Debunking bulldust about health

[Lance Kennedy]

A new book just released reveals some decent scientific sense on the subject of health.

Dr. Susan Love is better known for her work on breast cancer, but now researched common ideas on what makes us healthy.

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=p6gD ... CCUQ6AEwBA

The good doctor used standard research protocols to determine which ideas were valid, and which are total bulldust.  Some examples are :

- Drinking 8 glasses of water a day.  Bulldust.   In fact, all we need to do for good health is drink enough to quench our thirst.

- 'Magic' foods, like blueberries and the like.  Bulldust.   Foods are not medicines.   Specific foods may be a good part of a balanced diet, but that is all they are.

- Overweight is bad.   Bulldust.   Being obese or being underweight are both bad, but people who are above 24 but less than 30 on the BMI scales, on average, live longer than the rest.

- Overweight is our fault for overeating.   Bulldust.   Love quotes studies in which people are required to undergo major weight change through either starving or force feeding.  Result - obesity or ultra skinny bodies.  However, when returned to a normal diet, the weight quickly returned to the previous norm.   It appears that, for most people, what we weigh is primarily determined by our genes, for a specific age range, and trying to alter that is a no-win situation.

- A lot of exercise is good.  Bulldust.  Moderate exercise is best for long term health.  Also, formal exercise has little or no health benefit to the young.  Greatest benefit comes with middle aged to senior persons, who exercise.

- Sugar causes young people to be hyperactive.  Bulldust.   Ingesting sugar has no effect on the activity levels of children.

- Eating fat makes you fat.   Bulldust.  Ingesting sugar is worse.  Fat has a high satiation index and makes you feel full quicker.

- Eggs are bad for you.  Bulldust.   They are a good healthy food, even at two or more each day.

Detox is good.   Bulldust.  The body is perfectly capable of eliminating toxins with no help from detox quacks.  Sweating does not eliminate toxins, just water and salt which has to be replaced.

And so on.   Too many health myths to report in one post.

[fromthehills]

My favorite, out of your list, is the water thing. I've always thought it was silly to force water down when you're not thirsty.

[Bunyip]

- Overweight is bad.   Bulldust.   Being obese or being underweight are both bad, but people who are above 24 but less than 30 on the BMI scales, on average, live longer than the rest.

I'm 62,with a BMI of 26. That means I'll live longer? In itself, no it does not.

- Overweight is our fault for overeating.

'Fault' is a moral judgement. My understanding is based on what I thought was simple  physics: IF I ingest more energy than I use I WILL put on weight.    In my opinion parents ARE responsible  for their obese children(and yup,THAT'S a moral  judgment)

I'm diabetic and have high cholesterol. That means I've had to learn a lot about  a healthier diet.Part of that meant unlearning some myths. EG : Eggs are not bad for you.  Simple carbohydrates ARE bad when eaten with protein or fat..( the  body uses the simple carbs and stores the protein as fat)

Perhaps the simplest way to eat healthily is to eat fresh food,avoiding refined sugar,white flour and processed food of all kinds plus seldom eating  fast food of any kind (by 'seldom'  I mean about once a year max)--and by doing SOME exercise every day. (about 30 minutes minimum) Walking is fine.My eating habits are the result  of a plan designed for me by a dietician at the diabetes clinic at the local public hospital..

[Lance Kennedy]

To bunyip

As I understand it, the reason slightly overweight people, on average, live longer than those who are underweight or obese, is that lots of people suffer debilitating illness at some stage.   Survival from such illnesses is higher if there is a little surplus weight for the body to draw on as a resource.

If you do not suffer such an illness, you are probably better off in 'normal' weight range as measured by BMI.   However, such illnesses are sufficiently common in older people to make a little extra weight, on average, into a longevity asset.

This does not work for seriously overweight and obese people, of course.

[JJM]

The book sounds interesting.  However, considering that a large egg has 230 mg of cholesterol and the recommended daily limit is 300 mg, I cannot see how two or more eggs can be recommended.

[Lance Kennedy]

JJM

That is exacrtly the 'logic' that kept people from eating healthy eggs for decades.   What has since been discovered is that cholesterol in food does not equal cholesterol in arteries.   It is digested and can end up in a variety of ways - mostly excreted.

It is, recent research has shown, high consumption of saturated fats rather than cholesterol, that leads to cholesterol in arteries.

Eggs are healthy.  While two a day is probably as much as you need, there is now no scientific evidence to say that more is bad.

[JJM]

JJM

That is exacrtly the 'logic' that kept people from eating healthy eggs for decades.   What has since been discovered is that cholesterol in food does not equal cholesterol in arteries.   ...

Really, recent research?  I'm surprised that has not been known for a long time- the research is easy, and there has long been keen interest in steroid metabolism in general, as well as cholesterol in particular.  Anyway, we may be in luck; a doctor of my acquaintance may publish a review of the book.  She has put herself on the waiting list for it at her library.

[A-number]

She is telling only one side of the story, the side that conveniences her, for example:

1/-Food is medicine in a sense that it prevents nutritional deficiencies among other things. And nutritional deficiencies are known to lead to other more serious medical problems if maintained over a long enough period of time.

2/-Overweight and fat cause well known medical problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, limited mobility or outright physical handicap since the larger the person is the less they are able to move freeling etc.

3/-Sugar does cause hyperactivity in children as well as adults if one eats enough of it.

4/-Lots of exercise might not necessarely be good (since "Lot/quantity" has nothing to do with quality), but Good effective, mesured exercise is fundamental to one's vitality. This has practically been proven time and again.

5/- the water total daily intake depends on what other fluid the person drinks along with that, I pesonally finish a gallon of milk in an average of 3 days max regardless of how hard I try to make it last. I personally never measured 8 glasses of water above that, that is completely stupid. And what 300 pounder supposed to drink if an average person should have no less than 8 glasses? that is absurd. There are also other factors, such as if one eats lots  of veggies and fruits which do have a certain amount of water in them. etc.

6/- I agree with her about eggs. There were times where I ate 4 to 6 eggs each day ( Oh god I hope some don't think I am some kind of snake   ). Never had any problem. But on the other hand, I was proportionally burning good.

etc.

Ok, Pyrrho, I like my friend Prince Lance. So please let me participate in this thread   .

[Lance Kennedy]

A-number

A lot of this is about how you look at things.

I would like to say to people that food should not be seen as medicine.   However, I still emphasize a good balanced diet.  I appreciate that the lack of certain foods can cause diseases like scurvy and rickets.   However, those are very readily prevented by a balanced diet.   It is the attitude that certain foods are medicines that I would like to counter.  We should take the focus off specific foods, and put it onto the variety that good balance requires.

On fat and ill health.   Being overweight (but still less than obese) should be of little consequence.   Being overweight and sedentary may be bad.  However, if an overweight person also exercises enough to remain moderately fit, there appears to be no harm from the extra weight.  And sometimes the extra weight is of considerable value - mainly during severe illness.

Eating fat is not as important as simply eating a good diet.   Fat is just a contributor of calories.  Too many calories in the absense of sufficient exercise leads to obesity, which is harmful.  But those calories can come from starch, sugar, or fat.   Too much focus on fat is not a good thing, because people can follow that advise and still become obese and unhealthy from other calorific foods.

On type of exercise.   I always emphasize that the single key thing about exercise is simply to do it.   The type is less important.  Sure, you can make a very valid case to say that carefully planned and all round exercise is better.   However, the difference between doing (say) three hours a week of lousy exercise and no exercise is much greater than the difference between doing 3 hours of lousy exercise versus 3 hours of excellent exercise.  Three hours of poorly designed exercise is still of great benefit.

[A-number]

As far as food not being medicine, I respectfully disagree. I personally used it to reverse seriously advancing/serious diseases. I did not use any FDA approved drugs, nor have physically seen any drs.  about it. And in my book, that does make it medicine. It does since if I chose to go to the dr. (for how serious the medical problem was becoming) he/she would have hooked me with tones of medical tests and medications that would have chained me down for life. And wouldn't that treatment be considered "medicine"? it would of course. I didn't do that, I took a different route that included some reading, and it worked. Does what I did have to be considered non-medicine just because no Dr. made money off me? No, since my condition has since been cured and never came back.
Lousy exercise can be harmful on many levels including psychological, mental as well as emotional (and lots of times, that's where the excuses to abuse food come from) since many people just bs themselves into nothing but lots of frustration, discouragement that would eventually lead to the false belief that exercise is neither effective nor fundamental in maintaining and optimizing one's health. because  they are not willing to acknowlege as well as observe certain basic rules. They just want to pretend they are "working out". Pretending is one thing, truly working out is another.

Again, lots of what she is talking about is very basic and should be common knowledge. I don't know why people seem to think that they should have ph, D in biology in order to be aware of few things. I find that completely absurd.

[Blacksamwell]

As far as food not being medicine, I respectfully disagree. I personally used it to reverse seriously advancing/serious diseases. I did not use any FDA approved drugs, nor have physically seen any drs.  about it. And in my book, that does make it medicine.

What disorder or disease did you diagnose yourself as having?

How are you certain that your diagnosis is the correct one?

Per your own diagnosis, what was causing your disorder?

What food(s) did you self-prescribe?

How did you measure any changes (better/worse) in your condition once treatment was begun?

How did you set up your experiment to allow you to exclude any other healing factors and show definitively that the effects you were seeing were ONLY due to the food you were eating?

[Lance Kennedy]

It is very easy to fool yourself into believing you don't need modern drugs.   The primary reason for this is that, most of the time, you don't.   A doctor friend of mine told me that 50% of all the cases he sees 'have no organic cause'.   Meaning they are diseases all in the mind.   For that 50%, it really does not matter what he prescribes, whether a potent drug or simply a direction to eat more fruit, as long as the patient believes in the efficacy of the prescription.

It is when a genuine, possibly serious, ailment strikes that the doctor and modern medicine becomes vital.   I hope that A-Number is wise enough to tell the difference between a minor problem that is self healing, and a serious one that requires potent therapy.

If a person is sensible about food, and eats a well balanced diet, then that person is eating food, not medicine.   The result, mostly, is good health.  And changing that diet is not gonna help in any way, shape or form, to heal any ailment.

Re 'lousy exercise'.   I repeat, any exercise is much better than no exercise.  Sure, good exercise is better than bad.   However, it is not necessary to go to a gym and get a personal trainer to design a personalised exercise regimen, updated every month, in order to gain substantial health benefits. Compared to being a couch potato, simply going for a half hour walk each day is of enormous benefit.

[JJM]

It is very easy to fool yourself into believing you don't need modern drugs.   The primary reason for this is that, most of the time, you don't.   A doctor friend of mine told me that 50% of all the cases he sees 'have no organic cause'.   Meaning they are diseases all in the mind.   ...

No, it means that the doctor has not identified an organic cause.  I could go on; but I think you get the idea.

[Lance Kennedy]

JJM

You would normally be right.  In this case, and knowing the guy as I do, he was talking about imaginary illnesses.

I find it interesting that an average GP (assuming his practise is average?) should get 50% imaginary ills.  Probably the best patients.  If he can imbue them with confidence in his 'treatments', they will return regularly with $$$ and praise him to the skies.

[A-number]

As far as food not being medicine, I respectfully disagree. I personally used it to reverse seriously advancing/serious diseases. I did not use any FDA approved drugs, nor have physically seen any drs.  about it. And in my book, that does make it medicine.

...

How did you set up your experiment to allow you to exclude any other healing factors and show definitively that the effects you were seeing were ONLY due to the food you were eating?

My life is neither a cheap lab, nor am I a Guinea pig to do what you are asking. If you see yourself as an animal to "experiment" on, I do not see myself that way. I've already explained what I've done and why.  I am not sorry to hold my body and well being above the general pathetic conventional standards. Besides, the serious diseases I have reversed I have talked about in other old threads.

[Blacksamwell]

As far as food not being medicine, I respectfully disagree. I personally used it to reverse seriously advancing/serious diseases. I did not use any FDA approved drugs, nor have physically seen any drs.  about it. And in my book, that does make it medicine.

...

How did you set up your experiment to allow you to exclude any other healing factors and show definitively that the effects you were seeing were ONLY due to the food you were eating?

My life is neither a cheap lab, nor am I a Guinea pig to do what you are asking. If you see yourself as an animal to "experiment" on, I do not see myself that way. I've already explained what I've done and why.  I am not sorry to hold my body and well being above the general pathetic conventional standards. Besides, the serious diseases I have reversed I have talked about in other old threads.

Well then, that's going to pretty much invalidate your argument.

If you did nothing to eliminate the possibility that your outcomes were from perfectly natural healing actions then there's no evidence to support your claim that your healing was due to the food you were eating or the prayers you uttered.

You've already stated that you didn't see a doctor so you don't know with any certainty what your condition was.

You then didn't measure or test the healing that did occur to see if it was outside the realm of natural possibilities.

You're more than welcome to make any claims you like based on that logic.  Just don't expect others to accept your position as valid.

[A-number]

It is very easy to fool yourself ...diseases all in the mind.   .

Oh no 'cake' Lance, damaged nerve by state of pre-diabetes that caused vicious sharp constant pain, night and day, around the clock, along with numness, cold as well as heat of the legs  for about a good 4 to 5 months is a disease in the mind   .
I looked up on a medical site (www.webMD.com) that when nerves  are that painful. That means the damage has been done for years and that is the last state of the nerves distruction by the abuse of exccess sugar. The person who said that is a US medical Dr. would you be willing to tell her what you are telling me?

The second one is a start of ashma. I didn't even know what the heck I had. If it was not for the same medical site, I would be clueless as to what needs to be done since my family has no traces in it of such medical problem.

Yeah, sure, I am fooling myself and all was in my mind.
One thing is certain. If I need a medical opinion. I will not be coming here to seek it.

Sorry for stopping by, I will not be coming back to this area.

[Lance Kennedy]

A-number

No offense is intended to you, and I appreciate that your beliefs here are important to you.

However, I would ask you to look at this from our view point also.   Medical researchers discovered at least 100 years ago that case histories like yours can be very misleading.  People get well from a disease and ascribe the healing to a food, a medicine, a prayor, a meditation or whatever.   Researchers follow up with that treatment on others and find it does not work.   The reason being that the healing was caused by something else - probably just time and natural recovery.

You may feel strongly that the healing you experienced was caused by one specific factor, but the rest of us are not going to be readily convinced.  We need to see proper scientific data.

[A-number]

No Lance, out of the 2 parties, meaning you guys against me and others. Your 'beliefs' are important to you. What is on the other hand important to me are FACTS!  as in::: F_A_C_T_S

You (refering to the group and not you in particular) striving to continue to spread ignorant as well as evil falshoods is profoundly appauling to me. And I am just going to keep my comments in this area to this and move on, as I know it is futile to reason with you people, since what seems to be important to you is,  continue to promote  the pharma  beast that has as priority # 1, Making big bucks no matter what the expenses are and whose expenses. And this is anything but healthy honest medicine.

[Lance Kennedy]

It is not the "pharma beast" we are promoting, but good science.  

My own expressed views are not in any significant way different from those of most medical researchers.  There are reliable ways to obtain scientific data, and unreliable ways.   I hope and trust that everything I say is an honest attempt to focus on that which is reliable.

[Graumagier]

What is on the other hand important to me are FACTS!  as in::: F_A_C_T_S

Anecdotes are not facts. And that you don't actually care about facts is obvious from several of your statements, for example:

1/-Food is medicine in a sense that it prevents nutritional deficiencies among other things. And nutritional deficiencies are known to lead to other more serious medical problems if maintained over a long enough period of time.

So air is a medicine, since breathing it prevents hypoxia?

2/-Overweight and fat cause well known medical problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, limited mobility or outright physical handicap since the larger the person is the less they are able to move freeling etc.

You're oversimplifying here. The statement made by Dr. Love has some support by epidemiological data.

3/-Sugar does cause hyperactivity in children as well as adults if one eats enough of it.

You're plain wrong about that one. There's been quite some research done on that subject, showing no such effects.

The thing is, you are applying a very different standard of evidence than most of us here (and the medical community in general). A weaker one, I might say.

[numan]

'
Where money and emotions and power are involved, almost everything people bellieve is wrong.

.

[vanderpoel]

'
Where money and emotions and power are involved, almost everything people bellieve is wrong.

Well done Numan.
Since it can now no longer be said that you don't supply evidence for your claims.

[numan]

'
Where money and emotions and power are involved, almost everything people bellieve is wrong.

Well done Numan.
Since it can now no longer be said that you don't supply evidence for your claims.

SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE!

.

[numan]

'

It is not the "pharma beast" we are promoting, but good science.  

No, it is the Pharma Beast that you are promoting.

.