Ralph Shumaker wrote: > Well, one of the problems here is that this is a straw man. Hospitals > and doctors have very little to do with health. Don't get me wrong, > they are great for testing, diagnosis, and emergency intervention > (usually surgery). But if you want health, study nutrition.
Perhaps strangely, I would largely agree with you. Historically, there has been much too little emphasis placed on health maintenance by physicians and the healthcare system. It really is changing, however. > Most ailments are caused by nutritional deficiencies. Scurvy is little > more than a lack of vitamin C. Scury is what happens when you don't get vitamin C. End of story. I would disagree that "most ailments' are nutritional deficiencies. There's a lot that are related to nutritional excesses, many related to bad genetic background, and quite a few that are just bad luck. > Symptoms of PMS are usually reduced, if > not eliminated, by calcium. Depression and sleep disorders often can > also be reduced by calcium. High intake of calcium and vitamin D can not only reduce symptoms of PMS, but often prevent it from occuring. While calcium and vitamin D supplementation has been studied in postmenopausal, postpartum depression, and seasonal affective disorder, no consistent improvement has been observed in controlled studies. You didn't note that calcium can lower blood pressure, and if you take enough (~2 gm daily) reduce your risk of colon cancer to near zero. > Cancer cannot exist in a body that is not > acidic. This is B.S.. While the center jof solid tumors may necrose and lead to local acidosis and some forms of cancer (lymphoma/leukemia, small cell lung cancer) can lead to systemic lactic acidosis, the pH of most people with cancer stays right at a normal 7.40. > Certain types of heart attack can be completely prevented by > selenium. That's much too strong of a statement. While there is animal evidence that increased levels of selenium can reduce infarct size, and human evidence of increased risk of myocardial events in men whose selenium levels are less than 1 micromole/L, several large, prospective studies on supplementation have failed to show any decrease in cardiovascular events. Cerium and scandium also appear to be cardioprotective. This is similar to the situation with folic acid, where while clearly men with higher homocysteine levels are at increased cardiovascular risk, supplementation with folic acid, which lowers homocysteine levels, has not been shown to be protective. > There's not a great deal of money spent on surgery for animals. > Veteranarians have long ago figured out the causes for most ailments. > And most of them were due to some nutritional deficiency. What about immunization for rabies, parvo, distemper and the like ? What about period stool screens and treatment for parasites and periodic chemoprophylaxis for heart worm ? > Ulcers are > not caused by stress (though they *can* be agitated by it), but rather > by a lack of bismuth (the trace mineral from which Pepto-Bismol derives > its name) and the presence of a bacteria called Heliobactorpylori. > Ulcers can be *cured* with bismuth and tetracycline. This was known for > over 50 years by veteranarians, but only recently was published in > medical journals for humans. The first scientific article I can find on medline concerning Helicobacter pylori (then called Campylobacter pylori, and previously Vibrio rugula) was in 1987 - medline goes back to 1970 - don't know why no prior hits. However, I think your dates are a bit mixed up, with respect to understanding the significance of the organism. While seen on histopathological section of stomach tissue as far back as 1875, and noted by the veternarian Bizzozero in the 19th century to be present in the gastric track of animals, it wasn't cultured until 1979-1981, and the link to peptic ulcer disease not established until 1982-1984 (Warren and Marshall received the Nobel Prize in 2005 for this). Antibiotic treatment trials started in the 1980s - is that "recent" ? Helicobacter pylori is also not so difficult to eradicate. It often takes several courses of up to 3 antibiotics (amoxicillin, fluroquinolones, and metronidazole are most effective) as well as acid reduction and bismuth to achieve cure. Bismuth works because it's antibacterial, not because it's a nutrient. Prednisone or cortisone, increased with physiological stress (e.g. surgery, other severe illness, not psychological "stress"), increase the risk of peptic ulcer dramatically, which is one reason why patients in the ICU are routinely given acid reducing medications prophylactically. > When you have an ailment, go to the doctor for testing and diagnosis, > but for treatment (unless you need immediate surgery), go to various > vitamin stores, ask lots of questions about that ailment, and determine > if supplements can help. Most likely they will. And I'm not just > saying that this is what vitamin salesmen will tell you. Take the > supplements and find out for yourself. Yes, by all means, ignore the fact that if you are ill with something that won't kill you, you'll be getting better, so the supplement will "work". Ignore the placebo effect. Forget about those silly randomized placebo controlled trials. Don't listen to your doctor when they advocate lifestyle changes (stop smoking, get more exercise, loose weight, get more calcium, fruits and vegetables) or screening tests for cancer or cardiovascular disease - just check with the vitamin salesman. > All drugs have side effects for most people. But *few* supplements have > adverse side effects unless taken in excess. Medicines are chemicals > that alleviate a target symptom while often creating other seemingly > unrelated symptoms and ailments for which other medicines must then be > taken. Medicines only silence the alarm. Supplements go straight to > the source and dissipate the cause. All the more reason to have the best information available concerning both the likelihood of benefit as well as the risk of undesirable effects. Supplements are chemicals, just like pharmaceutical drugs. They just haven't gone through *any* safety or efficacy testing. For example, most people don't know that certain herbal teas are associated with potentially fatal veno-occlusive disease of the liver, or that ginseng or real licorice can cause hypertension. When you are taking prescription medicine, you know that there will be some monitoring of problems - though it may be late. The oversight of pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. is badly broken, at least with respect to disclosure, marketing, and post-marketing surveillance, witness the story with cox2 inhibitors, recently. > I was starting to have carpal tunnel. I investigated surgery, expensive > and risky. I had almost a 50% chance that surgery would make it better > and almost as good odds that it would make it worse. I've never had a patient that didn't get better after CTS surgery. In 2006, Schmelzer, et al, wrote of experience with endoscopic carpal tunnel release in 486 patients (753 hands), noting relief of symptoms in 100%. Pain may recur, and complete relief takes time (atrophy from pre-existing nerve damage takes months to >2 years to reverse), but as surgeries go, it's generally a *lot* more than 50% of people who benefit. One day when I was > at the chiroprator's office, I asked if he ever works on extremities > (not just the spine). He asked, and I told him my symptoms. He told me > to bend my wrist to its limit and hold it there. He started poking > around on my forearm until he hit a spot that sent me to my knees! All > he did was press that spot and I immediately had almost full range > restored in that direction, but not the other. We repeated the process > for the other direction and he sent me to my knees again! This time > also, just one poke and I had almost full range completely restored. It > wasn't until three weeks later that the range went back to former > limits. So I started poking around and found the same spots. My poking > didn't have the same effect. Who knows why. But I started massaging > these spots any time I felt tightness and the massaging would *always* > reduced the problem. I kept doing it and kept doing it. Now, it is > very rare that I ever feel it. And a little massaging here or there is > all it takes to eliminate it completely within a day or so. It now > recurs so rarely that I have relief from it for many months at a time, > sometimes years. I'm completely in favor of empiric treatment - whatever works for you. I've had lots of patients who were helped by chiropractic treatment. I've had a few who were injured. Lot's of my patients are also taking nutritional supplements. I suggest that a good physician should be a knowledgeable and valuable ally in the quest for health. But maybe the guy at the vitamin store knows better. After all, he has no possible conflict of interest, right ? He's only trying to sell you stuff. David Looney -- March into emptiness, strike voids, bypass the defended, attack the unexpected. - Ts'ao Ts'ao -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
