Become your own doctor, with Nature as your partner
A stage-developmental model of optimal physical health and healthcare
What comes after our current, monopolistic medical tyranny?
What comes after germ-drug-surgery theory now that serious doubt has been sown?
Could the answer be as simple as functional medicine (FM)?
I credit Jeffrey Bland with making FM a professional specialty:
QUOTE
He co-founded The Institute for Functional Medicine in 1991. He is known to many as the “father of Functional Medicine.” — https://www.ifm.org/about/profile/jeffrey-bland/#:~:text=Jeffrey%20S.,the%20past%2035%20years%2C%20Dr.
end Q
Trouble is FM is deliberately $$$; it’s deliberately not cheap. As much as I’ve learned from, and benefitted from, Dietrich Klinghardt, MD and similar MDs on the leading edge of FM, FM is likely to remain a healthcare solution primarily for the wealthy.
More significantly, FM’s theoretical basis is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Here are Google’s top results for the search string: “functional medicine” theory:
QUOTE
WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE? The Functional Medicine Approach
Functional medicine is a systems biology–based approach focusing on identifying and addressing root cause of a disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many, contributing to an individual’s illness.
Functional medicine determines how and why illness occurs. It restores health by addressing the root causes of disease for each individual.
The functional medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach which empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of disease; and, promote optimal wellness. It requires a detailed understanding of each patient’s genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors. It leverages this data to direct personalized treatment plans leading to improved patient outcomes.
By addressing root cause, rather than symptoms, practitioners become oriented to identifying the complexity of disease. They may find one condition has many different causes and, likewise, one cause may result in many different conditions. As a result, functional medicine treatment targets the specific manifestations of disease in each individual.
One condition, many causes. One cause, many conditions ~ Dr. Mark Hyman
And this from the Cleveland Clinic:
Lead a healthier life — from the inside out. The functional medicine model of care offers a patient-centered approach to chronic disease management. It seeks to answer the question, “Why are you ill?” so you can receive personalized, effective care for your needs.
Functional medicine providers spend time listening to you, gathering your medical history. We use this information to identify the root cause(s) of the illness, including triggers such as poor nutrition, stress, toxins, allergens, genetics and your microbiome (the bacteria living in and on your body).
Once we identify the triggers, we can customize a healthy living plan for you. Your plan will address many aspects of your life, from physical needs, including nutrition, exercise and sleep, to mental and emotional stressors related to social, work and community life.
end Q
If the above sounds like a giant guessing game of “20 questions” or a “treasure hunt” involving many tests, techniques, trial and error — I get this sense too.
Is this better than germ-drug theories? Way better. Yet, it’s NOT a comprehensive model explaining what optimal physical health is; nor does it define, optimal human biochemistry. Nor does it integrate healthy, whole-brained spirituality into mainstream healthcare.
FM as transitional healthcare
I expect FM to be around for several more decades as a transitional phase.
A transitional phase to what? To a more radical, more evidence-based theory and model based on what Nature’s Plan for human physical health an optimal human biochemistry.
believe Nature has a Plan for humans to discover and learn about their physical biology and chemistry for health purposes.
Nature’s Plan for us is NOT learning about our own biology thru unrestricted trial and error. Nor is it running around asking others, “What should I do, what should I do?, tell me what to do!”
Nature’s Plan for humans to learn about our own biology is — within a well-defined area of our biology-metabolism — for each person to do experiments, observe results; then, do another experiment.
Learning from soil biology
Humans learning about human biochem has many similarities with farmers learning soil biochem.
In both cases, a trial and error approach is exceeding laborious and time-consuming. Overwhelming.
What makes soil biochem reasonable for farmers to do is known biomarker reference points for healthy soil. In farming, these are soil pH; and, the optimal ratios between a number of minerals.
From soil samples, each mineral can be measured; then, these numbers compared to see how close your soil’s ratio is to optimal for your soil type.
Without knowing the optimal ratio of ph (a ratio) and ratio of minerals to each other in soils, soil biochem can only be guesswork. Hit or miss. Trial and error learning. Very laborious and time-consuming.
This is why working farmers learn and refer to soil pH and to soil mineral ratios constantly.
Ratios for human biochem
Do ratios for healthy biochem in the human being exist? Yes they do. They have existed since 1931. This is why a few hundred people kept studying Dr. Reams’ number array of ratios; and, how to understand their own personal ratios. This is why Dr. Reams’ innovation did not die out. In the Befriending book (2021), in 2054, Dr. Reams is awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.
The closer we get to this, the less guessing, the less trial and error, the fewer tests needs, cost is lower, more people worldwide can benefit.
SIDEBAR ~ The Barefoot Doctor
Do I espouse the Barefoot Doctor idea of training young medical missionaries with TCM or some other defined healthcare method, sending them out into rural areas to perform healthcare? No.
Recently I read a 1971 book, Qi (Chi). It mentions the original Chinese guy who inspired the the 1960s Chinese government to imagine graduating hundreds of Barefoot Doctors to care for China’s large under-served rural population. The real original Barefoot Doctor was a self-taught genius. He had no surgical training. He taught himself surgery by trial and error on clients — without losing any patients. He was exceptional. He was innovative. He was NOT primarily taught inside any four walls of any medical school, TCM or Western. He learned on the job.
Looking forward to the next hundred years, 2022–2122, we clearly will NOT be training healthcare practitioners this way.
-=+ -=+ -=+
Nature’s Plan for human physical health is:
- Where we are NOT to intervene in our metabolic activity (blood); and
- Where humans ARE to intervene in their own metabolism, to experiment, to bring their biomarker number ratios closer to optimal
If there can be, if their will be, a “people’s medicine” it will also be:
- Less expensive than drug-germ-surgery medicine (which becomes limited to emergency-trauma medicine),
- Less expensive than functional medicine.
Functional medicine will become complimentary to RBTI.
Drug-germ-surgery medicine will not go away. It will become a limited specialty: emergency-trauma-battlefield medicine.
Metabolic Warriors arise on the fringes
Only since the “life extension” 1990s and “biohacker” 2000s has their been a sub-culture of educated, curious,innovative people willing to put aside childish ideas like “germs cause disease” and “a drug for every bug,” willing to learn some biology, willing to do experiments and gather more evidence for what Nature’s Plan is or is not.
So it’s only very recently there has been even a fringe market of people ready, willing, able and wanting to educate themselves and become responsible for the quality of their own biochemistry.
Without references of known, valid biomarker values for optimal human biochem, there is little chance of guessing correctly. For large numbers of people to engage in this form of healthcare, biomarkers have to be non-invasive. This is why urine-saliva biomarker testing-analysis has a bright future.
Reams > Revici > Keto > intermittent fasting
What if Nature’s Plan for “healing all the way healthy” (Mimi) is also a stage-developmental Plan? Stages of what? Metabolic coherency. [May be a way to add Bravo to these stages. i do not know enuf to suggest where it fits or if it fits. Perhaps: Get all your vitamin D pathways turned on so you immune system wakes up?]
From a data base of one person, me, the stages are as described above.
What’s the value of a stage-develpmental Plan? It support people to focus on identifying which stage they are at; and, on completing the stage they are on before they try another higher stage of metabolic coherency
Reams ~ Get your pH ratio in balance, get your sugars, ureas and salts ratios in balance,
Revici ~ Get your essential fatty acid (EFAs) and sterols (peanut oi, etc) in balance Imbalance in your oils is a major cancer marker. Too much noise int eh system, too many metabolic habits adjusting, to do this before the Reams-Beddoe work is mostly done.
Keto ~ Explore transitioning from carbs-starches as your main mitochondria fuel to ketones (coconut oil and a few others). Get your carbs to 10% or less of your weekly diet.
intermittent fasting ~ Explore eating nothing more than fruit or non-starchy vegetables after 6pm.
