuberculosis
or AIDS epidemic, I am all for it. But I urge doctors not to lose sight of
the full potential of IPT as practiced holistically, through three mechanisms,
by its discoverer, Dr. Perez Garcia 1, and his son and grandson.
IPT is a good name, and it works. If this therapy is for real, millions of
people need it now, regardless of what we call it. The tide of history is
rushing on. Grab this IPT boat and let's ride it. But let us never
forget that it is bigger, much bigger, than its name.
-- Chris Duffield February 7, 2000 (modified 3/29/00)