What is a drug?

In the USA, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines a drug as : (1) a substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary (2) : a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease (3) : a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body (4) : a substance intended for use as a component of a medicine but not a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device.

The FDA says: "The legal difference between a cosmetic and a drug is determined by a product's intended use."  


In Canada, the Food and Drug Act defines a drug as: 
“drug” includes any substance or mixture of substances manufactured, sold or represented for use in
(a) the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, disorder or abnormal physical state, or its symptoms, in human beings or animals,
(b) restoring, correcting or modifying organic functions in human beings or animals


The European Union  DIRECTIVE 2001/83/E defines a 'medicinal product' as: 
(a) Any substance or combination of substances presented as having properties for treating or preventing disease in human beings; or
(b) Any substance or combination of substances which may be used in or administered to human beings either with a view to restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action, or to making a medical diagnosis.

What's wrong with this picture? 

It seems to say that the difference between a drug, and a non-drug depends on the use.  But if you read more carefully, that's not what it says.  It really says, in simple English:

"The difference between a drug, and a non-drug is defined by the way the product is marketed." (intended for use, sold or represented for use in, presented as having properties for). 

If it looks like a drug, and walks like a drug and talks like a drug - it makes no difference at all. It's not a drug until the paperwork is done.

But if the marketing paperwork to the government says: 

in the USA: "a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease"

in Canada: "substances manufactured, sold or represented for use in

(a) the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, disorder or abnormal physical state, or its symptoms"

in the European Union: "presented as having properties for treating or preventing disease in human beings".


If the marketing department says it can be used to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat or prevent disease, - it is a drug. That is the only requirement for a drug.  Thus, everything and anything can be a drug - if it is marketed as a drug.  Of course it must pass some significant paperwork hurdles - but these are easily managed by large corporations and their lawyers. 


Note: to create a drug in any of these countries, it is not necessary for the drug to be particularly effective, nor for the scientific or medical community to believe that the drug is effective.  Nor is it necessary for the drug to be safe in all situations.  It is only necessary to pass the paperwork tests. Government offices cannot and do not pass judgement on the efficacy of any drug application.  Governments pass judgement on the paperwork. Many new drugs cannot truly be tested for effectiveness, nor safety, on the general population until after they are in public use for many years, possibly even decades. 

It is easily seen that one of the problems with the USFDA, Health Canada, and European Unions definition of a drug is that there is little said about what is 'not a drug'. Almost everything can be defined as a drug.  

This has lead people to ask if water is a drug - because it can be marketed to prevent and cure dehydration (they failed due to the fact their the paperwork was not completed correctly). And it lead me to blog that the wind is my drug, because I claim it makes me feel better.


We need a different definition of a drug.  


Wikipedia says: "A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage."


Webster's Dictionary says: "a substance used as a medication or in the preparation of medication".  


We need a definition of DRUG, from a health viewpoint. 

Is there a simple way to delineate between drugs and non-drugs from a health viewpoint.  A definition not depending on a marketing department.  Rather a definition that depends on science and facts about our health and healthiness.

The first thing we should recognize about drugs is that they are almost all toxic by design. Drugs are designed to throw your health system off balance, to counter the imbalance of your illness, not to create health. You need a prescription for drugs because they are toxic.

If we want to define drugs, we need a way to separate the things we consume, through our mouth and other orifices, including our skin, into drugs - and not drugs. All three of the official government definitions make no such distinction.  Everything is a drug.  Everything should be regulated as a drug.  This is, frankly, a ridiculous situation.

Can we define drugs in a useful fashion?  Can we define non-drugs?

A healthicine is a substance that has a direct effect on the balances of healthiness. Healthicines are non-drugs. That effect might be positive, or if the healthicine is deficient or excessive - it will be a negative effect.


A drug is a substance that has an effect on illness.  Drugs have an indirect, usually negative effect on the balances of healthiness. This negative effect is designed to throw the illness off balance and allow your body to heal.  Or sometimes the illness is designed to simply trick your body into 'feeling healthy', by minimizing symptoms. 

Water is not a drug. If you are dehydrated, water still cannot be a drug.  Water cures dehydration, or it restores the balance of hydration - but it is not a drug. Water is necessary for healthiness.  A deficiency or an excess results in an illness and possibly death.

Can we extend this distinction to other substances - it gets a bit more complicated. If you have a Vitamin C deficiency, taking Vitamin C to 'treat' the deficiency is not taking a drug - any more than eating oranges is taking a drug.

Vitamin C can also be used as an injection to treat a serious inflammation.  In that case the Vitamin C is not addressing a normal Vitamin C deficiency, it is being used to tackle a health problem that is best treated by an excess of Vitamin C. Vitamin C has a negative effect on the problem - the inflammation - note, inflammation is normally a healthy response to stress. Administering an excess of Vitamin C, or any substance, for a therapeutic effect separate from the Vitamin C health balance, is administering a drug.

Is this a clear dividing line?  Maybe, maybe not.  The government definition of drugs for sale needs to be a clear, black and white, legal definition.  But the definition of drugs for health, and for personal healthiness, has many shades of grey, ranging from black to white and every shade in-between, possibly even different colours.

A healthy definition of ''drug" needs to be open to dispute and discussion. The government definition is like a proclamation from God, there is not room for argument, not way to dispute the decision. This is not a healthy definition. It is not a democratic definition. It is not a 'freedom' definition.  I believe in Personal Health Freedom.  The freedom to differ.

All illness and disease are be caused by an imbalance, a deficiency or excess of genetics, nutrition, parasites, toxins, stress, growth (including healing and immune systems) - or a combination thereof.http://personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/10/hierarchy-of-health-primary-and.html

A drug is always an excess. In most cases, if you are healthy, a drug is toxic to some aspect of your health. You need a prescription - a doctor must sign that you 'need the drug'. When you are ill, the drug may have a beneficial effect. By design. Drugs are not designed to fix health imbalances. Drugs are not nutrients. Drugs are not designed to cure - they are designed to create an 'opposing imbalance' so that your body can heal.

All drugs have 'side effects'.  Why is that?  Because all drugs are toxins - they have toxic effects.  If they didn't have toxic effects, they would have no effect at all.  In some cases, the toxic effects are intended.  That's the 'design' of drugs. But in many cases the toxic effects are unintended, or even unknown. Generally unknown until many people fall ill or die. Mercola tells us that drugs kill more people than car accidents in the USA. 

Are some drugs worthwhile?  Are some drugs the 'best treatment'?  Yes.  Of course. If you have a bacterial infection, the best treatment might be a toxin that kills the bacteria, but has minimal effect on your health and healthy cells.  An anti-biotic.  However,  most, possibly all antibiotics kill some healthy cells as well. 


We need to search for health, not illness. We need to search for 'heals', not 'cures'.  We need honesty and openness about treatments; to measure which treatments have the best effect on any illness, not which is the 'latest (untested on the public at large) drug'. 


New drugs have the most potential for danger. We need a health paradigm, not an illness paradigm. We need a healthicine paradigm, not a drug paradigm. 


Yours in health, tracy
www.personalhealthfreedom.com

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

A Picture of Health

Medicine is defined, by Wikipedia, as 'the science and art of healing'.  Wrong as usual.  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, after 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 technique is not always appropriate.

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

But many illnesses are the result of declining healthiness. In these cases, a medicine is not the best solution, not an appropriate option.

Healthicine is the entire study of healthiness from perfect health to illness and death. Medicine is a small
subset of healthicine.

In most cases, medicine is not required. Most of the time, you are not sick.  But you can always be healthier. In many cases, medicine is not appropriate. Sometimes, when you are sick, it is because your health has deteriorated to the point where an illness is diagnosed. Medicines are constrained by diagnosis. Diagnosis is an artificial constraint designed to protect the interests of doctors, and marketed 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 prescribed for illness, just medicines.

Many fields of medicine, and many drug manufacturers, are trying to move the 'diagnostic threshold' to the right, so that drugs can be prescribed earlier. Attempts to 'find cancer earlier' are a common example.  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 use of drugs, when healthicines are required.

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. Or 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'.

We use drugs to treat diagnosed illness.

We 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.

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

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

The truth about milk: raw? or pasteurized?

The debate over raw milk, like many health debates is typically presented in black and white. A healthy debate would have many more colours.

Raw milk is healthier - says one side.  Pasteurizing milk destroys much of the nutritional value of milk.

Pasteurized milk is safer says the other, and just as healthy.  The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has demonstrated that raw milk is unsafe, compared to pasteurized milk. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/11-1370_article.htm#results

This is a classical case of the medical approach vs the alternative health approach. Perhaps more 'classical' than we might like to admit. The medical establishment wants to put an arrow in raw milk.  And the alternative health establishment insists that raw milk is healthy, while pasteurized milk is damaged and unhealthy.

Remember, 'alternative health' is not really about health, it is about alternative medicine.

Each side has a very narrow point of view.  X is bad. Y is bad.  Both sides are using the medical viewpoint. Traditional medicine vs alternative medicine. Look for bad things.  Look for illness, causes of illness.  Look for things that prevent or cure bad things. A medical viewpoint focuses attention on illness - to force a decision. It is a powerful tool against illness.

But it is not a view to build healthiness.

What is a healthy view?  How does a healthy view compare to a medical view?

We need healthy view to understand and pursue healthiness.

The medical view focusses attention on illness in order to diagnose, treat
cure and prevent illness.  This is a powerful view with regard to illness but not appropriate for understanding and learning about healthiness.

In theory, the healthy view and the medical view see the same information - the same milk in this case. But they see from different points of view. The medical view sees illness. Medical practitioners, conventional and alternative, spend their lives looking at people who are ill, trying to make them better.

The medical view often comes to conflicting conclusions as the focus jumps from one illness to another. A factor that seems to 'prevent' one illness can easily shift health balances towards another illness.

A healthy view, on the other hand, examines how we enable healthy genetics, create healthy cells, how they create healthy tissues and organs, resulting in healthy systems and bodies.  Healthy bodies, minds, spirits and communities provide a feedback loop that continues to improve healthiness while minimizing conflict.

People who are not ill - and want to be healthier require a healthy viewpoint for healthy decision making.

What are the health questions? There are many more - oriented towards health, not towards illness. Does milk improve the healthiness of your cells, your tissues, your organs, your body?

Is milk essential, or is milk the optimal food - for babies?  for children?  for teens? for adults?  for seniors? We know that milk is not a vitamin.  It is not essential to health, like Vitamin C or specific fats or proteins.

We know that human milk can be a near optimal food for babies.  In most mammals, milk is not consumed once a baby is weaned.

We don't know if milk is a healthy food for teens, adults, seniors. Why don't we know?  Because we study medicine very thoroughly, but we don't study healthiness.

Is milk healthy?  Is pasteurized milk healthy or unhealthy? Is raw milk healthy or unhealthy (assuming it is not tainted). Is milk actually good for you? Do you need milk for health? What are the truths about milk?

Do we need milk? The answer is clearly no.  Milk is not required for health.  We can get the nutrients that are in milk in many different foods. Consumption of milk, processed or raw is not necessary - it is a health choice - your choice, to consume milk or not.

Does drinking milk make you healthier?  The evidence shows that the answer clearly is 'sometimes yes, sometimes no'.  We know that illness is caused by a deficiency, or an excess.  How much milk is 'excessive'? How much milk does it take to cause unhealthiness?

We need the right to choose.  We need information to support our choices.

Will we ever know the truth about milk?  Which is healthier, raw milk, or pasteurized milk?  I suspect we will never know.  Pasteurized milk fits our marketing practices.  It has a long shelf life.  It's dead, so it doesn't spoil for a very long time.  It has a 'minimum risk' profile - more important to sales than a 'maximize health' profile. There is huge incentive for corporations who sell milk to sell pasteurized milk. No research is necessary.

Raw milk?  No big corporations care. Individual people care, but they don't sell milk to the super stores. And they can't buy milk in super stores There is no financial incentive to do true research into raw milk - or into the healthiness of milk.

If you want raw milk - you need to buy a cow.

You have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness. You have a right to information, and choices.
http://www.personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/p/subject-index.html
tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Healthiness: Balances in Motion

The hierarchy of health is a hierarchical view of the major components of healthiness from genetics, thru cells, tissues organs, etc. to community.

Each element in the hierarchy has many health components and sub-components as well as processes and sub-processes.  For each major component, sub-component, process and sub-process, there are healthy balances - and possibly deficiencies or excesses.  Serious deficiencies or excesses result in illness.

We can represent the comprehensive overall view of someone's healthiness with a very, very tall spinning top with the health factors as spindles. Many of your health factors are in balance and the top spins healthily.

Maybe you don't get enough Vitamin C - that health factor would show as a minor deficiency, creating a slight wobble. If your thyroid gland is slightly over-active, you have a minor excessiveness creating another minor wobble in your health balance.

If you have an serious deficiency, then the bar is farther to the outside - demonstrating that your health in that area is more off balance.  A similar bar appears when you have a seriously excessive health factor.

Here is a hypothetical Health Balance for Nutrients - only a few nutrients are shown.

The diagram might be a result of the following data:

Vitamin A - blood test shows healthy levels of Vitamin A.  Dietary analysis shows healthy intake of Vitamin A and Vitamin A precursors.

Vitamin B12 - blood test shows healthy levels of Vitamin B12.

Vitamin C - dietary analysis indicates that the subject sometimes meets the daily requirements for Vitamin C, but often falls below the RDI minimum for several days in a row.

Water - dietary analysis indicates that the subject consumes slightly more than the normal amount of water per day. This may indicate health deficiencies in other areas.

Omega 3 - dietary Analysis indicates that the subject does not consume sufficient levels of Omega 3 for optimal healthiness.

Calories - dietary analysis indicates that the subject consumes not just more calories than are required, but sufficient excess that healthiness declines.

When we map the healthiness, deficiencies and excesses onto a spinning top - we can see that each will create a wobble in your healthiness.  Some more than others. Our medical systems are quite experienced in measuring illness caused by dietary deficiencies and excesses.  But do little to measure how healthiness is affected. Our bodies are quite good at re-balancing.  We feel healthy.  Our doctor says we are healthy. It's easy to ignore small unhealthinesses when we "feel healthy".  Sometimes our bodies create an unhealthiness to balance another unhealthiness.  Sometimes we take unhealthy drugs to counter-balance an unhealthiness.

With the Health Top, we can display healthiness for very specific health factors.

To chart the health a more complex health factor, of someone's diet for example, it is necessary to combine the bars for nutritional elements to create an overall bar for nutrition.  In this case the health top may be required to represent deficiencies and excesses for diet in the summary bar.  You might be deficient in Vitamin C, Essential Oils, and Vitamin D, while you are consuming an excess of calories.   A combined or summary bar would show a health factor that is both deficient and excessive.  The details must be examined to see what changes might be effective.

How are the many nutritional factors combined to create a summary bar for nutrition?  It's very complex.  Complex is not impossible - but I believe it can only be done by a computer analysis technique that can evolve over time.

There are over 100 nutrients that are essential to health.  We have no information at present that helps us to compare one deficiency to another and create a useful summary. At present, we can only assume that all are of equal value until we learn more.  Remember - health is different from illness.  Healthiness changes slowly.  Illness can proceed slowly or quickly.  Measurements of healthiness are less critical than measurements of illness.

It gets more complicated.  There may be essential nutrients that we don't know about. Some people might have more essential nutrients than others.  Our essential nutrients for health might change as we grow, mature and age. Understanding healthiness is a complex puzzle. It's much easier to understand illness - most of the time.

But that's no reason to give up.

To create a Top Diagram of Healthiness for the elements in the Hierarchy of Healthiness, we need to measure as many elements as possible and combine them to create summaries for each element in the hierarchy. The truth is - we don't know how many elements there are. Does this matter?

We might never create a perfect diagram of healthiness - but each diagram is better than none - and every diagram can be used to create a better version. Let's start with a simple diagram for nutrition.  Each nutritional health measurement that is made provides information about the overall nutritional balance.

Some measurements are more useful than others.  For example, the measurements on the USDA's food plate are almost totally useless to measure healthiness.  Did you consume 2 cups of fruit a day - is the USDA measurement for health.  But 1 banana counts as 1 cup of fruit, as does 1 cup of 100 percent juice of any fruit. Notwithstanding the fact that it is almost impossible to buy 100 percent juice - 1 banana has vastly different nutritional properties than 1 cup of apple juice. The RDI for Vitamin C is 60 mg per day - this is the minimum to avoid deficiency.  If you eat one large apple a day, the USDA recommendation for fruit, as your source of Vitamin C - you will be deficient every day. Two McIntosh apples will provide about 10 mg of Vitamin C. Two bananas a day provides less than half the RDI requirement. It is extremely difficult - probably impossible - to meet your health needs, for optimal health, using the food plate.

Is there a reason to measure healthiness this thoroughly?

I see two major reasons.

First - to optimize, or facilitate optimal healthiness in individuals.  Most of us, as well as our doctors, have only a vague idea of our level of healthiness.  The more measurements we can take that truly measure healthiness - the more opportunities we have to improve our personal healthiness. Remember that healthiness measurements are not 'immediate' - they are measurements over time. Illness can strike fast.  Healthiness does not 'strike'.  It is a measurement of your overall state of health.  Today, we try to guess which unhealthiness is most critical - do I need to lose weight?  Do I need more vitamins? Minerals?  Do I need to exercise more?  As we develop and study the measurement of healthiness, we will gain more understanding of the importance of different factors in individual cases. We will learn more over time, taking our understanding to a new level, and then moving beyond that level.

Second: if we are to learn more about healthicine - the study of healthiness, including illness - we need to measure and track healthiness in a comprehensive fashion. This type of measurement can lead to many insights that cannot be attained by looking solely at illness.

There may be some illnesses, or syndromes, that only appear when a specific set of unhealthiness conditions is met.  It is easy to imagine someone who has 10 or 20 or 30 low level deficiencies or excesses, but does not have a specific illness.

In a previous blog titled "Are you sick? Or Just Unhealthy" we met Alice and Zizi.  Both are 'relatively healthy' according to their doctors.  But Alice gets many colds a year - and Zizi gets almost none.  Alice's colds have severe symptoms and last a long time.  Zizi's colds have few symptoms and last only a short time.  There are many Alice's and Zizi's in our medical system - and they are all treated pretty much the same.  Medicines when they are diagnosed as sick.  Nothing when they are diagnosed as healthy.

When we begin to measure healthiness effectively, we will learn that Alice and Zizi are very different.  Zizi might be 'very healthy', with few imbalances.  Alice, somewhat healthy, but with many health imbalances.  Which imbalances lead to an 'Alice'?  We can learn when we begin to measure healthiness.

Healthiness is not a single state.  It is not a binary condition, where you are either healthy or not healthy.  Our bodies are alive and in motion.  Healthiness is about the many balances that are in motion in our bodies as we live, grow, heal, spin, and eventually die. To truly study health we must study all of our healthiness, not just our illnesses.

You have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness.

to your health, tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Healthiness: Sensing and reacting, Stressing - relaxing, Growing and Healing

The Hierarchy of Healthiness contains the components of healthiness, from genetics, through nutrients, cells, tissues, organs, body, mind, spirit and community.  Any of the components might be deficient or excessive - not in optimal health - and possibly leading to illness. The hierarchy of health defined the primary physical elements of health and thus the primary disciplines of the study of healthiness. Combining each of the primary disciplines in pairs created a comprehensive list of the secondary disciplines of healthiness.

Of course healthiness is not just about components.  Our bodies are moving, breathing, living things.  Many processes and functions are under-way at any single instant.  Some of those are slow moving - and some very rapid.

Sensing, feeling and reacting; growth and healing; and stressing and relaxing are all aspects of healthiness.  Each can be enhanced or repressed through personal choice.  Each can result in illness when deficiencies or excesses are present.

In the blog post What is PAIN?, I discussed the concept that pain is required for health, and that a deficiency of pain is as much an illness as an excess of pain. Pain is a process enabled by the nervous tissues, the nervous system, which can be repressed or enhanced by the body or the mind, in reaction to external, or sometimes internal stimuli.

We need to explore the Hierarchy of Healthiness to find many more aspects of healthy processes and the illnesses associated with their deficiencies or excesses. Some examples:

Genetics: The main processes of genetics in a person come from the activation, repression and modulation of genes and the reproduction of new cells.  As each new cell is created, the processes attempt to create the appropriate cell type for the environment - new heart muscle, new gum tissue cells, or new liver cells. Deficiencies in the genetic processes of cell reproduction result in faulty, damaged cells that do not function or reproduce.  Sometimes it can result in cells that are cancerous and reproduce in excess, out of control and without healthy function. Growth and healing are the result of our genetic processes in action and both can become deficient or excessive. 

Cells: Our bodies contain over 200 of different cell types, each with different purposes and processes. Red blood cells take oxygen from the air and distribute it throughout the body.  Anaemia can be a deficiency in the ability of these cells to carry oxygen - or a deficiency in the quantity of cells.  White blood cells carry out the functions of the immune system attacking foreign cells.  This process can become excessive when the cells attack your own cells instead. With over 200 different types of cells, many involved in multiple processes, we start to see how rich and complex the balances of healthiness are. 

Tissues: Each tissue serves many functions and processes that are part of our healthiness. Nervous tissues are essential to our sensations, from feeling through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, balancing, to pain and thinking and intuition. Deficiencies in nervous tissues can result in deficiencies in each of the senses, deficiencies in our abilities to sense pain - to deficiencies in functions of the mind.  Excesses of nervous tissue can result in over-sensitivity, excessive pain, hyper-awareness or worse.  Each tissue type is involved in many healthy processes that can be deficient or excessive. 

Organs: Most organs serve multiple purposes or functions.  Each process can be deficient or excessive.  The heartbeat alone can be deficient, excessive, erratic, in many different ways.  In most cases, these imbalances are not serious enough to be diagnosed as an illness - they are simply deviations from optimal healthiness. Our hearing might be deficient, healthy or excessive - distracting us from irrelevant or non-existent noises. Each healthy process can be deficient or excessive to create an illness. 

Systems: the digestive system is probably our most complex system, due to the number of foreign organisms involved and the process balances involved can change from hour to hour, day to day and over long periods of time.  Our nervous system gives rise to the complexities of all senses as well as our mind.  Our immune system is a complex interaction of many body components and processes. It can be difficult to tell if your immune system is mildly deficient. AIDS was not initially diagnosed as an immune system illness. Over-active immune systems, for example in reaction to peanut allergy - can cause  rapid death. 

Body: our bodies require stress and exercise to keep healthy, and to encourage and enable growth and healing.  We also require relaxation and sleep to allow rebuilding and re-balancing. Move it or lose it applies to all aspects of health - when it stops moving, it's near death. The healthiness challenge is to know what types of movement are best for your health - and to be certain you don't overdo it.  With many healthiness processes - the perfect balance is not a mid-point, but a combination of alternating stresses and de-stresses. 

Mind: as with the body - the mind operates with a use it or lose it principle.  Exercising your mental processes creates and improves healthiness.  Rest is also required to facilitate consolidation and rejuvenation. Many of our mental processes can become illnesses in deficiency or in excess.  Thinking is good, but not too much.  Not thinking can be fatal. 

Spirit: a healthy spirit is a balanced spirit. It adjusts your attitude when problems arise - and gives you support.  It keeps you stable in unstable situations. An unbalanced spirit can result in depression, or manic states. 

Community: a healthy community supports you when you can't support yourself.  And if your community is healthy - you support it as well.  Communities also provide ability for people to accomplish things that could not be accomplished by any single person.  We each belong to many communities - with many different functions and processes.  In our communities - we have an opportunity to create goals, functions and processes that provide healthiness for all. However, communities can also be about rules, which may be deficient or excessive - resulting in unhealthy communities. We all rebel against rules sometimes - we need to understand, support and develop communities that enhance our healthiness and to recognize communities that detract from it.

 In the post The concepts of Illness and Disease we noted that an illness is "a condition of the living animal or plant or one of its part that impairs normal functioning".  The key is that illness 'impairs normal functioning' - the body has many variations in cells, tissues, organs, etc. that are in the normal range.  An illness exists when functioning is impaired. 

An unhealthiness begins as you move from the perfectly healthy state towards the excess or deficiency state.  Symptoms may appear anywhere along the range.  In general, symptoms indicate unhealthiness. However, a single symptom does not indicate a medical condition. By the time a medical condition is reached - many symptoms appear.

A doctor will not diagnose an illness unless specific criteria are met, eg. the illness must cross a well defined line between healthiness and illness.  

All of the functions and processes in our bodies, minds and communities, in the entire hierarchy of our healthiness can move from healthy to unhealthy and back again - without a diagnosable illness. 

If we are to move towards optimal healthiness - we need to better understand unhealthiness, and work to keep each health factor in the healthy range, if possible in the optimal range. However, as we can see now, our list of health balances has grown so tall and so detailed that we will need computers to provide useful analysis. The role of doctors - in the field of healhtiness, might be to interpret the results from computer analysis.

Our medical systems currently attempt to provide solutions by understanding illness. In many cases - and when illness clearly exits - this can be a very effective approach.  

However, this approach, studying illness, fails when it encounters unhealthiness that does not meet the criteria for illness.  And it fails badly when it encounters complex unhealthinesses that present many, gradually worsening symptoms as the patient slides down from healthy to unhealthy.  Some 'chronic illnesses' are actually complex unhealthinesses.  However, we don't study unhealthiness with the rigour that we study illness - so we cannot understand those illnesses. 

When we learn to study healthiness and unhealthiness more effectively - some illnesses that cannot be understood by the medical approach will become clear. 

As we learn more about our healthy processes, how they interact, and what choices we have in their regard - we will move more towards health freedom and the attainment of optimal health.

yours in health, tracy

www.personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com  

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Healthicine: The Art and Science of Healthing

Healthicine is the art and science of healthing. The study and practice of health and healthiness.

Healthing, optimizing your health, is personal first, and then extends to your communities - your family, friends and any other community of which you are a member or have an interest.


Medicine is the art and science of healing. The study and practice of treating disease. Medicine is severely restricted in our western society. It is illegal to practice medicine without a license.

Healthicine is a superset of medicine, and includes the field of medicine. Medicine is only a small part of health and healthiness.

This diagram represents the field of healthicine including the field of medicine.

Healthiness is about balance.  For each essential nutrient, we must balance our intake in the healthy range. The RDA (Reference Daily Intake) and the UL (Upper Intake) are numbers identified by the FDA as points where imbalance starts to occur. If the imbalance becomes excessive - we might develop a medical condition. At which point, we may require medicine, the art and science of healing - to recover.

Your personal healthicine starts as your personal health freedoms. As we move to the borders of the healthicine range - our health becomes so unbalanced that we may require assistance to recover. And if we go farther, it is possible to tip - and break some aspect of our health - to the point where we might never recover completely.

There are thousands of balances in healthicine. The hierarchy of health provides a foundation to identify many of those balances.  Balanced nutrition is one area - consisting of hundreds of essential and non-essential nutrients.  We also seek a balance of healthy cells, tissues, organs and bodily systems.  And also balanced healthy body, mind and spirit.  And balanced, healthy communities. There are balances in things - and in processes.  We need to balance our Vitamin C intake - and we also need to balance our sleep and our exercise to optimize health.

Our bodies are remarkably good at compensating for imbalances. If the right leg is weaker than the left leg, in most cases - we can still walk.  A bit wobbly, but still mobile. If the right leg is broken due to excess of physical stress - we might hobble, maybe with crutches, until it heals, straight or not.  If it heals crooked - our muscles can develop to compensate and help balance  or at least facilitate walking.

Illness is defined where one or more of our healthicine balances tips so far - deficient or excessive, that a diagnosable medical problem arises.  If this happens because of a single imbalance (a primary illness) - it might be simple to identify and treat.  In may cases, our illness is the result of multiple imbalances in the healthicine (a complex or compound illness) - making it more difficult to identify causality, and more difficult to treat.

As a result of this complexity - medicine often resorts to treating symptoms.  A technique that can be more expeditious and effective than trying to identify the cause of illness. Many similar illnesses can be effectively treated with similar techniques - without specific reference to the underlying cause or imbalance. For some illnesses - a broken leg is one example, examining the underlying cause is only useful for prevention of future incidents, but of little use in treatment.

There are many healthicine balances outside of the hierarchy of health.

One of the most important is exercise.  Our bodies don't just exist - they move.  Health is facilitated by and depends on movement and activity.  A balance of exercise makes us healthier. A deficiency of exercise makes us unhealthy - as can an excess of exercise.  Of course the FDA does not provide an RDA or UL for exercise - it's much more personal.

Many healthicine balances appear to NOT have a minimum, or a maximum, or the minimum or maximum is so unlikely and infrequent that it can generally be ignored.


Some healthicine balances have a very wide balance point. The healthy range of Vitamin C, according to the FDA, is from 90 mg per day (the RDA) to 2000 mg per day (the UL).  An upper limit of more than 20 times larger than the minimum.

Most healthicine balances have an optimum range.  One of the challenges for the science of healthiness, is to determine most important health balances and identify their optimal ranges.

Some healthicine balances are maintained by the body - in absence of daily attention.  Vitamin A is stored in the liver, and you can stop consuming Vitamin A for many days without significant impact on your health.   Vitamin C, on the other hand, is not stored - and it is important to maintain an adequate daily intake, or suffer health consequences.

What is the optimal intake of Vitamin C?  Of protein?  Of essential fats?   What is the optimal amount of exercise? We don't know. What is the optimal composition of healthy blood?  Healthy muscle tissue? Do we know? Is a specific health balance best attended to daily?  Weekly?  Monthly?  Annually? Or at specific times in our lifetime?

Of course health consequences from a minor deficiency of a single nutrient, over a small period of time, are typically very small. Your body might in many cases, recover when the balance is restored. If your consumption of Vitamin C is zero for many days - you are unlikely to notice any difference.  Only a few nutrients, most notably oxygen and water - can have a severe effect from small periods of absence.

We have spent centuries studying medicine, and comparatively, scant few moments on the science of healthiness. I believe some of the intractable problems of medicine arise because we are treating them with medicine - when the preventative nature of healthicine is a more appropriate approach.

It's time to look more closely, thoroughly, deeply into the art and science of health.

You have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness. You have a right to healthicine.

yours in health, tracy
Personal Health Freedom

This post has been revised as of Feb 21, 2012 from the original posting of December 3, 2011.

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Are you measuring Illness, or Healthiness? Healthiness does not exist.

To be ill is to be afflicted with a specific sickness, disease or other health condition.
An illness is a specific sickness, disease or other health condition.
similarly,

To be sick is to be afflicted with a specific illness, disease or other health condition.
A sickness is a specific illness, disease or other health condition.

Healthy is enjoying vigor and health of body, mind or spirit.  (Merriam-Webster)

but...
according to Merriam-Webster, the word 'healthiness' does not exist - you are re-directed to 'healthy' in the online version of the dictionary. Similarly, Wikipedia does not have an entry for healthiness - it simply re-directs you to healthy.

Healthiness needs to be defined if we are to measure it.

Healthiness is a specific incidence, or measurement, of health. Overall healthiness is a summary of measurements of health. 

There are another words that may cause confusion.  Ill-health and unhealthiness, for example. What do they mean? What should they mean? I will deliberately avoid these words when possible.  Ill-health is actually, according to Merriam-Webster "some disease is present, but".  It is a state of illness, not a state of health.  Unhealthiness is also, according to Merriam-Webster "not in good health, sickly or diseased". e.g. Both words can be replaced with ill or illness - of varying degrees.

We are very familiar with some specific illness/health measurements, most notably, the four vital signs - body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate.

In each case there is a healthy range - and two unhealthy ranges, deficient and excessive. A measurement of your vital signs can be a measurement of your healthiness - or your unhealthiness.

How can we tell if we are measuring healthiness or illness? We find what we are looking for.

When scientists were studying light, trying to understand the behavior of light, they found an interesting result.  There were two competing theories.  Light consists of particles.  Light consists of waves. Scientists found that, if they tested for particles - they were able to prove that light consisted of particles.  And when they tested for waves - they were able to prove that light consisted of waves.

Then it got more complicated. Scientists were able to design a door that only let one particle of light through at once.  Then they tested for waves - and waves were found.

They concluded that whether light acts like a particle or a wave - the nature of light depends on what you measure, not on a fundamental property of light.

And so it is with healthiness and illness. If we are searching for health, we measure healthiness. If we are searching for ills - we measure illness.

Almost every time someone measures your temperature, temperature, blood pressure, or respiration - they are checking for illness.   If we ask someone to check our health status - and they start by testing our temperature, our pulse, etc... We might assume they are checking for illness.

In isolation, a single measurement, or even all four measurements provide minimal information about your level of health - although each might, even in isolation, provide significant information or indication about your level of sickness.

If you are healthy, all four measurements; pulse, respiration, blood pressure, and temperature might be in the 'normal range' - you will have no useful information about your level of healthiness. If you are sick - one or more of these measurements may be outside of the normal range, indicating illness.

Specific healthiness measurements may indicate illness or sickness, suggesting further investigation and diagnosis - but specific measurements do not effectively measure healthiness.

An interesting detail about these four measurements is that they are compared to 'normal ranges', not to 'healthy ranges' nor to 'optimal ranges'. These so called 'normal ranges', are 'ranges that indicate no illness has been detected'.

Healthy ranges, and optimal ranges have not been identified - and it may be that optimal ranges are different, narrower or broader than the normal range - optimal ranges have not been studied scientifically for individuals nor groups.

Let's look at Resting Pulse Rate in more detail. A normal adult pulse rate ranges from 60 to 100 bpm.  This might lead you to assume, incorrectly, that the optimal rate is the mid-point between 60 and 100, e.g. about 80 bpm.

Actually, lower 'normal' measurements, for all four vital signs, indicate healthier status than higher 'normal' measurements - when we are measuring healthiness. Athletes have a normal pulse rate much lower than 'normal adults'.  Athletes however, put their focus on strength, and in competitions on 'peak performance' which may actually be detrimental to overall healthiness.

It is very difficult to identify an 'optimal pulse rate' for the general population - and many qualifiers might be required when applying this rate to individual persons. e.g. It might depend on height, weight, blood pressure, an even 'size of the heart'.

How might we measure health? How might we measure 'overall healthiness'?

Like the scientists searching for waves, or particles, we must know what we are searching for.

If we are searching for illness - we will not measure healthiness. We will not find healthiness - we will only find illness or 'normal' e.g. 'no illness'.

The way to measure healthiness - is to ensure that our goal is healthiness.  If our goal is the elimination of disease or illness - we need to measure illness.

When our goal is optimization of health - we will measure healthiness.  When we suspect illness - we can switch our goals back to measuring and fighting illness.

When we are healthy - our goal should be to measure, and to improve our healthiness.

Actually, we need to measure healthiness and illness, both - throughout our lives. It is important to measure our illness - even when we think we are healthy, with prevention as our objective.  Similarly, it is important to measure our healthiness when we are ill - to determine the most effective treatments.

But we should not confuse the measurement of illness with the measurement of healthiness. Even the exact same measurement - pulse for example, will give different information and recommendations, depending on our goal - optimization of healthiness vs detection of illness.

A measurement of pulse from an illness point of view might detect a rapid pulse, in an emergency situation. If your illness pulse is too high, further investigation is required. You may need some medication and relaxation to lower your pulse. Or perhaps you have lost blood and need an injection of fluids.

A measurement of pulse from a healthiness point of view might observe that your pulse is high, that it could be lower. If your health pulse is to high, exercise might be recommended to reduce your pulse, by increasing your healthiness.

The illness researcher (medical doctor) detects rapid pulse - recommends calmness, further investigation and possibly treatment.  A healthiness researcher measures rapid pulse and recommends exercise. Almost exactly opposite recommendations - based on different measurements of pulse, which detected - 'rapid pulse'.  Note: the medical, or illness definition of 'rapid pulse' is a different, higher number, than the healthiness definition of 'rapid pulse'.

Our current measurements of illness are very sophisticated. Our current measurements of health are of very poor quality - almost non-existent.  Our measurements of illness can be summarized, creating meta-information, to distinguish between many different diseases, and variations of disease.  Our measurements of healthiness are seldom summarized to create useful meta-information. The field of medicine is very well developed.  The field of health is just in its infancy.

We need to measure healthiness, to optimize our health. 

yours in health,
tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

Personal Health Freedom