The health management system (HMS) is an evolutionary medicine regulative process proposed by Nicholas Humphrey in which actuarial assessment of fitness and economic-type cost–benefit analysis determines the body’s regulation of its physiology and health. This incorporation of cost–benefit calculations into body regulation provides a science grounded approach to mind–body phenomena such as placebos that are otherwise not explainable by low level, noneconomic, and purely feedback based homeostatic or allostatic theories.