Rule 1

"A man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health."

This is a common-sense rule that still makes sense today. One needs a certain degree of body awareness to apply this rule. One of the easiest areas to begin awareness is eating. If we pay attention to our "gut" we'll know when we are full enough to be sated, but haven't yet reached the point of discomfort.

What about the exercise dictum, "No pain, no gain." This would seem to fly in the face of Bacon's admonition. Yet I side with Bacon over our present-day gurus of alleged body-fitness. Do we really need to exercise to the point of pain - a sign of muscle over-stretch, or at the very least, muscle over-work? My intuition tells me, "no." Pain, in this case, is simply a cue to impending damage or danger. It's purpose is to preserve us - we're kept from harm to enable response to attacks that could destroy our health.

The goal of health must be given its high place in our priorities to maintain the life-long possibility for response to environment; emergent needs of the moment; the ill-effects of acute illness, chronic disease, or the gradual deterioration that accompanies aging; and most importantly, to be able to enjoy life to its fullest.

Rule 2

"But it is a safer conclusion to say, 'this agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it'; than this, 'I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it': for strength of nature in youth passes over many excesses which are owing a man till his age. Discern of the coming on of years and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Bacon makes an important observation here: negative bodily feedback is a more reliable indicator of harm than lack of feedback being a marker of safety. This raises the question of considering threshold--the body's sensitivity to harm. In my field of neurology, to enable diagnosis of a clinical problem, we consider two main characteristics of an illness: it's tempo (how long from symptom onset until body dysfunction) and what body part is affected to cause the symptoms. In the case of a brain tumor, it often must grow to immense proportions before any symptom is experienced because the tissues involved are relatively insensitive to small degrees of damage.

Because of this axiom that different parts of the body are more or less sensitive to us harm-feedback, could we be doing ourselves more harm than good, when we overly strive toward preserving health through exercise or diet?