Whois & Analysis for drweil.com

Andrew Weil, MD (born June 8, 1942) is an American celebrity doctor who is a physician, author, spokesperson, and broadly described "guru" of the alternative medical brands: holistic health and integrative medicine, whose names also constitute an emerging brand of healthcare services and products in these fields.

Alternative medicine or fringe medicine are practices claimed to have the healing effects of medicine but which are disproven, unproven, or impossible to prove, or are excessively harmful in relation to their effect; and where the scientific consensus is that the therapy does not, or can not, work because the known laws of nature are violated by its basic claims; or where it is considered so much worse than conventional treatment that it would be unethical to offer as treatment.

Alternative therapies or diagnoses are not part of medicine or science-based healthcare systems.

Alternative medicine consists of a wide variety of practices, products, and therapies—ranging from those that are biologically plausible but not well tested, to those with known harmful and toxic effects.

Contrary to popular belief, significant expense is paid to test alternative medicine, including over $2.5 billion spent by the United States government.

Almost none show any effect beyond that of false treatment.

Perceived effects of alternative medicine may be caused by placebo; decreased effect of functional treatment (and therefore potentially decreased side effects); and regression toward the mean where improvement that would have occurred anyway is credited to alternative therapies; or any combination of the above.

Alternative treatments are neither the same as experimental medicine, nor traditional medicine — although the latter, when used today may be considered alternative.

Health is the level of functional and metabolic efficiency of a living organism.

In humans it is the ability of individuals or communities to adapt and self-manage when facing physical, mental or social changes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, the ambiguity in developing cohesive health strategies, and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete".

Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction.

Information is that which informs.

In other words, it is the answer to a question of some kind.

It is thus related to data and knowledge, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts.

As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.