dagblog - Comments for "NUTRITION VS. DRUGS"

"My bigger point was that if

MrSmith1 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:34:48 +0000

In reply to You'll probably be happy to

"My bigger point was that if something works for you, and if there's no reason to suspect it's doing any harm, then keep doing it."

I couldn't agree more.

This is actually why I wrote

Richard Day — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:59:21 +0000

In reply to Tis Q.

This is actually why I wrote this.

I wanted to hear similar stories.

But yours...

I feel good for you and I bet you have less depression and your woman has found a nicer guy to live with. hahahaaa

Congratulations.

I have a lot longer road to travel!

Different people do react

Richard Day — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:56:41 +0000

In reply to While we're nitpicking, I'll

Different people do react differently.

And people develop allergies later on in life.

And, you might take the same vegetable grown in a different environ and it will contain different amounts of nutritious substances since all soils are not the same.

I just decided to write about one important thing in my life that changed.

I have not yet contacted Kevin Trudeau! hahahaha

You'll probably be happy to

Verified Atheist — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:49:52 +0000

In reply to Verified, you do not want to

You'll probably be happy to know that I don't know who Norman Cousins is, and I've never read his book.

That said, I agree wholeheartedly that relying solely on the placebo effect, especially if there are other medicines with a proven track record is bad medicine. As for food allergies, I have a mild one that I'm about 90% convinced is all in my head, but I still can't get it out of my head: when I eat overly ripe bananas or carrots (and possibly other fruits/vegetables), my throat closes up a little. It's enough to make me uncomfortable, but nothing very serious. This food "allergy" started shortly after I had my wisdom teeth taken out (using only a local anesthetic, something I came to regret during the process), and I wonder if my mind decided to start playing some trick on me at that time. All pure hypothesis, mind you. Over-ripe bananas and carrots do undergo a chemical change, so it is possible there's something truly chemical going on, but I didn't have the problem until my 20s. But yeah, I'm with you that something like the placebo effect can only help so much. My bigger point was that if something works for you, and if there's no reason to suspect it's doing any harm, then keep doing it. (The tomatoes example is borderline: your body might miss that lycopene which is said to help reduce the chances of developing some forms of cancer¹.)

¹Friedman M, Levin CE, Lee SU et al. Tomatine-containing green tomato extracts inhibit growth of human breast, colon, liver, and stomach cancer cells. J Agric Food Chem. 2009 Jul 8;57(13):5727-33. 2009.

Verified, you do not want to

MrSmith1 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:38:00 +0000

In reply to While we're nitpicking, I'll

Verified, you do not want to get me started about what a f*cking *ss Norman Cousins was with his g*d d*mn placebo effect book. It's all well and good to encourage people to think positively and mildly delude themselves when they have a headache or a food allergy, but to give people false hope that they can cure a serious chronic disease simply by watching comedy movies and taking mega-doses of vitamin C, is, in my opinion, criminal. Especially when, inevitably people discover that in spite of their placebo and positive state of mind, their disease continues to progress. Then they begin to wonder why they are so cursed. Why did it work for this guy and not work for me? That leads to serious depression and a sense of hopelessness and despair.

Cousins set the perception of AS (Ankylosing Spondylitis) back 50 years with his f*cking "Anatomy of an Illness", in which he claimed to have cured himself of AS by watching comedy movies and taking mega-doses of vitamin C. It was a lie, and he was a fraud.

He did not have AS, it was a misdiagnosis; every rheumatologist I've ever met agrees that Norman Cousins never had AS; the symptoms he lists in the book are wrong. Even the websites that are devoted to keeping his legacy alive, have scrubbed the words Ankylosing Spondylitis from their sites, and now say he just had some vague inflammatory illness. ... and Cousins had to know he didn't have AS, maybe not right away, but certainly at some point in his life, and he never retracted what he wrote in the book. So it's still out there, being quoted by lazy journalists and bloggers who write about health and decide they need to do a blog about humor and illness and the placebo effect. For years, the mention of Ankylosing Spondylitis in that book was many people's only knowledge of the disease. And it was a completely false one. Ankylosing Spondylitis can not be cured by laughter and vitamin C. What Cousins is actually writing about is a way of COPING, not curing. THAT is what laughter is, a coping mechanism. It makes you feel better, but feeling better is not curing. It is changing your context, not your content. That is the crux of the problem I have with Cousins and all the people that espouse the placebo effect as a panacea.

I'm certainly the anecdotal proof against Cousin's theory. I write comedy, I watch comedy movies constantly. I take lots of vitamin C. I even, at one point, deluded myself, that Cousins' book would help me be cured. It didn't. It couldn't. None of what he espouses affects the disease mechanism of AS. It affects my attitude, not how the disease I have progresses. Hope is a wonderful thing, but false hope is devastating to the psyche. You can argue about what wonderful contributions Cousins made in other areas, but in my opinion, that is all wiped away by the damage he did in that one book.

Sorry for the rant, but I take Cousins' betrayal of people with AS very seriously.

While we're nitpicking, I'll

Verified Atheist — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:14:20 +0000

In reply to FINISH DOES NOT RHYME WITH

While we're nitpicking, I'll add my nitpick: the yams you buy in most supermarkets are actually sweet potatoes. True yams are typically only going to be found at "world" markets and some farmers' markets.

As for your comment about anecdotal evidence, in general I think you're right, but I'll play devil's advocate and say that:

Different people react differently to different foods so I think it's possible for tomatoes to be a cause for inflammatory-based diseases in some people and still not show up as being statistically significant in a research study that's not sufficiently large (and robust).
There's something to be said for the placebo effect. Even if tomatoes aren't resolving the problem, if you think they are, that might be enough to help. Combine that with positive feedback of exercising more, etc., and you have a possibly potent force on your hands.

Tis Q.

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:19:03 +0000

In reply to Very similar story here,

Tis Q.

Very similar story here,

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:11:11 +0000

In reply to NUTRITION VS. DRUGS

Very similar story here, Dick.

About 4 years ago I woke up with what I was sure was a broken toe. Just incredibly, screamingly, tender. Stayed for about a week, then.... faded. Eventually, they told me it was gout. I drank no wine and hardly any booze, and they told me that more and more people "just get it" now.

Well. My Doc was an idiot (truly) and he let me got through about 5 more attacks, each one of which was so bad I couldn't really walk - just hop. But eventually they gave me Allupurinol, and ... no attacks since. A great relief. So, a point for drugs.

That said, at the same time, my bowel pretty much blew up, nearly killed me. (Perhaps as a result of eating fast food for 40 years?) Anyway, I began to eat right, even cook a bit. And just as you said, the body definitely seems to me to signal that it wants certain foods. Like you, I now devour carrots, yams, spinach by the bucket. Weird. Lately, my body's been driving me towards nuts and beans. (Really.) Damn fine foods. ;-)

Anyhoo. A vastly improved diet, combined with a couple of key drugs (like Allupurinol), and then a heavy working out and exercise schedule, and my body is recovering really well from a bad few years. The working out, with weights, has - as a book told me - done incredible thing to further reduce pain. I'm almost entirely pain free now (which I wouldn't have believed even a year ago), the gut works great, I'm benching 350 lbs, resting heart rate <50, even able to run a few miles on these knees. Last on my list is to drop some pounds, tighten up the core.

But diet + Allupurinol + some hard weight-lifting = A Happier Boy.

Glad to hear your regime! But yes, if you'd asked me years ago whether the body would guide you toward foods that worked well for it, I'd have laughed.

Or brussel sprouts. Yuck.

MrSmith1 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:11:39 +0000

In reply to Actually I was relieved to

Or brussel sprouts. Yuck.

Cooking can be a fun

Richard Day — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:25:35 +0000

In reply to Yeah dd! It's amazing how

Cooking can be a fun hobby.

Causes no one any harm.

And more fruits and vegetables cannot hurt!