The origin of this piece lies in a few events colliding and leading to an epiphany. For the first time in my life I had my teeth inspected by dental hygienist. The result: everything’s fine thanks to my following common-sense advice (brush your teeth twice a day, floss and use tooth picks). In the same week a colleague mentioned that he fell sick too often and that he wanted to make changes to his lifestyle, starting by going to a dietician and looking for a personal trainer.

A few days later I came across a post from former colleague Ivo Houben, founder of How2behealthy mentioning the six sickness stages originally developed by dr. Reckeweg. Consequently I fell into a rabbit hole and came across the world of homotoxicology.

The epiphany: we can all become the boss of our physically and psychologically health by adhering to a few simple principles. I do recognize that, unfortunately, nature sometimes plays cruel tricks on you. You then need the help of the medical world. These accidents aside, let’s look at what you can influence.

I won’t bore you with a lot of science and will keep this short. In order to remain healthy your body uses defense mechanisms. Your kidneys are used to eliminate liquid waste. Your liver helps you get rid of fatty waste. Your lungs take care of gases. Your bowls process fibers. Finally, your skin tells you something’s wrong and you see it try to come to the rescue. Spots and such are tell tale signs something’s wrong.

If those defenses don’t work, your body moves from one sickness phase to the next; your health is degrading. Symptoms are the result of a defense activity of your organism against toxic burdens. So try to recognize the symptoms to prevent from getting worse.

In the first three phases your body can recover, easily at first. In the last three your health is seriously deteriorating. You then need medical help.

1. Excretion: expulsion of toxic products, e.g. increased sweating
2. Inflammation: initiated cleaning by activating defense system, e.g. arthritis
3. Deposition: storage of toxic products outside the cells’ structure, e.g. stone formation
4. Impregnation: the main effect of intoxication becomes intra cellular, affection of enzyme systems starts, e.g. angina
5. Degeneration: intoxication destroys the cell, e.g. arthrosis
6. Dedifferentiation: your cells mutate, e.g. cancer.

I have summarized and simplified the beautiful Disease Evolution Table (DET) found on Dr Jacques Imbeau’s website. This is by no means complete, the original table is much bigger. This merely illustrates how you can recognize symptoms so that you can intervene as soon as possible.

The best medicine in the first place and phases is healthy food. Preventing is better than curing. That’s where you may need professional help for personalized advice. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.

Dieticians who follow homotoxicology prescribe three components for you to remain healthy:

• First switch to a diet that contains as few toxic substances as possible: organic food.
• Second, consume foods that are healthy for the intestinal flora. In short: eat more fruit and vegetables!
• Third, stimulate and support the elimination of toxins and the cleansing organs. Drink a lot of water, herbal tea… Eat fresh spices and herbs. Get detoxification cures, massages. Meditate, practice yoga and breathing exercises and learn how to deal with emotional toxins.

In the end this piece comes to a simple advice:

Should you want to read more about homotoxicology, here are interesting sources:

• In English: Introduction to Homotoxicology
• In Dutch: De 6 ziektestadia van dr. Reckeweg
• In French: Introduction à l‘homotoxicologie

Hope this helps. As always I am keen to hear from you if you have feedback, positive or constructively critical.