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Introduction to Herbalism
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The best answer is False.
Health Care is Not an Exact Science
It has been estimated by medical authorities that 80% of all medical diagnoses are wrong. If medical doctors—with all their training and experience—are only correct 20% of the time, then how much confidence should we put in a diagnosis made by a lay person? Not only is it unwise for lay people to diagnose, in many localities it is illegal. It's called "practicing medicine without a license."
This is where the Body Systems Approach that we teach comes in. It gives the lay person a powerful framework within which they can safely and ethically work to improve their health, and help others to do the same. With the Body Systems Approach we do not diagnose or prescribe. We simply make use of, or recommend, food supplementation and other lifestyle changes to support the body's weakest systems.
The Body Systems Approach—A Two Step Process
The Body Systems Approach involves two simple steps: 1) An evaluation is made to determine your weakest body system(s), and 2) nutritional supplements and/or lifestyle changes are selected or recommended to support those systems. These two steps are then repeated at some point in the future to determine if changes have occurred and if modifications to the supplementation program are indicated.
The Body Systems Approach is actually a part of the "ABC plus D" approach to designing a personalized nutritional support program. It helps us decide what to use for the "D," or "Direct Aid," portion of the program. A complete nutritional program must consider the A, B and C as well. (We will cover the ABC plus D approach in Lesson 5.)
Online Health Assessment
To help us apply the Body Systems Approach more effectively, we use the Online Health Assessment questionnaire. Once we have determined our weakest system using this questionnaire, we can select our nutritional products with greater confidence.
At some later time, perhaps after having taken our nutritional supplements for six months or so, we can retake the questionnaire to see how we are doing. We can then modify our nutritional program accordingly. If our original weakest system has improved, we might decide to start supplementing the next worst system.
You can see that the Body Systems Approach, along with the Online Health Assessment questionnaire, can turn an otherwise complicated and possibly difficult decision into an easy task. It is a very simple yet very powerful tool that can help you customize an effective nutritional supplementation program without the guessworkand inherent dangers involved in diagnosing.
You will notice that Unit 2 of this course consists of a separate lesson for each of the different body systems. This course has been organized in this manner to make it easier for you to use the Body Systems Approach.
The Body Systems Approach is perfectly safe, legal, and ethical for lay people to use. Just remember not to diagnose, promise a cure, or misrepresent an herb or a nutritional product as a treatment for a specific condition.
In this lesson we covered the following:
- What is an herb?
- What are the different types of herbs based on their usage?
- What is the difference between an herb and a drug?
- What do we mean by the term "synergistic"?
- What is "alternative medicine" and what is its place in our health care system?
- What does "holistic" mean?
- Is it necessary for herbalists to diagnose?
- Introduction to the Body Systems Approach.
- Introduction to the Online Health Assessment questionnaire.
- The purpose of this course.
- Survival Doc Says
Below is a list of some of the words that were mentioned in this lesson. If you are unclear as to the meaning of any, click on the word to review its definition: Word Review List:
Assignments
Before proceeding to the next lesson, do the following assignments:
- Complete the Self Evaluation for Lesson 1.
- Take the Online Health Assessment questionnaire to learn more about your weakest body system(s).
- Watch this video:
Survival Doc Says (What's this?)End of Lesson 1
Complete the Self Evaluation for Lesson 1.
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