Here we have two rats enrolled in a medical study.
Neither one of them has any illness.
Which rat is healthier? We don’t know. We give them both an ‘illness’, maybe a cancer. We administer a medicine to one, and a placebo to the other. Then we measure the effects on their cancer, their illness.
But we don’t measure any effects on their healthiness.
If we give them each some supplemental nutrients. Which one gets healthiest as a result? We put them on different diets for a few months. Which one gets healthier? Does one get less healthy? We give them different exercise plans. Which one gets healthier? We isolate one, and put the other into a very crowded cage. Which one loses the most healthiness?
We have many ways to measure illness, but we can’t measure ‘healthiness’, in rats, nor in people. What is health? Healthiness exists when we don’t have any illness. How can we measure it?
In the series Alice and Zizi, we looked at many different aspects of healthiness, and the difficulties of measuring healthiness of people. If there is no illness, current medical science has nothing to say. Alice and Zizi have no illness – so we don’t have any tools to determine who is healthier. But it’s not just Alice and Zizi.
Because we don’t measure healthiness, when we do medical studies – we can only measure illness and symptoms of illness. All measurements of medicines, whether the test is on a rat, or on a person, are only measures of the illness being tested. Medicine is blind to health. Medical studies are blind to health.
If the patient, or the rat, gets healthier – in an area not measured as part of the illness being tested – it is not noticed. It is not documented. If it is noticed, and documented, it is not documented as a health effect, it is documented as a ‘side effect’. What is a ‘side effect’? A side effect is an effect on your health. All medical effects are effects on your health. But medicine is blind to healthiness – and names the effects it does not claim to understand ‘side effects’.
Which is more important, your healthiness or your illness?
Many illnesses will pass. When your illness passes, when you have no illness, which is more important, your healthiness, or your illness?
If your illness does not pass – is it possible that you don’t have an illness. Is it possible that you have an ‘unhealthiness’?
What is the difference between an unhealthiness and an illness?
– An unhealthiness is room for improvement in your health. An unhealthiness can only be treated with health.
An illness is treated with medicines.
An unhealthiness can only be treated with healthiness. If you are deficient in vitamins, minerals, calories, or even water – even if you are diagnosed with an illness – no medicine will help. Only healthiness, consuming the missing nutrients, will produce positive results. If you are consuming too much of certain nutrients, or toxic foods, no medicine will help – the only effective treatment is ‘healthy actions’, to stop consuming unhealthy foods.
When you treat an unhealthiness with medicines – you will find that the unhealthiness is incurable. Medicines cannot cure unhealthiness.
What common diseases might be ‘unhealthinesses’ instead of being ‘illnesses’? We don’t know. We know some uncommon diseases that are really unhealthiness – scurvy, beriberi, and dilutional hyponatremia are examples of unhealthiness that cannot be cured with medicines, only with health.
Is Type 2 Diabetes an illness, or an unhealthiness? Is Type 2 Diabetes incurable? The American Diabetes Association suggests that you ‘learn to live with’ your diabetes, under the assumption that Type 2 Diabetes is incurable.
Is diabetes incurable? It cannot be cured with medicines. Can we treat diabetes with ‘health’? If we have two rats with diabetes enrolled in a medical study, which is healthier? We don’t know. If we attempt to make one of them ‘healthier’, can we tell if we made them healthier? We have no tools to measure healthiness. If the diabetic rat can only be successfully treated with ‘health’ – how can we learn the most effective treatments?
What other illnesses might actually be unhealthinesses? We don’t know. Until we can measure healthiness – we simply cannot learn. Perhaps someday….
to your health, tracy
