Many people make costly mistakes when reasoning about their health. Even most doctors make this mistake, because it's not a mistake that's caused by a lack of medical knowledge. Rather, it's caused by a lack of clear thinking.

People experience symptoms, and then they look for the root cause of their symptoms. For example, somone with heartburn or pain in their stomach might decide the root cause of their issues is excess stomach acid/GERD (GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease -- a disease affecting around 20% of the population!!). They then treat this root cause with antacids, often for many years. These people sometimes die of esophageal cancer, because the identified root cause was not the true root cause, and the treatment was imperfect.

The mistake was identifying a root cause inside the body. The root cause of a health issue is always something outside the body. (In the case of genetic disorders, the root cause is your parents giving you bad genes, and your parents are outside your body.) Our universe is material, and operates on cause and effect. You can always, in theory, trace the causes back far enough to find one that's outside your body. This is [...]

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First published:
May 17th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WiRrHDd3EiaRd6gsu/how-to-reason-about-your-health-issues

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.