When we think of illness, our minds veer to macrophenomena that incite symptoms. Sidelined by the flu, we speak of fatigue or feverishness, of achy muscles and breathlessness. But hidden behind these gross symptoms lie a remarkable number of perturbations in physiology occurring at the micro level, phenomena that easily escape our purview since our psyches are more attuned to the downstream effects. After all, its how an illness makes us feel that gets our attention.

Much of modern medicine is interested in exposing and redressing the upstream phenomena: the alterations in immune responses that expose elderly patients to respiratory infections, the imbalance in hormones that allow tumors to thrive, the nuances in cell signaling that predict response to therapies. The problem with many of the treatments used today is that although targeted for a particular microphenomenon, the application requires exposure to completely unaffected locales throughout the body. Most of the chemotherapeutics we give are injected intravenously and expose many otherwise normal happy cells in uninvolved organs to very caustic chemicals. It’s like the fire department flooding an entire city in order to douse an inferno at just one apartment building. Sure you cure the fire, but now the subways are flooded and your new sneakers aren’t fresh.

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