Category: The People’s Key

Understanding Why Numbers Can Mislead and How True Health is Determined by the Body’s Vital Functions

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

From a terrain model and Natural Hygiene perspective, bloodwork is not considered beneficial, helpful, or truly indicative of disease because it reflects only a momentary snapshot of the body’s adaptive processes rather than its overall state of health. The body is inherently self-regulating, self-healing, and governed by natural biological intelligence. It is never defective or in need of micromanagement; instead, it is constantly working to maintain balance, also called homeostasis.

When symptoms arise or blood values fluctuate, these changes are adaptive or eliminative responses. These changes are evidence that the body is actively correcting internal imbalances, eliminating toxins, or responding to temporary influences such as stress, diet, rest, or emotional state. Therefore, bloodwork does not reveal a disease but merely the current condition of the internal terrain, which is always in flux.

Why Blood Tests Misrepresent Health

In Natural Hygiene, health is defined not by numerical lab values but by vitality, harmony, and the unimpeded functioning of the organism. As Dr. Herbert Shelton explained, “Disease is a remedial effort, a struggle of the vital powers to purify the system and recover the normal state.”

Blood composition changes continuously depending on what the body is processing or eliminating. If the body is fasting, cleansing, or under emotional stress, blood chemistry naturally shifts to support these functions. To interpret such fluctuations as abnormal ignores the body’s intelligence and the contextual nature of physiology.

Medical interpretation of blood results assumes that health is static, that all bodies should conform to fixed laboratory averages derived from chronically sick populations. In reality, no two people or animals share identical blood chemistry. A so-called abnormal value may simply indicate that the body is cleansing, resting, fasting, or repairing damaged tissue.

The Error of Diagnosing by Effects

The disease model of medicine misinterprets adaptive effects as causes. When the body raises white blood cells to cleanse debris, this can be labeled infection. When the liver increases enzyme activity during detoxification, this can be labeled as liver failure. When cholesterol rises to repair tissue damage, it can be labeled as heart disease.

Natural Hygiene teaches that what medicine calls a disease marker is simply an effect of systemic adjustment, or a reflection of the body’s intelligent effort to restore balance. Focusing on the effect while ignoring the cause is, as Shelton warned, “chasing shadows while the real substance of disease – the violation of the laws of life – goes unaddressed.”

When Blood Tests Lead to Harm

Because the medical model misreads the body’s intelligent responses as pathology, interventions often interfere with or suppress healing and create suffering. Here are real examples illustrating how reliance on bloodwork can mislead and cause injury:

Cat Wrongly Euthanized for Liver Failure
A cat was overweight and began losing weight after switching to a more natural diet and fasting. A blood test showed elevated liver enzymes. The veterinarian interpreted this as liver failure, when in truth the liver was performing its natural duty. It was processing stored fat and toxins as the body detoxified. The elevation was temporary and adaptive. Misreading this normal healing process, the vet pressured the owner to euthanize. Had the cat been allowed to rest and fast naturally, the blood levels would have normalized, and the liver would have recovered from years of dietary abuse.  Fasting never causes injury to the body; it is the most powerful healing process available to both man and animal alike.   But in this case, bloodwork taken from a healing body led to needless death because of a lack of understanding on the part of both the animal’s owner and the vet. In this case, the misunderstanding of health perpetuated by the disease industry had a fatal result.   

False Thyroid Failure After Injury
A woman dislocated her shoulder and went to the emergency room. Before offering care, staff demanded bloodwork. Under extreme pain and stress, her thyroid values appeared critically low, and she was told she needed lifelong medication and to start immediately. Fortunately, she refused. Two weeks later, with rest and recovery, having healed the injury, she got another test from an independent lab, not disclosing prior diagnosis, and her thyroid levels were completely normal. The stress-induced readings could have led to unnecessary drugging and damage, another case where misinterpreting adaptive changes as pathology nearly caused harm.  Luckily, in this case, my client was already well-educated in health and did not succumb to the pressure of the false diagnosis. However, many more are uneducated and rely on the medical system to guide them, causing serious and long-term damage to their health. 

When Blood Tests Lead to Harm: Anemia, Sodium, and the Dangers of IVs

Perhaps the most frequent medical harm is when someone arrives at a hospital dehydrated, weak, confused, or delirious. Conventional medicine interprets the situation entirely through a narrow, mechanical, reductionist blood-value lens, rather than seeing the entire holistically minded and biologically based picture. The dominant medical narrative assumes symptoms arise from deficiencies or an attack from an outside entity, a virus, bacteria, or parasite, rather than from the dehydration, toxic burden, lymph stagnation, and impaired elimination that are the true causes of disease.   (This narrative helps to sell their most profitable products – antibiotics, antivirals, and chemotherapy. Without an outside invading force, you cannot justify applying poisons to the body of your customer.) 

From that framework, two blood values immediately trigger intervention: sodium and hemoglobin/hematocrit.  Low sodium is framed as a dangerous electrolyte deficiency. Low hemoglobin is framed as severe anemia.

Once these labels are applied, the standard responses follow automatically: IV saline to raise sodium and blood volume, and blood transfusions to raise red blood cell counts.

From the medical perspective, this appears logical. Saline expands plasma volume and raises blood pressure. Transfused blood temporarily increases oxygen-carrying capacity. These actions stimulate the system, often producing short-term improvements in alertness, blood pressure, and laboratory values. Both doctor and patient are then led to believe the treatment is working.  

From a Natural Hygiene perspective, however, these effects are not healing because they have not addressed the root cause of any ongoing issues. This is acute stimulation from poisons and unnatural intervention.  Working is not the same as healing.   

Healing is often marked by symptoms like fatigue, mucus production, coughing, sneezing, and other elimination symptoms, as the body seeks to remove poisons or expel damaged cellular waste. Rather than accept these uncomfortable but necessary consequences as our body cleans, medicine seeks to suppress these cleaning symptoms, which effectively stops healing.   For example, the medical model always seeks to stop the cold or flu; however, the body creates the cold as the cure for chronic disease and a backlog of waste.   

IV Saline: Forced Chemistry, Not Hydration

Normal saline is an inorganic salt solution injected directly into the bloodstream, bypassing all digestive and regulatory safeguards. Inorganic sodium chloride is a cellular irritant and biocide. Its injection forces fluid shifts, stresses the kidneys, acidifies tissues, and damages vascular integrity.  This is why IV Saline leads to 50,000 to 80,000 deaths each year, learn more about The Dangers of Saline Drips. https://www.therawkey.com/the-dangers-of-saline-drips/

The temporary rise in blood pressure or mental clarity does not indicate repair. It reflects stress-driven compensation, which is the body being shocked into action, not restored to balance.

True hydration occurs through pure water, absorbed and regulated by the body according to need, through natural channels. Saline does not hydrate tissues in a biological sense; it disrupts osmotic balance and burdens elimination, and it does so by being injected directly into the bloodstream, rather than filtered through digestion.

Blood Transfusions: Stimulation Masquerading as Rescue

Blood transfusions operate under the same illusion. Transfused blood is foreign serum, chemically altered, preserved, and biologically incompatible. Its introduction provokes inflammatory reactions, hemolysis, vascular stress, and increased clotting risk.  It’s a massive burden of acute poisoning, which stimulates the body into a heightened stress response. 

The transient boost in energy or improved complexion is again stimulation, not regeneration.

Stimulation is akin to the red alert, all hands on deck response on a ship, everyone is racing around to deal with the emergency, but once the emergency is over, the crew is exhausted.  The same is true for our body.  The use of stimulants borrows from tomorrow’s energy to deal with a survival requirement today, but by doing so, we are robbing our body of vitality long term.  

The body must then divert enormous energy toward neutralizing and eliminating this foreign material, often accelerating decline once the temporary stimulation wears off.  This is precisely why blood transfusions show such poor long-term survival rates after the initial apparent improvement.

What Bloodwork Misses Entirely

In cases of dehydration-induced weakness and delirium, the hospital’s first response is to stimulate the patient with IV saline and a blood transfusion, two of the most dangerous and highest mortality medical treatments.   The real issue is water depletion, toxin concentration, and impaired circulation of waste, not a lack of salt or someone else’s blood.

As the body dehydrates, blood thickens, lymph stagnates, and toxins become more concentrated. Mental confusion and weakness are protective signals that the system is overwhelmed. Flooding this terrain with saline or transfused blood further burdens circulation and elimination, even if symptoms are briefly masked.

This is why these interventions are repeatedly credited with saving lives, while their downstream damage is rarely acknowledged. Medicine evaluates success by short-term stabilization and lab normalization, not by long-term tissue integrity or true recovery. When symptoms improve briefly, the treatment is praised. When deterioration or death follows, it is blamed on underlying disease, age, or bad genetics. In other words, the hospital takes all the credit for positive outcomes and none of the credit for the negative outcomes they cause.  

From a terrain-based view, neither saline nor transfusions creates health. They interrupt the body’s intelligent response to dehydration and toxicity, replace biological regulation with forced manipulation of internal chemistry, and trade immediate symptoms for deeper injury.  The body does not need stimulation to heal. Stimulation is an injury response. The body needs pure water, rest, warmth, and removal of burdens to heal. 

To learn more about the significant dangers of blood transfusions, read https://www.therawkey.com/blood-transfusions/

The Terrain Perspective: The Body as Its Own Laboratory

Natural Hygiene rejects the idea that health must be verified through chemical analysis. The body is its own laboratory – it constantly tests, adjusts, and corrects itself through sensation, appetite, rest, elimination, and vitality. As Dr. Carrington wrote, “So-called disease is the process of cure itself.”

When we replace faith in our own senses with fear of laboratory numbers, we surrender to the illusion that health can be managed externally. True healing never comes from measuring, medicating, or manipulating. It arises only when the causes of disease, which are generally toxemia, wrong food, exhaustion, emotional tension, and poisoning, are removed and the conditions of health are restored.

Why Blood Tests Create Fear Instead of Healing

Every test carries the potential to plant fear and distrust in the body’s own processes. Anxiety before, during, and after testing alters blood chemistry, which can make the results themselves unreliable. The procedure of drawing blood is also a small physical insult; it momentarily disturbs the balance of internal fluids and can activate stress responses.  These stress responses can then alter the chemistry of the blood, resulting in a false diagnosis.

Worse, the interpretation of results often drives people away from healing. When a doctor says, “Your numbers are bad,” people rush to suppress symptoms rather than remove causes. This fear-based cycle leads to endless testing, drugs, and damage.  If we persist in chasing blood work numbers and diagnoses, then we often ignore the true path to healing, which is accomplished through rest, fasting, hydration, proper foods, sunshine, and emotional peace.

What to Observe Instead

True assessment of health lies in the observation of vitality:

• Steady energy throughout the day
  
• Deep, restful sleep
  
• Regular elimination and clear urine
  
• Clear skin, bright eyes, and easy breathing
  
• Cheerful mood and emotional balance
  
• Natural appetite and enjoyment of raw, living foods
  

These signs cannot be measured by a laboratory. They can only be lived, observed, and nurtured.

In Summary

Bloodwork cannot meaningfully diagnose or define health because it fails to account for the body’s dynamic, self-correcting nature. Health is not measured by static numbers but expressed through vitality and harmony. When we stop trying to analyze and control the body, and instead supply its true needs – clean air, pure water, raw foods, rest, sunlight, and peace – it restores its own balance perfectly.

Learn More

• The Nature and Purpose of Disease Series – Understand why symptoms are signs of healing, not sickness. https://www.therawkey.com/the-nature-and-purpose-of-disease/
  
• What Is the Natural Human Diet? – Discover the foods that build and sustain true health.  https://www.therawkey.com/what-is-the-natural-human-diet/
  
• Parasites: A Symptom, Not a Cause – Learn why “pathogens” are helpers, not enemies. https://www.therawkey.com/parasites-a-symptom-not-a-cause-rethinking-worms-and-other-parasites/
  

Consultations – Need help one-on-one? A consultation can help you to better understand your conditions, their causes and create a clear path back to radiant health. To learn more about consultations: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

Earlier this month we talked about the difference between true hunger and the uncomfortable sensations most people call hunger. Those sharp pangs, hollowness, tightness, or “acidic” feelings are not hunger at all – they are irritation. And one of the fastest ways to eliminate these so-called “hunger pains” is to remove the irritants that trigger them, especially salt and spices.

Salt, seasonings, condiments, and other stimulants are not harmless additions to a meal. They are chemical irritants the body must defend against. According to Natural Hygiene, irritation is an early stage of disease – one of the first signs that the body is being forced to react to something abnormal. When an irritant enters, the body immediately shifts energy away from normal functions and into protective, eliminative actions.

This internal shift is why the discomfort does not appear during eating, but later – often that evening or the following morning. You feel it in the stomach, but it is not an empty-stomach signal. It is the body saying:

“Something irritated me. I am trying to clean it up.”

We misinterpret this healing activity as “hunger” because it goes away when we eat. But digestion requires the body to stop its repair work, redirect nerve energy back to the stomach, and postpone the cleanup. As Tilden, Carrington, and Shelton taught repeatedly, the body cannot run both digestion and repair at the same time. Digestion always takes priority, which gives the illusion that the discomfort was solved by food – when in truth, the body was simply forced to set healing aside.

Over time, this becomes a cycle:
Irritant → discomfort → eating → temporary relief → irritation resumes → more eating.
It feels like hunger, but it is really an irritation-suppression loop.

Salt as an Irritant, Not a Nutrient

Salt is one of the most common triggers of these false hunger sensations. Salt is not a food; it is an inorganic mineral that the body cannot use. Because it cannot be assimilated, the body must eliminate it. And before it can eliminate it, the body has to dilute, neutralize, and buffer it – work that pulls from your nerve energy and contributes to the cycle of irritation described above.

As Shelton wrote, “Disease is a remedial effort – a struggle of the vital powers to purify the system.” Salt forces the body into these small remedial efforts over and over again. Every irritation requires the body to act defensively. Every defensive action feels like discomfort. And every discomfort gets mislabeled as hunger.

This is why people often say fruit or salads don’t fill them up while salted cooked foods do. The stimulation from salt creates an artificial rise in sensation, followed by a crash and a new wave of irritation. Cooked foods add their own irritants – acids, oils, condiments, damaged proteins – but salt exaggerates the effect dramatically.

When you remove the irritants, the entire cycle calms. True hunger becomes clear, quiet, unmistakable, and completely free of pain.

How Removing Salt Reduces Cravings and Emotional Eating

One of the most surprising changes people experience when moving fully into the natural diet is how quiet the body becomes. Without salt and spices constantly irritating the tissues, the digestive tract stops sending distress signals. The stomach feels soft and neutral between meals.

Cravings drop dramatically because the chemical stimulus is gone. Remember: irritation creates the feeling of emptiness or agitation, which triggers the urge to eat. Remove the cause, and the urge dissolves.

This is why many people become more compliant with the natural diet once they remove salt. Their emotional eating decreases because the physical triggers are gone. They feel stable between meals. They experience for the first time what real hunger actually feels like – gentle, pleasant, arising mainly in the mouth and throat, not the stomach.

Practical Transition Tools for Ending Salt Cravings

Completely dropping salt overnight can be challenging if the taste buds are still conditioned. Salt is stimulating, and like all stimulants, it takes a little time for the senses to return to normal.

Here are a few transitional tools that help break the dependency while staying aligned with the natural diet:

🥬 Use celery
Celery contains natural sodium in an organic form the body can use. Chopped celery in salads adds a pleasant “salty” lift without irritation.

🍅 Add savory fruits like tomatoes
Fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes (unsalted), and tomato juices add depth and savoriness without salt.

🌱 Seaweed
Dulse or nori flakes provide a briny mineral flavor. Use lightly – these still contain inorganic minerals but are far less irritating than salt and can help bridge the gap.

🥄 Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (as a temporary tool)
Not ideal long-term because it is a fermented product, but unlike salt it does not contain crystalline inorganic sodium chloride. It can help you transition away from the sharper hit of table salt while taste buds adjust.

🌿 Herbs instead of seasonings
Fresh basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, mint, and green onions stimulate the senses without irritating the tissues like hot spices do.  These are still minor irritants, but not nearly as strong as the salt, pepper, spicy peppers, ginger, turmeric and other spices.   Dried versions are less irritating as well, as the drying process reduces the potency of the irritants, which are found in the oils.   As the oils break down, the irritation diminishes. 

As taste perception normalizes, you’ll find that fruits and salads taste dramatically sweeter, richer, and more satisfying. What once felt “bland” becomes refreshing and flavorful.  Tasteless lettuce actually has a deep and complex taste profile that we can only appreciate once we have stopped injuring our taste buds with the salt and other irritants. 

What Happens When You Remove the Irritants

When salt and spices leave the diet, several things occur:

• Stomach and intestinal irritation calms quickly
• “Hunger pains” stop appearing between meals
• Cravings decrease because the stimulant cycle has ended
• Meals become more satisfying with smaller portions
• Energy becomes more stable throughout the day
• The lymphatic system clears more efficiently because fewer irritants are entering the body
• True hunger becomes unmistakable and peaceful

This is one of the simplest yet most profound shifts people can make in their diet. When the irritants stop coming in, the body no longer has to react. The energies previously forced into defense can move into repair, digestion, and daily functions instead.

What Helps You Step Away From Salt?

Salt cravings often surprise people because they are not emotional cravings – they are chemical ones. But once you understand what your body is doing, it becomes easier to make supportive choices.

Do you have tricks or transition foods that helped you break the salt habit?
What made it easier for you to stay consistent?

Share your thoughts and experiences below – your experience might help someone else make that shift.