Tucked into a leather wing chair in his office—a converted horse
stable that still smells strongly of manure—Andrew Weil, in khaki
shorts, a rumpled cotton button-down and worn suede sandals, a pair of
Rhodesian Ridgebacks at his feet, looks more like a friendly Deadhead
than a millionaire medical practitioner. He is, in fact, a fusion of his
former angry young mushroom-munching rebel and an urbane, self-possessed
CEO. He lives on an 80-acre ranch in the Arizona desert yet dresses more
like a groundskeeper than the master of the house. His advice has been
sought by the Saudi royal family, and his last three books have topped
The New York Times best-seller list, yet he appears unfazed by both his reputation as a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and the wealth and fame it's brought him.
During the three decades he's spent championing his own brand of
health care, Weil has gone from drug-culture shaman to alternative-health
guru, earning pots of money and the sometimes-grudging respect of his
peers along the way. And if we've been too hardheaded to buy into Weil's
prudent approach to healing until just lately, he's forgiven us. All that
matters now, he says, is that integrative medicine, which combines both
alternative and conventional approaches to maximize the body's natural
healing powers, is catching on in a big way.
The rising cost of traditional health care is high on the list of
reasons that alternative therapies, from acupuncture to herbal remedies,
are on the cusp of mainstream acceptance. Americans may be forking over
some $27 billion a year for alternative treatments. According to the
journal Medical Care, an estimated 28.9 percent of adult Americans used
at least one alternative therapy in 1999. And the health care community
is taking notice. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports
that most medical schools now offer courses in alternative medicine and
increasing numbers of managed care organizations provide benefits for
such therapies.
Integrative medicine is comforting to those of us reluctant to
entirely abandon prescription meds in favor of dietary supplements and
meditation. And its emphasis on a true partnership between patient and
practitioner, in which lifestyle issues such as diet, stress and
relationships are considered, is also proving popular to a nation of
people increasingly discontent with the five-minute physician
consultation.
"In integrative medicine, we might give a patient with rheumatoid
arthritis a whole package of things to do: a change in diet, a dietary
supplement, a mind-body technique, an herb, an exercise regimen," Weil
says. "Conventional medicine would just give her a prescription for
steroids."
Singer Naomi Judd sought out Weil after she was diagnosed with
potentially fatal hepatitis C in 1991. Now healthy, Judd says Weil walks
the talk. He's "the real deal," and she knows because she looked in his
fridge.
"I eat well; I grow a lot of my own food," says Weil. "I do some
kind of physical activity every day, whether it's bicycling or walking or
swimming. I do breathing exercises and some sitting meditation. I take a
vitamin regimen of my own devising—no iron, lots of antioxidants,"
confides Weil. "I won't prescribe treatments I haven't tried."
Those treatments include guided imagery, acupuncture, herb therapy
and even the science of Western medicine; Weil's is a Cuisinart approach
to health and healing. "I look at everything out there and I say, 'Well,
this part is good, and this part is stupid.' If an idea or practice makes
sense to me, I will recommend it—wherever it comes from."
People are drawn to Weil's simple, unthreatening principles. He
espouses moderate, sometimes age-old preventative measures. Our
grandmothers used some of Weil's favorite remedies—like cod-liver oil.
He was touting the benefits of fish oils and omega-3 fatty acids long
before the rest of us.
But Weil has his detractors, who point to his oft-told tales of
recovery as proof of his quackery—like the story of the twenty-something
fellow with prostatitis who Weil cured with a prescription of drinking
water and a daily, self-prostatic massage. Or the teenager dying from a
terminal blood disease who was cured by hypnosis. Or the young woman with
an inflamed abdominal wall who Weil cured with a regimen of applied heat,
ten glasses of water a day and meditation.
Weil's roll-your-own approach to health care has "led the charge to
reform medicine by returning therapies that aren't pharmaceutical or
surgical to the mainstream," according to Lewis Mehl-Madrona, a colleague
of Weil's and author of Coyote Healing: Miracles in Native Medicine. "His
strength in fighting for a place for integrative medicine at the table
makes him the King Arthur of the movement."
"Medicine should begin with prevention and self-healing," Weil says
between sips of mineral water. "Then use the least invasive, least
expensive and most natural methods possible. But our doctors are trained
to use drastic measures far removed from nature, and not to work with the
body's healing mechanisms. They tend to start with heavy interventions,
which is one of the reasons for the economic crisis in health
care."
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