Michael569

That's probably correct. However, on a deeper level, it has not been persuasively demonstrated that urinary output (how much arsenic people pee out after eating one or the other) in people eating one or the other differs significantly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5502079/ Quote: "Another study used NHANES data to examine the association between brown and polished white rice intake separately and urinary arsenic (both t-As and i-As) concentrations in adults (Wu et al., 2015). Both white and brown rice consumption were associated with higher urinary t-As. However, urinary t-As excluding arsenobetaine did not differ between participants who primarily consume white versus brown rice. Mean urinary concentrations of the sum of arsenic metabolites excluding arsenobetaine were 11.5 μg/L among participants who ate <1 cup/day white rice, 13.1 μg/L among those who ate ≥1 cup/day white rice, and 7.9 μg/L among non-rice eaters. For brown rice eaters, the mean urinary i-As concentrations were 10.9 μg/L among those who ate <1 cup/day brown rice only and 13.1 μg/L for those who ate ≥1 cup/day brown rice. " My take on this would be that: it probably depends on where the white & brown rice is sourced from (exposure seems to differ based on geographical location of growth) It may be that while white rice has less arsenic, the high fiber content of brown rice is important factor in how much is absorbed vs hug much is excreted. And then nobody easts just the rice, we eat other foods with it that may influence tissue absorption of arsenic individual differences (genetic and otherwise) in arsenic detoxification and elimination may be important as well it also depends on the volume of rice consumed per period of time. Higehr portions consumed regularly may cause larger buildup over time, for example if someone consumes 1/2 cup daily vs if someone consumes 1 cup twice a week. it also depends on how we cook it, there is some clear data on this that the more we cook the rice and especially if we rinse it once or twice the more of the arsenic is removed In summary, I think the topic is probably more complicated than just saying rice A is bad and rice B is good. There are a large number of variables in play. If you can, link me any data that shows the significantly higher urinary output of arsenic after brown rice consumption vs white rice consumption if you have any.

I used Roaccutane about 15 years ago for 6 months. It worked and it cleared out my acne forever. It was hardcore, I was getting rashes, dry mouth and because the meds affect cellular turnover cycle and are pretty fucking rough on the liver so liver enzymes need to be tested regularly for signs of damage. With the information I have today I'd probably try to tinker with my lifestyle and diet first. Back then my parents did not have this info so Roaccutane was the best solution. I'm still hoping I won't be diagnosed with something as a late-onset side effect of that Accutane treatment in my 60s. As a growing male in your primal anabolic years, you are naturally susceptible to developing acne because your body is flooded with growth promoters and androgens. This is not a problem but sometimes the balanced can get tipped over by our lifestyle and this is when the effects of those growth promoters go beyond physical growth and start affecting other tissues not associated with physical growth (e.g. shoe pattern hair loss, acne etc) If you wanna try a more natural approach first, these may help: Get rid of most of added sugar in your diet (crackers, chocolates, candy, icecream, soda, sweet drinks etc) Get rid of refined grains (this means flour products such as white toast, donuts and pastries) Get rid of white pasta and white rice too Play around with dairy, some people get affected by it. Rather than consuming cheese and that sort of stuff I would minimise my dairy consumption to either kefirs and high probiotic yoghurts or just eliminate it completely. Definitely avoid eating butter, ghee and any sort of processed cheap dairy Hydrate well Read on Mediterranean diet and try to make the bulk of your diet kinda tilted towards that high amount of whole foods, fruits, vegetables, legumes, wholegrains, nuts and seeds you can also add some fatty fish unless you avoid animal food for ethical reasons Exercise at east 3 times a week and you could consider adding some mild sauna and some time spent with direct sunshine exposure Seek out ways to manage your stress In forms of supplements: you could try short try testing for vitamin A and vitamin D and if either is low, supplement. Both are important regulators of the cellular turnover cycle. If you don't get alot of sunshine, 2000 IU of vitamin D is safe long term dose howeve rif your levels come as below 30ng/mL you may need to go in 5,000s for a few months. With vitamin A I would only supplement short term and only small doses. With this one i would even consult doctor before supplementing. These points may not be enough to eradicate it but it should bring about significant improvement over 2-3 months. Give it a try and see how it goes. If all else fails, consider doing the medical treatment. You gotta weight out the side effects of Accutane vs taking no treatment and ending up with scar tissue on your face due to prolonged epidermal & dermal inflammation. This has to be a personal choice. Btw from the pic, your acne isn't nearly as bad as mine was. Maybe you can get this under control without meds. I would definitely try it first. Hope that helps. Good luck, you got this ! Take Care!

Why not just book a session with an ophthalmologist? None of us here are experts and this is a very delicate topic so I wouldn't mess around with to much internet advice. Go see a specialist and have them look at your eyes and inside of the eyes, they have a pain-free ways to do that with those drops that somehow make your pupils more transparent and they can look inside really easily (I have no idea what it is called or how it works but it is totally pain-free, I had that done years ago once) This is by far the easiest and the most reliable way to tell what's going on.

A guy I used to work with told me that Alan Carr's book on how to stop smoking was incredibly helpful for his smoking cessation. Might be worth a read.

good luck

Moving to the "Self-actualisation" section

Some people get impacted by blue light more than others. This is very individual. Maybe you don't get impacted as much. I definitely do so what I described above is observation based on subjective (biased) experience. If that doesnt work with you just ignore that comment completely

I was chcking it out on Amazon, might give it a shot at some point yeah, I don't know about this either. Some of those things even say "kills 99.99 bacteria"

@Kshantivadin well of course but not in the sense that anyone would deliberately sabotage their health, it may be lack of knowledge or just health not being one of the highest values or priorities in life. People with poor health may probably be likely to engage in all sorts of behviors that wouldn't be considered healthy tho such as smoking, alcohol, high sugar consumption etc so yeah. But the neglect is usually not deliberate, it is a side effect of other things having higher priority which is totally understandable

the one issue I would see with this challenge (and pretty much any workout challenges out there) is that they favour the top of the fitness pack generally. So for example let's say a random person Lucy is in her prime fitness, works out 5 days a week and for her doiung the challenge is equivalent to a routine warm up. A second person, Jessica is just starting, is not in the best shape, has a few extra pounds and is generally a gym newbie. Now if the two stand next to each other doing the challenge at the same time, Jessica will feel like crap, she will lose her self-confidence and feel hummiliated. Lucy won't even break a sweat. Now if you strapped heart rate monitors on them, you'd see that where Lucy is going at 90-100 beats per minute on leisure pace burning 5 calories per minute, Jessica is firing on all cylinders going 180 beats per minute burning 25 calories per minute and her body is going through massive metabolic adaptation. On high altitude overview, it would seem that Lucy is doing great and Jessica's fitness sucks but in reality, Jessica is working 10 times harder to the point of nausea. For Jessica this is much more challenging because her muscles aren't as adapted, her heart isn't as efficient and she does not have the same vo2 capacity as Lucy has built up over years of training. This is where the whole notion of targeted goals vs individual performance comes in and which I believe is a huge default of all sports. Something like nice sports watch or Aura ring can help you calibrate your performance much better than being able to do or not do a challenge on internet But that's just my opinion you gotta have fun sometimes that's for sure :D. I've been trying to complete "bring sally up" pushup challenge for years but have never got beyond 3-minute mark even tho I know I am giving it my absolute best anyways soz for blasting your journal signing out

this is awesome! Once that mind shift (and also brain shift) happens, it is actually hard to stop working out because you'll get withdrawal symptoms but these are good withdrawal symptoms so embrace the additive nature of exercise Yeah, agreed. Especially if you live in Northern America or Europe This is an interesting question actually! I have never looked into the literature on how does incline impact metabolic deployment of different energy sources but it will definitely have an impact. The higher the incline the harder you will have to work but also the quicker you will tire. COmbined incline with high intensity will probably burn through your sugar stores too quickly and tire you out much much quicker because now you have to deploy large muscles of glutes and hamstrings that are maybe not deployed as much during regular walking. I would probably not go over 5-10% at a very moderate rate. You want to go at a pace where you could still have a conversation with relative ease (for prolonged fat burning benefits at least) If the aim if cardiovascular fitness & efficiency, however, I would switch to moderate to high intensity and shorter bursts of multiple rounds switching between high intensity and low intensity. Or select one of the pre-made programs for peak heart rate. Most of the machines have some element of variability for you to choose. Give it time. Maybe the techniques are not yet automated by the brain so the energy consumption isn't as efficient yet. It takes some practice to master the breath-during-reps technique properly. This is actually something where I would consider hiring a PT to help you because correct breathing will also help you achieve better performance. Also, worth mentioning that you actually want to be struggling with a bit of oxygen challenge because it generally means you are working hard and that's a common side effect especially during high intensity training. Yeah, agreed with this. You don't want to be driving those stress mechanisms chronically. Acute elevation of stress hormones (e.g. during exercise) is beneficial but long term stress is not too good. PCOS will generally benefit from weight lifting as it opens up cells for glucose (through a sort of backdoor mechanism) and the hallmark of PCOS is insulin resistance (or a mild degree of it). The restoring of good levels of HbA1C & reduction of oxidative stress is an topmost priority in PCOS treatment and coincidentally one of the best ways to improve A1C is weight training (and diet - mainly based around whole foods, high fibre and good intake of essential fatty acids- sort of Mediterranean style if you wish ) Also one thing that can make significant difference is myo-inositol + folic acid supplementation for 2-3 months. There is actually a pretty darn robut evidence out there that shows it really works potentially as effectively as some drugs used for PCOS and normalising the levels of LH, FSH and prolactin in many women. Chiro-inositol could be tiny bit more effective however it may cost twice as much so not sure if it would be worth the cost.

in epidemiology, there has been an association with things like infective endocarditis, pneumonia and I believe to a degree even type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome with periodontal disease, not as much with ALzheimer's (also some studies show potential association as well) What this means is that people who have a high degree of chronic periodontal infection & inflammation are at higher risk of it contributing to the development of the above. It is not causative as in "periodontal disease causes diabetes", that is an impossible causation to make but there is probably a very strong relationship there. It has also been found that once people with diabetes for example had their oral health fixed and those periodontal pockets cleaned, their blood sugar markers (at least in a small amount of studies) have improved to a degree which suggests that at least partially that there is a correlation. At the same time not all people with diabetes, pneumonia or Infective endocarditis will have any oral/dental health issue but it is always worth checking. I went quite deep into these things in the second blog post (I linked it in the previous post) worth reading if you're interested in this. Some of the proposed mechanisms were: bacterial transmigration through the bloodstream bacterial transmigration through the gastrointestinal system (once swallowed in large amounts) - although I don't know to what degree this is an issue unless there are other, more severe, disruptions of the upper GIT going on as well. But could probably contribute to digestive issues this way with diabetes, it is probably that poorly regulated blood sugar destroys the microvasculature around the gums and make teeth more susceptible to infection but I'd need to check this deeper to confirm. the brain-oral health link is more difficult to make. Studies on this are all over the place and a potential mechanism would have to include weakened integrity of the blood-brain barrier for the circulating bacteria to get in there...but it is not something that is completely unrealistic (but this is just mechanistic speculation) , there is now evena term called "brain microbiome" for which we have very little data so far as an indication of presence of bacteria in the brain that should not be there....for now we can only guess what that means and where they came from but a disrupted BBB would be one of the suspected mechanisms, other would be bacteria somehow highjacking transpoters that can get in but again here we are in the realm of speculative fuckery once again. All of this would require an input of a specialist to confirm - I'm sure @undeather could elaborate on this way more in terms of how could poor dental health affect the rest of the body. Long story short: if you got infected gums, get it fixed regardless of the cost The sooner the better.

Brushing is not enough, you need to be flossing and tongue scraping too, each of them twice a day. An electrical rotational brush is preferable to the regular one but you gotta keep it easy so that you don't irritate the gums. At the end of tongue scraping you could also add oral probiotic mouthwash to start replacing the tongue microbiome. It is preferable you do not use fluoride-free toothpaste. Secondly, oral microbiome care (as mentioned by @aurum ) is absolutely essential and this is equivalent of taking care of your gut microbiome to prevent gastrointestinal disease. So the elimination of everything that harms it is an absolute must. I did 3-part blog series on dental health series where I went very in-depth on the topic of oral health and oral microbiome, you can check those here if you're interested. Also got a Youtube video on this topic (second link in signature) Now in terms of antibacterial mouthwashes, I would like to get an opinion on someone more versed in oral microbiome research but I don't think they are a good thing to do. Not all bacteria in our mouth is bad, in fact, the last thing you want to do is damage that delicate balance and give opportunity for pathogenic bacteria from those inflamed pockets to spread. And of course, diet as mentioned above is super critical. Diet high in plants especially fruits and vegetables is protective against periodontal disease and periodontitis whereas a diet high in refined carbohydrates, saturated fats and fizzy drinks is super harmful. Avoid all sticky food, all candy that sticks to your teeth like glue and any of that stuff. Definitely start with the dentist and also the hygienist. Get those cavities tended to and cleaned. But once that is done also get interdental spaces cleaned, any periodontal pockets cleaned and also plaque removed by the hygienist. Once you are at that stage commit to lifelong bulletproof dental hygiene which includes a meticulous cleaning routine, clean diet and the elimination of junk food. The risk is that if you don't and you let it rot, it may impact your heart, your lungs, your gut and your brain over time. Whatever it costs, definitely get it fixed with absolute priority. btw don't worry about whitening at this stage. A lot of that yellowing is pigmentation. Removing those infected pockets is a priority, whitening is just a cosmetic thing that often comes naturally with improved hygiene but I definitely wouldn't use any whitening chemicals overnight as you may harm the enamel layer not to mention you will be ingesting that stuff overnight too. Good luck

@soos_mite_ah congrats on sticking with your exercise routine so far. Thought I'd add something that may be off help after reading your thoughts recently. One thing I've noticed over all those years is that I never particularly enjoy the exercise session. I've been exercising since I was 14 (I'm 31 now) I do sometimes get more into it than other time but the sessions itself is hardly ever enjoyable because....let's be honest, it fucking hurts and the biggest reward usually comes afterwards when I feel sharper and more positive for the rest of the day. And any physical gain are just a nice side effect. I saw in your post that you seem to have that dilemma as well. Wanting to exercise because of the physical & mental benefits but also struggle to keep up because it is not always enjoyable. What I found helpful was just seeing exercise as another thing I do. You could experimentally try perceiving it in a way that "this is not something to be questioned, I just do it". And so you don't allow yourself to hate it or skip it because it is simply something that is non-negotiable. And when its your day, you pack your beg, leave the house and not allow your body to stop you. Gradually over months, your brain's plasticity adapts to the point that you will start to crave it if you've been absent for a few days. I think it takes about 4-6 months of consistency to get to that level and once you are there, exercise is no longer a struggle, it's just the "thing you do" and you don't even question it anymore. Many of these women have probably been going there for years to achieve that physique. Remember you only see the ones that look like it, you don't see the thousands and thousands that want to start exercising but haven't mustered the same amount of willpower that you have and said "fuck it I'm doing this and nobody will stop me". SO what you see is a very very very biased sample of the female population And trust me in their head, they don't feel they are good enough. In fact most people in gyms are unhappy with their looks, it is that entire toxic fitness industry that we need to protect our mind from. Weight loss can totally be achieved by weights only. The more muscle you acquire the more efficient you become at RMR (resting metabolic rate). Lean muscle tissue is a metabolic factory and the more of it you have, the more energy you burn even just by sitting. Not only that but with increased mitochondrial density stimulated by mechanical pressure, you find it easier to produce more energy at any given time of the day. And that doesn't even mention the benefits for mental health, insulin sensitivity, neuroplasticity and immune system by having more lean mass. I would consider giving the book called "Spark - J.J.Ratey" a shot for more positive motivation Pulling around heavy weights burns a shit load of calories and you can totally get toned without cardio. The main benefit is that very slow-grade cardio (e.g. walking) tends to tap more into fat reserves where moderate cardio taps more into your sugar & glycogen stores. So it is nice to actually do just slow walking at the end of your weight session. Put a 20 minute podcast on and just walk on the treadmil. Chances are you will have depleted a significant portion of your stored glycogen during weight training and that so your body will start tapping into fat storage and burn that more effectively. But there is definitely no need to run, in fact running after weights may just put your body into cortisol overload especially if you don't like running and find it stressful...so mild walking is actually much better. Or one great alternative is to use a bike to get to the gym, definitely my favourite way. You start the workout already warmed out and then you also max out on those metabolic benefits afterwards on your way home. Anyways, hope you don't mind the input. Happy to delete if you do

A lot of people constantly walk around dehydrated. Some of them severely dehydrated. If solarised water helps them drink more fluids, then by all means I wonder if one of the "miraculous" effect of celery juice is that people finally started to drink more and their body was getting more electrolytes as well rather than anything else To someone going from a state of electrolyte deficiency and chronic dehydration going to a state of replenishment, it may seem like a miracle.

I could grant the (hypothetical) benefits for men since with each ejaculation we do lose a little bit of nutritional content and some energy that went into that although I don't think the damage is as significant as nofap community would have you believe. For female tho, you aren't really losing anything and it appears orgasm for women is more energising an rejuvenating where for guys it often is more sedating. If you enjoy occasional masturbation, there is no need to restrict yourself, it is a completely normal process and should not be demonised so much. But of course you won't know unless you try

Just start eating more. 3 regular meals, mostly wholefoods, mostly plants. Add some animal foods if it is more convenient and don't hyperfocus on toxins at the moment, eat real food and that will minimise toxins greatly (as suggested above) Physical growth should be your priority. At 18, you are at the prime of your physical growth and you don't want to tinker with that by being undernourished and risking early life osteopenia or some hormonal or developmental issues. Your body is using an extreme amount of energy and building blocks and you want to make sure to get those in through the diet. I would forget about fasting, IF and all of that stuff until your growth is halted (about 21-22 years of age). After that experiment all you like but for now the focus should be anabolism, not catabolism. If you struggle I would suggest reaching out to your paediatrician and get a session with a paediatric dietitian. Might also be a good idea to gain a little bit weight to make sure your body develops optimally on all levels. Mild physical exercise and some mild strength training is important at this age to strengthen bone density matrix, this will be a positive knock-on effect for the rest of your life. Good luck!

There isn't one. Depends on whome you ask If you want my opinion, it should be mainly based around plants and mainly around whole foods for maximum fibre intake. Whether you choose to add some animal foods is totally your choice but I'd suggest staying away from processed meats, an excessive amount of beef, butter and ideally you don't want to be consuming too much sugar. But once you start digging into details and micros, opinions differ. that would require an elaborate answer that would start with me having to understand your current diet. I have made a few recipe videos on YT (second signature) you can check those out to get some basic tips It takes some trial and error to do vegan diet right. I would not start there, just start eliminating junk food. Cook more with vegetables, wholegrains and legumes and consume less processed junk where possible.

Maybe you haven't suffered enough to truly realise the need for healthier living. Some people need to experience adverse effects of a bad habit 1st person to have that message sink in. Unfortunately, this is sad true for many men especially since many actually need to experience their first heart attack and be staring death in the eyes to change something. I know a few men who went through something like that and only then started changing their lifestyle. Ideally, you want to take control before a catastrophic occurrence otherwise you are just pissing on whatever health means for you. Maybe we should all join and piss on it as well? Go sit in ER room at midnight for a few hours and watch what's going on and maybe a second experiment is go sit in oncology clinic and see what's going on there for a few hours. The amount of fear, tears and depression in that place is unlike anything else you'll see. Once you've experienced those see if you can look at that burger the same way. Lots of good advice above already and I'm sure you already know all the answers and solutions anyway as a relatively long-term member of the forum.The ultimate question is "whatcha gonna do about it"

With this level of toxin obsession you're gonna end up with anxieties over every meal soon. Take a step back and re-evaluate. Your pan ain't gonna kill you. Teflon im 2022 is not the same Teflon in 2013 (or whenever PFOA was banned) Just pick one and start enjoying your meals without the worry. All that worry is doing more damage to your brain than any potential teeny tiny leakage...just saying. We can't be perfect all the time.

For proper pectoral development, it's not just about bench pressing but you need to make sure you'll target all the small muscles as well. Pectoralis Major and Pectoralis Minor are just a small piece of the puzzle but it is a good idea to target all the edges as well that hinge upon deltoids, obligues and the sternum. There are channels that go in-depth into the analysis and talk how to target it. I like Jeff Cavaliere's (athlean X) marker approach. His splits seem to be quite good. Also by targeting complementary muscle groups such as doing triceps, shoulders & chest in a single day or doing back & biceps in another and then legs & glutes ona separate day. Some people seem to respond well to that sort of split. And once you know what to do it comes down to two things consistency - hit the chest week after week after week to stimulate those growth processes sufficient microdamage - you need to damage those muscles enough each time to stimulate hypertrophy and stimulate microtear and repair. In each session you should tap into that pain and burning as much as possible and stay with that feeling for as long as you can tolerate it. Not as much that you will tear a muscle but not as little that you put the weights down the moment it starts to hurt. Of course there are elements like diets, rest, hydration as well on the top of everything else. But if the question is "how do I look like the guys on Instagram" the answer is "find a routine that works and then do it consistently for 10 years" There is also a genetic component with how some people can develop certain muscle groups of course. Some men are by nature more broad-chested and have wider thighs and glutes and others find it more difficult to achieve that wideness but have it much easier to achieve great definition.

There are endless attempt to identify the causality factors but it is incredibly hard to pinpoint single things that causes a disease because of the endless variables that are always in play. At the same time, you can't lock humans in some sort of lab experiment, feed them different toxins or other crap and see which groups develop what diseases so we are stuck with epidemiology which despite having an immense value, has its own limitations when it comes to identifying the causative factors although it can be good at extrapolating correlations. I'd say that's an idea for an actualized.org video in the future @Leo Gura It needs to start with early life education. Kids are often sick because their parents are sick and parent that knows nothing about health will raise an unhealthy child unconsciously. In my opinion, children in elementary school should be taught about health, basics of nutrition and doing the right choices for their health. habits that have been wired in youth are extremely different to rewire in the adulthood. Kids ned to be educated on the importance of sleep, of eating fruits and vegetables of playing and doing activities rather than playing video games and eating shit. Same way kids should be taught about ecology, environmental protection, kindness for animals as well as financial competence and basics of sexual education instead of being forced to memorise poems, religious texts, literature books and complex math formulas and other BS what they'll never need and stuff they force you to do in school these days. In terms of healthcare, I think we need a more integrative approach that would also include nutritional therapy, naturopathic and more complex protocols in the way medics are educated. Less focus on pharmacological intervention and more focus on lifestyle interventions. Over time this would force more research on nutraceuticals and polyphenols and we would gradually see rise in natural pharmacology with more evidence being able to back it up. But I think very slowly this is already happening. Young people are more an more interested in health lifestyle, healthy eating and physical activity than their parents and grandparents and there is a great shift of healthier mindset, at least in the developed countries where people can afford to tinker with their life in this way. The demand for integrative medicine (e.g functional medicine, naturopathic medicine etc is gradually rising) at at some point, medical schools will have to begin to answer to that demand. You could probably write a book on this topic and these are just surface-level ideas, the problem of healthcare is infinitely more complex.

As long as all causative factors are being treated, it is definitely possible. Not in all cases and not autoimmune conditions probably. Agreed with the above that for anyone who has been suffering the symptoms of a crippling condition, immunotherapy literally restores their life back, at least while it lasts. There are side effects but it is probably better to end up with osteoporosis induced by steroids rather than blindness and permanent disability induced by MS so it is a cost-benefit analysis. It's not medicine's fault that it cannot "cure" conditions, it is just that the way system is setup where doctors have 5 minutes for a patient and the system is so incredibly overloaded, underfunded and poorly managed (at least where I live) that it is impossible o even consider having an in-depth talk, unless you go private ofcourse. With a patient with autoimmunity, you need to spend 4-5 hours exploring their life, childhood health, teenage heal, life-long diet patterns, stress patterns, habits, chemical exposures, sleep patterns, traumas and stresses of previous generations that have accumulated over the decades. You can' do that in a 5-minute consultation so of course they cannot cure you. It is kinda unfair to portray the poor doc as the bad guy since a lot of people do get the help they seek. You gotta understand that a lot of patients who come to doctors are not looking for a cure that would stem out of changing their behaviour and lifestyle (usually necessary in AI disease), they are just seeking the pain to go away....that's it. And the meds & the injections do that very well. If you are willing to go deep. The deepest you've ever gone and allow someone to explore absolutely every corner of your health with you and spend 2 years on a radical lifestyle therapy that will include completely transforming the person's life, nutrition, environment, sleep, stress management and probably spending a lot of money doing that and being patient, super openminded and persistent, then you may be able to cure it. A single technique is unlikely to do that. First, the person has to eliminate every potential culprit from their life because no autoimmune disease is unifactorial and it is impossible to measure or test for the exact cause so you are also looking to potentially explore a lot of dead ends but that has to be part of the treatment. But a half-assed therapy "e.g. taking a bunch of Boswellia for your IBD because Dr Axe made a 5 minute video on Crohn's Disease and expecting that to cure you" will just be time wasted that could have been spent getting some proper treatment. It is a good idea to receive standard medical therapy for symptomatic management and when you get your life back by better symptomatic management, work hard on identifying the root cause, not just settling for meds. Use the meds to give you time energy and the motivation you didn't have when suffering from nasty flare-ups and the find someone who specialises in that particular condition and start looking for the root cause

"stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honour matters....the silence is your answer"

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