I am consumed by one question;

“How does the human body function?”

As I ponder on the complexity behind this riddle, several other sub-questions appear that also consume me;

“What does it mean to be “healthy””

“Why do humans experience illness and/or become chronically ill?”

“Why does good health come relatively easy for some of us but is challenging to obtain for others?”

“How can anyone of us prevent disease?”

To conceptualize how the human machine works, I’ve realized that a person’s foundation in health is rooted in two things;

Genetics and biochemistry 

The human body, as is any other living organism, a chemical factory, comprising of approximately 7*10²⁷ (in a 70kg person) atoms with detectable traces of 60 elements, 29 of which are thought to play actively positive roles in life and health. Additionally, over 114,000 distinct metabolites have been identified in humans so when I think about it closely, I can only compare the sheer complexity and wonder of our physiology to the vast expanse and scale of the universe.

Fundamentally speaking, any attempt to “treat”, “manage”, or alleviate health complaints, or improve health in any sense, is an attempt to manipulate either of these core components. In holistic circles, this can be referred to as “restoring balance” or “healing”, which is an ambiguous term that is also used in allopathic circles but what “healing” means, tends to differ between both industries, hence the ambiguity. I propose that in allopathic professions, healing is described as the process by which a medical intervention (be it drugs, surgery), or other therapy eradicates or supresses the causative factor/s (if identified) that drive disease processes. 

I placed “if identified”, referring to proper diagnostics of the illness and/or underlying dysfunction, in parentheses because proper “diagnostics” is different in allopathic treatment versus holistic treatment and in my opinion, over-reliance on medical diagnostic methods (standard blood tests/scans) as a means to identify the patient’s cause of complaint, leads to under-diagnoses, implying that standard allopathic testing only seeks to identify overt disease, such as cancer or heart disease, and all too frequently misses the underlying biochemical dysfunctions that drive many “sickness” processes and this is where doctors all too frequently dismiss their patients’ complaints, despite their continuous struggle with their symptoms. 

In holistic circles, facilitating “healing” or improvement of any health metric tends to begin through the application of ancestral tenets of health, such as exercise, individually tailored diet, sunlight exposure, meaningful social connections, and sleep hygiene. The basis behind this methodology lies in the concept of “innate intuition”, as in the body’s innate capacity to amend its biochemical aberrations and restore balance once it obtains the stimulus to do so. From a genetics point of view, the concept of “epigenetics” is frequently touted here, alluding to the idea that healthy habits can “turn off” genes associated with chronic diseases.

Forming a treatment protocol around ancestral tenets of health is a good place to start, and in some cases, may be all that a client needed to achieve the results they were seeking. However, in some cases, this will be insufficient, either because there may be underlying psycho-emotional obstacles to be resolved, or because of biochemical aberrations that cannot be addressed with lifestyle and diet changes alone. 

Functional testing may elucidate important information about a client’s biochemical state and may highlight genetic variables that drive some of these aberrations and with the right combination of diagnostic data, an effective treatment protocol can be formulated, tailored to the client’s needs. In combination with adequate diet and lifestyle adjustments, my fascination with supplements and nutraceuticals lies in the understanding that when these therapeutic tools are prescribed properly, the differences that can occur in a client’s state can be described as “night and day”. Ultimately, the key metric in determining the effectiveness of any treatment protocol lies in how the client feels, how their symptom picture has improved over time, and I ascertain that anyone has open access to the tools necessary to prevent illness and restore health. 

Cesar Sifontes