The Crisis in American Medicine: Why Treating Symptoms Isn’t Enough
How a Symptom-Based Healthcare System Fuels Chronic Disease—and Why Root-Cause Medicine Offers a Different Path Forward
The Crisis We Can’t Ignore
The United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation—over $4.5 trillion annually, representing approximately 18.3% of GDP (1). This level of investment exceeds that of all other developed countries by a wide margin.
Yet despite this unprecedented spending, health outcomes in the U.S. continue to deteriorate. Americans rank 30th globally in life expectancy, and chronic disease has become the norm rather than the exception. Nearly 6 in 10 adults live with at least one chronic condition, while 4 in 10 have two or more (2).
Compounding this burden, medical errors represent a serious and often overlooked contributor to mortality. Estimates suggest that 22,000 to as many as 251,000 preventable deaths occur annually in U.S. hospitals, placing medical error among the leading causes of death nationwide (3).
This raises a critical and unavoidable question:
How can a country that spends the most on healthcare deliver such poor long-term outcomes?
The answer lies not in a lack of technology, expertise, or effort—but in the dominant model of care itself. Modern allopathic medicine—also referred to as conventional or Western medicine—has become highly effective at acute intervention and symptom control. However, it is structurally oriented toward suppressing symptoms rather than identifying and resolving the underlying causes of disease. Over time, this approach has proven inadequate for addressing the complex, multifactorial nature of chronic illness.
A Brief History: How the Western Medical Model Came to Dominate
To understand how we arrived at today’s pharmaceutical-driven healthcare system, we must look back to the early 20th century. Prior to this period, American medicine was far more diverse. Naturopaths, herbalists, homeopaths, chiropractors, and other healing traditions practiced alongside conventional physicians, reflecting a broader and more holistic view of health and disease.
This began to change with the growing influence of powerful industrial interests—particularly those associated with American oil industrialist, John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller, who held significant financial interests in the emerging pharmaceutical industry, supported a vision of medicine centered on standardization, laboratory science, and patented, synthetic drug-based treatments. He funded the reorganization of medical education and research to support this vision.
A pivotal moment came with the publication of the Flexner Report in 1910. Commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation (which was heavily influenced by Rockefeller’s agenda), the report evaluated medical schools across the United States and recommended closing many institutions that taught naturopathic, homeopathic, and other holistic approaches. It promoted a scientific, reductionist framework grounded in laboratory research and pharmaceutical intervention as the foundation of modern medicine.
As a result, hundreds of naturopathic, homeopathic, and eclectic medical schools were shut down. Medical education became centralized around allopathic, pharmaceutical-based allopathic medicine, while other modalities were increasingly marginalized, restricted, or excluded from formal healthcare systems.
While the Flexner reforms did improve certain standards in medical education and scientific rigor, they also suppressed many effective, nature-based healing traditions. Over time, the Western medical model came to dominate—highly effective for acute care and infectious disease, yet fundamentally oriented toward symptom suppression rather than prevention, root-cause resolution, or whole-person healing.
This historical shift laid the foundation for today’s “sickcare” system: highly profitable, pharmaceutical-dependent, and often disconnected from the foundational pillars of health. As chronic disease rates continue to rise and long-term outcomes decline, a growing movement is calling for a return to integrative, patient-centered holistic care—one that honors both modern science and traditional healing wisdom.
Problems with the American Allopathic System
Symptom Management, Not Root-Cause Healing
The dominant allopathic model of care is designed primarily to manage symptoms, not to investigate why those symptoms developed in the first place. Clinical encounters are often oriented toward rapid symptom control rather than systems-level assessment.
Common examples include:
High blood pressure → prescribe a beta-blocker
Depression or anxiety → initiate an SSRI
Autoimmune disease → suppress immune activity
Menstrual irregularities → prescribe hormonal birth control
Acid reflux → suppress stomach acid
While these interventions may reduce symptoms in the short term, they rarely address the underlying drivers of dysregulation—such as metabolic dysfunction, chronic inflammation, gut imbalance, nutrient deficiencies, toxic exposure, nervous system stress, or unresolved trauma. As a result, symptoms are often managed indefinitely rather than resolved.
Overreliance on Pharmaceuticals
Pharmaceutical use has become the default response to a wide range of chronic conditions. Approximately 66% of American adults take at least one prescription medication, and more than 25% take five or more (4). Polypharmacy is now commonplace, particularly among individuals with chronic illness.
Too often, medications are prescribed without parallel efforts to address foundational contributors such as diet quality, sleep, stress physiology, environmental exposures, emotional health, or lifestyle patterns. This approach may suppress symptoms while allowing the root causes of disease to progress unchecked.
Minimal Emphasis on Prevention
Despite overwhelming evidence that lifestyle and environmental factors drive the majority of chronic disease, less than 5% of U.S. healthcare spending is allocated to preventive care (5). The system remains largely reactive—intervening once disease is established rather than identifying and correcting risk factors early.
This reactive orientation increases long-term costs, accelerates disease progression, and limits opportunities for true health restoration.
Fragmented, Specialist-Driven Care
Modern healthcare is highly compartmentalized. Patients are often referred to separate specialists for digestive symptoms, skin conditions, mood disorders, hormonal concerns, and musculoskeletal pain—each treated in isolation.
This siloed approach overlooks the interconnected nature of human physiology, where gut health, immune regulation, hormonal balance, metabolic function, and nervous system signaling continuously influence one another. Without an integrated view, underlying patterns are missed and care becomes fragmented rather than cohesive.
Incentives Misaligned With Healing
Structural incentives within the healthcare system favor disease management over disease resolution. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance providers generate sustained revenue from ongoing treatment of chronic conditions, not from restoring long-term health.
A healthy patient is not a "good customer" in this “for profit” corporate medical system.
In this model, a patient who requires lifelong medications, repeated procedures, and frequent office visits is economically valuable—while a patient who recovers fully and requires minimal care is not. This misalignment creates a system that is highly profitable, yet poorly equipped to support lasting healing.
Better Options: Approaches That Treat the Root Cause
While conventional medicine often focuses on managing disease once it appears, several evidence-informed models of care are designed to identify and address the underlying drivers of illness. These approaches differ in tools and philosophy, but they share a common goal: restoring physiological balance rather than suppressing symptoms.
Functional Medicine
Functional medicine practitioners use advanced diagnostic testing to identify root contributors to disease, such as nutrient deficiencies, chronic infections, hormonal imbalances, gut dysbiosis, metabolic dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment, and toxic exposures.
Treatment plans are highly personalized and may include:
Targeted, individualized nutrition strategies
Detoxification and biotransformation support
Mind-body and nervous system regulation practices
Evidence-based supplementation and herbal medicine
Targeted pharmaceutical interventions when appropriate—often temporarily, not indefinitely
Example:
Rather than prescribing insulin alone for type 2 diabetes, a functional medicine approach may uncover insulin resistance driven by mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammatory signaling, toxic burden, and dietary patterns—and address those root causes to improve metabolic function.
→ Functional & Integrative Medicine
Holistic and Integrative Medicine
Holistic and integrative medicine blends Eastern and Western medical traditions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of physical, emotional, and energetic health. Care often focuses on diet, movement, sleep quality, stress regulation, and natural therapies such as acupuncture and herbal medicine.
Example:
Chronic migraines may be approached by identifying food sensitivities, regulating the nervous system, balancing hormones, correcting micronutrient deficiencies (such as magnesium), incorporating acupuncture, and addressing unresolved stress or trauma—rather than relying solely on pain medications.
Lifestyle Medicine
Lifestyle medicine addresses the foundational behaviors that drive chronic disease. Practitioners focus on optimizing the core pillars of health:
Whole-food, nutrient-dense nutrition
Regular, appropriate physical activity
Restorative sleep and circadian rhythm alignment
Stress management and nervous system resilience
Reduction of toxic exposures (including environmental, dietary, and unnecessary pharmaceutical burden)
Strong social connection and community support
Example:
Large-scale research suggests that up to 80% of chronic disease could be prevented—or significantly improved—through lifestyle-based interventions alone (6,7), underscoring the power of addressing daily inputs rather than downstream symptoms.
Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathic medicine is grounded in the principle that the body has an inherent capacity to heal when obstacles to health are removed and supportive conditions are restored. Treatment often includes botanical medicine, clinical nutrition, homeopathy, physical medicine, lifestyle counseling, and patient education.
Rather than overriding symptoms, naturopathic care seeks to stimulate the body’s own regulatory and repair mechanisms, supporting long-term resilience and recovery.
Evidence That Root-Cause Healing Can Work
Critics of root-cause and integrative approaches often argue that these models are theoretical or anecdotal. However, a growing body of clinical research and real-world outcomes demonstrates that addressing underlying drivers of disease can lead to meaningful improvement—and in some cases reversal—of chronic conditions.
These outcomes are most consistently observed when interventions target lifestyle factors, metabolic function, inflammation, gut health, and nervous system regulation rather than relying solely on long-term symptom suppression.
Autoimmune Disease Improvement
Autoimmune conditions are traditionally managed with immunosuppressive medications designed to reduce symptoms and slow tissue damage. While these treatments can be necessary, they do not address why immune dysregulation developed in the first place.
Root-cause approaches have shown that modifying diet, repairing gut barrier integrity, reducing toxic burden, correcting nutrient deficiencies, and addressing chronic stress and trauma can significantly reduce autoimmune activity in some patients. Clinical programs using elimination diets, gut restoration protocols, and targeted detoxification strategies have demonstrated substantial reductions in inflammatory and autoimmune markers—often alongside improved quality of life and reduced medication dependence.
Cardiovascular Disease Regression
Heart disease is frequently treated as a progressive condition requiring lifelong medication and, eventually, invasive procedures. However, landmark research has demonstrated that this trajectory is not inevitable.
In studies led by Dean Ornish, comprehensive lifestyle interventions—including nutrition changes, stress reduction, physical activity, and social support—were shown to not only halt but reverse coronary artery disease in a majority of participants, without surgical intervention. These findings challenged the assumption that chronic cardiovascular disease can only be managed, not improved.
Type 2 Diabetes Reversal
Type 2 diabetes is another condition long considered chronic and irreversible. Yet multiple clinical trials and systematic reviews now show that targeted nutrition strategies, intermittent fasting, weight normalization, and metabolic rehabilitation can significantly improve insulin sensitivity and, in many cases, normalize blood glucose markers.
Interventions such as low-carbohydrate or ketogenic nutrition, combined with lifestyle modification and reduced inflammatory burden, have demonstrated that a substantial percentage of individuals with type 2 diabetes can reduce or eliminate the need for glucose-lowering medications when root causes are addressed rather than masked.
A Pattern Worth Noticing
Across these conditions, a consistent pattern emerges:
When care shifts from symptom control to systems repair, outcomes improve.
Rather than treating chronic disease as an inevitable, progressive failure of the body, root-cause medicine reframes it as a state of physiological imbalance—one that can often be stabilized, improved, or partially reversed when the drivers of dysfunction are identified and addressed.
How to Choose the Right Approach for You
Whether described as functional, holistic, integrative, lifestyle, or naturopathic medicine, these approaches share a foundational philosophy: address the root cause of illness rather than managing symptoms alone. Their goal is to support the body’s innate capacity to restore balance by identifying and correcting the deeper drivers of disease—whether nutritional, metabolic, environmental, emotional, or energetic.
While each model may emphasize different tools or frameworks, the underlying intent is the same: to view the individual as a complex, interconnected system, not a collection of isolated diagnoses. Your choice may depend on a practitioner’s training, diagnostic methods, or therapeutic focus, but all of these approaches prioritize long-term health over short-term symptom relief.
Some practitioners rely heavily on advanced laboratory testing and precision medicine strategies. Others focus more on herbal therapies, acupuncture, nervous system regulation, or trauma-informed care. Many integrate multiple modalities, tailoring treatment plans to the individual’s physiology, history, and goals.
Ultimately, the most important factor is not the label applied to the approach, but the quality of the practitioner–patient relationship. Effective root-cause care requires a provider who listens carefully, looks beyond diagnostic codes, and treats you as a whole person—supporting healing across physical, emotional, and regulatory systems rather than addressing symptoms in isolation.
Why American Medicine Needs a Paradigm Shift
The American medical system excels in one critical area: acute care. In emergencies—trauma, infections, surgical crises, heart attacks—there are few places in the world better equipped to save lives. These strengths should be recognized and preserved.
However, chronic illness requires a fundamentally different approach. Conditions driven by long-term metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, hormonal imbalance, environmental exposure, nervous system dysregulation, and lifestyle stressors cannot be sustainably resolved through symptom suppression alone. Yet this remains the dominant strategy for managing chronic disease in the United States.
A paradigm shift is needed—not away from science or technology, but toward a broader application of them. One that asks deeper questions:
What biological systems are out of balance?
What environmental, nutritional, emotional, or metabolic factors contributed to this condition?
How can physiology be supported rather than overridden?
What role do lifestyle, stress, trauma, and daily habits play in disease progression?
How can patients be empowered as active participants in their health rather than passive recipients of care?
Root-cause, integrative, and lifestyle-based approaches do not reject conventional medicine. Instead, they expand its scope, addressing the limitations of a system built primarily for acute intervention in a world now dominated by chronic disease.
Importantly, this shift also requires a change in perspective from patients. Lasting health cannot be outsourced entirely to prescriptions or procedures. It demands engagement, education, and sustainable changes—supported by practitioners who understand the complexity of the human body as an interconnected system.
Until healthcare evolves from a model centered on disease management to one oriented toward systems repair and prevention, outcomes will continue to lag behind investment. The future of medicine must integrate scientific rigor with whole-person care—honoring the biological, environmental, emotional, and behavioral dimensions of health.
True transformation will not come from treating symptoms more efficiently, but from understanding why they arise—and addressing those causes at their source.
A Final Reflection on the Future of Medicine
Until we shift from disease management to root-cause resolution, America’s health outcomes will continue to decline—despite the trillions of dollars invested each year. More technology, more prescriptions, and more procedures cannot compensate for a system that fails to address why chronic illness develops in the first place.
The future of medicine must integrate functional, holistic, and lifestyle-based approaches that honor the complexity of the human body, mind, and spirit. This does not require abandoning scientific rigor or modern medical advances—it requires expanding our definition of care to include prevention, systems biology, and long-term healing.
However, meaningful change does not begin with institutions alone. It begins with individuals. As patients, we must take ownership of our health choices and seek out care models that prioritize understanding over suppression and restoration over management.
The question we face is not whether better approaches exist, but whether we are willing to invest the time, effort, and intention required for true healing. What kind of medicine are we willing to support—and ultimately, what kind of life do we want to create?
→ Functional Medicine: What You Need to Know to Find the Right Doctor
Ready to Experience a Different Kind of Care?
Healing happens when the whole person is addressed—not just isolated symptoms. At Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine, care is grounded in root-cause investigation, systems-based medicine, and individualized treatment strategies that reflect the complexity of real human health.
If you are navigating chronic illness, hormonal imbalance, digestive issues, fatigue, autoimmunity, or simply want a more proactive and preventive approach to your health, support is available.
You may request a free 15-minute consultation with Dr. Martina Sturm to review your health concerns and outline appropriate next steps within a root-cause, systems-based framework.
Frequently Asked Questions About Root-Cause Medicine
What is the main problem with the current American healthcare system?
The primary issue is that the U.S. healthcare system focuses on managing symptoms rather than identifying and resolving the root causes of disease. This approach leads to high healthcare spending with poor outcomes for chronic illness.
What is the difference between allopathic and functional medicine?
Allopathic medicine, also known as conventional or Western medicine, primarily treats symptoms using pharmaceuticals and surgical interventions. Functional medicine focuses on identifying underlying causes—such as nutrient deficiencies, gut dysfunction, hormonal imbalance, inflammation, or toxic exposure—and addressing them through personalized, systems-based care.
Why is the U.S. healthcare system often referred to as “sickcare”?
The term reflects the system’s largely reactive nature. While it excels in emergency and acute care, it invests little in prevention or long-term healing, resulting in ongoing disease management rather than health restoration.
How did the Western medical model become dominant?
The modern allopathic model rose to prominence after the 1910 Flexner Report, which restructured medical education around pharmaceutical-based, laboratory-driven medicine. This shift led to the closure of many naturopathic and holistic medical schools and narrowed the scope of accepted medical practice.
What are root-cause approaches to chronic illness?
Root-cause approaches—including functional, integrative, lifestyle, and naturopathic medicine—focus on identifying what is driving illness beneath the surface. This may include inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, gut dysbiosis, toxic burden, mitochondrial impairment, or unresolved stress and trauma.
Can functional or holistic medicine be used alongside conventional care?
Yes. Root-cause approaches are often used alongside conventional treatments. This integrative model allows patients to benefit from necessary medical interventions while also addressing lifestyle, environmental, and physiological contributors to disease.
What types of conditions respond best to root-cause medicine?
Root-cause care is commonly used for chronic and complex conditions such as autoimmune disease, digestive disorders, hormonal imbalance, chronic fatigue, migraines, metabolic disease, and chronic pain—especially when conventional treatment alone has not resolved symptoms.
What role do lifestyle changes play in healing chronic illness?
Lifestyle factors such as nutrition, sleep, movement, stress regulation, and toxin exposure play a central role in chronic disease development. Addressing these factors can significantly improve—and in some cases reverse—chronic conditions by restoring normal physiological function.
How can patients take a more active role in their health?
Patients can take an active role by seeking care that looks beyond symptoms, making sustainable lifestyle changes, and working collaboratively with practitioners who prioritize prevention, education, and whole-person healing.
Resources
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – National Health Expenditure Data: Historical
RAND Corporation – Multiple Chronic Conditions in the United States
BMJ / Johns Hopkins Patient Safety Study – Medical error as a leading cause of death in the United States
CDC FastStats – Therapeutic Drug Use
The Lancet Global Health Commission – Financing primary health care: putting people at the centre
American College of Lifestyle Medicine / PMC – Foundations of Lifestyle Medicine and Its Evolution
JAMA / McGinnis & Foege – Actual Causes of Death in the United States
Frontiers in Immunology – Dietary resistant starch and gut microbiota in systemic lupus erythematosus
The Lancet / Dean Ornish et al. – Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease
Virta Health Clinical Trials – Type 2 diabetes reversal with nutritional ketosis
Nutrients (MDPI) – Efficacy of Ketogenic Diets on Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review
Endocrine Society – Intermittent fasting and reversal of type 2 diabetes markers