The Hierarchy of Healthicine

This post was originally prepared for http://wakeup-world.com/http://wakeup-world.com/2012/04/25/the-hierarchy-of-healthicine/

What is health?  What is healthiness? 

There are a few definitions of health. Search anywhere for healthiness – and you will find yourself re-directed to 'health’. What about Healthicine?  Medicine is well defined, but no dictionary defines healthicine. A PhD of Health Sciences does not study health, nor science. Health Science is the study of 'health administration’ – administration of hospitals and other centers for the sick. Healthicines are the arts and sciences of health and healthiness.

Why don’t we have a science of healthiness?  Why are there no experts in healthicine? Spring is here, it’s time for some changes. It’s time to move health to the forefront.  It’s time to wake up to healthicine. To put illness, behind and beneath healthiness and unhealthiness. When we explore the sciences of healthiness – we will see illness in a new light.

What are the foundations of health? The sciences of healthiness requires foundations. How can we claim to study the foundations of illness if we don’t understand the foundations of healthiness?

The foundation of health starts with the foundation of life.  Genetics. We study genetics for causes of illness. It’s time to study genetics as the foundation of healthiness.

Genetics does not give rise to life without Nutrients. Nutrients are the second layer in the science of healthiness.

Genetics and nutrients give rise to Cells. Cells specialize; our bodies contain over 100 different types of cells.

Tissues are collections of cells, with specific properties and roles. Take note: tissues consist of cells, and terrain. The stuff between the cells. The 'dirt’ that our cells live in, consists of nutrients, toxins, inactive chemicals, and dead cells. Healthy tissues consist of healthy cells and healthy terrain.

Organs are created when tissues and cells work together for specialized purposes. Organs are created by genetics, nutrients, cells and tissues; and their healthiness depends on the health of your genetics, your nutrients, your cellular health and tissue health.

As we move up the hierarchy of healthiness, each layer is based on the layer below. Each layer raises our complexity and our healthiness to new heights. It’s important to stop at this point, and take a closer look at one important aspect. Cells. Many of the cells in your body are non-human cells. In fact, most of the cells in your body are not human cells, although most of those are in your digestive system.  It is also believed, but not yet proven, that a valuable component of a healthy human body is our healthy viruses. And then there's the 'biological dark matter'.  Is it a component of our healthiness?  We have found health giving viruses in other organism – and some people believe the only reason we haven’t yet found healthy viruses in humans is simply that we are not looking.

Our Bodies are walking, talking sacks of living, breathing soil. Our healthiness depends on the health of our entire biota, not just the human cells. Our genetic healthiness depends on the genetic healthiness of our entire biota including healthy, and unhealthy non-human cells and viruses. Our nutritional healthiness includes the nutritional healthiness of our entire biota – not just our human nutrition. Our cellular healthiness includes the cellular healthiness of our entire biota. And so on, throughout the hierarchy. Our entire healthiness is dependent not just on our human healthiness, but also on the non-human components of our bodies. Both the live non-human components, and the non-living, non-human components.

Our genetics, nutrients, cells, tissues, and organs work together to create health enhancing Systems like our respiratory system, our circulatory system, our lymphatic systems. Bodily systems provide the ability for our bodies to rise, breath, walk, listen and talk. To perceive and to communicate.

Our body consists of the components from lower layers. Healthy genetics, nutrients, cells, tissues, organs and systems combine and harmonize to create healthy bodies. Our mind, like the body, is dependent on all prior layers – and contributes to their healthiness. Our spirits rises beyond our conscious mind.

We live in communities of peoples. Families, friends, religious groups, governments, cities, and nations. The health of our communities is dependent on the health of individuals, which is dependent on their genetics, cells, and so on…

The hierarchy of healthiness rises from our genetics, using nutrients, creating cells, tissues, organs to our body, which contains our mind, which is freed by our spirit and enhanced by our communities. Each layer is dependent on the prior layers – and every layer and every component can affect the health of other layers, positively or negatively.

Where does illness fit into this picture? We need to look more closely at healthiness before we ask that. We barely know anything about healthiness. We can see from the hierarchy that healthiness of the body depends on many prior layers, and many higher layers.

Can we measure our healthiness?

Measuring healthiness might appear to be as difficult as measuring a seashore, constantly moving, fractal ragged. The smaller the measuring stick – the longer the shore. But it’s not so difficult.  Place two markers and measure the distance between them.

A measure of healthiness might contain thousands of measurements, dozens or hundreds for each layer in the hierarchy, possibly hundreds for a single organ or cell.  How can we possibly create a summary?  In the same way that a final exam can consist of dozens or hundreds of questions. Over time, we will learn the most effective measurements, and appropriate weights for an effective measurement of healthiness.

When we measure healthiness, we find we are also measuring unhealthiness. Unhealthiness, not illness, is the opposite of healthiness. If your healthiness score is 72, your unhealthiness score is 28. If your liver’s healthiness score is 43, then you have an unhealthy liver- with an unhealthiness score of 57.  If your nutrient score is 82, you probably have a healthy diet.

What about illness? If you are unhealthy, are you sick? At what point does unhealthiness become an illness? It would be an interesting question – if medical profession had not co-opted the answers. The medical profession defines when you are sick, by clearly defining diagnosis and by clearly defining who can practice the techniques of diagnosis. You are only truly sick when a medical doctor diagnoses an illness.  

And what about treatment? Once a doctor creates a diagnosis - you will most likely receive a prescription for a patented drug.  Patented drugs are not allowed for simple 'unhealthiness'. They are too dangerous for that. And they are not allowed if you diagnose yourself.

GreenMedInfo provides information about many non-drug treatments, effective for unhealthiness as well as illness. 

Medical doctors don’t measure unhealthiness. To do so would create a measure of healthiness. They don’t measure healthiness – there is no need. The medical profession diagnoses illness – and then prescribes treatment. A doctor might think you are unhealthy, or might say you are healthy, but both statements are scientifically meaningless without an effective measurement technique.

Illness is important. Very important. Our entire medical profession works to prevent, treat and cure illness and the effects of illness. However, illness is distinct from healthiness, and distinct from unhealthiness.

Once we understand the concepts of the hierarchy of healthiness, we can clearly define the primary disciplines of healthicine: genetics, nutrition, cytology, histology, human anatomy, system anatomy, anatomy and physiology, cognitive physiology, spirituality studies, and community studies.

The secondary disciplines of healthicine are created by a simple combination of the primary disciplines, as in this diagram.

There are some interesting insights here. All of the primary disciplines of healthiness are recognized and studied by the medical profession - although from a medical, not a health perspective.  Many of the secondary disciplines are also clearly recognized and studied by medical professions.  But some are clearly not well understood as disciplines of healthiness.  Spirit Genetics, for example. The study of the way genetics and spirit interact, contribute to, and affect our overall healthiness.

When we wake up to the study of healthiness - we will learn that the study of healthiness is more important than the study of illness. We are healthy more often than we are sick.  Illness is a small subset of healthiness.

When we wake up to healthiness, we will recognize the need for health freedom. We all have the right to information about our health, and the right to make decisions about our health.

Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness.
to your health, tracy

ps. If you enjoy my posts, please share - and you might LIKE my facebook page. 

This post has been re-published by:
Wake-up World: The Hierarchy of Healthicine

Health Freedom Alliance: The Hierarchy of Healthiness (note: The hierarchy has been renamed to the Hierarchy of Healthicines since this post)
IndyInAsia: The Hierarchy of Healthiness 
WellnessOneOfRedding: The Hierarchy of Healthiness
NaturalSolutionsRadio.com: The Hierarchy of Healthiness 

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

5 Medicine Myths; 6 Healthicines

Written for GreenMedInfo.com Post date: 

Wednesday, March 7th 2012 at 3:00 pm by Tracy Kolenchuk

The top 6 causes of death in the USA are: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, accidents and Alzheimer's disease. The top 6 causes of disability are arthritis (and other musculoskeletal problems), heart disease and stroke, cancer, mental health problems (depression, bipolar, etc), diabetes and nervous system disorders. 
We can see that heart disease and stroke are at the top of both lists.  Heart disease and stroke are, for the most part, illnesses of the circulatory system and although they are classified separately, they have virtually the same causes.  Second is cancer. Chronic lower respiratory disease is a combination of degenerative illnesses, typically caused by environment or choices. Accidents are accidental.  
Mental health problems are next on the list of serious illness.  Followed by diabetes and then nervous system disorders (MS, Parkinsons, ALS , epilepsy, etc).  Note: mental health problems are probably often nervous system disorders. 
So, the top 5 medical problems are in priority sequence: circulatory system illnesses (heart attack and stroke), cancers, nervous system disorders (including mental health issues), arthritis and diabetes.  
What does our medical system know about these priority illnesses?  Primary cause?  Best treatment?  Best preventative? 
We can easily figure out the main point. Inflammation.  The primary indicator of circulatory illness, leading to heart attack or stroke, is inflammation.  The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine report Why Cancer and Inflammation? suggests that "inflammation may be an ancillary, or perhaps inseparable, aspect of tumor development." Arthritis is Greek for 'joint inflammation'.  Diabetes develops when the immune system attacks cells in the pancreas - inflammation. 
So what does the medical system know about inflammation?  Only two things.  1. It is linked to the cause of every major illness.  2. The only medicines to treat inflammation operate by 'decreasing the inflammation'. 
Note: Inflammation is not the cause.  It is a symptom.  
This leads us to the first myth of medicines. 

Medical Myth #1:  The Drug Myth

That illnesses are most effectively treated by the right drugs. The healthy facts?  No-one suffers from a deficiency of drugs. All illness is the result of a deficiency, or an excess.  Many of us suffer from deficiencies and excesses of nutrients.  For healthy people - any amount of a drug is 'an excess', why should it change when you are ill?  If you are ill, a responsible health system will first try to determine what deficiencies, and what excesses might be causing your illness, so that the illness can be removed by direct action.  Drugs are indirect actions, that do not treat the cause of the illness, but instead re-direct the illness in the hope that your body can recover.  Sometimes, this is an effective action, but in many cases it simply alters the symptoms, not the illness. 
The second myth has been under our noses for 40 years. 

Medical Myth #2: The War Against Cancer

Despite 40 years of propaganda, there is no war against cancer.  If there was a war against cancer, we would be prepared to pull out all the stops.  To monitor all cases of cancer, all treatments, all preventatives, and all cures.  But we don't. If someone cures cancer by non-conventional means, they are ignored.  If a doctor or medical clinic claims to treat or cure cancers by non-conventional means, they are censored, banned and possibly jailed. No one looks seriously at the numbers.  No one looks seriously at the claims.   If there was a war against, for example, breast cancer, we would know, or undertake a comprehensive effort to find the best way to detect breast cancer.  Unfortunately the opposite is true.  I know of three standard ways to detect breast cancer.  One of them is the 'gold standard' - mammogram. It has a terribly high false positive rate and only detects cancers when they are significantly advanced. Two other techniques are 'not available at our location', perhaps due to the NIH (National Institute of Heath? or was that Not Invented Here). 
The third medical myth is the fake cure for the primary cause of death - heart attack and stroke. 

Medical Myth #3:  The Cholesterol Myth

The primary cause of circulatory diseases (heart attach and stroke) is high cholesterol.  The best preventative of heart attack and stroke is to reduce cholesterol, thru diet and drugs. This is a myth.  It has always been known as a myth, but it is a myth that sellls drugs, and sales are more important than truth.  
What science has shown: when arteries are damaged, our bodies seal the damage with plaque, consisting partly of cholesterol.  Like a scab. Statins are drugs that reduce cholesterol.  So what happens to the damaged areas of our arteries if your body can't seal them? There is considerable evidence that the use of statin drugs has created an increase in heart disease, not a decrease.
The evidence indicates that high cholesterol may be like a warning light in your car.  It tells you that something is wrong.  Taking drugs to reduce your cholesterol is like cutting the wire to the light. The light stops blinking - and you have no idea what is going to happen next.  But that's not all.  Statin drugs also damage your muscles and nerves. A very small amount of a statin drug, 5mg per day, can kill a person. 

We might hope that our government would protect us from dangerous drugs, like statins, but beware the fourth myth. 

 

Medical Myth #4: The FDA uses RISK Analysis to Protect Your Health

Although the FDA often claims that their actions are 'to protect you from risk', nothing could be farther from the truth.  Protection from risk requires a scientific risk analysis. We need protection from the FDA!  Protection from the FDA requires a published risk analysis process with processes for review as required and procedures for challenges.  A true scientific risk analysis needs to measure two things: the risk of action vs the risk of inaction.  If the FDA is considering whether or not to approve a treatment, product, chemical, etc. , there is the risk that approval will harm the public - and the risk that disapproval or delay will harm the public.  

 

It is perfectly clear that the FDA only examines risk from one side when we read their standard protocol, which states clearly All health products are forbidden, unless specifically approved. The FDA creates risk, without measuring risk, when they banning ingredients and products without analysis. 

 

But enough about drugs.  If you are not on drugs, or if you are, you have undoubtedly heard discussions of the fifth medical myth.

Medical Myth #5: Flu vaccine protects you and your family

There are several issues to consider here.  First of all, there is considerable scientific disagreement as to whether any vaccines work at all. There is no overwhelming evidence that vaccines work - and considerable evidence that they do not work as suggested.  It is clearly understood by the scientific community that if vaccines do work, they absolutely do NOT work for everyone. Second, several prior years history with the Flu vaccine have demonstrated that the vaccine has not provided protection against the flu. The scientific analysis shows who is LEAST LIKELY to be helped by the flu virus?  The elderly - the primary target of flu virus marketing campaigns. 
Third, vaccines are dangerous proteins, injected into your body.  As such, you must be protected against the possibility of contamination with other micro-organisms.  So, flu vaccines are prepared with a high concentration of toxins to ensure no dangerous microbes can survive.  No one adequately measures the effects of these toxins on people (guinea pigs) who take the flu vaccine.
There have been several cases where flu vaccines were found to have dangerous chemicals or organisms that were not intended, possibly due to the desire to create a large amount of flu vaccine in a short amount of time.  Last, but by no means least, every flu vaccine is designed based on "last year's flu virus".  Flu evolves every year, so a vaccine against last year's flu can easily be totally ineffective for this year's flu.  The result is that a flu vaccine is un-tested against the flu that is coming, contains toxic chemicals that are untested on humans, and has not been evaluated by the FDA before it is released on the public.  As noted in Myth #3, the FDA does not evaluate the risk of the vaccine, and it does not evaluate the risk of non-vaccination.  In fact, the FDA makes this perfectly clear in their policy that NO CLAIMS can be made against vaccine manufacturers for damage caused. 
We need to replace our medical paradigm with a health paradigm.  A health paradigm will replace medicines with healthicines. 

Healthicine - The art and science of creating and improving healthiness

Medicine is a thoroughly studied field, perhaps excessively studied. Healthicine is not even a word in most dictionaries.  
Healthicine is the art and science of creating and optimizing healthiness.  Medicine is  small subset of healthicine.  Medicine only applies when you are ill.  Healthicine applies when you are healthy and when you are ill.  
Healthicine #1: Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness

The FDA does not know what is good for your health.  Their current rules ban everything that is not explicitly approved, clearly an unhealthy situation. The same situation exists in Canada and Europe. No one knows what is best for your health - you are an individual, living in individual circumstances.  Only you can decide what is good for your health - and you have a right to make those decisions. 

 

Healthicine #2: Your doctor doesn't know what's best for your health

Doctors don't study healthiness. There is no 'doctorate of healthiness' in any university.  "Doctors of Health Sciences" don't study health - they study medical administration. Remember that fifty-percent of doctors are below average. And fifty-percent of doctors are above average.  But even those who are above average have not studied healthiness - they are above average in their studies of illness.

 

Doctors disagree. Which doctor disagrees with your doctor?  Who decides? Only you can decide.  When you are 'not sick', your doctor has nothing to say. Doctors are trained in diagnosing illness as a first step.  This is so ingrained in their training that, even if you are healthy - they will look for signs of illness, not signs of healthiness. If you are ill, your doctor has no resource to compare various medical and health alternatives and make a solid guiding decision. Your doctor can only make a recommendation based on limited, often out of date, information and propaganda.  Medical alternatives are seldom compared to each other except in so called 'clinical studies', which are designed to market a specific product.

 

When you are healthy, and when you are sick, only you can decide what's best for your health.  You have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness.  You make the final decisions.  It's your life.  It's your right.

 

Healthicine #3: The Food Myth

 

The food myth is the myth, touted by many so called 'health professionals', doctors, dieticians and other apologists, that the way to perfect health is a healthy diet, and, if you are not healthy, it's your fault, because your diet is unhealthy.  This is one of the most common health myths - and most absurd.  Fact: Eating the right foods is an excellent start to meeting your nutritional needs.  However, it is insufficient and eating the wrong foods can be dangerous. The New York times Q&A recently answered the following question: 

 

Q. A doctor told me that you don’t need daily vitamin supplements if you eat right, and that they don’t dissolve anyway. Is he correct? 

​

With this, appropriate response: "Probably not, on both counts."  Of course they are a bit careful in their answer, but the truth is, if you want to optimize your healthiness - you need supplements.  An optimal healthy diet is not  possible.  And if it was  - we would probably not be able consume it every day due to normal societal constraints. 

 

 

Healthicine #4: The Theory of Illness

The primary causes of every illness is an imbalance.  Either a deficiency or an excess. Under normal circumstances, an imbalance is simply an unhealthiness - when it is too severe, or carries on for too long, it can develop into an illness. 

 

This concept may seem trivial.  It is trivial.  But once we accept it, understand it, and apply it to our search for healthiness - we gain important insights into illness and healthiness that are otherwise not visible. 

 

There might be an imbalance of nutrients, a deficiency or an excess.  Or it might be a toxin, which has a balance point of zero and can only be zero or in excess.  Drugs are normally toxic - and any amount is an excess unless they are used to treat an illness.  There might also be an imbalance of exercise, stress, process, and senses.  We know that exercise is generally healthy - and can be deficient.  It can also be excessive, resulting in stress illnesses. Too little stress, or too much stress is an imbalance.  A pulse rate that is too slow, a breath rate that is too fast, or too irregular are imbalances.   Excessive sensitivity of hearing, vision, touch are also unhealthy imbalances. 

 

In many cases, if an imbalance is detected and adjusted at an early stage, a healthy body can recover completely. However, in some cases, at some point, an imbalance, an  unhealthiness or illness, can become so severe that it causes permanent damage or disability. Some illnesses can be cured and healed completely.  Some are so severe that the patient can never recover completely. 

 

A single imbalance or illness can be simple, not connected to any other illness.  Or several primary illnesses can combine or chain together to create more complex illnesses.  This is more likely the longer an illness exists without being addressed. 

 

Healthicine #5: Cleaner is healthier

 

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.  And it's true.  But it is possible to be too clean.  We learn this as our environment becomes 'cleaner and cleaner' and we all become sicker and sicker.  Is that so strange?  Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  We came from the earth.  Our bodies are living, breathing, walking, talking clumps of dirt.  We need to keep clean to protect our bodies from foreign invaders.  But too clean? Too clean and we kill the many cooperative organisms that help us to live, breath, digest and survive.  Too clean and we risk illness and early death. 

 

We nuke our foods. We cook them, we microwave them, we treat them with radioactivity, we pasteurize them and UHT them.  There is a small movement to consume raw foods, but many people think they are 'not clean' enough. The FDA thinks they are not 'clean enough'.  So they pass laws against raw foods. Raw milk is one example.  GreenMedInfo reminds us of the amazing healing properties of fermented foods. Fermented foods are not just healing when you are sick.  They are healthicines when you are sick and when you are healthy. 

 

Healthicine #6: Myth: There are medicines, and alternative medicines

There are healthicines - things that make you healthier when you are healthy and healthier when you are sick.  And there are medicines - things that manipulate your symptoms, or your illness, in the hope that your body can more easily recover.  There is no difference between a medicine and an alternative medicine.  Both are foreign to your body.  Both are designed to create an abnormal reaction to an illness.  The only difference is in the advertising. 

 

I'm not saying medicines are not effective.  Many medicines are remarkably effective.  Many 'conventional medicines' are remarkably effective, and many so called 'alternative medicines' are remarkably effective.  I wish we had a 'medical system', that could help us choose the most effective medicine for specific illnesses. It is an unfortunate circumstance that our medical profession is, for the most part, not interested in the truth - and as a result it dismisses a large number of potentially effective treatments as 'alternative' treatments. GreenMedInfo is a valuable source of information about the value of alternative treatments. It is a shame that our so called 'medical system' often ignores, devalues or dismisses this information.  In doing so, our medical systems diminish our health and our choices. When we realize that alternative medicines an conventional medicines are both medicines, that need to be treated and studied as equals, we will have a healthier society.  GreenMedInfo is helping us to work towards that goal. 

 

How you can you tell the difference between a healthicine and a medicine?  A medicine is designed to help you when you are sick.  A healthicine makes you healthier - even when you are healthy.  Are medicines toxic?  Are healthicines toxic?  Everything is toxic in excess.  Water is toxic.  Calories are toxic.  Too much exercise is toxic.  Too much sleep is toxic. Most medicines are toxic by nature.  eg.  The smallest amount is toxic, when you are healthy.  There is no 'healthy amount' of a medicine - if you are not sick.  

 

Healthicines are healthy by nature and only toxic when consumed in excess. 

 

to your health, tracy

Tracy Kolenchuk, CC & BW, Personal Health Freedom, Healthicine

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Healthiness and Healthicines

Written for GreenMedInfo.com  

Saturday, March 24th 2012 at 8:00 pm by Tracy Kolenchuk

There is a difference between someone who is unhealthy and someone who is sick.  Part of that difference is the viewpoint, from which we look.  When we look from a medical viewpoint - we tend to find illness.  When we look from a healthicine view point - we are more able to see and understand healthiness and unhealthiness.
Medicine is defined, by Wikipedia, as 'the science and art of healing'.
The body heals.  Medicine is the science and art of preventing, diagnosing and treating illness.  If the illness is treated properly - the body heals.  Medicine turns to the next problem.
In many cases, when you visit a doctor, you are given a prescription and told "try this, and let me know how it works".  There is little art, no science with regards to healing. Take the drugs and hope your body heals.


Healthicine is the art and science of healthiness.  After you leave the doctor's office, after you take the prescription, even if you are 'healthy' according to the doctor (eg. not sick). You can still benefit from the art and science of healthiness.
This diagram shows the relationship between medicine and healthicine.

Medicine is to the left of  the red line of diagnosis. Once an illness is diagnosed, medical techniques are used in an attempt to treat the 'illness'.  These techniques are not always the most appropriate.

Some illnesses strike from external sources - bacteria, bullets, toxins and viruses.


Many illnesses are the result of declining healthiness. In many of these cases, a medicine - conventional or alternative, is not the best solution, often it is not even appropriate.
Healthicine is the entire study of healthiness, from perfect health to illness and death. Medicine is a small subset of healthicine. The healthicine view invites is to expand our viewpoint.
For example, medicine suggests that breast cancer is about cellular heath and tissue health.  Medicine looks with surgical precision.  Medicine might look beyond those two areas - to find potential cause.  Is breast cancer caused by genetics?  Or is it caused by toxins? Or, is it, as sometimes suggested by alternative medical practitioners, caused by an acidic imbalance? A healthicine approach asks what unhealthiness contributes to breast cancers. A healthiness approach encourages early detection - not so that we can administer toxic chemotherapy, radiation and radical surgery - but so we can learn how to heal breast cancer before it becomes serious, using healthicines, not medicines.  We know that breast cancers can take years to develop to the level of detectability.  But do we have any idea what to do if we can find a breast cancer three years earlier?  No - because we seldom take the healthicine viewpoint.
GreenMedInfo lists 185 research papers about healthy, non-medical substances that can be used to alleviate some of the effects of chemotherapy.  We need research into health and healthicines that eliminate or minimize the need for chemotherapy.
Most of the time, you are not sick. Most of the time, medicine is not required. But you can always be healthier. Sometimes, when you are sick, it is because your health has deteriorated to the point where an illness is diagnosed. At that point a healthy decision is needed.  Is it more appropriate to act to improve healthiness, or to give some medicines, or both?  Our current medical paradigm prescribes medicines far too often - and suggests healthicines far too infrequently.

Diagnosis is an artificial constraint designed to protect the interests of doctors; marketed as if it is to protect the interests of patients.

It is clear that if your unhealthiness is to the right of the diagnostic threshold - you don't need medicines, you need healthicines.  In many cases, when your health is to the left of the diagnostic threshold - healthicines are still the most effective approach. But healthicines are seldom suggested for illness, just medicines.


Many fields of medicine, and many drug manufacturers, work to move the 'diagnostic threshold' to the right, so that drugs can be prescribed earlier. Attempts to 'find cancer earlier' are a common example. Diabetes is another. Moving the diagnostic threshold is presented as a 'preventative technique', but it often leads to an increase in 'false positive' diagnoses.  It also leads to the prescription of drugs, when healthicines are required.
Proponents of moving the diagnostic threshold to the right argue that it 'decreases risk'. However, they are only looking at one side of the risk equation.  There is always risk of non-treatment, and risk of wrong treatment.  Moving the diagnostic threshold may increase the risk of the wrong treatment. Is there ever a proposal to move the diagnostic threshold to the left? Healthicine is about balance - and studying healthicine requires asking questions from both sides. Does the diagnostic threshold need to be moved?  Does it need to be moved to the right (for a specific condition) or does it need to be moved to the left (for that specific condition).


We need to examine the diagnostic threshold more scientifically.  If an illness is really an unhealthiness - maybe the diagnostic threshold should move to the left for that illness. And we need to examine treatment alternatives more scientifically.   No matter where the diagnostic threshold resides, we need to study all of the alternatives, and continually test the most effective ones - not just the 'latest new drug'.


Today, we use drugs to treat diagnosed illness. We need to use healthicines to improve our healthiness.   To reverse unhealthiness.


We need scientific studies of the differences between illness and unhealthiness.  We need to choose the best alternative for every illness and unhealthiness, and keep improving our choices.
We need the freedom to choose - and the ability to study and document choices and results.  We need free access to information about ingredients in all foods, health products and medicines to facilitate personal and clinical research.

http://www.personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/p/subject-index.html
Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness,

Tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: