ABSTRACT
Eight essential foods (EEF) described in Iranian traditional medicine (ITM) have a determinant role to balance human temperament insuring health and well-being. EEF included oral, imaginary, auditory, visual, olfactory, touch, sexual, and familiarity food. Oral foods should be halal, compatible with individual temper, consumed up twice a day, and compatible with different seasons and geographic conditions. Imaginary food consists of the individual thought content which is directly related to mental and physical fitness. It helps to balance temperament if be free of negative thoughts such as suspicion and distrust to others. Auditory food includes all sounds surrounding us, some of which are sedative and help to balance temperaments, such as natural sounds, and spiritual and beautiful words. Visual food includes everything in the range of human vision which is impressive on his/her thought. Natural beautiful scenes have almost a warm temper and help to balance human temperament. Olfactory food includes odors which stimulate the smell. Touch food includes all materials in direct contact with body skin, like clothes, which have a determinant role in temper moderation in the case of being natural. Sexual food complies with the human need to express his/her love and/or is loved, so its fulfillment could prevent human mal-temperament. Familiarity food can be provided by companion with friends and family members and has a significant role to insure well-being. Given the comprehensiveness of EEF in ITM which covers all human health-related aspects, we can insure health and well-being among our population by promoting and public educating of these principles.
ABSTRACT
Cancer is one of the three main causes of mortality in most human communities whose prevalence is being increased. A significant part of health budget in all countries has been allocated to treat the cancer, which is incurable in many cases. It has led the global health attitude to cancer prevention. Many cancer-related risk factors have been identified for which preventive recommendations have been offered by international organizations such as World Health Organization. Some of the most important of these risk factors are smoking and alcohol consumption, hypercaloric and low-fiber diet, obesity, inactivity, environmental and industrial pollution, some viral infections, and hereditary factors. Exact reviewing of Iranian-Islamic traditional medicine (IITM) resources determines that preventive rules, which named as six essential rules (Sitteh-e-Zarurieah) are abundantly found, including all identified cancer-related risk factors. These preventive rules are: Air (Hava), body movement and repose, sleep and wakefulness, food and drink, evacuation and retention, and mental movement and repose (A'raz-e-Nafsani). The associated risk factors in classic medicine are: Smoking and air pollution, sedentary life, sleep disturbance, improper nutrition and alcohol, chronic constipation, and psychoneurotic stresses. Moreover, these rules are comprehensive enough to include many of the other harmful health-related factors whose roles have been confirmed in the occurrence of different diseases, except cancer. Apparently, cancer prevention in Iran would be more successful if the sextet necessary rules of IITM are promoted among the populations and health policy makers.
ABSTRACT
Personalized medicine (PM) is a novel term used for a medical model in which all diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic aspects of a disease are individualized for a patient using specific molecular testing. In Iranian-Islamic traditional medicine (IITM) an ancient paradigm for PM has been described which has been introduced in this paper. We reviewed the ancient resources of IITM and many valid recent studies on personalized medicine and described an ancient feature of personalized medicine in comparison with new ones. According to IITM scholars, every person has an individual temperament which is concluded of four basic humors combination. The individual temper is influenced by internal and external factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, season, and environment. This variability leads to different physical and mental behaviors toward a particular condition; so if we could identify the patient's temper, we would predict his/her health-related behaviors rather than predisposition and prognosis to different diseases, and select the best treatment. This holistic viewpoint of IITM to the human health and disease justifies the variable phenotypes among similar illnesses; the fact around which more advanced high-tech researches are being developed to explore all specific molecular pathways. IITM offers an ancient comprehensive PM (APM) which is more available and inexpensive compared to the modern PM (MPM). Moreover, APM focuses more on fitness than illness in comparison to MPM. It seems more attention to APM introduced by IITM could help us to promote health community. Design studies using high-tech MPM techniques would likely lead to clarification of most molecular aspects of APM.
