Transparency · Avicenna Engine™
How we work
We give you a compass, so you know where you stand and what to have measured first.
Avicenna Engine™ is our pattern engine, named after Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the 11th-century physician whose Canon of Medicine was the standard medical textbook in Europe and the Islamic world for 600 years. Avicenna looked at the whole person, not at one symptom in isolation, and paid attention to patterns, context, lifestyle and temperament. We bring that view to how we read bloodwork.
Our brand is not called Fitrah Recovery by accident. Fitrah stands for the natural state in which the body functions optimally. Avicenna saw the return to that equilibrium as the goal of medicine. We do not practise medicine. We read your bloodwork against the Avicenna optimum, and show the patterns that isolated markers cannot.
For chronic, layered complaints it helps to see the pattern across your full bloodwork, your lifestyle and your context. Together, your bloodwork and how you feel give signals. We help you read those signals, so you know what to have measured first and discuss with your doctor. Your doctor remains indispensable for diagnosis and treatment. We add the context and pattern work that a short consultation often has no time for.
What is Avicenna optimum?
Lab reference ranges are population statistics: the range where 95% of a healthy reference group falls. That says little about what is optimal for you.
The Avicenna optimum is our measure of where people feel and function best (energy, sleep, mood, recovery), built on guidelines and outcome research. Those ranges are often tighter than 'normal according to the lab'.
Example: ferritin 'normal' is roughly 12 to 300 µg/L (same number as ng/mL in the US). The Avicenna optimum is 50 to 100 µg/L for a man and 70 to 100 for a woman. Someone with ferritin 16 sits 'within the norm' but can still feel tired and short of breath, and notice hair loss. In women, hair loss can be linked to low ferritin.
Pattern, not one marker
One marker off is information. A combination of markers together tells the story. A ferritin of 9 in isolation is one thing; a ferritin of 9 with folate below 5, B12 at the edge, and vitamin D below 25 is another. The first asks for replenishment. The second asks for a different order.
We do not read one marker at a time. We read the combination together, plus your biological sex, what you have already taken, and how your values change from one measurement to the next. Each combination needs a different answer, and that is exactly why generic iron advice works for some and not for others.
We do not diagnose, and we do not claim to know better than your doctor. A consultation is short. We have the room to draw out the combination and make the sequence visible, so you know what your doctor can confirm or adjust.
Every marker in context
We read each marker not as an isolated number, but across several layers of context at once. The underlying rules are hand-curated and traceable to the published source.
Example: ferritin 50 means something different for someone tired for months than for someone who feels great. We weigh that context, for every marker.
Evidence tiers T1 to T6
Not all sources are equally strong. We label each basis with an evidence tier so you know where a recommendation comes from:
T1: Systematic reviews, meta-analyses and large randomised trials (Cochrane, NEJM, BMJ, The Lancet), the strongest basis
T2: A single randomised trial, or a large cohort study
T3: Case series, small cohort studies and in-vitro work
T4: Published guidelines and expert consensus (WHO, NICE, ACG, NHG)
T5: Traditional and historical sources: the Canon of Ibn Sina, classical TCM texts
T6: Anecdotal: individual experience reports from the community
Lab ranges rest on T1 to T3. A guideline (T4) can confirm or bound such a value, but never sets it alone. T5 and T6 provide context and never a reference value: not one of our own optima rests on T5 or T6.
What we don't claim
No diagnosis. No substitute for your doctor. No treatment. We build a reading guide based on patterns we often see in similar complaints.
Avicenna optimum is a question for your doctor, not a claim your doctor must accept. Not every doctor works with these ranges, and that is their right.
We do not replace medication. Never stop medication without talking to the doctor who prescribed it.