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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: "Natural" (plant-based) Health Solutions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Seems to me that desperation is more likely to lead people to accept the conventional treatments on the established reputation of the medical profession, than the controversial methods of alternative medicine. If you aren't in a position to judge these things, naturally you'll go with the treatment that has the authorities behind it.
Certainly the alternative strategies aren't going to be perfect, it's all quite experimental at this stage, and let's say there are some scams out there too although I don't have any reason to think it of anyone in particular -- even so there seems to be enough experience of cures and general health benefits to make it seriously worth considering. Although some say nutrition is part of the doctor's job, the alternative people say it's woefully inadequate, and the medical profession even fights against nutritional treatments that might help.; Such as IV Vitamin C, according to Valerie Warwick the oncology nurse. Chemo takes a lot out of the body and nutrition is more important than ever in that situation to strengthen the immune system, yet it is underused at best. I've never done juicing for any medical purpose, only because I liked it and thought it was good for me, and I never kept it up consistently either. But I did discover that carrot juice would knock out a cold sore on my lip in half the usual time. There's a little anecdote for you. I realize there is more to the alternative systems than basic nutrition, although it is central to them all, and that supplements of all kinds are part of it, and I don't really know much about all that so I assume I'll be reading up on it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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Just don't assume that all (or really any) "alternative med" people are saints bringing cures suppressed by "Big pharma" to the public. There are reasons why testing is required for drugs. Alternative medicine is not all harmless and ineffective - some of it is actively harmful and ineffective. There are some horrific treatments out there.
Nutritional advice may be helpful, but don't expect it to do anything much against cancer and a real nutritionist can probably give better advice than any "alternative medicine" type.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
OK I've got to mention another experience I had that contributes to my current favorable view of alternative med. I spent three weeks in rehab in the summer of 2013 after hip replacement surgery, and the food they gave us was the sort I'd never have touched with a ten foot pole outside that situation, and neither would most of the other patients. My roommate complained incessantly about it. When we once got a real egg for breakfast instead of the horrible egg substitute, I sent the kitchen a passionate note of thanks. The oatmeal was the sweetened stuff, and I never eat oatmeal at home. A glass of sugary juice was part of the breakfast.
The fare included the kind of white squishy bread NOBODY eats any more that I know of, and MARGARINE instead of butter, which I've known all my life is far worse for you than any natural fat, being a homogenized oil. Of course salt was restricted while we got lots of sugar. I could eat so little of it I was often hungry after hours and they'd bring me a microwaved cheeseburger, which in my famished state tasted wonderful. There was so much complaining the nutritionist came around to talk to us individually and when I said I never eat those simple carbs at home all she said was "you want to get better, don't you?" And I realized it was a lost cause at that point. And that's how I think about the medical profession's view of nutrition ever since. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
That just reads weirdly to me. I get that the hospital was serving cheap and nasty food. I get that it could use a good shake-up in the kitchen. But your complaint to the nutritionist seems to miss all that in favour of arguing about low carb diets. Maybe it's just the way you've written it but it sounds like you missed the opportunity to make genuinely important point that shouldn't be controversial.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
To me the simple carbs point was about health, not weight loss diets, too much sugar which isn't good for anybody. Perhaps you could have made the relevant point better.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I think that "too much sugar" makes that point perfectly well. But that seems to be only part of the problem - and could easily be a consequence of the real issues.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Even the bread is "too much sugar" though, would that get across to a nutritionist who thinks the food could help anyone "get better?" The point is the diet is unhealthy, far more likely to make you sick, or even kill you if you have a compromised immune system, than ever make anyone "better." And if the medical profession thinks this kind of food suffices for "nutrition," it proves a crying need for the better knowledge of the "alt-med" people.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Bread won't have much sugar in it. It may be unpleasant, over-processed and full of preservatives but sugar shouldn't have been a problem.
More, if you think not eating would be better than eating the food provided, you are very likely wrong. Which is probably the point that the nutritionist was trying to get across. There may have been a lack of nutritional control at the hospital, but the central problem was much more likely ill-informed "cost-cutting" that lead to poor quality food. E.g. "Long life" bread is cheap because it has a long shelf life so that gets bought by the hospital. I can't speak to the U.S. But over here there certainly have been efforts to improve hospital food, which have had some success. Alternative medicine is as likely to get you on some silly fad - or, especially, try to sell you overpriced supplements that you don't really need - as to give you good nutritional advice. As I said above the problem is far more likely with management and the financial aspects of running the hospital than the nutritionists.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I simply could not eat a lot of it, but of course I had to eat some of it.
Bread is a simple carb, it rapidly metabolizes to sugar in your body, that's why I used the term "simple carbs." I'm sure it's about money, so what. If it's defended as nutrition that's a crime, maybe of ignorance of what nutrition is, but it's sad if such unhealthy food is given to sick people. Why they have to be cheap about the food I don't get; it's a very good rehab otherwise (it's not part of the hospital system by the way, and the hospital has better food, at least it's more appetizing; I was on a liquid diet most of the time I was there so didn't get much opportunity to assess it). Most people of your opinion don't bother to find out anything about what's really entailed in the alternative diet strategies. And since you didn't even know what a simple carb is I'm very sure you know next to nothing of what this is all about. If you ever get a cold sore try carrot juice. Maybe that will give you a clue. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Bread is mainly carbohydrate, but starch not sugar. So I was right to think that you were bringing your diet into it. You are right that it metabolises quite quickly but it shouldn't be a problem on it's own. ABE: And I will add that there is a really big difference to objecting to the bread because it is cheap and nasty and objecting to it because it's bread. Even good bread is mostly starch and quickly metabolised.
quote: It may well not be as bad as you suppose considered from the point of nutrition. But the problem of cheap unappetising food is certainly real, and fixing it could very well improve the food in other respects. It does depend on maintaining a proper kitchen, which may be the problem (although even a cook chill service might be better than what they had)
quote: Oh dear. There you go bragging about your misuse of technical terminology again. For your information I did originally assume that you were using the term "simple carb" in a non-technical sense, and including the bread. You then insisted that you weren't talking about weight-loss diets and talking about sugar which lead me to question that. But I only emphasised the sugar because you did. In fact - and this is a quite simple point to rememember - if you are going to try to use technical terminology, sugars are simple carbohydrates and starches are complex carbohydrates. So, I know what a "simple carbohydrate" is and you didn't. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
I'm being seen by a doctor, Cool.
OK yes Chris had surgery at the very beginning. What he rejected was the regime of chemo they wanted to put him on afterward, and that's all he claimed to reject. There was a period of waiting while he was recovering from the surgery and during that time he studied up on alternative therapies and when time came for the chemo he opted out. Exactly. He should have taken the chemo in order to prevent a recurrence. If every patient presenting with Wark's symptoms took the same rash decision that he did, more of them would die as a result. The figures I showed you are clear; accept conventional therapies and your chances of survival are enhanced, choose alt-med and your chances of death are higher.
They also die as a result of the conventional treatments, and there is evidence for that too. Of course people die; it's cancer! Despite the best best of healers and hedge wizards alike, people die of cancer. But the stark truth is that more die with alt-med alone.
That's how the alternative med people feel about conventional med, that they are encouraging people to accept treatments that are poisonous, rarely work and put people through misery. Rrhain has already much of what I might say about "poison", but I would just like to remind you that the dose makes the poison. Warfarin is a good example. Just the right dose can thin the blood and protect against heart attacks and thromboses. Too much and you've got rat poison. Drugs have side effects because they actually have an effect on the body, which is more than can be said for most of the potions and nostrums of alt-med. And "rarely work"?! That is patent nonsense. Chris Wark is only alive because of his surgery. Without it, he had a 100% chance of death. Chemo would have boosted his chances even further. Every day patients see their cancers going into remission thanks to chemotherapy. Doctors are getting better all the time and survival rates for cancer are consistently improving. That's not down to juicing or coffee enemas, it's the result of medical expertise and innovation. Cancer survival is at an all-time high! This is good news! It seems odd to me that you are dismissive of that.
It seems to me the other side deserves more of a hearing than it usually gets. They get the same hearing as anyone else. If they can provide evidence of efficacy, their treatments will be absorbed by the mainstream. The trouble is that alt-med typically consists of treatments that have not been proven to work or have been proven not to work. This is further complicated by the refusal of alt-med advocates to accept the facts when their quack treatments are blown out of the water. So my challenge to you is to put your money where your mouth is; provide this "evidence" you speak of. Show me robust evidence that alt-med cancer patients have a better survival rate that non-alt-med patients. Show me the clinical trials for carrot juice or Gerson Therapy. I am willing to listen. It would be brilliant if we could tackle the scourge of cancer with something as simple as fruit juice, I like the sound of that. I genuinely want this to be true... I just don't think that it is. Mutate and Survive
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Alt-med proponents looooooove anecdotes, so I thought I might offer a couple of examples. Here's the story of Abraham Cherrix.
quote: The "treatment" that Cherrix underwent is called Hoxsey therapy, a mixture of herbs based upon the the diet of - I kid you not - a cancer surviving horse!. It's garbage. It doesn't work and it didn't work for Cherrix. His cancers continue to grow. Last year Cherrix accepted the reality that alt-med was not working. He accepted conventional therapy and his tumours have not returned so far. Article here; A decade after being in the spotlight, Virginia man turned to stem cells to treat cancer. They saved his life. Discussion here; Following up on a very old case: Abraham Cherrix is alive and well because he finally rejected alternative medicine Abraham Cherrix is damned lucky to be alive. For years he refused the treatments that could have helped him and he is extremely fortunate that his change of heart came before the disease progressed too far for him to be saved. Don't make the same mistake that Cherrix did. If you are ill, see a doctor; a real doctor not a loony snake-oil salesman. Mutate and Survive
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Nothing I've read about this recommends anything weird like the stuff Cherrix took.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Exactly. He should have taken the chemo in order to prevent a recurrence. If every patient presenting with Wark's symptoms took the same rash decision that he did, more of them would die as a result. The figures I showed you are clear; accept conventional therapies and your chances of survival are enhanced, choose alt-med and your chances of death are higher. It's all a matter of whom you believe in the end, even which supposed studies you believe. And why was Wark told after the surgery that he had a 60% chance of living another five years on the standard treatment? (Which he found out applied to all cancer patients, while his colon cancer in reality had a 28% chance.) I'm not objecting to surgery, just to chemotherapy which is so horrible for those who go through it, and die anyway. I count an aunt and a friend, and an acquaintance. The aunt died within a year of her initial diagnosis, the friend took three years to die after a declaration of being cancer-free, the acquaintance died within two or three years, I don't remember; all had conventional treatment and nothing else. Aunt colon cancer, friend breast cancer, acquaintance a tumor in her leg. Another comes to mind, someone I didn't know, but who was well known to the Christian community who all prayed for her, mother of five, doctor's wife, cancer found just before she gave birth to her fifth. She died within a year on conventional treatment. I wonder where these four show up in the statistics? I just remembered a fifth but not enough about the specifics, just that she died soon after anyone knew she had cancer. All were Christians by the way, three of them in my church. ABE: Meanwhile Jay Kordich took Gerson's juice treatment for his bladder cancer as a y7oung man and lived to be 93; a local man did carrot juice and lived 25 years beyond his diagnosis of prostate cancer. Jay Kordich talks about his experience: Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
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Nothing I've read about this recommends anything weird like the stuff Cherrix took. Really? Then read on. Mercola.com hosts an article promoting Hoxsey for dogs! Not weird at all! http://healthypets.mercola.com/.../02/osteosarcoma-dogs.aspx
quote: Selfish and cruel. Pets suffer on so that owners can congratulate themselves on their natural lifestyle. Or here, where Mercola.com plugs the Hoxsey clinic. http://articles.mercola.com/...ristine-horner-interview.aspx
quote: Nothing says medical prestige like a quack clinic in Tijuana! It's also worth nothing that the herbs are just one part of the regime that Cherrix followed. He was just as convinced as you seem to be that some sort of healthy diet was going to cure him. It's all the same. Stuff like Hoxsey just represents the nuttier part of the nutloaf. Mutate and Survive
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