Mental Health
4 min read
December 10, 2022
Depression: disease or symptom?

Depression: disease or symptom?

Depression is often framed purely as a disease driven by neurotransmitter imbalance, yet growing evidence suggests this view is incomplete. Neurochemical changes may be downstream effects—signals or adaptive responses to deeper biological, psychological, and environmental stressors rather than the sole root cause.

The paradigm of depression being a disease/disorder has evolved around the concept that neurotransmitters are primarily the root cause.

Yet, dysregulation in this field could very well be a symptom, coping mechanism and signal from a multitude of different issues ranging from inside, as well as outside of the body (as explained in my previous post).

The association of depression solely being linked to low levels of norepinephrine and serotonin is flawed throughout studies. There are many other variables that can result in this outcome.

Several studies indicate that as few as 25% of depressed patients have low levels of neurotransmitters, while paradoxically, some patients have abnormally high levels of neurotransmitters with no history of them ever being low.

Does the placement of depression into the category of disease/disorder attach a greater overwhelming thought process to the word than if we were to label it as a symptom?

One could argue that generally speaking, symptoms are alleviated with greater ease when compared with the disease.

It is easy to allow our identity to be taken hostage by adopting the ownership of depression and succumb to its depths.

Yet when we shift our thinking to understand that depression does not embody us as individuals, nor does it yield an element involved in modeling our identity, we shift our thoughts to a greater sense of self-empowerment.

We can overcome the ‘depression vs self’ mentality by accepting that depression is an adaptive and protective mechanism from the human body, accompanied with respect for the opportunity it brings forth to gain further insight into what needs nurturing.

I understand this is a challenging and delicate shift to take, yet the perception of the experience is paramount to one’s thoughts.

Could we disempower the shackling chains of emotional paralysis, gain buoyancy in the swamp of thoughts and restore vitality into one’s behaviour when depression is approached in the light of a symptom?

Can we utilise it as foresight with direction to what may require attention and care within our body and how we live?

This paradigm shift allows more of a harmonious level of awareness with the experience of depression and what possibilities it may bring.

References:

  1. Asberg M, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1976
  2. Mol Psychiatry. 2010 March
  3. Della FP, et al. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2012
  4. Della FP, et al. Behav Brain Res. 2012
  5. Della FP, et al. Metab Brain Dis. 2013

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A defining moment in human health

We are standing at the edge of a defining moment in human history — one that will reshape how health is understood, managed, and lived. Most practitioners won’t see it coming until it’s already here. The pace of change is no longer linear; it’s accelerating at a parabolic rate.

Over the next ten years, healthcare will undergo a larger transformation than it has in the past two hundred. What once took generations to evolve will soon happen within a single career span.

Why the next leap will eclipse the last 200 years

In the 1850s, global life expectancy hovered around 35 to 40 years. In industrial cities such as Manchester, it was recorded as low as 26. Up to 40% of children died before the age of five. Since then, humanity has doubled its average lifespan — one of the greatest achievements in modern history.

But that magnitude of progress will soon appear slow compared to what lies ahead. To understand why, we must look at how medicine has actually evolved — not as a straight line, but as a series of paradigm shifts.

Medicine has never moved in a straight line

Medicine does not evolve gradually. It moves through distinct eras, each defined by its dominant questions, tools, and limitations. Every era solves the problems of its time — and creates the blind spots of the next.

Medicine 1.0: survival through intervention

The age of infection and emergency care (1800s–1950s)

The first modern era of medicine was built around one core mission: survival. Its philosophy was direct and uncompromising — find the problem, cut it out, kill the pathogen. The focus was acute illness, trauma, and infectious disease. Surgery, antibiotics, vaccines, early imaging, and public health measures transformed mortality rates almost overnight.

Breakthroughs such as germ theory, penicillin, antisepsis, and sanitation saved millions of lives. Yet this era had little understanding of long-term health. There was no framework for chronic disease, prevention, or personalisation. Medicine 1.0 was exceptional in emergencies, but largely blind to the slow decline of health over time.

Medicine 2.0: managing disease, not health

The rise of chronic disease frameworks (1950s–2010s)

As life expectancy increased, the medical challenge shifted. Infectious disease gave way to chronic illness. Medicine 2.0 emerged with a new goal: management. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and mental health disorders became the dominant focus.

Pharmaceuticals, specialist referrals, evidence-based medicine, and large clinical trials defined this era. Disease was framed as isolated dysfunction within individual organ systems. While imaging, surgical techniques, and electronic health records advanced rapidly, care became fragmented. Poly-pharmacy increased, symptoms were suppressed rather than resolved, and patients often cycled endlessly through the system.

Medicine 2.0 kept people alive — but rarely helped them thrive.

Medicine 3.0: personalisation, prevention, and patterns

From symptoms to systems (2010s–2025)

The limitations of chronic disease management gave rise to a new way of thinking. Medicine 3.0 reframed health as a dynamic, interconnected system shaped by genetics, environment, lifestyle, and time. The focus shifted toward root causes, prevention, and optimisation.

Functional blood work, genomics, microbiome testing, wearables, and systems biology expanded what was possible. Practitioners began looking for patterns rather than isolated markers. Precision nutrition and functional reference ranges replaced one-size-fits-all recommendations.

Yet this era introduced new challenges. Data became abundant but scattered. Interpretation demanded high cognitive load. Standards varied widely, access remained inconsistent, and outcomes depended heavily on practitioner experience. While powerful, Medicine 3.0 was difficult to scale.

Many believe this is the peak of modern healthcare.

Why medicine 3.0 is not the end point

Despite its advances, Medicine 3.0 still relies on humans to manually integrate overwhelming amounts of data, make predictions, and adjust protocols over time. It improved insight — but not intelligence. It offered tools — but not true systems.

The next era changes that entirely.

Medicine 4.0: intelligence, automation, and decentralised health

Predictive, adaptive, and continuously evolving care (2025–2040+)

Medicine 4.0 represents a fundamental shift in how health is defined and managed. Health becomes a continuously evolving dataset, updated in real time across all stages of life. The focus moves from reaction to prediction, from static plans to adaptive systems, from intervention to self-correction.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins, predictive analytics platforms, continuous multi-biomarker wearables, synthetic biology, and autonomous medical systems will allow health trajectories to be forecast before disease manifests. Diagnostics will become ambient. Treatment will adapt dynamically. Biology itself becomes increasingly programmable.

But this transformation comes with real challenges — data privacy, equity, over-reliance on technology, loss of human connection, and the risk of eroding individual agency. Intelligence must be guided, not blindly trusted.

Building the infrastructure for medicine 4.0

This is where MyHealthPrac enters — not as a response to Medicine 4.0, but as an early foundation for it.

MyHealthPrac is a decentralised health management system designed to translate complexity into clarity. Built on over a decade of research, line-by-line journal reviews, and clinically informed logic, it transforms vast amounts of health data into actionable, root-cause solutions. Hard-coded algorithms, pattern recognition, and predictive frameworks allow practitioners to move beyond interpretation and into intelligence.

This is not theory. It is not a distant vision.

Not the future of health — the next standard

Medicine 4.0 is not coming someday. It is arriving now. And the systems built today will determine whether this new era empowers practitioners and individuals — or overwhelms them.

MyHealthPrac is being built to lead that transition.

Philosophy
6 min read
The 4 ages of medicine and the one we haven’t met yet
The 4 ages of medicine and the one we haven’t met yet
Medicine is entering a new era. From infection control to intelligent, predictive systems, this article traces the evolution of healthcare — and explains why Medicine 4.0 will transform how the world manages health.
August 5, 2025

What is the Lymphatic System?

The lymphatic system is becoming increasingly more talked about but is still, in my opinion, one of the least appreciated and under-utilised systems in the restoration of movement dysfunctions and chronic health complaints.

Everybody, including health practitioners and those in the fitness industry, could benefit from understanding and implementing lymphatic techniques. You can consider that a homeostatic balance of the internal environment can be a true measure of health.

Lymphatic techniques can, therefore, aid the body in moving towards more of an internal state of homeostasis.

How does the lymphatic system function?

The lymphatic system is, in essence, the sewage system of the body.

It has the incredible ability to trap nearly all soluble antigens, roughly 99%, with its role in waste removal. This is significantly important for the other body systems to not become overwhelmed and develop issues as well.

The lymphatic system contains the thymus, an endocrine organ which is responsible for the development of T-lymphocytes, immune cells that are involved in fighting infection through the process of cell-mediated immunity.

The spleen plays a key role in the lymphatic system as the largest lymphatic organ, having a vital role in a host of detox processes, such as:

  • Filtering blood
  • Removing old dead red blood cells
  • The maturation of lymphocytes and macrophages to aid in fighting infection

The splenic communication of the tenth cranial nerve, the Vagus nerve, is crucial in reducing inflammatory cytokine production.

The tonsils also form part of the structure of the lymphatic system. With the tonsils formed of lymphatic tissue, housing lymphocytes and macrophages, they protect the digestive system and lungs from pathogens entering through the nose or mouth.

There is also a deep association with the gastrointestinal system through gut associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) known as Peyers Patches, with the role of the gastrointestinal system intrinsically linked to the immune system. Estimates suggest that roughly 70-80% of immune function is beholden to gastrointestinal health.

This amazing system also comprises millions of lymphatic vessels which, if placed end to end in a continuous line, would circle the earth four times! Alongside these vessels there are over seven hundred lymph nodes within the body, with the most populated areas being the neck, skin and the intestines.

This mass of lymphatic vessels works in uniform direction towards the heart, with valves interspersed to prevent any backflow from occurring. This one-way system is aided by the structure of the vessels which allow fluids to flow in the direction of clearance, but with numerous valves preventing backflow. Allowing the system to be cleared, very much how a filtration device on a fish tank would work.

The ability to regulate fluid homeostasis is a key aspect of the lymphatic system. The body contains fifteen litres of lymphatic fluid, predominantly of water, and roughly 10% of proteins, hormones and waste products. Comparing this to the five litres of circulating blood that we have, the body wouldn’t contain three times more lymphatic fluid than blood if it wasn’t a critical component of our survival!

From the five litres of circulating blood, over the course of a day, three litres of plasma leaks out into the interstitial space.

If not appropriately removed through the lymphatic system this can lead to swelling outside of the cellular space due to the increased fluid concentration and alterations in pressure.

Without effective drainage this can create stagnation in the fluids;
Let’s go back to the fish tank analogy above, we know that stagnation of fluids is detrimental to the ecosystem, the same being the case for our health.

In a system with appropriately functioning lymphatics, this plasma is removed from the interstitial space into the lymphatics system and circulated upwards towards the subclavian vein. This is where it flows into the venous system, before returning to the liver, detoxifying and purifying the blood.

Taking a deeper look into the pathway of the lymphatic vessels will give an understanding into the application of treating the lymphatic system.

As a one way system drains into the venous system at the bilateral sites of the subclavian veins, all lymphatic vessels are required to flow in this direction. The right upper quadrant of the body drains through the right lymphatic duct and into the right subclavian vein, whilst the remainder of the body drains through the thoracic duct into the left subclavian vein.

The thoracic duct is responsible for the majority of lymphatic flow and also houses the largest lymph node, the cisterna chyli, which is a major site of drainage for the liver. It’s crucial to keep this node functioning well as between 25-50% of the returning lymphatic fluid through the thoracic duct is returned from the liver.

There is an important bidirectional relationship between the cisterna chyli and the liver, with an overburdened liver that can’t move or function optimally placing more load on the cisterna chyli. Having a lymphatic system that can’t drain well, especially at the cisterna chyli, increases the potential to create stagnation around the liver. A lymphatic vessel that is unable to drain will not be able to receive fresh supply creating this backlog.

A fairly recent discovery reveals that the lymphatic system also continues up into the central nervous system through the glymphatics, more commonly known as the glymphatic system.

The glymphatic system has the same role as the lymphatic system, however it is only situated in the brain. This helps to reduce inflammation and drive the removal of waste products which is essential for overall brain health. Additionally, the protective benefits of this system helps to distribute fuel sources and various other vital components around the brain.

Detox
6 min read
The lymphatic system
The lymphatic system
By clearing waste, regulating fluid movement, and supporting immune and neurological health, the lymphatic system plays a central role in resilience and recovery. Optimising lymphatic flow can be a powerful, underutilised tool in addressing chronic health issues and restoring balance within the body.
November 14, 2022

In a meta-analysis assessing the mineral intake of approximately 3,000 women. It found that eating an iron-rich diet (20mg per day) was linked to a 30-40% lower risk of developing premenstrual syndrome when compared to the lowest intake of iron (around 10mg per day) (Am J Epidemiol. 2013 May).

Menstruating women lose around 40% more iron per day when compared to men, with some studies stating how heavy menstrual bleeding is one of the leading causes of anemia in the developed world (Liu Z, et al. 2007).

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicates that 12-16% of non-pregnant women (aged 16-49 years) have iron deficiency, with 2-4% having anemia.

Increasing iron intake through diet and supplementation for two months has been shown to reduce PMS symptoms considerably in all anemic women (Mitesh Sinha et al. 2013).

Nutrition
6 min read
Iron and PMS
Iron and PMS
Menstrual blood loss increases iron requirements, making deficiency and anemia common contributors to PMS. Supporting iron intake through diet or targeted supplementation may significantly reduce symptoms, particularly in iron-deficient women.
December 9, 2022
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