Inspired by accounts of Dr David Nott who, in working as a ‘War Doctor’ for Médecins sans Frontiers, has miraculously survived the most harrowing attacks / brushes with death in the form of Kalashnikov-touting soldiers in arguably the world’s most dangerous international war zones – Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Syria. Described by colleagues as "the Indiana Jones of surgery", Dr Nott also set up the David Nott Foundation which offers training and advice on how to help in conflict and natural disaster zones around the world to other surgeons and medical professionals. He was awarded the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award 2016 and is the author of War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line, Picador, 2019.

Appalled by ITV’s Junk Food Experiment overseen by Dr Michael Moseley in which six celebrities were restricted daily for 21 days either to eating solely pizza, fried chicken or burgers. The introduction to the program noted that these diets had 4000 calories, 50% more than the recommended diet; also significantly higher amounts of fat. The health consequences were severe:

• One former Olympic athlete’s blood pressure skyrocketed to 190, putting her at risk of  stroke;
• A woman already suffering with IBS exhibited parameters of inflammatory bowel disease;
• A man with borderline sleep apnoea and pre-diabetic developed full-blown sleep apnoea and borderline diabetes;
• Other less life-threatening symptoms included severe memory loss symptoms and addictive brain indicators.

Three of the original six participants withdrew before the 3 weeks. And the medics overseeing the program announced, on camera, that they were shocked at the outcome.

There are serious questions which need to be posed about this program:

1. Was this program submitted to an ethics committee review of its suitability?;

2. In view of its extreme nature, why were the overseeing medical staff shocked?

3. Why were previously unhealthy people allowed to be subjected to this potentially life-threatening diet?

There doesn’t appear to be any outcry or censure of Dr Mosely or ITV resulting from this junk food  ‘experiment’ which actually created harm in previously healthy people. Dr Mosely (@DrMichaelMosley) tweeted on 4 March “I advised them to go on Med diet and they turned things around in a couple of weeks. Easier because the damage was short term”.

There is published research regarding serious and substantive toxic side effects from orthodox medical treatments and procedures including vaccinations and cancer chemotherapy. There are also serious challenges to techniques of vaccine data gathering, usage and bias. Latterly there is an outcry to ban / take down posts and websites discussing side effects of vaccines or natural treatments for cancer. Yet physicians and dentists treating patients with clinically effective, nontoxic Integrated Medicine rather than pharmaceutically led treatments approaches may be criticized or even litigated by the General Medicine Council or General Dental Council.

Positive Health PH Online Issue 253 encapsulates in my view the rounded, full-spectrum, patient-centred, knowledgeable approach to optimum health utilizing an Integrated Medicine approach. PH Online readers surely have learned over the past 25 years that good health – emotional / spiritual and physical – comes from best practices - which nourish and feed our bodies, minds and psyches.

Editorial features in Positive Health PH Online Issue 253 speaking to our spiritual / emotional health include The Mirror Reflection of our Being, How to Control Emotion, Gambling on Freewill. An article addressing our mental approach to life is NLP and Time Management -  Getting Time on Your Side. Tips about how to approach healthcare are included in What to Do if You Think You've been Misdiagnosed and How to Spot the Signs of Different Conditions. General health issues and recommendations include How Healthcare Technology can be Utilized to help People Remain Independent for Longer, 15 Scents to Help You Sleep and Fight Insomnia and Keeping Sports Centres at the Optimum Temperature. Serious and health enhancing information can be found in Depression has a Message, Fibre What is it, What does it do – How to Meet our Daily Requirements and Coffee Lovers: Just how much Coffee is Good for You? Invaluable information about cancer is found in Otto Warburg and Cancer and Laura Taylor Mouth Cancer. The large Bodywork selection of articles includes The Dural Membranes. Core of the Craniosacral System, Intervertebral Disk Decompression Cured my Back Pain, Top 5 Exercises Making Your Back Pain Worse, Staying Healthy At Work An Actionable Guide and The Importance of Promoting Good Posture in the Workplace. Letters to the Editor include developments regarding vaccination, cancer, stress and dream sleep, and acupuncture for infertility. Research Updates span the fields of acupuncture, aromatherapy, back pain, cancer, heart, macular degeneration, nutrition, yoga.

We as practitioners and patients and our families and loved ones all suffer life’s slings and arrows and are not immune to backache, toothache, depression, insomnia, cancer, heart disease, diabetes. Yet if we pursue knowledge from many fields and consider diverse treatment approaches, we may be able, by following our own insights and the wise medical advice of others, to choose and follow the optimum path to restore our health. As they say in retail sectors of everyday life – buyer beware – don’t necessarily listen to the first practitioner’s opinion, do your research and don’t necessarily take the quickest and most aggressive /toxic treatment.