Khaberni - In public discussions, social media posts, and some circles of what is called "alternative medicine," a common accusation has long been heard that doctors do not treat the root causes of diseases, but only suppress symptoms.
This idea seems attractive and simple and reflects in part the frustration of patients, especially those with chronic diseases. But is it true? To answer seriously, it is necessary to move beyond slogans and ask a more precise question: What is meant by root causes in medicine, and how does modern medical practice actually work?
misleading dualism
The claim that medicine is forced to choose between treating symptoms or causes presents a false dichotomy. In reality, clinical medicine operates on several levels at once: relieving suffering, preventing complications, reversing disease mechanisms when possible, and modifying long-term risk factors.
Treating symptoms is not a moral failure nor a cognitive shortcut. Alleviating pain, reducing fever, and controlling symptoms can often be life-saving interventions. Conditions such as shock, asthma attacks, severe infections, diabetic ketoacidosis, and heart failure do not allow the luxury of philosophical debate about "the main cause of the disease"; instead, priority is always for urgent stabilization, but medicine does not stop there.
When does medicine directly treat the cause?
In many cases, modern medicine targets the causes of disease with high precision:
Bacterial infections are treated with antibiotics that eliminate the causing agent.
Hormonal diseases like hypothyroidism are treated by replacing the missing hormone.
Vitamin deficiencies are corrected by replenishing the body with the lost elements.
Autoimmune diseases are treated by modifying the immune system mechanisms responsible for the damage.
Cancers are treated by targeting tumor cells through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, or targeted therapies.
Describing these interventions as "just symptom treatment" is inaccurate; they intervene at the core of biology, not just at its superficial manifestations.
Chronic diseases: a source of confusion
This accusation escalates when it comes to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, heart and vascular diseases, autoimmune disorders, and many psychiatric disorders.
Here, critics say that doctors prescribe lifelong medications without treating the "cause of the disease," but this criticism overlooks a fundamental truth: many chronic diseases do not have a single simple cause that can be eradicated. They arise from a complex interaction between:
Genetic factors.
Early life exposures.
Lifestyle patterns.
Social and economic conditions.
Advances in age.
Environmental factors.
In cases like these, medicine does not ignore the causes, but deals with processes that are irreversibly or partially irreversible. Reducing blood pressure does not cure hypertension, but it prevents strokes, kidney failure, and premature death; managing blood sugar does not erase diabetes, but it protects sight, heart, nerves, and human life. This is not superficial medicine, but practical medicine based on scientific evidence.
Doctors treat causes within the limits of reality
Medicine is not practiced in a theoretical vacuum nor in an ideal world where diseases are reduced to a single cause that can be easily eradicated. The pathological cause is not always clear, nor removable, nor all within the doctor's authority or tools.
Therefore, the serious question is not whether doctors treat causes or not, but how amenable these causes are to medical intervention under the conditions of biological, social, and human reality.
There are still diseases today that defy medicine, either because their disease mechanisms are not yet fully understood, or because their scientific understanding has not yet been translated into effective treatment.
This does not reflect a failure of medicine as much as it reflects the limits of knowledge at a specific historical moment. Medicine is not a complete system, but a science in constant development, where the circle of understanding expands and the possibilities of treatment change with the progress of scientific research and within these limits, doctors treat causes through:
Modifying risk factors (quitting smoking, managing weight, controlling blood pressure).
Preventive medicine (vaccination, proactive screenings, early detection).
Lifestyle guidelines (nutrition, physical activity, sleep).
Public health interventions (sanitation, food safety, combating infectious diseases)
The obstacle is not ignorance, but the applicability and commitment of patients and the time constraints and social structures that medicine alone cannot fix.
Doctors can explain the role of ultra-processed food, stress, or lack of movement, but they cannot redesign cities, redistribute income, or food systems.
The romantic illusion of "root cause medicine"
The promise that every disease has a hidden single cause, and if removed, the body returns to perfect health is an attractive promise but largely mythical. It reduces biology to a detective story with a neat ending, while human physiology is much more complex.
And the irony is that those who accuse doctors of treating only symptoms often offer explanations:
vague (toxins, inflammation, imbalance)
not scientifically testable.
unsupported by real clinical outcomes.
Treating a presumed cause might seem more "intellectually noble," but medicine is judged by results, not narratives. The real problem is not the doctors, but the expectations. The existing tension is not as much about medical practice as it is about public expectations. The patients want certainty and healing and simple explanations, whereas medicine offers probabilities, risk reduction, and incomplete control. When doctors treat symptoms, it's because suffering matters. When causes are specific and modifiable, they treat them as well, and when both are impractical, they aim to prevent deterioration. This is not a failure of medicine, but an honest response to the complexity of biology.
Finally, doctors do not choose between treating symptoms or treating causes; they do both continuously and often at the same time. The real discussion should not be accusatory, but realistic: what can medicine change? What can it manage? What goes beyond the boundaries of the clinic? Mature health dialogue begins when we stop demanding miracles from medicine and start understanding it as it truly is.
