What Type of Doctor Should I See Using HSA Money?

You can withdraw money from your Health Savings Account (HSA) to visit an MD, DO or a chiropractor.

Since you will be writing a check or using your debit card to pay for these visits at the time of service, you will really notice how much it costs. Since you have a high-deductible health insurance policy (a must for an HSA), you will be spending HSA money for the first thousand or more dollars every year. It will hurt!

Because of this, you may decide to look around. You might decide that it is cheaper and still effective to visit a naturopath, a type of doctor who specializes in using natural remedies instead of drugs or surgery. These doctors typically charge less and spend much more time with their patients, often more than one hour per appointment.

Or you may still want to stick with an MD. If you do, you may decide to use a particular kind of MD.

Certain MDs have been “opting out” of the health insurance business completely. They refuse to take any patients who want them to process health insurance claims. They focus only on patients who pay “at the time of service.”

If you are using HSA money, that’s you! You are paying at the time of service, using your HSA dollars.

Here’s what’s wonderful about these kinds of doctors. Their fees are much lower. Much, much lower.

Why? Because they don’t have to wrangle with insurance companies day in and day out. They can cut their administrative staff down to just one receptionist and one nurse. All the other paperwork jockies who filled out forms and made phone calls to insurance companies aren’t needed anymore.

You can expect that an “opted-out” doctor might actually charge you only $80 for a half-hour visit. (This is just my estimation. The cost of an actual doctor visit could vary.) That’s right, I said a half-hour. Once doctors are free from insurance restrictions, they often choose to spend much more time with their patients. They can really ask all the right questions and get down to the true health problems you’re suffering.

Sound great? Good!

The best way to find an “opted-out” doctor is to start calling around to doctors in your area and ask what insurance they take. If they say “We don’t take any insurance” you know you’ve found an opted-out doctor. Also, you can check your local holistic health publications, often available at libraries, coffee shops, health food stores and holistic centers.

Another method might be to call the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine at 202-686-2210 or the American Holistic Medical Association at www.holisticmedicine.org and use their “Doctor Finder.”

Health Savings Accounts will change how we think of health insurance. They are a wonderful tool that almost every American can and should benefit from. And they're available today!

Daryl Kulak is the author of the book "Health Insurance Off the Grid - A Wonderful Way to Use Alternative Medicine and Save Money on Insurance Using the New Health Savings Account (HSA)." The book provides a nine-step plan to get your individual health insurance costs under control using a unique approach you won't find anywhere else. The book is available for sale as an e-Book or paperback at the Website http://www.healthoffthegrid.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_Kulak

Ambrotose or Ambritose??

I was getting a lot of hits on the word "ambritose" on my Website, which confused me because I didn't even realize it was on my site!!

It turns out that when I took a set of notes from a meeting we had a couple of years ago called "MD Panel on Cancer" one of the doctors mentioned this glyconutrient, and when I noted it on the Web page, I spelled it wrong.

My spelling was "ambritose" but the correct spelling is "ambrotose." Everyone else who was spelling it wrong when searching on Google were visiting my site.

So I got a good explanation from a source that I trust on the subject, to post it here for all my fellow misspellers!

I talked with Mari De Zago, who is a Mannatech rep. I've known Mari for over a year. She lives and works here in Columbus, Ohio.

Ambrotose is a plant-based blend of the eight necessary carbohydrates that our body needs for proper cell-to-cell communication. Ambrotose is a product in capsules or bulk powder that has recently received a patent from the US government. Currently, about 20 other countries have recognized this patent.

The science of glycobiology has been validated in labs around the world and in the US. There are glycomics centers which have been established by grants from the NIH (check out the list of participants in the Consortium for Functional Glycomics, or CFG, funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, or NIGMS), to further study the health benefits of the sugars.

Mannatech makes no claims that Ambrotose, or any supplements that contain Ambrotose can cure, treat, mitigate or ameliorate (improve) any health conditions. However science has established that there is a connection between nutrition and good health.

Thousands of journal articles and studies have been gathered together by the Research and Development staff of Mannatech and are posted on the award-winning website, glycoscience.org. My suggestion for a first step of due diligence on a nutritional supplement is to check out the science behind the products. Re: Ambrotose and Mannatech's other products, that site is glycoscience.org.

The search engine can provide information on effect on specific diseases, general educational articles, or specific ingredients in any of Mannatech products (just type in the name of the product). (Daryl: But spell it correctly!!)

Additionally, there are many testimonials that speak to a wide range of health benefits. However, they are NOT posted on the Science education website.

If you desire more specific information, I would be happy to provide that for you.

Mari De Zago, Worthington, OH

Thanks Mari!

Ten Ways to Reduce Health Insurance Costs

A lot of people ask me about ways to reduce their health insurance rates, known as premiums.

Today, let's look at ways to reduce the cost of insurance for the individual. In another post, I'll talk about ways for small businesses to do the same.

1. Raise your deductible. The deductible on a health insurance policy is the amount you have to pay out-of-pocket before the insurance kicks in each year. Once you reach that point, the insurance will pay 80% or 100% or whatever from then on, until January and then the deductible starts back at zero again. You may think you're getting "better insurance" if your deductible is low, but that's just not true. Overall, you will pay LESS with a high deductible policy. Less money during years when you're healthy. Less money in years when you're sick. It's always less. Your deductible should be at least $2,500.


2. Start a Health Savings Account (HSA). An HSA is not insurance, it is a savings account that you can dip into when you have healthcare costs that happen before you reach your deductible. It is a pre-tax account, so whatever amount you put into it each year gets taken off your taxable income. With an HSA and a high-deductible policy, you are basically covered from the first dollar, and you're "self-insuring" for the small stuff and using the insurance company for the big stuff. Here's where we get our HSA - HSA Trustee Services.


3. Use a health discount card. Yes, I know, these cards can be troublesome. Just know what you're getting. These cards can be very useful in getting discounts on prescription drugs, glasses and contact lenses. For other things, they're pretty useless. For instance, they supposedly cover "alternative practitioners" and dentists. But look into them further and you'll see that most dentists have dropped out of the discount programs, because they're tired of discounting their services. Same with alternative practitioners like chiropractors, nutritionists, massage therapists, etc. They just get tired of discounting their services so heavily, so they quit the program. HSA Trustee Services offers a discount card for free if you sign up for their HSA. (No, they're not paying me to say this.)


4. Put ALL Western medical costs through your insurance. It seems strange to put your healthcare costs through your insurance company if you know they aren't going to pay for them because you haven't hit your deductible yet. But you earn two big advantages from doing this. First, you get the "insurance company price" for services, which often means a 30-90% discount. Yes, I've seen discounts of 90%. It's incredible. Second, you have to submit your costs to the insurance company in order to meet the deductible each year. If you've spent $5,000, but your insurance company didn't process it, they won't start paying your bills until you've run that amount through them. You need to run those costs through the insurance company, even while it's still deductible money, because you never know if this will be the year you hit the deductible.


5. Look into ways to cut your healthcare costs. When you're seeing a doctor out-of-pocket, or even using HSA money, you will see exactly how much stuff costs. It's amazingly high! A doctor visit will often cost $150 for a few minutes. Add an MRI scan for $800, a bottle of prescription drugs for $90, and you'll see what I mean. How can you pay less? Look into Minute Clinics, quick service clinics popping up around America that offer visits to nurse practitioners with fixed prices for common services. No, it's not the place to go if you have cancer, but for smaller things, it can make a lot of sense. Check out their Website here.


6. Consider seeing a naturopathic doctor as your first line of defense. Compare that $150, seven minute doctor visit to seeing a naturopathic doctor. Naturopaths will probably charge you $90-100, and the appointment might last an hour or more. You heard right, a naturopathic doctor will get to know you and your health issues over the course of an hour or more! Is that worth something? Further, naturopaths use herbs, supplements and dietary advice to get your health on track, not expensive drugs. Again, you'll save money.


7. Practice defensive medicine. The least costly path in healthcare is to never get sick. Don't believe the doctors who tell you everything up to chance, or "genetics." You can do an incredible amount to help your health. Changing your diet, exercising, changing how you think can have excellent results on your overall health. The best advice I've seen on the Internet regarding this approach is from Jon Barron. Click here for his Website. Be sure to download his free e-Book, it's packed with great information.


8. Budget for healthcare. Paying for yoga classes, naturopath visits and personal trainers might seem excessive, but if you work these costs into your monthly budget, you'll have the money to do them when the time comes each week. Budget how often you can attend the yoga classes. Maybe it's every day, maybe it's twice a month. The rest of the time you could use a yoga video at home. But budgeting for these types of preventive healthcare options will show you how investing in your own health can offer paybacks when you DON'T have to pay for that triple-bypass surgery later.


9. Meditate. Few daily practices have as much impact on your health as meditation. Clearing your mental clutter and just sitting without thinking lowers blood pressure, calms stress and changes the way your body works - for the better. Start with very modest goals, like meditating 5 minutes twice a week. Work up to more if you can, if not, do what feels workable.


10. In a family, insure a sick person on a different policy. If you have a family, and one person gets a chronic disease, like cerebral palsy or even cancer, you should insure that person on a separate policy. That policy will be expensive, no doubt. But the rest of the family will pay less if it's insured separately. This can be a significant amount over the course of even a year.

These ideas are taken, in large part, from my book "Health Insurance Off the Grid."


I hope this helps. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment on this blog.

What is Consumer-Driven Healthcare?

Consumer-driven healthcare is a label that we’ve put on a movement in America to change the way decisions are made in our healthcare system. Instead of insurance companies making all the decisions about how people will receive their healthcare, consumers are taking back the power over their own lives.

Likewise, the days of a patient totally putting their lives into their doctor’s hands are over. People don’t trust doctors to always do the best thing. How could they? The doctor does not know the situation as well as the patient. It must be the patient’s choice, and they must be making an informed choice, not one based on a five minute sales pitch from a doctor.

If consumer-driven healthcare sounds good to you, that's because it is. It is a very good thing. Dr. Bernie Siegel, a holistic MD and author, noticed many years ago that the patients who took the most interest in their own well being while in the hospital had the best recovery rates from diseases and injuries. These patients are called “troublemakers” by hospital staff. But the truth is, they live. The “compliant” patients die in much greater numbers. Take your pick.

The consumer-driven healthcare revolution is represented in the insurance industry by the emergence of the health savings account (HSA). This is a savings account (like a bank account) that allows you to save tax-deferred money for healthcare expenses whenever you might need it. You can take the money out without paying tax, as long as you're using it for healthcare expenses.

The Health Savings Account allows people to use a much higher deductible on their health insurance, reducing the cost of insurance payments by 40%, 60% or even 80%.

My wife and I would pay about $1000/month for low-deductible health insurance. But with a high-deductible plan and an HSA, we pay $175. That’s an $825, or 82.5% savings every month, $9,900 a year. That buys a lot of yoga classes, or acupuncture treatments, or massage therapy. Or it can go towards a very nice retirement savings. Or a car after two years. Whatever we like.

The downside of consumer-driven healthcare is that whenever you take over control of a situation, you also have more responsibility. You have control of your healthcare dollar, but now you have the responsibility to spend it in the right places. And you need the discipline to do what you know is right. That’s often very hard.

But overall, consumer-driven healthcare is a big step forward. In the next two or three years, many Americans will take charge of their own healthcare.

Join the consumer-driven healthcare revolution! You’ll save money, be healthier and have more choice over your own life.

Daryl Kulak is the author of Health Insurance Off the Grid, a book that provides a simple, effective plan to reduce insurance costs for the self-employed, unemployed and underinsured. The book is available at the Website http://www.healthoffthegrid.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_Kulak

Alternative Medicine is Preventive; Western Medicine is Curative

Have you heard the term “wellness?” It has two contexts, one in alternative medicine and one in Western medicine.

In the alternative medicine world, wellness means taking care of yourself so you don't get sick. Let's find ways to avoid cancer, heart disease, mental illness. We can do this through changing our diet, exercising more, and changing our energy fields.

In Western medicine, we wait until we get one of these diseases, then we rush heroically to “beat the disease.” In Western medicine, the term wellness means “early detection” of disease. If you walk into a “Wellness Center” in a hospital, you'll see mammogram screening rooms, MRI machines and other tools to scan for the existence of disease.

Is that wellness? To me, it's not. Wellness is about staying well, it is about avoiding disease in the first place. When a person is told “You have cancer,” it is a major blow to their psyches, and their lives. Why go through that if you don't have to? Why not do whatever you can to avoid that terrible day?

Western medicine treats the “pre-detection” part of life as a kind of random soup of nothingness. You can't really do anything about any of these diseases, you just get them or you don't. No rhyme or reason to it, it just hits you, and then you deal with it.

Genetics is a big factor in the Western medical model. If you get cancer, ah, well, it was in your genes that you'd get it. You see, your great grandfather had cancer, so it was inevitable that you'd get it too.

Huh? Unfortunately, Western medicine can't explain why siblings get or don't get diseases supposedly passed on from their parents. One sister dies of cancer at a 25 (because of genetics) and the other sister lives to be 100 (also genetics?).

For my part, I'm going to take the best care of myself possible, and not play a silly waiting game for disease.


Daryl Kulak is the author of Health Insurance Off the Grid, a book that explores how a combination of holistic health and the new Health Savings Account (HSA) can make an enormous difference in the budget and health of the self-employed. Daryl is not a medical doctor, nor is he an insurance agent.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_Kulak

Finding an HSA

I've had many people ask me how to find an HSA. HSA stands for Health Savings Account.

My response is that they are available everywhere. You can get an HSA at your health insurance company (like State Farm), your bank (like National City) and you can also get them online.

I've personally used State Farm, where I get my health insurance (I'm self-employed and so is my wife). But I recently switched to start using an online service called HSA Trustee Services. I've been really happy with their service so far, and the investment options are EXCELLENT. I can invest some of my HSA money in bonds, stocks, mutual funds, you name it.

That was my big reason for leaving State Farm. They only allow investment into a money market account.

If you're interested in more about HSAs, please take a look at my book "Health Insurance Off the Grid," which is about combining health insurance, the HSA and holistic healthcare into the "perfect" health plan.

Doctor's Advice on Chemotherapy

Global Healing Center's Website has a whole page dedicated to quotes about chemotherapy.

Go to Global Health Center's Website to get all the quotes.

Among them:

"Two to 4% of cancers respond to chemotherapy….The bottom line is for a few kinds of cancer chemo is a life extending procedure---Hodgkin's disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), Testicular cancer, and Choriocarcinoma."---Ralph Moss, Ph.D. 1995 Author of Questioning Chemotherapy.

"A study of over 10,000 patients shows clearly that chemo’s supposedly strong track record with Hodgkin’s disease (lymphoma) is actually a lie. Patients who underwent chemo were 14 times more likely to develop leukemia and 6 times more likely to develop cancers of the bones, joints, and soft tissues than those patients who did not undergo chemotherapy (NCI Journal 87:10)."—John Diamond

Children who are successfully treated for Hodgkin's disease are 18 times more likely later to develop secondary malignant tumours. Girls face a 35 per cent chance of developing breast cancer by the time they are 40---which is 75 times greater than the average. The risk of leukemia increased markedly four years after the ending of successful treatment, and reached a plateau after 14 years, but the risk of developing solid tumours remained high and approached 30 per cent at 30 years (New Eng J Med, March 21, 1996)

"Success of most chemotherapy is appalling…There is no scientific evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancer…chemotherapy for malignancies too advanced for surgery which accounts for 80% of all cancers is a scientific wasteland."---Dr Ulrich Abel. 1990

The New England Journal of Medicine Reports— War on Cancer Is a Failure: Despite $30 billion spent on research and treatments since 1970, cancer remains "undefeated," with a death rate not lower but 6% higher in 1997 than 1970, stated John C. Bailar III, M.D., Ph.D., and Heather L. Gornik, M.H.S., both of the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago in Illinois. "The war against cancer is far from over," stated Dr. Bailar. "The effect of new treatments for cancer on mortality has been largely disappointing."

"With some cancers, notably liver, lung, pancreas, bone and advanced breast, our 5 year survival from traditional therapy alone is virtually the same as it was 30 years ago."---P Quillin, Ph.D.

"Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy…Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade. Yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumours…Women with breast cancer are likely to die faster with chemo than without it."—Alan Levin, M.D.

"The five year cancer survival statistics of the American Cancer Society are very misleading. They now count things that are not cancer, and, because we are able to diagnose at an earlier stage of the disease, patients falsely appear to live longer. Our whole cancer research in the past 20 years has been a failure. More people over 30 are dying from cancer than ever before…More women with mild or benign diseases are being included in statistics and reported as being "cured". When government officials point to survival figures and say they are winning the war against cancer they are using those survival rates improperly."---Dr J. Bailer, New England Journal of Medicine (Dr Bailer’s answer to questions put by Neal Barnard MD of the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine and published in PCRM Update, sept/oct 1990.

"I look upon cancer in the same way that I look upon heart disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, or even obesity, for that matter, in that by dramatically strengthening the body's immune system through diet, nutritional supplements, and exercise, the body can rid itself of the cancer, just as it does in other degenerative diseases. Consequently, I wouldn't have chemotherapy and radiation because I'm not interested in therapies that cripple the immune system, and, in my opinion, virtually ensure failure for the majority of cancer patients."---Dr Julian Whitaker, M.D.

"We have a multi-billion dollar industry that is killing people, right and left, just for financial gain. Their idea of research is to see whether two doses of this poison is better than three doses of that poison."—---Glen Warner, M.D. oncologist.

John Robbins:

* "Percentage of cancer patients whose lives are predictably saved by chemotherapy - 3%
* Conclusive evidence (majority of cancers) that chemotherapy has any positive influcence on survival or quality of life - none.
* Percentage of oncologists who said if they had cancer they would not participate in chemotherapy trials due to its "ineffectiveness and its unacceptable toxicity" - 75%
* Percentage of people with cancer in the U.S. who receive chemotherapy - 75%.
* Company that accounts for nearly half of the chemotherapy sales in the world - Bristol-Meyers Squibb.
* Chairman of the board of Bristol-Meyers - Richard L. Gelb.
* Mr. Gelb's other job: vice chairman, board of overseers, board of managers, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, World's largest private cancer treatment and research center.
* Chairman, Memorial Sloan-Kettering's board of overseers, board of managers - John S. Reed.
* Reed's other job - director, Philip Morris (tobacco company).
* Director, Ivax, Inc., a prominent chemotherapy company - Samuel Broder.
* Broder's other job (until 1995) - executive director, National Cancer Institute."from Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing by John Robbins.

Be sure to check out the Global Health Center's Website for all the quotes, there are many, many more than I've listed here.

Some of the quote are quite outdated, but you can see what these doctors and researchers were saying in the late 1990s were absolutely accurate for what happened since then.

Alternative Medicine is Holistic, Western Medicine is Reductionist

The major difference between alternative medicine, or what I'll call holistic health, and Western medicine, is in approach.

A Western doctor, or MD, sees his duty as searching out disease, diagnosing it, and treating it. If he does that correctly and effectively, he's done his job. Most often, this means the doctor prescribing a pharmaceutical drug or a surgical procedure to remedy the situation. The patients is passive in all of this.

A holistic health practitioner sees her duty as an educator and a facilitator. She feels that the body can heal itself, and it doesn't necessarily need outside influences (drugs, surgery) to heal from an illness or to prevent an illness. In holistic health, the patient is an active participant.

This is the best and the worst thing about holistic health! The patient is actively involved in the healing process. Everything you know about your body says that this is the right approach. It makes so much sense. That's the good part. The bad thing about this is that it is HARD WORK for the patient. In most cases, the patient must make changes to their lifestyle. Change your diet, do more exercise, stop using sugar, do these stretches, stop negative thoughts, meditate twice a day, etc.

Making lifestyle changes is immensely difficult. The only time it's easy is when you are faced with a life-threatening disease. When you find out you have lung cancer, it's pretty easy to quit smoking. However, it's far too late by that time. Lifestyle changes need to come before the illness becomes manifest.

Let's examine one of the big differences between holistic health and Western medicine: holism versus reductionism.

Holistic versus Reductionist

This is a major shift in perspective. Taking a holistic perspective means that you cannot understand a single problem with a single part of the human body without looking at the whole person. We use the short-hand “mind, body, spirit” to refer to the whole person.

This is not how a Western doctor is taught to see a patient. He sees the patient as the disease. “This is an epileptic,” it is not a whole person who has epilepsy. He feels that he can administer a drug or perform a surgery that will cure a person's liver without making any difference to the rest of the person. Of course, this is never possible, so when the inevitable “complications” arise, the Western doctor deals with those one at a time, often causing additional problems for the person, whether in body, mind or spirit.

Even those three parts of the person are treated by separate people in Western society. The body is the domain of the medical doctor. The mind is the domain of the psychiatrist. Spirit is left to the priest, rabbi or pastor. There is no overlap in roles, except for referrals from one to the other. In our bodies, of course, there is tremendous overlap. A loss of connection to God or the universe will cause no end of mental and physical problems. Mental stress causes many physical diseases, as we well know. Who can coordinate between these in the Western system? No one. Problems falling “through the cracks” between mind, body and spirit is a common failure of Western medicine.

A holistic practitioner understands the interconnections between mind, body and spirit. They work on the connections, and, although the practitioner may not be an expert in all three, they focus on the overlaps rather than ignoring them.

In my opinion, a holistic approach is better in almost every case for almost every person. Understanding the linkages between mind, body and spirit is essential to understanding how to stay well and how to heal. Western medicine can play a part within the scope of holistic health by offering emergency solutions to problems that arise quickly and need to be fixed immediately.


Daryl Kulak is the author of Health Insurance Off the Grid, a book that explores how a combination of holistic health and the new Health Savings Account (HSA) can make an enormous difference in the budget and health of the self-employed.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_Kulak

Brazil Fights Big Pharma Name-Nappers

Boing Boing quotes from an article in Intellectual Property Watch that examines how Brazil is fighting against the big pharmaceutical companies that are trademarking plants.

This means that a guy in Brazil who prepares the local plant and serves it to local customers, using the name of the plant (now trademarked) gets sued by the big pharma company. But Brazil is taking steps to stop this from happening, and they've even proactively published a list (in Portuguese) of native plants that they won't allow foreign companies to trademark.

I think this is a great step for Brazil to take. How effective it will be, in terms of each countries' patent authorities enforcing it - who knows. But it is proactive.

Posing Suits for Figure, Fitness Competitors

My wife is in the posing suit business. She specializes in suits for fitness, figure and bodybuilding competitions. She's done hundreds of these. I'm so proud of her!

Her Website is www.bikiniguru.com. I help her with some of the graphics, here is an example below. I'm not bad, eh? (Of course, the suit is the real artwork.)

Open Letter to Alternative Medicine Magazine

I've subscribed to Alternative Medicine magazine for many years. You'd think it would be my favorite subscription, it's right up my alley with my focus on holistic healthcare.

But that's just it. I'm feeling more and more that this magazine is not promoting a holistic approach to health. Don't get me wrong. They haven't changed. It is just that my perception of the magazine is changing, the more I learn about health.

Here are some headlines from this month's issue:

• 3 Herbs to Lower Blood Sugar


• 8 Ways to Lower Your Stress


• A Yoga Fix for Carpal Tunnel


• 12 Ways to Balance Your Cholesterol


• 9 Herbs to Tame Your Growing Prostate Problem


• Botox Alternatives That Really Work


• 10 Dietary Choices that Defeat Diabetes


• ADHD: Alternatives to Ritalin

Sounds like a bad day at Cosmo magazine! Instead of "8 Ways to Satisfy Your Man in Bed" its "8 Ways to Lower Your Stress." This is great marketing, but I think it's bad health advice.

It seems like we're just substituting an herbal remedy for a pharmaceutical drug. Okay, that's probably better, but are we really being holistic? Are we going after the original cause, or just looking for an herbal "quick fix?"

And the stress reducers, for instance, are just a grab bag of various ways to solve the problem. It is NOT a holistic, coherent plan. It includes guided imagery, single-pointed concentration, restorative pose (from yoga), biodfeedback and passive muscle relaxation.

The whole thing about holistic healthcare (for me) is to put together a program of diet, exercise, thoughts, attitude, meditation, supplements and energy that makes sense for a particular problem. It's not a situation of trying a bunch of grab bag ideas and seeing if one works.

Damn it! Holistic health is not about quick fixes! It's not about "one off" solutions. That's the Western medicine model!! Holistic health is actually very hard. It often means changing my diet, exercising, changing my lifestyle habits. Those are the lasting solutions, right?

What's worked for me for my various issues is a multi-pronged approach, usually mind, body and spirit components. That is what works for me. The typical herbal or dietary quick fixes never do much in my experience. My naturopath puts together a whole program for me, or I figure one out for myself.

This takes me back to a comment that Jon Barron, the nutrition expert, made on my podcast a few weeks back. If you didn't hear those episodes (Parts 1 and 2) please have a listen. He gave some great examples of how we need to treat our conditions from a "whole person" perspective. Listen especially to his football team analogy.

Another problem I've noticed with this magazine is that they tend to go chasing after all the latest studies, even when it contradicts what last month's study proclaimed. They seem to uncritically parrot the results of the study. "Coffee causes heart problems" one month becomes "Coffee seen as beneficial for your heart" the next month. Are you really informing me about anything just by reporting on these back-and-forth study results? Are you helping me make better choices, or are you just adding to the noise??

Again, I'll point you back to Jon Barron's lucid comments about controlled trials and why the results are so often unusable (Parts 1 and 2).

Sorry Alternative Medicine magazine, I do love you but I want you to do better. Will you try?

Goal Setting...In the Now

I have always wondered about the juxtaposition of goal setting versus "living in the now." Steve Pavlina, a very popular personal development blogger, gives us his take on it. Original, as always, and tremendously insightful. Steve rejects the typical S-M-A-R-T goal setting rules, and gives us a new framework for how to set goals that we will actually achieve. I'm going to put this to use right away.

Click here to read Steve's blog entry.

The Audience Is Up to Something

Holy cow, this is a really fun video. It is a view of the whole blogging/podcasting/TiVo/BitTorrent culture from the establishment's viewpoint. Scary!!

Click here to view the video.

This is from Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog.

The video was created by Peter Hirshberg of Technorati, and Michel Markman.

My Conversation with Lorne Ipsum of Geek Counterpoint

I had a few questions for the host of the Geek Counterpoint podcast last week, so I e-mailed him and he sent back his responses. These words were so helpful for me I thought I'd post them here to hopefully enlighten other people.

BTW, Geek Counterpoint is a incredibly great podcast that is put together by a scientist/engineer named Lorne Ipsum. He tackles the "science behind the news" talking about all kinds of stuff from stem cells to quantum mechanics to relativity to the technology of the Titanic. I highly recommend it!

Anyway, here was our conversation. I hope you enjoy it. I've put Lorne's words in blockquote.

Daryl: The latest shows have been fantastic! Thanks so much for creating them. I especially like, as you know, the Quantum Mechanics / Relativity thread. If you continued doing those for months, I'd love every minute of it.

The net neutrality and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck stories were also excellent.

Lorne: Thanks a mint, glad you liked them! Please tell your friends...

Daryl: I have four suggestions for new show ideas (take them for what they're worth!):

A. *String theory* - I've read a few articles lately that say that string theory is on the way out. I couldn't remember if you had done a show on this previously, and I couldn't find a way to search for it on your site. If you've already done it, please disregard.

Lorne: Haven't done it, but it's coming up in a few weeks. The original plan was to do an episode summarizing the various "Theories of Everything" before I start going into details on each of them, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough material for a decent TOE episode... As for the "on the way out" bit, I don't buy it. Science is a competitive business (when it's done right), so it's typical for someone pushing a theory that competes with an older theory to do a little academic "trash talking."

It's been said that politics is essentially show business for ugly people. If you ask me, science is rugby for academics.

Daryl: B. *The long tail* - I'm just reading the book of the same name right now, and it's very interesting from a business perspective. But I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether the statistics and science behind it is valid or not. Would you be interested in weighing in on that issue sometime?

Lorne: Yep, but that's a ways down the road. I've got a whole stack of books to read before I pick up that one (although it ought to be interesting, if the Wired article that started things was any indication). Can't vouch for the statistics, but in a broad-brush sense, it sounds "right" to me (given my tastes in music & reading material, I pretty much live in the long tail).

Daryl: C. *Science proceeds one funeral at a time.* I think it was Max Planck who said this, and to me, it makes tremendous sense.

Lorne: Near as I can tell, it's a paraphrased version of Planck. I think the original is "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." Same idea, though, and there's an unfortunate amount of truth in it.

Daryl: In healthcare it seems so obvious, as we use technology (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery) that have such limited success (1-5% with certain cancers) and we seem to be ignoring the causes of why people get sick. But is it true in other sciences too?

Lorne: You betcha! For instance, plate tectonics seems obvious now, but it was hugely controversial for years. Meanwhile, Einstein fought against quantum mechanics until the day he died (he didn't like the degree to which probability is involved). A tendency to dogmatism seems to be an ingrained part of the human psyche.

This came up for me because I posted something about the Bosnian Pyramid on my blog and a guy wrote a comment that this pyramid "went against science." I tried to explain that every advance made in every field of science "goes against science" and that the established experts will also disagree with it. However, the trick is to separate the wheat from the chaff. He disagreed, saying that experts welcome new ideas if they are worthwhile. That hasn't been my experience in healthcare, but I can't speak for other fields.

Lorne: Strictly speaking, experts *should* welcome new ideas -- but since they're only human, they often don't. The problem is that people get comfortable with the status quo, and get upset when the status quo is... well... upset. I think part of the problem is that people (including scientists) tend to see science as a body of knowledge, rather than as a process.

Daryl: To me, the Bosnian Pyramid may be something that throws our view of archaeology into complete chaos, or it might be some crackpot who is digging on a hill. But the fact that he throws our existing theories a wrench is not a reason to disregard him by itself. What do you think? Is it worth a podcast? Maybe the Bosnian Pyramid isn't a good example for you, but there are probably other current examples.

Lorne: My issue with the Bosnian Pyramid stuff is that (as far as I know, anyway), there haven't been peer reviewed papers on the work done there. Science by press release is generally a red flag w.r.t. the quality of the work. The material that the on-site folks have put on their website also is long on assertions, and short on substantiation. I think people would take things more seriously, too, if the "chief investigator" didn't come up with cutesy names for everything ("Pyramid of the Sun," and such).

I'm not sure if I'll do an episode on the Bosnian Pyramid -- at least, not until more information is available. I've got a couple of episodes in the works, though, that touch on Planck's principle.

Daryl:D. *Cold fusion.* I found a Website that goes into great detail of how the cold fusion results from Pons-Fleishman have been recreated many times, and that the only reason we're not using it wide-scale is because it was so ridiculed back in the 1980s when the news first came out. My understanding is that those researchers did make some mistakes by not releasing all their information right away, but this Website, which has some pretty prestigious names attached to it, says there were real results behind the hype. Here's the site: http://www.lenr-canr.org/. The "free e-Book" on the left-hand side is where I got most of my information.

Lorne: Thanks -- I'll have to check this out. Pons & Fleishman were real examples of press conference science, unfortunately. Since their big result (substantial excess heat generated) hasn't been reliably repeated, it pretty much gave the field of low-temperature fusion research a bad name. I've got to imagine that research funds for cold fusion are tough to come by right now. I'll have to see what the e-Book has to say about it...

Daryl: Also, what are your thoughts about joining one of the podcasting networks? I'm thinking about joining Podshow, because I'd like to incorporate advertising into my shows and they seem to understand how a new advertising model is needed more than anyone else. They are looking at ways to monetize the value of the relationship the podcaster has with their audience, rather than just based on volume, demographics, psychographics, etc.

I'm just interested to hear whether you're headed that way or not.

Lorne: I'm ambivalent about it, honestly. I'm not wild about moving my feed, and the Podshow site tools are pretty limited. Some of their contract terms seem a bit one-sided to boot. Supposedly (at least, according to some things I've heard on the Daily Source Code), Podshow will have more flexible options in the future. If I could use their advertising tools without changing my feed or hosting, I'd be more interested in it. I looked at another network as well (blubrry), but they have some terms of service that I'm not wild about.

Check out Geek Counterpoint for Lorne's "science behind the news." It is a great podcast.

Two Products that Changed My Life

I know what you're thinking. I'm going to blog about some new techno-toys, but no.

These are two ordinary household products that have absolutely changed how I live. Both of them were introduced to me in the past year.

First is stevia. I use Sweet Leaf Stevia products to sweeten my daily glasses of water to make a really nice drink. They have just normal stevia, but they also have very neat flavors. I like Vanilla Creme and Raspberry. But I really love the Root Beer flavor. It takes me back to when my parents would take us into town (we lived on a farm) and we'd go to A&W for root beer and hamburgers. That was just heaven.

The second thing is Miracle II. Yes, it's soap. Miracle II is a type of soap that is made from certain ingredients from coconuts and stuff. It is antiviral, antibacterial and yet it doesn't contain any bleaches or antibiotics. In fact, you can drink it. In fact, you should drink it. It is a neutralizer, so when you're using it, it is neutralizing the odors, the stains, whatever. When you drink it, it is neutralizing your body, bringing its pH value back to normal.

I just love Miracle II, using it as a soap, floor cleaner, shampoo, toothpaste, you name it. This is just my personal opinion, but I am a very happy customer of this stuff.

I sprayed a little Miracle II on our yard plants this spring, and I was really surprised at the results. Our lilac tree blossomed for the first time since we planted it eight years ago. Our hedge started popping out some type of pears, which we had no idea it was even capable of. That hedge has been here since we moved in 10 years ago and it's never had any indication of fruit!

I did a podcast with Steve Heilich a few months ago. He is a Miracle II rep. That was very informative for me, and several listeners have commented saying the same thing.

Anyway, these are two things I love - stevia and Miracle II.

How to Close the Organic Gap

The New York Times just came out with an article on how "organic" really isn't "organic" in many cases. This was no surprise to me, but apparently the columnist was shocked to find this out.

It's a good article. It reinforces what I've decided to do with my own grocery shopping. Yes, I'm the shopper in the family. My wife used to do almost all the shopping, but she is such a bargain hunter that she would usually spend about 4-5 hours a week just traipsing from store to store, so we decided that I should be the shopper. I quite enjoy it.

I found out about the "organic gap" several years ago. To me, as usual, the government is a major problem. The Bush administration (and previous admins) are happy to bend to industry's demands, the the big industrial food producers would like government standards that say that anything and everything is organic, so they can plaster the stickers on their food and charge more.

This is inevitable. The organic sticker on food will never mean much, even though there are supposedly USDA standards for it. Industry will always have its way.

For me, the trick is to shift my allegiance from the producer to the retailer. The producers will find ways to put organic labels on their food through legal sleight-of-hand, with the USDA and FDA in close cooperation.

But retailing is a different story. If I could only find a retailer who prides themselves on selling only the least harmful food, with the least exposure to pssticides, herbicides, with no GMOs, with as close to "true organic" processes as possible.

Yes, Daryl, there is such a retailer. It's called Whole Foods Market.

Whole Foods has a two-part strategy for taking ownership of this retail space. First, they widely position themselves as the grocery store that specializes in natural, organic food, and they clearly indicate the food in their store that is NOT organic by USDA standards. However, these supposedly non-organic foods are often safer than food labeled as organic by the big producers.

The second part of their strategy is to investigate the suppliers, not to "take their word for it." Whole Foods has a policy of visiting their suppliers and ensuring that the processes are still in place to produce the best, healthiest, least harmful food possible.

To me, this is the solution. Yes, Whole Foods has been slammed for various "infringements" of healthy food sales. But in the cases I've been able to find, it is mostly from people who think Whole Foods shouldn't sell anything with sugar, or should abandon their meat sales and go completely vegan, etc. In other words, various food religious wars played out on the supermarket store floor.

What I haven't heard is any Whole Foods products testing positive for pssticides, herbicides or GMOs. If this happens, Whole Foods reputation would go down the drain and they'd be just like any other big grocer. They can't afford for that to happen. And so far, it hasn't.

I watched a movie called "Touch and Go" a few months ago. It's an ice hockey drama with Michael Keaton done back in 1986. In it, Keaton's character is asked "Who do you trust?" He replies "I find the people who have the same goals as me, and I trust them."

I think this is such a great statement. Obviously, a person should be more trusting than that, but if someone has the same goal as you do, that's a good indicator that you can trust them.

I think Whole Foods has the same goal as me, with different reasons. I want a grocery store that will sell me the best, healthy food. That's my goal. And Whole Foods wants to sell me that. Not just because they're altruistically wanting the best for me, but because their entire reputation as a retailer relies on this happening. If I found out their food had a bunch of pesticides or GMOs, I would be so disappointed, and so would 100% of their customers. Their business depends on it. And that's makes me comfortable shopping there.

Paul Zane Pilzer and Wellness

Paul Zane Pilzer's book "The Wellness Revolution - How to Make a Fortune in the Next Trillion Dollar Industry" is a page-turner. When I first bought this book, shortly after it came out in 2003, I literally didn't go to bed until I had read the whole thing.

This book changed my life.

For one thing, it changed my approach to health insurance. Pilzer introduced me to the Health Savings Account (then called the Medical Savings Account) and actually motivated me to write my own book on the HSA.

As Pilzer says, the HSA changes everything. It puts the day-to-day decisions of your healthcare back into your lap. Not with the insurance company.

Look at what happens today with most people. I want to do something about my waistline, so I go to my doctor (because he's in my insurance network, so it's just a $15 co-pay). The doctor says "Here, take this drug" because this drug is covered by my insurance company. Or, so we thought. It turns out, it's a little too new, so my insurance company complains that the doctor should have used an older, cheaper drug and they don't pay me for the prescription. Damn it!

Then I find there are some serious side-effects to this drug. My stomach is constantly upset, I have headaches I didn't have before, my vision is becoming blurry sometimes. What the hell! Yes, I'm starting to lose some pounds, but do I really want that at the expense of all these other symptoms? I start to get discouraged and I quit taking the drug. I go back to the doctor and ask for something else. He gives me a different drug and we start again.

Here I've made a series of bad decisions, in retrospect. First of all, doctors are not very knowledgeable about weight loss. Second, taking a drug to lose weight is helping with the symptom (overweight) but not with the cause (eating too much, wrong foods, toxic colon, don't exercise, etc.). And I'm making all these decisions BECAUSE it's covered by insurance.

But what if I had a high-deductible health plan, let's say $5,000? What would my decisions be then for this annoying but not immediately life-threatening problem?

Well, for me, I would probably take a much longer term view. First, I'd probably go to see a naturopathic physician instead of an MD. They know much more about weight loss. Second, they would NEVER give me a drug for weight loss, they'd help me change my habits (exercise, eating, toxicity, etc.). THe prescriptions would be herbs, etc. not drugs. Thus, the side-effects would be minimized or non-existant.

And, if I stuck to them, they would work in most cases. Plus, I've addressed the causes, not just the symptoms.

The Health Savings Account (HSA) gives us a way to have a high-deductible health plan without the risk. You can put savings into the HSA each year, and build it up until you have enough to cover your high deductible. If your yearly deductible is $5,000, you'd need to have $5,000 in your HSA. You can take as long as you want to build that up, or you can do it all at once.

In Pilzer's book, he takes us through this logic, and shows how it will push us all towards more holistic options. In essence, using this financial vehicle, the HSA, can actually MAKE YOU HEALTHIER! How amazing is that?

Pilzer takes us through all the business opportunities in this field. From food (organic, etc.) to insurance to what he calls "wellness distribution," the chances are good to make money in these areas.

I think Pilzer has done an amazing public service with this book. He changed my own thinking so much it shifted my own insurance approach, my healthcare approach and even my own businesses. I can't think of too many books that have had that kind of impact on me in my life, maybe 1 or 2.

However, let me say what I found wrong with Pilzer's book too.

Pilzer comes from the multi-level marketing community, he's written several books in that ilk. To me, the MLM or network marketing approach IS NOT the wave of the future. There are too many companies in this area that operate unscrupulously, and as a result, the whole sector stinks to high heaven. Yes, I know there are a few good MLM companies, but I do not think they are representative of MLM.

Having said that, I'm happy to report that Pilzer does not stress the MLM aspect a whole lot in Wellness Revolution. The undertone is there, even in the subtitle "Make Your Fortune..." but he doesn't harp on it.

And I feel the overall focus of the book, rather than showing how we could "make our fortune" could have been more instructive if it was focused on what the consumer could do to switch to this lifestyle effectively.

That is where I decided to go with my book "Health Insurance Off the Grid - A Wonderful Way to Use Alternative Medicine and Save Money on Insurance Using the New Health Savings Account (HSA)."

I took Pilzer's ideas and changed the perspective from the businessperson to the consumer. My audience is especially the holistic consumer. The person who is interested in holistic healthcare options, like naturopathy, yoga, acupuncture, etc. - but doesn't use it much because it "isn't covered by my insurance."

I would also say that my audience is exactly the set of people who are underserved by insurance today - self-employed, underinsured, uninsured. These people benefit most from my book, and from the whole HSA approach.

Another big problem I have with Pilzer's book "Wellness Revolution" is that he overestimates the wellness industry. He includes services like Lasik eye surgery, cosmetics, proactive MRI/CAT scanning salons, etc. in wellness. To me, these are ABSOLUTELY NOT WELLNESS. These services are not about "staying well." They are either fixes (eye surgery) or they are early detection of disease. Not wellness. For my definitions of wellness, as well as alternative medicine, etc. please see this earlier blog post.

Since releasing my book in 2004, which is now in its second edition, Pilzer has written another book which I also want to review here. It's called "The New Health Insurance Solution." Again, it is an excellent book, maybe even better than the Wellness Revolution. But, with this book, he leaves out the all-important piece of holistic healthcare, and just focused on how to construct your high deductible health plan and your HSA. Incredibly valuable information, to be sure, but I feel my book still provides the missing link between his two books.

I promise to review this other book on this blog very soon. I have lots to say about it too!

Paul Zane Pilzer, whatever you want to say about his network marketing side, has been an extremely influential writer for me. I hope you decide to read "Wellness Revolution" too.

Bariatric Surgery Causes Complications 40% of the Time

I've always been intrigued by the phenomenon of bariatric surgery. In my understanding, this is a technique where a person who is obese can have their stomach reduced to about the size of a walnut using surgery.

The theory is that if your stomach is smaller then you can't eat as much, so you will lose weight.

Does this make sense to anyone? So here is a person with an unhealthy lifestyle, eats too much, doesn't exercise enough, and the answer is SURGERY?

Surgery is so dangerous in general, but it sounds like this procedure is more so. Forbes magazine reports that 40% of people who have bariatric surgery have complications in the subsequent six months. These complications include leaks, hernias, infections and pneumonia. It also includes something called "dumping syndrome" (???) which means vomiting, reflux and diarrhea. Sounds nice, huh?

Of course, the excuses are coming out of the woodwork as to why this study should be ignored. The data is too old (2001). Dumping syndrome isn't that bad. As long as it isn't you who's dumping, I suppose it's fine.

Why would someone do this? Yes, changing your eating habits is hard. I can testify to that. Yes, establishing a good exercise ritual is hard. But seeing surgery as a viable option is just beyond my comprehension.

I don't like to post rants on this blog, generally, but this one just set me off.

My UML Podcast

By the way, I did start my Unified Modeling Language (UML) podcast a few weeks ago. I call it "UML in Seven Minutes."

I just uploaded podcast #11. I'm using this podcast as a very basic starter guide for people learning the UML. Right now, I'm doing a tour of the UML diagrams one by one - class, use case, sequence, communication/collaboration and state machine so far. The rest of the diagrams will come next.

I'll also be getting into topics about Agile development, Rational Unified Process, iterative/incremental lifecycle and much more.

This has been a fun project. It has been a great challenge fitting a description of each diagram into seven minutes, but I think it's worthwhile for the listeners, especially considering the comments I'm getting back.

If you're interested in the Unified Modeling Language (i.e. you're a computer software analyst, developer, tester, etc.) please check out my "other" podcast at http://www.uml7.com.

Also, I have a related blog at Amazon.com. Click here to read my "other" blog from my "other" life. In my "other" life, I was co-author of the book "Use Cases: Requirements in Context" which has sold a surprising 20,000+ copies.

I've enjoyed keeping in touch with my former associates in the software development field ever since leaving it officially in 2002. The UML podcast is a way to continue stay connected with that world.

Hyperstrike Virtual Personal Trainer

You know I spend time thinking about what it means to be holistic, or to be pursuing wellness, etc.

One thing I really think is holistic is just getting exercise. You can do it yourself (in fact, you HAVE TO do it yourself), it energizes all your systems, it helps many chronic conditions. Fitness is holistic fitness.

I wrote about the Hyperstrike virtual personal trainer a few weeks ago on this blog.

As usual for me, I used my virtual personal trainer at Hyperstrike faithfully for about a week, then had a set of classes that I had to teach over the weekend, which got me out of my new habit, and that was it.

I'm starting again. I've nabbed a tacky little banner from Hyperstrike that you can use to click over to their site. My indiscretions aside, it really is a good service. It's free and it gives you an incredible variety of exercises for warm-ups, cardio, strength and stretching. I had no idea most of these exercises existed. I'm glad to have the videos that show how to do them in motion, otherwise I think I'd be lost.




Ha! It looks like the banner doesn't always work to click to the site so you can just click here to go to Hyperstrike.

Have fun with it! It really is a lot of fun, very motivating.

My Free Report on Starting a Massage Business

I decided a month ago to provide a free report on starting a massage business. The response has been spectacular! Almost 300 people have downloaded this report in a little more than 30 days. Thank you everyone!!

For those who want more information, there is also a second report available for $9. But for many, the free report is enough information to get started. Click here to go to the download page.

Complementary Medicine, Alternative Medicine, Wellness, Holistic Health - What Do They All Mean?

Alternative medicine has grown in so many ways in North America. More people are visiting alternative medical practitioners than Western medical doctors. People spend more money on alternative medicine than they do out-of-pocket on Western medicine.

Another way that alternative medicine has grown is in the different labels. We have so many!

What do they all mean?

All these terms refer to a wide variety of healthcare practices originating from various countries and cultures. They include acupuncture, yoga, herbs, vitamin therapy, nutrition, exercise, reiki, reflexology, polarity and many, many other therapies.

However, each label also has its own unique twist when referring to this set of practices.

Let me take the labels one-by-one and give you a short description. Please note that these are my descriptions for each term, and other people may not agree. But I think I'm using the most widely-used definitions here.

Alternative Medicine

The term alternative medicine is probably the oldest and most widely used term. Unfortunately, it is also the most misleading.

Alternative medicine means that these healthcare practices (acupuncture, yoga, etc.) are used instead of Western medicine. A patient swears off any type of pharmaceutical drug or surgical technique and uses only Chinese medicine or homeopathy or whatever.

This hardly ever happens. Few patients are so myopic to close themselves off from all Western medical treatments. It really isn't advisable. I know many, many holistic practitioners and I've never heard any of them advise a patient to close themselves off from Western medicine. How silly! Western medicine has its own benefits to offer too, why ignore them.

But, that is the real definition of alternative medicine. You can see why it is being phased out slowly.

Complementary Medicine

A newer term is complementary medicine. This means that the practices I list above may be used as a complement to Western medicine. You go to your doctor, and he prescribes some drugs and/or surgery, then if that doesn't work, he asks you to try some other complementary approaches. Or, it may also mean when the above practices are used side-by-side with Western medicine. An example of this is when acupuncture is used for chemotherapy cancer patients to relieve the nausea and pain. This would be considered complementary medicine.

Be careful of the spelling here too. Complementary means a side-by-side approach to medicine. Complimentary means that it is free, no charge.

Integrative Medicine

A term pioneered by Dr. Andrew Weil from the University of Arizona is integrative medicine.

This means that physicians (Western and otherwise) have an integrated system of medicine that involves certain pieces of Western medicine and certain parts from the Chinese, Indian, etc. therapies that I listed above. All the therapies intermix and you have the best possible “super therapy” as a result.

As much as I like and respect Dr. Weil, I have to say that my experience says that truly integrative medicine does not yet exist anywhere yet. I've never seen a physician or any kind of practitioner who has an integrated plan for his patients that includes little bits of Western medicine and bits from multiple holistic practices.

This is probably the “Holy Grail” of medicine, but I think it will be a long time coming. The clinics that proclaim themselves to be “integrative medicine” centers are usually just a collection of different practitioners who share the rent together in one building. True integration would be great, I just haven't seen it happen.

Wellness

If the previous terms have been misleading or overly optimistic, this term is really succinct and accurate. The term wellness applies to everything a person does to stay well. It is all about prevention and achieving the greatest health a person can achieve.

This is extremely accurate in describing the Chinese or Indian systems of medicine. And it is the best possible advice for patients, to get them on the track of staying well, rather than fixing illnesses.

But, as you might guess, this term has a problem too. (Don't they all?) Wellness has been hijacked as a label for “early detection of disease.” Many hospitals have a “Wellness Center” where they conduct cancer screenings and do possible unnecessary MRI scans to look for problems or potential problems. These are great profit centers for the hospitals, but unfortunately they have ZERO to do with wellness.

Wellness is about eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising, taking the right herbs and having great relationships. It is NOT about early detection of disease. That doesn't help you stay well, it just allows you to jump on an illness before it has the chance to become life-threatening. Valuable, sure, but it is not wellness.

Holistic Health

Finally, we come to the term holistic health. You could also call it holistic medicine or holistic practices. It is also sometimes spelled “wholistic."

Holistic comes from “the whole.” It means to take a person as a whole being. The Chinese and Indian healing systems see a person, not just as a physical body, but as a body-mind-spirit. Their healing practices allow for all parts of the person and treat all parts equally. They have methodologies for solving problems in all three areas, and especially for finding problems that crisscross between body, mind and spirit (which most health problems do).

Holistic health is my favorite term. It too has problems, though. Sometimes, holistic health is perceived as a “New Age” term, evoking angels and witches and crystal balls. These off-beat practices can certainly be included as part of holistic health, but they are not at its center. Practices like naturopathy, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, Indian ayurveda are truly about holistic health.

But it will be hard to shake the New Age association for people who use the term holistic health.

There's your whirlwind tour of definitions for alternative medicine. I hope this has been helpful. Use the definition that makes most sense to you. And be well!

Daryl Kulak is the author of Health Insurance Off the Grid, a book that provides a simple, effective plan to reduce insurance costs for the self-employed, unemployed and underinsured. The book puts the new Health Savings Account (HSA) together with alternative medicine to create a workable, cost-effective plan for many Americans. The book is available at the Website http://www.healthoffthegrid.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_Kulak

Podcast #24 - Herpes is the Gift I

The latest podcast is an interview (Part 1) with Christopher Scipio, an expert in helping those with herpes in a holistic way.

Christopher lives near Vancouver British Columbia and helps many of his clients over the Internet.

The podcast is available for listening here.

Christopher's blog is here.

His e-Book on herpes is called "Making Peace with Herpes."

A Helpful Blog for Alternative Health Practices

Here's a very helpful blog by a consultant who helps alternative health practitioners with business issues.

Upcoming Podcast Topics

I have an amazing set of interviews and topics coming up on my podcast "Holistic Health Nation:"

• interview with an author who has looked at the history of holistic healing in Christianity


• Alexander Technique interview


• Investigating the high costs of healthcare


• Medical intuition


• Alternative health insurance


• Getting kids to concentrate


• Rethinking vaccines


• Midwifery

This is only a small sample of what's coming. I have a list of almost 100 ideas that will come to life in the next year or two on the podcast.

Stay tuned!

My TiVO Thinks I'm Twelve

Have you heard of the guy who recorded "The L Word" and a few movies with a gay theme and then TiVO began recording all the gay stuff it could, and the guy wasn't gay?

That was an interesting story. But now I'm facing the same thing. My wife enjoys watching the Adult Swim type of cartoons, including Futurama, Simpsons, Robot Chicken, King of the Hill, etc.

I like them too, but she really loves them. Well, now TiVO has noticed this preponderance towards cartoons and it's recording a bunch of kids stuff from Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, etc. Superhero stuff, Power Puff Girls, you name it.

This is another example of where a machine just can't quite get it right in guessing the preferences of a human being. Amazon's system of guessing what books you'll like has a similar problem. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was doing a demo and his book suggestions came up with "Amazon Women from the Moon" because he had bought some other books with the name Amazon in them. Too funny.

Tonight's Beer

Tonight I had a Belhaven Scottish Ale. It's a very nice beer, but it almost gave me a heart attack.

There is a little plastic "widget" floating in the can that I didn't notice until it was almost empty. Suddenly, I heard a little clunking noise when I moved the can. I looked inside and saw plastic.

"There's a friggin' syringe in my beer!" I thought.

I took a can opener and ripped the top of the can off. Then I read the label (duh).

The widget is meant to help hold the fizziness so it acts like draught.

I don't really like plastic floaties in my beer can.

Here's the beer.

Podcast #23 - New Ideas About Treating Cancer - Part Two

My latest podcast is up. It's part two of my interview with Jon Barron of the Baseline of Health Foundation. A very knowledgeable nutrition expert, he gives us the lowdown on what it takes to beat cancer (or to avoid it in the first place).

Listen here.

Even at Advised Doses, Tylenol Can Cause Liver Damage

The L.A. Times reports that Tylenol is the leading cause of acute liver failure.

Taking herbs is the leading cause of...what? Healthier lives??

Click here to read more.

Another View of the Bosnian Pyramid

I was introduced to a blog yesterday that has an alternative view of the Bosnian Pyramid problem.

Click here to read it. Unfortunately, the blog entry just quotes from Archaeology Magazine, but in his comments to me, this blogger said that he believes that the pyramid is just a "pyramid shaped hill" and the underground passageways could be "mines from Roman times." Good points, all.

Is he skillfully showing amateurs what the facts really are, or is he blindly following whatever the establishment tells him? He wasn't able to respond to my questions about how to respond when the establishment has been wrong so many times in the past, whether in archaeology, physics, healthcare, or whatever.

But still, it's worth looking at all sides of this debate. It's not that the establishment is always wrong, but it is certainly dangerous to blindly follow them into a canyon.

Christianity and Holistic Healthcare

A Florida State professor named Amanda Porterfield has written a book called "The History of Healing in Christianity," which tackles the question of why we see these two things as somehow separate - Christianity and holistic health.

For so many years, they've been closely linked, but in the past 200 years, somehow they've been separated. This separation is unnatural and Amanda takes us into the history to find out, perhaps, how to piece things back together again.

Click here for Florida State's press release on the book.

Click here to see her book on Amazon.

I hope to interview Amanda on a future podcast. I wanted to have a topic on "Holistic Healthcare for Christians" anyway, so she sounds like the perfect guest!