There is a need for an alternative or modified medical paradigm incorporating an understanding of the nature and significance of the physiological systems

BACKGROUND: There are fundamental limitations associated with the diagnosis of disease and the development of drugs. Drugs are not able to influence the fundamental stress-related and multi-systemic origins of disease. They mitigate only the extent of the symptoms and are often significantly ineffective. They are used to inhibit the progress of specific biochemical sequences associated with pathologies however many diseases are the consequences of impaired neural regulation of the various organ networks commonly referred to as the physiological systems. Very little research is devoted to the study of the physiological systems though extensively used in primary care by the GP. What claims to be systems biology does not take into account the physiological systems. Instead of looking at the systems which regulate the body's function and biochemistry, most systems biology seeks to establish the best-fit ‘systems’ which can best explain the complexity of pathology. This is a significant limitation of orthodox ‘bottom-up’ systems biology. AIMS: This article reviews the existing biomedical paradigm and emerging alternatives. It takes into account the work of the Russian researcher IG Grakov who has mathematically modeled the consequences of cognition, in particular of visual perception, upon the autonomic nervous system and physiological systems. RESULTS: The article illustrates limitations with the bottom-up systems biology approach. In particular it overlooks the significant influence of sensory input upon the autonomic nervous system. CONCLUSION: There is a need for an alternative or modified paradigm, as outlined in the article, to consider the multi-systemic nature of the body's function and its environmental interface if new and more effective therapies are to be developed.