Embracing Unhealthinesses

In Healthicine, a healthiness is a measure of health. Measures of illness are often direct measurements of signs or symptoms.  Measurements of healthiness are more complex.  A measurement of healthiness must, at the very least, contain a ratio.  

For example, height is not a measure of healthiness. Nor is weight.  When we combine the measure of height with the measure of weight in ratio – as we do when we calculate BMI (Body Mass Index), we begin create a crude measure of healthiness.

However, BMI is not a useful measure of healthiness without a goal. Different people have different BMI goals, and therefore one BMI result might be very healthy for one person, and not so healthy for another person.

When we have a goal, we can rank the health measurement against the goal, and create a percentage of healthiness. If my BMI goal is 20 and my BMI is 25, then my BMI health score might be calculated as 20/25 or 80 percent. Of course that calculation technique is arbitrary, and a different method of calculating might determine that my health score is actually only 65 percent.  At present, there are no standards for measuring or calculating health scores – and the field is very, very complex. We can expect that, as the science of healthicine advances, some calculating techniques will have more value than others. We need to learn to measure healthiness, and to calculate healthiness scores.

Once we can calculate a score for a specific healthiness, we can see that it has an inverse.  If you BMI health score is 65%, then the inverse is 35%.  What is the name of the ‘inverse’ of your healthiness score?

The inverse of the healthiness score, when the score is calculated as a percentage is your ‘potential for improvement in healthiness’. You can improve your BMI healthiness by 35%, and no more – because at that time your BMI healthiness will be 100 percent. Each different healthiness score gives a specific healthiness rating and a corresponding level or potential for improvement, a corresponding level of unhealthiness. 

There is another important term for ‘potential for improvement in healthiness’: unhealthiness.  When we measure healthiness, and map it to a percentage scale:

 the inverse of healthiness is ‘unhealthiness’.

Unhealthiness is not ‘bad’.  It is simply your potential for improvement.  This is an important concept of healthicine. If we do not have any unhealthiness, we have no room to improve our health. A very unlikely situation, less likely to last for any length of time. 

If we are to learn about health, to improve our health, we need to embrace the concept of 'unhealthiness', to recognize that we each have many levels of unhealthiness, many types of "room for improvement" in our health, We need to learn to use that room, that unhealthiness, to improve our health. When we do, many so called 'illnesses' and 'diseases' will be understood to be unhealthiness, which cannot be cured by medicine, only by health. 

tracy

Tracy is the author of two books about healthicine: 

Is Medicine harming your Health?

Is your medicine making you healthier, or sicklier? Many medicines are designed to be very strong, so strong that they harm your healthiness - to fight your sickness rapidly. Which medicines improve your healthiness?

Is Medicine harming your Health? Is the field of medicine harming our health?  Are you taking medicines that are decreasing your healthiness?

Modern medicine is blind to health.  You'll often hear phrases like 'keep your health', 'restore your health', 'regain  your health', 'protect your health' from practitioners of medicine.

What's wrong with that?  Each of those phrases suggests that health can only be 'present', or 'absent'.

Health is always present, unless you are dead. You cannot 'lose your health'. When you are sick, you 'haven't lost your health'. It's still there, fighting your illness. Your health is only 'lost' when your life ends.

Medicine, is a tool we use to fight illness. In many cases, the medicines we use to fight illness also fight healthiness. But this is not printed on the label.

Which medicines harm your healthiness? Which medicines improve your healthiness?  Which medicines harm your healthiness, so that it can improve?  Which medicines improve your healthiness, so it can fight your illness? Which medicines improve your 'symptoms' while harming your healthiness?  Which improve your symptoms while improving your healthiness?  Which might make your symptoms worse, while improving your healthiness?

A medicine improves your state of wellness, decreasing your illness, but does little to change your healthiness.

A symptomicine can improve your symptoms of illness, while actually decreasing your healthiness. Most medicines sold today are symptomicines - because they appear to give positive results.

A healthicine increases your healthiness, and can also improve your state of wellness, decreasing your illness, at the same time.

The wrong medicine can only harm your health. We need to track wrong medicines, because they are often administered by medical professionals as well as by ourselves.

None of this is printed on the label. None of it is studied by medical science.

The label lists 'side effects'.  What are side effects? Side effects are usually negative health effects. But medicine, the science of medicine, is blind to health, does not study healthiness - and thus cannot put 'healthiness' information on the label.

What can you do?  If you are prescribed a medicine, ask two very important questions:

1. Will this medicine cure my illness.  If it does not cure, it is not a true medicine.
2. Is this a medicine designed only to treat my symptoms.  Most medicines are symptomicines. But if you really want to improve your healthiness, to beat your illness, you need more than a symptomicine.

If we are to find health, we need freedom, not just freedom to act, we also need free access to information, real information, about the medicines we are using.

to your health, tracy

Tracy is the author of two books about healthicine: 

Vitamin Victory over Corporate CODEX Shame?

Scott Tips is fighting for all of us, when he says “If Codex wants to remain relevant to consumers, then it must create food standards that are truly healthy and make sense.”

Scott C. Tips is a man I can support. As far as I know, he is the only person in the world who is actively fighting for your health. Scott works for the National Health Federation, an organization that fight for your health rights. Although I might quibble with the NHF's definition of health, I support their goals and many of their actions. I want more.

As far as I can tell, Scott Tips has, for many years, been the only 'human' representative at the meetings of CODEX, an organization of organizations of organizations, setting up worldwide standards for commerce, including the commerce of nutrition, thus health.

CODEX is a corporation of corporations.  It has no interest in the health of people, only in the 'persons' who are corporations.  CODEX knows nothing about health, and cares less.

CODEX defines, among other things, Nutrient Reference Values - recommend amounts of essential nutrients 'for health'.  But in truth, NRVs are not defined for health, and are often defined by 'as much illness as we can tolerate'.  All CODEX standards are defined by illness. There is no organization in the world that studies health and healthiness, much less a world wide organization devoted to the study of health.  Someday....

Scott Tips recent report on Vitamin C, gives some insight.  CODEX has for many years, discussed setting the Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) for consumption of Vitamin C at 45 mg. There is danger in nonsense, and this value is nonsense.

Health is not meeting a 'minimum' need. Health, true health, is searching for the optimal intake of all nutrients, not just essential vitamins and minerals.  How can we find the optimal intake? We need to look for it.

Health cannot be found by setting worldwide limits on the sale of essential nutrients to people, worldwide limits on what you can purchase.  True health is found in true freedom, not in legislation designed by and designed to support goals of corporations.

Yesterday, the NHF and Scott Tips report that CODEX has agreed to set the NRV for Vitamin C at 100 mg per day, and the suggested level of 45 mg per day has disappeared from the discussion.  I don't know how much the efforts of Scott helped facilitate this decision, but I applaud him for being there and reporting on the proceedings - as our the representative of the people.

If you want to learn more about CODEX, check out some of Scott's blog posts.

My hat's off to you, Scott Tips, and to the National Health Federation. Keep up the good work!
tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: