Everyone Gets Root Causes Wrong
The real root causes of all illness are the ones that you can act upon, not ones that are effects or precursors.
The most abused term in all of holistic medicine:
Root causes.
Being the committed health devotee that you are who:
does not want to be duped & sold snake oil
wants to heal your health burdens from inside-out
is ready for a new lease of life & health
You are currently obsessing what the “root cause” is for all your severe & chronic symptoms.
You’ve probably been burned by previous holistic health practitioners & doctors.
You’re probably purchased a lot of labs ranging from comprehensive blood panels, Organic Acids Testing, Mold testing & Total Tox Testing etc, and left you with a little bit less clarity than before.
You’ve probably binged your favorite health & wellness podcasts, their Instagram or their YouTube.
You’ve probably binged on Reddit receiving free advice from those who does not have the awareness to tailor their responses and not just talk about what worked for them.
You’re right now trying to piece everything together yourself.
You’re probably thinking if you discover the “root cause” of why your health is poop, then you’ll be able to reverse your ailing health & have your life back.
This obsession about knowing your “root cause” is exactly why you are not making the progress you feel you deserve.
Let’s dive into what the root causes are, what they are not and simplifying this aspect of your journey.
What People Say Are Root Causes But Rather Manifestations or Precursors
A major problem with the searching for a root cause is that they confuse root causes with precursors & effects.
The vast majority of the holistic health industry use a lot of technical jargon, normal human responses & other precursors as root causes. The vast majority of the conventional allopathic uses diseases & precursors to diseases as “root causes”.
Some of the technical jargon that you may be inundated with that is typically labelled as a “root cause” but are not are:
Adrenal Fatigue
HPA axis dysfunction
Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Insulin Resistance
Leptin Resistance
Mast Cell Activation
Sympathetic Dominance
Four Lows
Gut Dysbiosis
Leaky Gut
The allopathic medical industry likes to use diseases and disease precursors as “root causes”. For example:
On Mayo Clinic, they say the cause of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) is caused by the lower esophageal sphincter not being able to relax or weakens, causing the stomach acid to flow back into the esophagus.
On Cleveland Clinic, they say the causes of depression are:
Brain Chemistry - imbalance of neurotransmitters like serotonin & dopamine
Genetics
Stressful life events
Medical conditions - examples are chronic pain, diabetes
Medication - some medications can cause depression
On WebMD, they say the cause of anxiety disorders are:
Genetics
Brain Chemistry - may be linked to faulty circuits in the brain that control fear & emotions
Environmental Stress - stressful events you’ve seen or lived through/
Drug/alcohol withdrawal & misuse
Medical Conditions. Some heart, lung, and thyroid conditions can cause symptoms similar to anxiety disorders or make anxiety symptoms worse.
Other “root causes” that both the holistic health & allopathic medical industry typically use:
Genetics
Viruses, parasites, bacteria & other microorganisms
Some practitioners & doctors in the holistic health space go as far as naming what I think are normal human response as root causes:
I just need to do more research
I want to get a second opinion first
I want to try something different first
I need to check with my doctor first
I don't think my spouse would be on board
I'll wait until I have more time
They can be responses that hold someone back but it is insane to think that if they change these, that the root is addressed and there’s a domino effect in healing being sped up.
Most of these supposed “root causes” are all manifestations of some root causes.
Before I share what these root causes are, let’s define what a root cause is.
What Is A Root Cause?
Before I share what are the root causes of illness, we have to tackle what is meant by a root cause.
Minerals Professor Unhinged Fam: what do you think is the meaning of “root causes”? Leave a comment & I’ll be sure to respond to it.
To me, I define root causes as this:
The word “root” means the foundation, genesis, or growth of something.
The word “cause” means the reason, motive, or explanation for something.
The term “root cause” means the reason(s) that created the foundation or growth of something.
BUT
I’ll add 2 qualifiers:
It must be something tangible that you can take action on relating to your day to day life.
To come to your conclusion to “root cause” of health issue, you must have asked at least 5 whys.
Does anyone in disagreement or slightly contrarian to how I define the meaning of “root cause”?
What Are These Few Root Causes?
The root cause of all major health problems today can be truncated to these:
Nutritional Deficiencies
Heavy Metal & Toxic Chemical Burden
Lack of Sunlight
Eating the wrong foods
Poor Eating Habits
Poor Hydration
Harmful Frequencies
A lack of alignment to your true self
Your Upbringing
What You Consume Online
Let’s share briefly why these are root causes.
Nutritional Deficiencies
There are nutrients that we need that we must obtain from external sources. These can be minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids, glucose, cholesterol and phytonutrients
I’m not going to go back & forth with you in the comments whether cholesterol, phytonutrients, glucose are nutrients we need or don’t need.
For example, a magnesium deficiency leads to muscle cramps, anxiety, high blood pressure & heart arrhythmia.
In the body, nutritional deficiencies lead to mineral imbalances, hormonal imbalances, over- or under- activation of the glands, and distort neurotransmitter balance.
For example, a magnesium deficiency can stimulate the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone (RAAS) pathway leading to the kidneys to retain salt & water in their bodies. This is in part why high blood pressure can occur frequently in males, by overactivation of this pathway.
Given that I said a “root cause” needs to be something that can be acted upon, ways to replete a magnesium deficiency in this example are: increase magnesium rich foods, add some occasional Epsom Salt baths and/or take a chelated magnesium supplement. These are examples. Not a recommendation.
Heavy Metal & Toxic Chemical Burden
There are elements and large compounds that serve no useful biological purpose for humans. Examples can be lead, mercury, antimony, strontium, glyphosate, paraquat, bisphenol-A and another 87000+ chemicals.
The ways heavy metal & toxic chemicals can poison you are: altering hormone signalling (e.g. some act like a metalloestrogen), create mineral imbalances, over- or under- activate the glands, overburden the detoxification pathways, and surprisingly can be used as a poor quality “substitute” in many enzymes in the body.
For example, cadmium is below zinc in the periodic table. Excessive cadmium exposure blocks the angiotensin converting enzyme II inhibitor (ACE II inhibtor) which is a dependent on zinc, and inhibits the feedback loops that regulate blood pressure. This can be also in part why someone may have a high blood pressure.
Given that I said a “root cause” needs to be something that can be acted upon, the way to address the heavy metal & toxic chemical burden would be support the detox pathways. Examples of supporting the detox pathways is to reduce exposure to known toxins, have celery juice, sweat in a red light therapy sauna, taking zeolite & other binders. The pathways are vast. These are only examples. Not a recommendation.
Lack of Sunlight
We have the normie health organizations tell us that “avoid sunlight”, “it’ll give you skin cancer” and “wear your sunscreen”. While the normies have exaggerated the potential negative effects of sunlight, we have the circadian biology wing & the Natural Health Puritans say that “get in as much sunlight as you want” and let’s get that UV-A & infrared light the Sun provides.
Me? I think that sunlight is an essential nutrient. But no don’t go overboard with sunlight.
Sunlight helps you:
make vitamin D3
support vasodilation through UV-A which is key for circulation & transporting nutrients through the bloodstream
support your mitochondria & generate more energy through the infrared rays
Given that I said a “root cause” needs to be something that can be acted upon, the way to address the lack of sunlight is to intentionally get some sunlight during the day. You could schedule a vacation where you can exclusively lay in the Sun all day. You can have 15 mins burst of sunlight activity in the summer. You can take walks around the neighborhood when the skies are clear.
It is night & day difference getting sunlight vs not getting sunlight, don’t you think?
Eating The Wrong Foods
You can eat whole & unprocessed foods but you may still feel worse, not better.
It is easy to blame you not feeling better on the food itself but often times, it might just be you.
One of my core messages is that there are different strokes for different folks. This is not something arbitrary. This is something that can be qualitatively & quantitatively assessed primarily through the Metabolic Rate Quiz & using Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA).
It can explain why people struggle on high fat diets & others less so.
It can explain why eating fatty & high-purine meats are hard on the belly for some and easy on the belly for the other.
It can explain why some people have an appetite and others have little to no appetite.
It can explain why people view salads as “rabbit food” and others don’t see the same perspective.
Speaking of different strokes for different folks, to have an understanding of the impact on the Metabolic Type and the importance of modulating the metabolism for optimal health & vitality, subscribe and get access with a free quiz (and a video at the end expanding on what your results mean)
Poor Eating Habits
The number of people who are seriously ill, sick & toxic that…
Eat on the run
Have conversations with others while eating
Stand while eating
rush your food
eat in the car
Eat while anxious
Eat while depressed
Eat out of emotion & impulse
…is not surprising. It’s not made any better when these people have jobs where there’s a high likelihood of performing bad eating habits. Think your nurses, factory workers and employees in the entertainment industry.
One of the foundations to healing your health burdens from inside-out & have a new lease of life is to be more parasympathetic (rest & digest). Being more parasympathetic means being able to digest the foods you eat and thus enhance nutrient uptake.
Addressing bad eating habits include:
Eating your meals as a sacred activity
Have multiple bites to the point that saliva mixes with the broken down food
Enforcing boundaries that when you eat, you don’t engage in conversations
Focusing on the present moment to enjoy your food and not ruminate on what happened today or in the past or what might happen in the future
This is considered a root cause because it leads to something that you can act upon and change.
Poor Hydration
I am aware that there are lots of debates of what constitutes as good hydration. There are lots of different ideas flying around that water has to be structured, water has to be free of contaminants, water needs to be silica-rich, water needs electrolytes, water needs to have a high zeta potential. The ideas are growing exponentially.
For the purpose of this short section, I refer to hydration as the ability to drink adequate good quality water.
In regards to quality, water with a good hydrating capabilities have to be low in contaminants, have some minerals and electrolytes in them naturally and its life force preserved. By this criteria, spring water beats all types of water hands down.
The number of people that drink reverse osmosis water, alkaline water and fancy multi-stage filtered water is astonishing. How on earth have we made water more complicated than it needs to be?
I get that water is getting more & more contaminated but many of these supposed solutions miss one critical part of water that makes it hydrating.
It has little to do with the minerals it has and the levels of contaminants in them. It has to do with the water’s life force.
While I won’t go deep diving into the water, water has a spin, a dipole moment, viscosity, surface tension, cohesion, adhesion etc that is pretty unique to water itself. This is what reverse osmosis systems damage to some degree and why reverse osmosis is known as “hungry” & “dead” water.
To correct poor hydration, the main antidote is to drink spring water. Buying different spring water brands can add up pretty quickly but if you live near a Find a Spring, take advantage of it.
In terms of quantity & when, I always suggest drinking water away from meals and given today’s toxic times and the need for supporting the kidneys, blood flow & lymph flow, I suggest you get at the minimum 3 liters of water daily.
Harmful Frequencies
By harmful frequencies, I am mentioning specifically artificial blue light and non-native EMF radiation (nnEMFs).
Artificial blue light is found in fluorescent lights, LED lights, phone & computer screens and flashlights. These arose as a result of an expanding civilization. Artificial blue light tricks the body into perpetual daytime. As a result, it depletes melatonin and dysregulates cortisol, one of few mechanisms of action that leads to your unexplained weight gain, insomnia, dizziness, vertigo, light sensitivity, eye strain and waking up unrefreshed from sleep.
While it is ideal that when sunset arises, that you cut out all kinds of blue light (i.e. no phones, no computers, no switching on of lights, no driving your car), for most people, this is not possible.
To mitigate the effects of blue light, you can invest in blue light blocking glasses, orange or red light bulbs, light strips. These are useful adaptations to the world today full of junk artificial blue light.
Just as pervasive as artificial blue light is EMF radiation coming from your phones, computers, mains plugs, cell towers, fridges and circuit breakers etc.
EMF radiation exerts deleterious effects to the body. One of which is the whipping of the Voltage Gated Calcium channels inducing oxidative stress which I discuss at length on my guest article on The Power Couple.
To mitigate the effects of nnEMFs, you can practice utilizing distance, you can invest in Faraday materials, hardwiring your Internet, mouse & keyboard, investing in a kill switch, maybe throw away your smartphone or live in a rural area. These options, drastic or minor are what is needed today to mitigate these harmful effects of nnEMFs.
There are other frequencies that are harmful such as X-Rays and other ionizing radiation and it involves a vigilance away from medical centers but the synopsis is clear: harmful frequencies can be a root cause to why you don’t have the health you desire, and the good thing is that you can do something about it.
A lack of alignment to your true self
It’s sad to say this but a root cause to why your health isn’t where you want it to be is because you’ve spent years & decades are living life in misalignment with your true self.
You simply just take orders consciously or unconsciously & do what your parents, society, your friends and every other influencer tells you to do.
Maybe you may have the fear of alienation.
Maybe there is the fear of the time expense of uprooting your own life & “starting again”.
Maybe you don’t feel prepared for the chaos and hoops to redefine yourself. It could be scary.
To act upon this misalignment to your true self, there are no hard & fast rules but generally speaking, it is much better to take imperfect action than not taking action at all & you may have to cast some people & influences out of your life if it calls for it.
If you need to move elsewhere closer to the community & people you want to interact with, then you have to take a leap of faith & move.
If you need to acquire & learn a different skillset (and leave the job you truly despise) and work on the way you position yourself, you’d need to give up your weekends and weeknights to see through acquiring & utilizing a new skillset plus being able to network/market your way to a new opportunity.
If you discover that your spiritual beliefs do not align with how your parents raised you, you have to share openly & candidly that your spiritual path no longer aligns with the religion (or sect of the religion). If you get cast out by your parents, then that is the price to pay for aligning to your true self consciously.
You just need to grow a pair of cojones to live in alignment of your true self. It is though easier said than done but it has to be done.
Your Upbringing
Your upbringing could play a decisive role in why you struggle with your health right now. This is not a way to blame-game on your parents or whoever spent their years to raise you. But rather, this is the opportunity for you to acknowledge where your upbringing failed you in certain aspects of your life and what can be done about it.
For example, if you have a distant father who was hardly there for you and your emotional needs not met as a child, it may manifest in an avoidant attachment style. It may play out with you having a hard time trusting others, you may struggle with sexual relationships and having intimate moments with your partner, and you may have difficulty forming close relationships with others.
In response to such example, it is necessary for correction is to have awareness that you have a pattern of avoidant attachment. Then on top of renourishing yourself, detoxifying yourself, and practicing forgiveness, you may seek services such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) or Primal Trust therapy. You can do something about the negative effects of your upbringing.
What You Consume Online
With great access to the Internet, music & film come great responsibility for guarding your mind.
For example, it’s fair to say that in one’s awakening process of being aware of all the conspiracies and where you get your sources of information & news from the non-mainstream media, it is VERY easy (myself included) to use the information you consume, come to your conclusions & be perceived as negative & doomsday to other people.
The main problem with the truth-seekers is that we’re a bit too problems-focused and not solutions-focused. You can do something about it. The prerequisite is awareness.
Then it is to ask yourself maybe the ultimate question:
Is what I’m consuming online gearing me towards creating solutions to the life of me & my family or is it doing the opposite?
It is okay to consume stuff that is purely for entertainment, or with no major end goal or to acquire knowledge & understand problems. The less you do these, the better.
The point of sharing each “root cause” was to stress the fact that these things create the foundation or growth of your health burdens & you can do something about it.
Now that I’ve shared what are root causes are, let’s explore why these commonly purported “root causes” are not root causes.
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Why Genetics Is Not A Root Cause?
CBS. COMT. MTHFR.*
*CBS = Cystathionine Beta-Synthase
*COMT = Catechol-O-Methyl Transferase
*MTHFR = Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase
What do these 3 have in common?
They’re all “single nucleotide polymorphisms” (SNPs) that much of the allopathic medical industry & holistic health industry determine as “root causes”.
In response to doing genetic testing and what it reveals, it almost always leads to avoidance of certain foods and supplement forms in nutrients. For example, if you have a CBS SNP, and have symptoms of SIBO, you are likely to avoid eating meat, high sulfur vegetables and supplements like N-acetyl cysteine (NAC).
A common factor? The behavior that your genetics are fixed and doesn’t change, and the implementation of food & supplement restrictions that may upgrade your capacity to heal.
This is not the way.
To come to think of it, a major mistake I observe in the holistic health world is saying that CBS, COMT & MTHFR are genes.
They’re not genes. They’re enzymes/proteins.
COMT is an enzyme that helps catalyze the breakdown of catecholamines.
MTHFR is an enzyme that helps recycle homocysteine to methionine to make SAMe (S-adenosyl methionine).
CBS is an enzyme that uses vitamin B6 to catalyze the conversion of homocysteine to cystathionine in the transsulfuration pathway.
If you are having trouble utilizing these pathways, then it is safe to say that the enzymes are operating at a suboptimal level as a result of a missing nucleotide.
Using the work of Dr Henry Schroeder and his book: Trace Elements & Man, he discovered that each enzyme has a preferred mineral to function optimally.
Hence if the preferred mineral is not available, the body utilizes a poor quality substitute that is similar in charge, or ionic radii to keep the body going. For example, if you are zinc deficient, the body will pick up mercury & cadmium to fill in zinc’s shoes.
As a result of this, I am confident in saying that SNPs are just problems of nutritional deficiencies, heavy metal toxicity & toxic chemical exposure that have run in families for a few generations.
Is it easy to reverse longstanding health issues with a SNP overlay? No. It is a serious undertaking.
But genetics is not a root cause of illness. It is at best a precursor or an effect of nutritional deficiencies & heavy metal toxicity.
Why Are Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites & Other Microorganisms Not Root Causes?
You may have been exposed or flirted with the idea that viruses, bacteria, parasites, endotoxins, exotoxins, enterotoxins & other microorganisms are “root causes” for why you are tired and why you go from practitioner to practitioner & still not getting better.
On this topic, there are essentially 3 schools of thought.
One school of thought essentially believes in Germ Theory. They think the germ (chickenpox, Covid-19, measles) causes the contagion and the negative symptoms.
There is another school of thought that believes in Terrain Theory. One of the core messages about the Terrain Theory is that the internal environment is what makes you susceptible to illness, not the germ itself.
And there are those who utilize both Germ & Terrain Theory. This is what most of the holistic health industry utilize in their practice & marketing content.
For me, having infections, gut problems & other symptoms are not because you contracted a virus or parasites.
It is because the body is running low on vital nutrients, the body is picking up more heavy metals from the environment which can impair thymus glandular function and you are taking on way too much stress than what your body can handle in that moment.
If you were better nourished, less toxic, well-hydrated and better able to respond to stressors, would you be susceptible to these microorganisms?
Food for thought.
Why Normal Human Responses Aren’t “Root Causes”?
Some practitioners (a minority though) call these “root causes”:
I just need to do more research
I want to get a second opinion first
I want to try something different first
I need to check with my doctor first
I don't think my spouse would be on board
I'll wait until I have more time
I do think that these types of responses are responses that can hold you back from making real changes health-wise.
But these are normal human responses for good or for bad in seeking holistic health solutions.
You may have gone to numerous holistic health doctors & practitioners that you thought could lead you to your health goals, which did not pan out as you would have liked. You may not have developed trust in a practitioner or doctor as that "authority".
Any practitioner or doctor who uses normal human responses of hesitation, seeking consensus, or going a different direction as "root causes", I advise caution on those voices.
I’ve had to learn this over the years about human behavior but you’ll only act on things you convince yourself of doing. No doctor nor practitioner (even me) can change this.
Why Medical Conditions & Medical Syndromes Are Not Root Causes?
For example, some ‘clever’ individual on Reddit has this to say on Epstein Barre Virus (EBV) & adrenal fatigue.
These are some of my pressing questions.
Why did the body become more prone to EBV?
If you were not running low on vital nutrients, won’t your adrenals be in better shape?
If your toxic burden wasn’t excessive, won’t your thymus gland be able to produce T-Cells to “fight off” an infection?
If you handled your response to external stressors better, would you have had a sudden dip in your energy level, feeling tired & sick?
You can see now why medical conditions/syndromes are not “root causes” because there are multiple layers that that ‘clever’ individual refuses to acknowledge.
If there is one thing that is the case, it is that EBV & adrenal fatigue can coexist with one another. I can make the case of burning out your adrenal glands increasing your susceptibility to infections like EBV and I can make the case that EBV makes your existing fatigue even worse.
Back to the question. Why are medical conditions & syndromes not root causes?
Medical conditions & medical syndromes are the resultant effect of all other root causes that I mentioned.
Medical conditions & medical syndromes are also precursors, rather than a root cause. For something to be a precursor, it must contribute to the diagnosis of a health problem BUT there are other things that lead to the development of the precursor.
For example, let’s say you have serious eye problem. You may have a cataract or glaucoma.
Your doctor runs his diagnosis and he spotted on your health history that you are currently diabetic and you’ve historically having a HbA1c of 7%.
It is safe to say that if you weren’t diabetic and the body can regulate its blood sugar better, you’d have less of a chance of getting glaucoma or a cataract.
Hence diabetes is a precursor to having glaucoma & a cataract.
But diabetes isn’t a root cause to having glaucoma & cataract.
Some root causes of diabetes and thus a glaucoma & cataract can be a zinc deficiency, chromium deficiency, cadmium toxicity, overworking yourself & disrespecting the signals to rest.
Do Labs Reveal Root Causes?
It depends on what it is used for & the paradigms utilized for the analysis.
With the paradigms I use, along with my experience as a practitioner and in my experience looking at other people’s bloodwork & HTMAs, I find that lab testing:
Is very important to discover patterns & trends that can manifest in your health history and overall life. This is helpful for the eventual solution. This is unlike the conventional paradigm of looking for diagnoses & labels.
Can detect your nutritional deficiencies & your heavy metal burden to a certain extent. A limitation is that your lab testing shows how your body retains and excretes nutrients, metabolites & heavy metals, and how it responds to stress within that certain time period.
Does that mean lab testing is useless in discovering root causes due to its inherent limitation?
No. Not at all.
I find it more powerful to discover patterns & trends of illness rather than chasing root causes. By discovering patterns & trends, it amplifies what the root causes can be, and it is often pluricausal. Discovering patterns & trends of illness is easier with lab testing than without only if they switch to what is called the VitalUpgrade paradigm.
Concluding Thoughts
If you got nothing from this article, there are these:
A lot of people waste so much time, money & energy looking for “root causes” instead of diverting attention to upgrade their health irrespective of labs, supplements and expensive gadgets.
Lots of people confuse themselves on what are actually root causes. Hopefully I provided some level of simplification to this process.
While lab testing can discover some root causes, that discovery is usually not instant. You’d have to retest on a regular basis as the body removes the need to adapt & compensate & the root causes to be unveiled.
It is best to define a root cause as the reason(s) that created the foundation or growth of something AND it must be something tangible that you can take action on relating to your day to day life.
Alright. Thanks. Signing off!
The Minerals Professor
