Modern society has created many benefits (e.g., insurance, computers, cars), but exchanges the risks endemic to nature for the risks from mass-produced food-in-a-box and sedentary activity.

This makes weight management far more complicated.

The Body

The human body is a system of systems:

Cardiovascular/Circulatory system – transports things between most of the other systems
Digestive/Excretory system – takes in calorie energy as food, expels waste products
Endocrine system – manages hormones that regulate all the other systems
Integumentary/Exocrine system – a protective barrier between the outside and inside the body
Lymphatic/Immune system – fights foreign and potentially dangerous things within the body
Musculoskeletal system – helps the body move mechanically
Nervous system – sends information back-and-forth between the brain and the rest of the body
Reproductive system – helps make children
Respiratory system – takes in oxygen, expels carbon dioxide
Renal/Urinary system – dissolves waste products in the blood and expels them as urine

Further, the brain itself is a vastly complex system of its own.

This level of complexity means tiny problems can dramatically ripple across those systems and affect a person’s overall health.

Most of the body’s reactions we consider as “not healthy” are simply our body’s systems fighting actual problems:

Mucus and nasal congestion protect the respiratory system.
Fevers make the body’s temperature unsafe for viruses.
Malaise is the body’s signal to relax so metabolic processes can focus on fighting a disease, resisting infection, or rebuilding tissue.
Chills are the body’s signal to bundle up and gain warmth.

Risks

Countless issues are linked to poor diet and not exercising.

Psychological problems:

Depression
Lowered sex drive
Obstructive sleep apnea (difficulty sleeping)
Anxiety
Poor self-image
Alzheimer’s disease

Physiological problems:

Obesity
Shortness of breath
Low metabolism
Type 2 diabetes
Migraines
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (reproductive dysfunction)
Asthma
Acne
Psoriasis
Acid reflux disease
Urinary incontinence
Joint problems
Gout
Hypothyroidism and sometimes hyperthyroidism

Hormonal imbalances:

Not enough dopamine (the “happy” hormone)
Too much adrenaline (the “emergency” hormone)
Not enough testosterone, especially in males (the “dominance” hormone)
Not enough or too much estrogen, especially in females (the “nurturing” hormone)
Not enough progesterone (the “female reproduction” hormone)
Not enough melatonin (the sleep hormone), which can cause Alzheimer’s

Life-threatening conditions:

Pseudotumor cerebri (cranial pressure causing nausea, headache, and vomiting)
Dyslipidemia hypercholesterolemia (excess fat and cholesterol in the blood)
Heart disease
Hepatitis
High blood pressure
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
Venous stasis disease (blood flow slowed in limbs)

These can often be attributed to a few key causes:

Hauling around too much body weight for too long
Too few of certain vitamins and minerals
Too much of a specific harmful substance
Too little bodily activity to push out unhealthy elements and keep the systems running well
Certain attitude problems that offset any otherwise healthy gains

Toxins/Energy

A “toxin”, broadly, is anything that the body can’t process appropriately, for several possible reasons:

At least some organs react adversely to the substance (e.g., an allergy).
There’s too much of the substance for the body’s organs to process, though the body does use it (e.g., water).
The substance is legitimately dangerous to the body, so the filtering systems (e.g., liver, kidneys, immune system) must get rid of it.

Some carcinogens exist in most food, on surfaces, and even the air, but our liver and kidneys usually filter them out.

Generally, healthier eating and lifestyle decisions will make your body healthier and cut down on carcinogen intake.
Microplastics (i.e., less than 500 nanometers in size) which enter the body can cause inflammation in the stomach and brain, but cause no known long-term effects. The smaller the microplastic, the more severe the reaction.

Regular exposure to small amounts of toxins (hormesis) will often make us stronger.

To avoid peanut allergies in children, expose them to peanut butter during infancy.

However, chronic exposure to some toxins can be very devastating.

Most government exposure tests give a gigantic exposure to animals all at once (e.g., feeding a lab rat the proportional equivalent of 30 years’ worth of an artificial sweetener within 3 days), then watching what happens.
- This does track acute exposure, but answers nothing about chronic exposure to that chemical.
Avoid touching powdered plastics directly (e.g., thermal paper for receipts, printer toner), since BPA and BPS disrupt the endocrine system and are absorbed into the body through the skin.
Most pesticides and weed killers can directly damage the nervous system and genes, and can create issues like cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
Chemicals in the lining of tin cans, cosmetics, Teflon pans, and flame retardants in cushions have a combined soft link to reduced sperm count (and therefore lower fertility rates).
Herbicides (e.g., Roundup spray) can cause a host of issues, including chronic kidney disease.
Lead exposure has many risks, including a loss in IQ and multiple fatal illnesses.
PFAS (formerly known as PFCs) is a broad range of perfluoroalkyls and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are chemically resistant to oil, grease, heat, and water, and are used is a wide variety of consumer applications:
- Cleaning products, nonstick cookware, stain-resistant carpet coating, upholstery, textiles, paints/varnishes, and makeup/personal care products
- They’re also for foods that are hot or greasy and prevalent in fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags.
- They dissolve in water, so they can easily accumulate and persist in blood and tissues.
Cutting stone generates silica dust, which can develop silicosis in the lungs after enough exposure.

Beyond toxins, concentrated energy can also be dangerous.

Long-term exposure to x-rays and microwaves are known to cause cancer.
While the long-term effects haven’t been tested, there may be risks to chronic exposure to radio waves (e.g., cell phone towers, Wi-Fi signals).

With all the risks from toxins and concentrated energy, maintaining balance in life requires a safe, easy solution when working in any field that directly interacts with dangerous chemicals or energy:

Develop a habit of dogmatically using all safety precautions without any lapse.
Pay very close attention to what your body is telling you.
Only work in that field for 2–5 years, then move to a field that doesn’t have those risks.

Seek better habits more than treatments

Most of our body’s capacity to heal comes through our exposure to resistance, though it can be difficult to remember in modern society when we’re surrounded by immaterial engineered objects.

In Western society, about 1 in 10 people have autoimmune disorders, where their immune system somehow attacks its body.

Extreme medical procedures (e.g., stomach stapling, liposuction) you won’t fix habits that gained that weight, so you’ll likely regress back.

You must set specific, intentional long-term goals to fight what civilized society brings:

Most of the time, the convenience of owning a car means you’ll be less efficient if you choose to live a more active lifestyle.
Your lifestyle will likely be unfashionable compared to your friends.
Often, eating healthy is way pricier and requires much more cooking than boxed meals.

Doctors are usually trustworthy, but they’re specialized toward a specific domain.

Typically, their role is to manage the symptoms of adverse health situations, not to give advice on how to prevent it in the future.
Further, they often have interests that go beyond their patients’ best interests (e.g., hospitals, pharmaceutical companies), and many large hospitals practice some level of medical paternalism.
Their advice is legitimate and often life-saving, but only in the context that their services and consultation are assisting in what your body is already naturally designed to do.

Avoid most modern food

Modern manufacturers want foods and drinks to be more addicting (and thus, more marketable), so they’ll increase the ratio of unhealthy-but-tasty things:

Adding more sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), or any other form of natural sweetener.
Adding more salt.
Removing dietary fiber.
Adding oil or fat, especially saturated and trans fat.

To lower costs, lengthen shelf life, and stay competitive, many foods can remove or substitute healthy options for not-so-healthy ones:

Adding preservatives and colorants that can cause liver damage (e.g., most canned foods contain at least some BPA).
Adding allergens like soy-based derivatives (soy lecithin, soy protein isolate) or Red 40 colorant instead of something else.

Another cost-saving method is to pull off useful elements for other products or use leftovers to create entirely new products:

Pulling fat out of dairy products (low-fat/non-fat/reduced fat) to use for products like butter.
Ground-up foods (e.g., hamburger, peanut butter) are generally using the lowest-quality “meat” possible (e.g., organ meat, nostrils) since nobody really knows otherwise.
Tea bags are the remaining parts of tea leaves (and stems, and branches sometimes) that didn’t go to the leaf-based product.
Taking out bones from meat (which normally makes a healthy bone broth) to go to pet food companies.

The diet/health industry has advertised many myths

The modern approach to diet and exercise complicates an otherwise straightforward topic to sell things you don’t need.

Fat is a necessary, healthy part of the body.

Too many carbs or protein will make someone fat more than eating fat, typically because fat satisfies us more.
Animal fats are healthier than processed vegetable oils, mostly because foods like butter and meat have many rare nutrients that are difficult to substitute.
Eggs (including yolks) have been scientifically proven to have many health benefits.
There is no direct link between cholesterol and heart disease.

The body needs more proteins and fats than carbohydrates.

Generally, people crave a variation of what their body needs (which is rarely bread or candy).
Carbohydrates are our body’s energy, but are unhealthy when they spike blood sugar levels.
Generally, food with a high glycemic index is full of quickly digested simple sugars.
Empty carbs (e.g., candy) are the easiest food and snacks to grab, which is why you’ll need a ton of impulse control to survive it.
- Further, modern society bombards you with advertisements to erode your willpower.
- Even when you’ve turned down fast food, candy, and a can of soda, you might relent near the end of the day with a bag of chips.
A body that works with too many carbs for long enough will suffer an insulin production disease (i.e., diabetes), though it can often be offset by exercise.
- A growing body of scientific data has demonstrated that the largest contributor to most sugar-based afflictions comes through the body’s over-production of insulin, which means the body creates a type of insulin resistance over time.
The most significant measure for healthy carbohydrate intake is glycemic load (GL), which is a relatively simple calculation:
1. Measure the food’s glycemic index (GI), which is the food’s carbohydrate density.
  - Low GI is 55 or less, and high GI is 70 or higher.
2. Multiply the GI by the grams of carbohydrate in the food you’re consuming, then divide by 100.
3. The result will be the GL:
  - Low GL is 10 or less, high GL is 20 or higher.

Healthy dieting is about balanced nutrition more than consuming anything specific.

There’s no cure-all food that will resolve many problems, though the placebo effect works well for those people.
A full diet requires variety to provide trace amounts of various fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
- Fruits and vegetables should “fill in” the bulk of what we eat to give us enough dietary fiber and hydration.
A steady routine of consuming in moderation is more effective than following rules or eating specific foods.
- Artificial food products (e.g., Soylent, shake diets) won’t account for the body’s need for trace nutrients.

Health trends mean something is often marketed as “healthy”, but where the vendor added something else:

Low-fat usually means the vendor added sugar to compensate for the unfulfilling feeling.
“Diet” and low-carb foods usually add artificial sweeteners that taste (mostly) like sugar but are indigestible, so the body produces an excess of insulin to break the artificial sweeteners down.
Gluten-free food only benefits people with celiac disease, and usually uses higher-sugar flours to compensate for the lousy consistency.

One solution won’t work for everyone, since it varies heavily on lifestyle and body type.

The popular diet standard of 2,000 calories a day depends heavily on what that person is consuming.
Further, over years, different cultures can often adjust to high or low quantities of certain food types.

Self-disciplining ourselves with food and feeling well requires including consistent exercise.

While the fluoride in toothpaste can help with healthy teeth, living in a major metropolitan area that fluoridates the water means you do not need toothpaste when you brush.

In large quantities, too much fluoride is dangerous.
Any abrasives in toothpaste aren’t nearly as effective as directly using baking soda.
The best improvement to dental hygiene is to get a mechanical toothbrush.
With any dental issues, worry more about sugar intake than frequent brushing.

The Standard American Diet (SAD) is filled with risks, on several levels:

Too many additives and preservatives, which often demonstrates in products that can last on a shelf for over two years without spoiling whatsoever.
Enormous portions, which guarantee obesity simply from raw calorie count irrespective of the food itself.
Too many carbohydrates in the food, irrespective of being simple or complex, or whether there’s enough fiber in it.

While Big Medi/Pharma may prolong your life, they would prefer your dependence on them.

One of the cultural results of the industry is excessive over-diagnosis that creates unnecessary health scares:
- Chickenpox is typical in children, and doesn’t typically pose any legitimate health risks.
- Pink eye is irritating and highly infectious, but doesn’t typically pose any legitimate health risks.
- After the first wave of COVID-19, herd immunity has meant that it doesn’t typically pose any legitimate health risks.
- However, the culture often obsesses about the <1% likely event that could pose a health risk.
- The culture can also be magnified in unhealthy ways if the focus shifts more toward transhumanism than fixing things to preserve the quality of life.
The ideal arrangement is to rely on them as little as possible, for as long as possible.
However, as you age, you will likely depend on them more, and that dependence may save your life.

The Solutions

Most of the solutions are relatively straightforward, and simply involve knowing what solutions apply to what problems.

Often, we tend to manage small risks and increase larger ones:

We’ll worry about organic food or the risks of pancreatic cancer, but text at a stop light when operating a motor vehicle causes tens of thousands of deaths every year.
More people die each year from falling in the home than from house fires.

Expose yourself

Our body responds very well to measured hardships, especially when we’re actively choosing to expose ourselves to them.

Expose yourself to occasional diseases wherever you go.

Exposure to dirt daily can positively affect the bacteria on our skin.
The filthiest places with the most diseases in modern society are bathroom sinks, restaurant menus, hot-air hand dryers, and automotive exteriors.
By contrast, there is comparatively little bacterial growth on many parts of toilets and newly dirtied dishes.

Adverse weather conditions help our bodies get stronger and healthier:

As long as we’re hydrated, hot weather increases blood flow and helps us detox through sweat.
- Make a habit of using a hot tub, sauna, or taking extremely hot showers.
Except for freezing weather that can kill us, cold temperatures strengthen our body’s various systems through resistance to the elements (especially developing brown fat).
- Make a habit of drinking ice-cold water on an empty stomach, placing ice packs on yourself, or taking cold showers and baths.

Restricting calorie intake (i.e., fasting or severe dieting) builds stronger muscle and stimulates healthy aging.

Consider bloodletting (i.e., donating blood) 1–4 times a month to get rid of excess iron in your blood.

To get rid of toxins in the blood that store in fat, donate a double portion of plasma and drink a cup of coffee an hour before going in to donate.

Get active

Dramatically improve your psychosomatic state by practicing 5 minutes of controlled breathing and meditation every morning.

Use a treadmill while doing other activities like reading or the computer.

Spend more time working out, which may mean dramatic lifestyle decisions (like an alternative to your car).

Maintain healthy brain activity by maintaining nimble finger skills (e.g., typing, hand-sewing, model building, video games).

Sitting all day increases the risk of dementia, even if you exercise, so stand up and walk around more often or consider a career change.

Frequently sitting or performing repetitive actions can lead to back pain, and stretching exercises (e.g., yoga, Pilates) fix it far better than any type of workout, chiropractors, or drugs/treatment.

One of the most important cures for chronic pain is to get moving.

Physical movement releases dopamine, which deadens pain.
Opiates can soften pain, but beyond a certain threshold, more opiates will create a feedback loop that strips away all motivation to perform basic activities.
For chronic pain from cancer treatments, get opiates and psychomotor stimulants.
- You’ll either need to find 2 different doctors to get prescriptions for both, or substitute ADD medication (Ritalin) for the psychomotor stimulants.

Relax

Stress is one of the most significant things that can kill us.

Learn to be happier.
Take regular naps throughout the day when you’re able.

Often, our past trauma can provoke us to constantly obsess about things subconsciously.

Work to build awareness of yourself and the things that trigger any trauma.

If you need to, force yourself to spend more time in silence or relaxation.

Experience the outdoors more

We synthesize vitamin D from sunlight (along with other benefits to our system), so get outside the house more often (preferably in the afternoon when the sun is brightest).

Change your routine to spend more time outside.
To protect your eyes, wear UV-blocking sunglasses.

We most easily fight nearsightedness by looking at things that are far away.

Declining eyesight can be offset by exposure to deep red light every morning.

Pollution indoors can often be 3-4 times more than outdoors, so open windows whenever you can.

If there’s no wind, put fans in the windows to move air faster.

Even when you can’t open windows or go outside, purify the air.

Keep plenty of houseplants indoors.
Get an air purifier (e.g., IQ Air) and a dehumidifier.

Be careful what you’re consuming from the environment.

Plenty of nature has been contaminated by unhealthy chemicals.
Nearby industrial regions can introduce trace materials like lead and paint into the water.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.

Food principles

Lose weight, since any gains from eating healthy things can’t offset the risks of being morbidly obese.

Take controversial advice carefully, since those things might be bad for you, but you’ll need to feel it out with your body:

Soy-based products, though it’s even more debatable on how and what form of refinement is acceptable.
Whole-grains, though it’s debatable which ones and how much.
Egg yolks and red meat, especially beef.
Dairy, especially refined dairy like cheese and butter.
Fermentation is simply more microorganisms (which is how we get spoiled food), so not all fermented food is inherently healthy.

Generally, aim for enough nutrients:

Vitamin A maintains eyesight.
Vitamin C maintains the immune system.
Vitamin D combines with calcium to rebuild bones.
Vitamin E has antioxidant (general health) properties, and almost anything with antioxidants is healthy (though there’s not much science around why).
Electrolytes are salts that help muscles work better.
Focus on eating and supplementing what your body can’t synthesize itself:
- Omega-3 fatty acids
- Potassium (found heavily in bananas)

Most food is only a little unhealthy:

Eating 1 piece of cake doesn’t kill you, but eating 1 piece of cake every day for 10,000 days might.

Avoid concentrated sugars, in everything.

This is by far the hardest diet decision you can ever make in a civilized society with a free market because they stick sweetener in absolutely everything!

Generally, avoid saturated fat (especially trans fat) and lean heavier into unsaturated fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated).

Try to improve your gut bacteria:

There is at least some scientific correlation between gut microbiota and Alzheimer’s disease.
Alcohol ethoxylates in dishwasher detergent cause heavy damage to gut bacteria.
Probiotic supplements and foods tend to improve the ecosystem of your digestion (though it’ll cause discomfort at first).
Fermented foods tend to improve gut bacteria, which include yogurt, certain cheeses, Japanese natto, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, and fermented fish.

Avoid processed meats like ground hamburger, hot dogs, and sausage, since they’re “miscellaneous” meat products and usually have added hormones, antibiotics, and veterinary drugs.

If a food product can keep for months, it’s usually less healthy than an equivalent that will spoil within a few days or weeks.

In general, avoid modern synthetic food:

Most government agencies simply give animals 1000x the designated dose of a potentially harmful chemical, then watch what happens, which means most chronically harmful chemicals are perfectly legal.
Wheat with the germ removed (e.g., white bread) is mostly empty calories.
Margarine and vegetable oils (including when used for fried foods) have tons of trans fat.
Pre-made foods like microwave popcorn and prepackaged dinners have preservatives and additives.
Caffeine (even in coffee and tea) can run the risk of low dopamine, which has some links to Parkinson’s Disease.
Avoid high-sugar drinks:
- Fruit juice without the pulp has much more sugar and far less fiber than the fruits themselves.
- Sports drinks are only good for athletes in the middle of a workout for quick energy, and only when diluted.
Non-organic vegetables, especially potatoes and apples, often absorb pesticides into the food.
Unfermented soy products have a host of risks.
Most fast food adds much more salt, fat, and preservatives than store-bought alternatives, and they often deep-fry them.
- In restaurants, be careful asking a waitress’ recommended dish, since it’s usually what the kitchen is trying to get rid of.

With vegetables and fruits, try to “eat the rainbow” to get all you need (red, yellow, blue, purpose, orange, green, etc.).

Healthy food protects you

Drink more water and less flavored beverages (including coffee and tea).

To avoid cravings as you go about your day, keep prepared food available to recondition your bad habits (e.g., grilled chicken, nuts).

Tea and coffee has health benefits:

Coffee aids digestion.
Drinking tea has antioxidants that prevent stroke.
Green tea has L-theanine and reduces the risk of cavities, strengthens bones, and strengthens the immune system.

Fruit is generally healthy:

Fruits (especially citrus, melons, and kiwifruit) have Vitamin C that increases metabolism and strengthens the immune system.
Avocados lower cholesterol.
Berries, cherries, and plums are filled with antioxidants.
Cranberry juice prevents bladder infections.
Squirt some citrus juice into water to stay hydrated and enjoy a non-water drink.

Vegetables are rarely a bad decision:

Vegetables, especially dark green and orange ones, have Vitamin E and decrease lung cancer.
Vegetables like peppers, leafy vegetables, sprouts, broccoli, cabbage have tons of Vitamin C.
Some vegetables like spinach, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and beets are high in antioxidants.
Broccoli balances the blood sugar.
Cabbage decreases the risk of breast cancer and ulcers.
Onions lower blood pressure.

Don’t neglect high-fat vegetables:

Avocados are high in monounsaturated fats and Vitamin E.
Olives and olive oil has polyunsaturated fats.

Consider certain herbs and seasonings:

Apple cider vinegar strengthens the immune system.
Cinnamon regulates blood sugar.
Coconut oil reduces inflammation.
Garlic lowers cholesterol.
Ginger or ginger tea maintains digestive health.
Habanero peppers improve blood flow.
Horseradish root increases heart health.
Oregano and olive oil lower blood pressure.
Pepper reduces inflammation.
Turmeric reduces inflammation.

Legumes can help regulate the body:

Nuts have lots of Vitamin E.
Nuts like almonds, cashews, and pistachios provide monounsaturated fats that help with brain and heart health.
- Nut oils tend to still have monounsaturated fats (rapeseed/canola oil, peanut oil).
- Macadamia oil is very healthy.
Peanuts balance blood sugar, though peanut butter uses the lowest-quality nuts available.
Unsalted sunflower seeds reduce cholesterol.
Walnuts help boost testosterone.
Chia seeds are particularly nutrient-rich.

Some meats are good for you:

Salmon boosts testosterone and has polyunsaturated fats.

Dairy and eggs can be healthy:

Milk products have plenty of calcium and Vitamin E.
Egg yolks have lots of Vitamin E.
Yogurt prevents yeast infection and has probiotics to improve digestive health.

Not all grains are unhealthy:

Whole grains (with the germ included) increase testosterone output.
Grains have Vitamin E, especially inside the germ.
Pizza decreases the risk of esophageal cancer.
Pinole grain (within the maize family) is particularly nutrient-rich.

Not all “natural” produce is healthy:

Often, bugs and diseases can get into organic food more than food that was genetically modified or without pesticides.
If you don’t know where dried figs are sourced, watch for the carcinogen Aflatoxin B₁, a dangerous carcinogen from fungi (you can check by seeing if they shine under ultraviolet light).

Take supplements

Supplements aren’t “natural”, but neither are typical food products in a non-agrarian society, so it offsets the trouble civilization caused.

But, watch for which supplements you take:

Most health supplements are completely unregulated cocktails of ingredients, so you can’t always trust the honesty of what the label says.
Weight-loss supplements promise unrealistic results, and many of them that do create results are terrible for the body.

Daily multivitamins are usually unnecessary.

If over-consumed, vitamins can be dangerous.
Most vitamins can’t cure or help a cold, so any results are simply the placebo effect.
Some specific vitamins can help certain issues (e.g., Vitamin D if indoors all the time), but they should be on an as-needed basis.

Every time you eat something extremely sweet, consume fiber powder with it to prevent a “sugar crash”.

Spirulina powder is high-protein, has many vitamins and minerals, has antioxidants, and improves blood flow.

A few supplements have many scientifically proven benefits:

Omega-3 fatty acids (which are very difficult to get into a diet).
Fish oil (~2 g/day) is critical and affordable, and difficult to get otherwise unless you eat fish every other day.

Consider other supplements that have been scientifically proven to be beneficial (especially once you’re aging):

High-dose B vitamins:
- Folate: ~400 mcg/day
- B12: ~500 mcg/day
Acetyl-L-carnitine: ~500 mg/day (assuming your body isn’t producing enough naturally) to increase energy and slow aging
Alpha-lipoic acid: ~100 mg/day or add more spinach, broccoli, potatoes, and organ meats to your diet, increases the potency of antioxidants
Phosphatidylserine: ~200 mg/day or add more fish, green leafy vegetables, soy products, and rice
Coenzyme Q10: a powerful antioxidant that reduces certain issues such as heart conditions, diabetes, and physical performance
L-theanine: 50-200 mg/day or add more green tea to your diet
Vitamin C: ~500 mg/day (or more if you’re at risk of getting sick)
Vitamin E: ~100 mg, 2x/day (has a relatively short action duration of 2–4 hours)
- Alpha-tocopherols are the most common form sold in stores, but mixed tocopherols (e.g., alpha and gamma) are more effective.
Magnesium: ~500 mg right before bed (helps with sleep)

Other supplements have very limited scientific information about their health benefits, but taking them isn’t likely a bad idea because of the placebo effect:

Ginkgo biloba: 120-240 mg/day
Geranium extract (or simply grow the plant yourself)

Don’t easily trust things that have severe risks associated with them:

Cannabis (marijuana) has been proven to bring some cancers into remission, but is also linked to severe brain damage and mental disorders.

Use other preventative treatments

Prevention is always better than treatment.

Aim for lifestyle habits that can avoid the problems you face instead of external methods to treat the symptoms of your lifestyle.
From a marketing perspective, the most financially advantageous situation for many large organizations is for you to be miserable and dependent on their product (i.e., pharmaceuticals and treatments).

Learn to stay positive.

Often, our fears of health problems tend to increase our chances of anxiety-based health issues like heart attacks.

Skin moisturizer generally works, but many brands also use desiccants (e.g., formaldehyde) that dry out skin long-term.

Not all vaccines are the same:

Some vaccines are simply placebos, meaning they do nothing except what you believe they’ll do.
Historically, most vaccines are collections of dead virus cells that allow the body to attack a dormant virus and learn its specific DNA signature.
- However, it’s not uncommon for vaccines to still have live cells mixed into them, so there’s always a risk of actually getting a small dosage of the disease you’re trying to prevent.
- The vaccine for shingles has been linked to preventing dementia cases.
Starting with COVID-19, some vaccines are mRNA gene therapy.
- They use an advanced technology that swaps out the genetic code in your body’s cells.
- This is, as of the early 2020s, highly experimental, and could potentially cause cancer in the long term.

Most wrinkle-preventing solutions don’t work, but tretinoin (branded as Retin-A) does. It also increases UV intake, meaning an increased chance of sunburn.

As soon as you feel a risk to your health or start aging, adapt a habit of taking routine exams:

Dental cleaning and checkup every 6 months.
Blood tests every 6 months.
Mammograms (for women) yearly after age 35.
Prostate exams (for men) yearly after age 45.
If your family has a history of diabetes, get a fasting blood glucose test yearly after age 40.
However, general annual checkups (even when you’re healthy) do not do much to save lives because it gives people the bias that they’re fine because the doctor had checked already.

The body works best when it faces resistance, but most doctors tend to recommend bed rest for recovery.

When we push against something, we get stronger, even when recovering.
Resting after an injury often (even for lower back pain or a heart attack) causes more damage.
If you haven’t worked out in a while, shorter bursts of rigorous exercise are far faster at getting your body in shape again than prolonged low-exposure exercise.

Cold exposure has been loosely proven to reduce tumor growth.

Many over-the-counter painkillers are very effective at suppressing pain:

Ibuprofen affects the kidneys, and a healthy adult shouldn’t go past 3200 mg/day.
Acetaminophen affects the liver, and a healthy adult shouldn’t go past 3000 mg/day.
Naproxen sodium affects the liver, and a healthy adult shouldn’t go past 1375 mg/day the first day and 1100 mg/day every day afterward.
- Of the three, naproxen sodium is the most effective at treating headaches.

If you need medical equipment, look into what the private payment price is (rather than billing your insurance).

Most medical equipment (or an inferior version of it) can be purchased at a drug store or online for far less.

Supplement with medication

Doctors can prescribe medication, and the scope of their prescription always gives some clue to its severity:

Over-the-counter – can be bought without a prescription, at least in a smaller potency than a prescription
- These are typically very safe to consume in recommended doses (e.g., cough syrup).
- If you’ve received a prescription for a large dose of the substance, you can save money by doing the math on the dosage and taking the over-the-counter equivalent.
- Barring a major personal health risk, t’s almost always worth taking, even if it only alleviates some pain,
Low-risk – has very few side effects, so doctors will prescribe it nearly every week
- Take them as prescribed, but don’t treat it as a long-term solution.
- Some of them can be very addictive (e.g., opiates).
Moderate-risk – has some side effects (especially in a misdiagnosis), so doctors will run a test to be sure
- These medications are often very effective at what they do, to the point that it may be easy to dramatically harm you (e.g., blood pressure medication).
- Only take them if it’s a legitimate emergency and there are no other alternatives like diet or exercise.
High-risk – has severe-enough side effects that it requires other medication to offset that medication’s side effects
- Only take them if you have no other choice

Be careful with hospitals

Hospitals are where sick people go.

A hospital is an incubator for many diseases that would otherwise be in manageable doses elsewhere in nature, or wouldn’t exist elsewhere.
If you’re only a little sick, aim for urgent care or a remote diagnosis.
Since your skin is the first line of defense, try to keep any exposed wounds from contact with the air in a hospital.

There are only a few health advantages to being a hospital:

All the medical personnel are very close, so they’ll likely be able to address any urgent event within a few minutes.
The hospital has plenty of equipment for dealing with various afflictions that you won’t typically find elsewhere.

Therefore, only go to the hospital if it’s a severe-enough event that worsens without any explanation.

If it’s a minor issue, you may take home a worse disease than you brought there.

Before going to the hospital, call the nurse line on the back of your insurance card to avoid an expensive or risky trip.

By calling and being recommended to go to the hospital, the insurance company is more likely to cover you.
However, if they tell you that you don’t need to go, you’ll likely have to pay the bill yourself.

Make sure, before you need it, what your insurance rules are regarding hospitalizations and care.

Pay attention to what’s in-network and out-of-network, and the conditions that make care covered versus not covered.
Irrespective of the situation, send all medical bills to the insurance company, since they may be able to negotiate a lower price for you even if they don’t cover it.

If you do visit a hospital, your bills are often negotiable.

Always ask for an itemized bill, then haggle over the clearly arbitrary items.
Hospitals will often take pennies on the dollar if you’re willing to pay directly to them right away.

While in a hospital, the staff will ask what your pain level is, from 1 to 10.

For some reason (possibly drug addicts), they will bias your experience of 10 as being dramatic, even if it truly is the most severe pain you could imagine.

If you’ve received similar treatment before, you can save a lot of time and energy by communicating what happened and what was prescribed.

HIPAA regulations make it difficult to access medical records, so you likely know much more about your medical history than they do.
Further, after enough time, medical records sometimes simply disappear.

Carefully consider invasive treatments

Aim for the least-invasive procedure you can.

Surgery with local anesthetic is better than general.
Antibiotics are better than surgery.
When they’re effective, herbal supplements and dietary changes are better than antibiotics.

Often, doctors will misdiagnose you:

No matter how much training they receive, dentists and doctors can still be technical idiots as much as any other profession.
There are simply too many possible causes for something that doctors can’t read all the available information.
- Medical error kills 3-10x more people in the USA than auto accidents every year (not accounting risks from hospital germs), and likely kills more than any cancer.
For that reason, they’ll often pick a “safe” diagnosis (because it’s the greatest risk for them receiving a malpractice lawsuit) or a fashionable and trendy diagnosis.
Further, most medical professionals can be paid by pharmaceutical companies to promote medications and treatments that are not in your best interests.
Many edge cases of this playing out:
- Most doctors trained to do surgery are more likely to recommend surgery, even if it wasn’t the ideal treatment (Law of the Instrument).
- Cancer treatments are far more profitable than cancer cures, which is why there aren’t many advertised.
- Often, anemia diagnosis (iron deficiency) may come from multiple other factors.

Stay cautious about any bodily surgery.

Your body’s systems are designed to work very well without any further involvement, so only take surgery as a last resort.
Even minor surgeries (e.g., laser eye surgery, stomach stapling, plastic surgery) come with unadvertised risks.
Get a test of your affected organs (e.g., EKG, MRI) after the procedure to ensure it’s resolved.

If you ever need technology installed (e.g., pacemaker), opt for the computers in it to be open-source.

You should have control over everything in your body, even synthetic things.

The medical industry is always finding new techniques that aren’t invasive.

Prostate cancer could be cured with electric currents.
New engineered materials can reconnect severed nerves.

Consider all the side effects of any drugs you choose to take.

Some drugs’ side effects are worse than the cure.
Often, we can become over-reliant on prescription drugs instead of letting our body perform for itself.
If the drug is an opioid, it’s addictive, and if it’s a painkiller its results can be addictive.
Some treatments are simply productive uses of dangerous things (e.g., Botox, or “botulism toxin”, is injecting localized botulism into your face).

If you’re going to die soon anyway, it really doesn’t matter.

Our lives all end far too soon, and the side effects of a treatment that may save your life are worth it for yourself.
If there’s an experimental treatment you wish to use, take advantage of right-to-try laws.
- Often, you may have to find another doctor or move to a different region to get the treatment you need.

Consider your age

It becomes far more difficult to change your lifestyle toward healthy habits once your systems start failing.

The best thing to do is adapt to your new situation, reconcile with what comes afterward.
The pain typically won’t disappear, but healthier decisions can definitely mitigate your suffering.

As you get older, your body will start deteriorating faster than you can heal.

The last few years are the worst, and 80% of a person’s healthcare will be spent in the final year of their life.
Eventually, one of your primary organs will fail, and that’s effectively death.
Every surgery, medication, and heavy treatment will harm you more than when you were younger.

Additional Reading

ExRx.net