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Re: [OM] (OM) Totally off-topic - that diet book

Subject: Re: [OM] (OM) Totally off-topic - that diet book
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:24:30 -0800
On 1/12/2012 1:27 AM, Brian Swale wrote:
> Dr Esselstyn's book "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" has just arrived
> from the UK...
>
> A quick flick through shows that the diet is uncompromisingly different,
> though not impossible.
>
> You can say what you want about WW2 Norwegian diets not being totally
> meat-free, and the Rural China diet study being similarly compromised, but
> there's no gainsaying that the hand-picked and/or volunteer group of his
> patients who were essentially on the medical death-row due to heart disease
> ( for example one  woman for whom no further surgical or pharmaceutical
> intervention was possible, and was told by her doctor to go home, sit in a
> rocking chair, and await death )

A friend of my neighbor and friend was similarly sent home to die. The next 
morning, she woke up with some energy. She 
thought she would go and get her hair done, then continued on with other 
errands and activities she had let go until the 
doctors let her go. She went by a few weeks later for scans, etc. All signs of 
the cancer were simply gone.

So shall we decide that being sent home to die by doctors who say they can do 
nothing more for you is a cure for cancer? 
The trouble with anecdotal stories isn't that they may not be true. It's that 
it's not possible to identify clearly the 
cause and not possible to generalize meaningfully.

A small sample study without a control group with group assignment at random 
after overall selection is essentially 
anecdotal. There was a study some years ago in the US upper Midwest where a 
group of men ate only meat. Guess what? They 
all lowered their heart disease markers, lost weight and were generally more 
healthy than before. The special 
circumstances? They ate only meat from wild game, elk, as I recall.

Do you know about the study by GE way back? They were trying to justify selling 
more lighting to companies. They kept 
raising the light level in the test offices. Productivity kept rising - even 
when workers were developing headaches and 
other signs of the effects of excessive light. Why? Because the real factor 
increasing productivity, at least after 
initial increases, was the attention. It was being in a study that made the 
difference, not the light levels.

I'm not saying this fellow is wrong. I'm not saying that there aren't many 
cures of disease from all kinds of 
non-traditional sources. I am saying that the kind of study and book you are 
talking about are not statistically 
verifiable or reliable.

I personally deal in that kind of healing work. It's clearly useful for many 
people, often working in areas where 
allopathy is failing. But it's just not reliable in the sense that conventional 
medicine wants it treatments to be. They 
were able to tell my late wife and I what the odds were of survival 5 years 
after her treatments. What they couldn't 
tell us was which group she would be in. That doesn't actually mean anything to 
the individual, but is a potential means 
of identifying treatments that have greater survival rates, which is useful.

In the less certain world of alternative approaches to healing, we can't even 
say what proportion of those treated will 
benefit, how much or how long. We often don't know outcomes. I put my hands on 
the elbow of a woman with chronic elbow 
pain and limited movement that hasn't responded to conventional treatment. She 
gets immediate relief that lasts at least 
the two days I am in the same place. Was it cured? Did it come back? Less 
severe? I have no idea, as I never saw her again.

I did the same thing to a man's wrist, which was both hampering his work and, 
apparently of more concern to him, his 
golf game. :-)   Pain and weakness went away immediately and have not returned 
in many years. Did I cure him? Did he 
cure himself because he believed I could? Was the problem about to resolve 
itself? I don't know. Does it matter? From my 
perspective, no.

If this diet appeals to you after reading the book, try it out. But don't be 
attached too strongly. Pay attention to 
your overall health and well being. If that starts to deteriorate in any way, 
pay close attention. Abandon the diet if 
it isn't working for your overall health. I've known several people who get so 
attached to some diet, supplements, etc. 
that they ignore signs that it is actually hurting them until real damage has 
been done. It's easy for our minds to 
believe things that aren't true for our bodies. :-)

Moose
-- 
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
-- 
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