Health and Medicine

Advantages

Longevity: While considering the advantages of the modern medicine, what comes to mind is the possibility to increase the life duration. This is the first advantage, which has to be discussed in detail. Longevity is dependent on the quality of the health care services. Since time immemorial, different healers started applying herbs in order to treat various ailments and increase the life expectancy. The promotion of longevity has become the objective of the human life. People have always wanted to live longer, and the modern medicine has provided them such a chance. Today, it has developed a number of treatment methods to achieve the anti-aging effect. Researchers R.C. Valentine and D.L. Valentine discuss this issue and state that the modern medicine has reduced the rates of infant death (81).

The medical breakthroughs have substantially improved the average life expectancy battling the terminal diseases and preventing different infections. Researcher Kagan emphasizes in his work that it enabled Americans to live from seventy to eighty years (45). According to her, it is the average life expectancy for the organism, which does not suffer from acute illnesses and serious disorders. For centuries, various mortal diseases, like tuberculosis and diabetes, took lives of people. Currently, despite the fact that certain forms of these diseases have remained untreatable, there have been invented such medications as insulin, which assist people to live longer having these serious disorders. The invention of innovative medications has significantly improved the life quality and significantly it prolonged life expectancy.

It has to be assumed that apart from the prevention of various diseases, the modern medicine has developed a profound campaign for healthy lifestyle promotion. It has also favored the longevity. Regular exercise and healthy diet are the major factors, which have been promoted and which resulted in the increase of the average life expectancy. Individuals, who remain physically active, contribute to the reduction in the all-cause mortality and loss of motor function. Regular exercises improve human muscular system and its elasticity. Moreover, it is also essential to follow a healthy diet, as it assists to prevent the age-related diseases. In certain cases, healthy food might be treated as the best natural medicine. It helps to prevent obesity, which adversely affects human organs and their performance.

Prevention and control of diseases: Another advantage to be discussed is the effect of modern medicine on the prevention and control of diseases. The modern medical practices have alerted the health care employees about the necessity of diseases prevention. It made the life expectancy longer. Thomas Habermann and Amit Ghosh emphasize that one of the biggest successes of the modern medicine is the application of vaccination in disease prevention practice (700). Vaccination presupposes administering the vaccine in order to stimulate the adaptive immune system. It has become the most effective and economical approach to controlling diseases. It turned out to be the effective means, which reduced the prevalence of disorders and made the mechanism of disease milder.

Prevention of serious diseases is one of the most significant advantages, as in the past centuries, such disease as plague has taken millions of human lives. It totally demolished the whole cities, and fighting such disorders might be perceived as a great breakthrough. The medical achievements managed to eradicate such kind of diseases. Unfortunately, today another serious disease occupies the world, and the scale of victims which suffer from it could be compared to plague. This modern plague is called AIDS. Unfortunately, medicine has not found the cure for it, but it takes the necessary measures to make people aware of the methods of this disease prevention. Modern medicine has worked out special rules and devices, which assist to reduce the number of AIDS-positive individuals.

It should be also admitted that constant medical researches and investigations resulted in the invention of new treatment techniques. The bright example is chemotherapy. It has proved being really effective means of battling cancer. Modern medicine also gives a chance for a normal life for the individuals with various diseases such as multiocular sclerosis, asthma, HIV, and other conditions.

Another aspect of control and prevention in the modern medicine concerns working out of new devices, which made the complex surgeries successful. The invention of new medical imaging techniques such as CT, nuclear magnetic resonance, and ultrasonic research allow the extremely accurate representation of the internal anatomy. It assisted to understand the reasons leading to human disorders and conducting the operations more efficiently. In such a way, the modern medicine has saved millions of human lives.

Disadvantages

At first sight, it seems that there are no disadvantages of the medical breakthroughs. Though, the close analysis of the situation reveals a number of side effects, which have aroused out of the successful medical accomplishments.

Overpopulation: The first side effect of the modern medicine is overpopulation. The thing is that the longer life expectancy has increased the number of elderly people, and it turned out to be a real problem. Overpopulation and urbanization increase the number of the health problems. Long life expectancy presupposes not the increase of the working power, but the expansion of the elderly people who need extra care. The longevity does not necessarily mean the increased productivity. The natural resources continue to diminish and increased number of ageing individuals might result in poverty of the elderly individuals. Even today, the poverty among the elderly people is a burning issue of the modern world; further overpopulation may exacerbate the existing problem resulting in the resource scarcity and serious environmental damage.

Spread of Bacteria: Another disadvantage caused by the indiscriminate use of antibiotics is the increase in the number of bacteria. Despite the fact that the invention of antibiotics has turned out to be the most essential medical breakthrough in medicine, its extensive application has led to the excessive spread of bacteria and their evolution. Marino Bizzarri emphasizes that such use of drugs leads to the accelerated bacterial resistance. Bacterial resistance is one of the growing and most significant global concerns.

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