Your Side Effects Are Real

SNPs – The Elephant in the Treatment Room

As physicians, we are taught, first and foremost, not to harm. Primum non nocere. Unfortunately, this divine concept has been bent and twisted into the concept of risks versus benefits – where harm is acceptable. This devolution of primum non nocere into more of a treatment craps shoot where, with luck, the benefits will outweigh the risks is primarily due to a combination of ever-increasing pressure to conform to “standard of care” medicine and our toxic medicolegal environment. The elegant art of healing individuals has been reduced to a mechanical, trade-like intervention for the masses that anyone or anything with access to the proper algorithms may practice.

Pay attention and do not deny your observations and opinions about the effects or side effects of treatments you choose to engage in. This applies to the traditional interventions of pharmaceuticals and procedures of allopathic medicine, as well as the myriad of non-traditional healing options. If something does not feel right, PAY ATTENTION. Do NOT just accept that how you feel after a particular intervention, medication, or supplement is all in your head or a “healing crisis” or any of the rationales you might be given when a specific treatment has an unexpected or unusual response.

This is not to say that these rationales may not be correct. Perhaps you ARE a bit neurotic, and what you are feeling is in your head. Perhaps it IS a healing crisis, and the next deeper level of healing is the new disorder. The point is to pay attention and listen to your own body. If a medication or supplement makes your skin crawl, just stop it. If your back feels better every time you go to a chiropractor and your neck feels worse, this is not your problem – the chiropractic treatments need to be changed.

You Are Not Average

Although the medications provided in the USA are safe and probably the safest in the world, that designation of safety is based upon the FDA’s evaluation of the average response of a small sample of people. The sample numbers can range from perhaps 100 people in the case of rare diseases to up to 50,000 for such things as a COVID-19 vaccine. When it approves a medication, the FDA states that, on average, this small number of people who were tested received some benefit, and the side effects were usually tolerable. The significant concern is that although the medication may have been safe, on average, for this small number of tested individuals, it can at any moment be very unsafe for a non-average person.

Unfortunately – or fortunately – we are all non-average.

Most of us are not “average” because the DNA of any individual is only 99.6% common to all human beings. This 99.6% provides the essential information to construct the requisite body parts necessary to fit the category of human being. The remaining 0.4 percent accounts for all the exquisite variations of humanness we find in our world: the good – and the not-so-good.

The Science: SNPs

DNA contains the instructions for making and assembling all the proteins that are the building blocks of our body. Proteins are made up of long chains of molecules called amino acids, and each protein has a unique sequence that determines its specific shape and function.

Our DNA is composed of approximately 3.2 billion pairs of molecules called nucleotides. There are only two different pairs of nucleotides in DNA, and they are connected one after the other in a specific order. The order in which they appear defines what and how proteins will be made. If the order is altered, then the corresponding protein’s shape and function will also be changed.

These variations in order are called mutations and are most often the result of the substitution, deletion, or addition of a single pair of nucleotides. Many of these mutations happen during the copying of DNA that occurs in reproduction – errors inherent to the process that account for the vast differences among humans. Other causes include exposure to nuclear radiation, sunlight, environmental pollution, cosmic radiation, radon, and even infections by viruses.

The science of medicine has limited knowledge of these SNPs and how they affect our well-being. The DNA defines the shape and function of proteins. If the DNA has mutations, then the proteins produced by that DNA will be distorted – non-average. The shape of the protein is critical to its function. Even one mutation of one single nucleotide can change the shape of a protein to such a point that its function may be diminished, increased, or perhaps not work at all.

Why This Matters: Narcotics as an Example

Many people can take narcotics for short periods and experience very little or no withdrawal. Others, even after a few doses, will experience symptoms of withdrawal. Some have an astounding tolerance and receive almost no benefit from large doses; others are hypersensitive to even the smallest amount. These variations in response are a direct result of DNA mutations creating proteins that assimilate and respond to narcotics differently.

Rolling the Dice

Because of these significant differences in DNA, I have always been reticent to prescribe medications. As wonderful as medical science is, the reality is we do not know what a particular medication will do in one specific body. The FDA assessment of medication safety for the average person is, at this time, the best we have. However, it is not particularly useful regarding safety for a non-average individual.

With each person having millions of DNA mutations compared to the next person, the chances of having a different response to a medication are likely. When you pull out that medication information sheet and read the list of side effects, each one of those adverse events indicates how one or more non-average individuals’ bodies reacted to that medication. And remember, that was only a tiny sampling of humanity. Every time I give a medication, there is a part of me that feels like I am rolling the dice; I cross my fingers and hope for the best. It is not a great feeling.

Beyond Pharmaceuticals: The Wild West

One of the advantages of taking FDA-approved pharmaceuticals is that you know what you are getting. If you react poorly to a prescribed medication, it is not difficult to assess what the offending drug molecule might be. However, once you navigate beyond the oversight of the FDA (not the best, but the best we have), you enter the Wild West of ingestible and injectable healing modalities. And it IS the Wild West. Thirty billion dollars per year is spent on unregulated supplements alone.

Often, naturopathic and herbal remedies combine many different components in one dose. Even more complicated is that each of these substances can be actual plant material, which in itself is composed of a vast number of different types of molecules. When you take a “natural” medicine, you may be exposing your system to a large number of unknown substances, any of which may not be well-tolerated. The risks of negative occurrences increase significantly. And should you have an adverse reaction, you cannot ascertain which substance caused it and will have to avoid ALL the components of that supplement in the future.

Polypharmacy

The issues with being exposed to multiple substances at once are not limited to non-allopathic interventions. Polypharmacy is when a patient, due to multiple conditions, requires taking many different drugs and supplements simultaneously. Medicines and supplements interact with each other as well as with your uniquely DNA-defined chemistry. Every time you add a drug, herb, or supplement to your regimen, there is not only the risk that the new agent will not work well with your particular uniqueness but also that combining it with everything else you take may result in adverse interactions.

These interactions can result in delayed or increased metabolism of drugs, leading to abnormally high or low concentrations and abnormal efficacy – medications working too well, or not at all. Sometimes, two different medications combine to form a third, totally different compound in your body with unique adverse effects.