What causes disease

[Buckeyefan 1]

RJBudz: there is actually more research that proves vitamins and minerals do somewhere between 'nothing' and 'lots of harm' than there is that says they help.

I don't believe that. I don't take them, but I used to take a Centrum a day because my diet was horrible. I don't think any family practitioner would tell you to quit taking a multi-vitamin unless you were getting all your vitamins and minerals naturally from food. Certaintly most of that vitamin goes right back out you, but your body does utilize what it needs/is lacking. To date, I don't recall one major class action lawsuit against Centrum/One a Day/etc... Call me skeptical.

 

[philh]

I'm not sure if I'm more sceptical or cynical

I voted yes, because the human body is an extremely complex machine, that requires close balance in many systems.

Not sure I believe any medical study anymore tho
Is low carb or low fat better for you? In answering this retorical question, could find substantial numbers of studies supporting either side.
Is cholesterol the magic number in determining future heart issues? Once again, there are highly qualified medical people on both sides.

I've devoted way too much time to reading and trying to understand the diet, cholesterol, and drug interaction. Did this without any predetermined outcome, unlike most medical studies.

IMHO
Reasonable low carb and reasonable low fat
Understand cholesterol levels (higher is better later in life)
Very few people need cholesterol lowering medication

 

[annunaki]

I believe that disease and sickness can be fought with the mind. Honestly, do not rip me apart on this. I believe that a positive state of mind and mental control over the body can do profound things. Thos e who feel that doctors do everything and rely on drugs always seem to be sick. At least in my experiences anyway. I believe that comes from a lack of will or lack of mental awareness/toughness. There is a veyr powerful mind body connection that many people fail to tap into. I am NOT trying to be all new age or anything, I just believe it exsists. I can expound on this later when I have more time.

 

[furrycute]

If you really want to kill cancer cells, it is really rather easy, any household cleaning agents will kill cancer cells. The only problem is, you will kill the rest of your body along with the cancer cells.

So the difficulty in treating cancer lies in selectively killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells. That's not an easy thing to do. With most radiation therapy, chemotherapy, you do kill considerable amounts of healthy cells along with the cancer cells. The oncology doctor varies the dose, it's like playig a game of how much poison to give to the patient, high enough dose to kill the cancer cells, but not high enough to kill the patient.


And as to bateria, viruses, again they are very easy to kill outside of the body with any of those common household cleaning agents. But inside the body, it's another story.

HIV is not really so terrible outside the body, it can't survive for a few more seconds on its own.

But airborne pathogens is another story.

 

[Tomorrow]

Self deleted.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

RJ,

I think he was being facetious - at least I hope. I'm pretty sure he's agnostic from previous threads.

 

[Tomorrow]

RJ,

I think he was being facetious - at least I hope. I'm pretty sure he's agnostic from previous threads.

I hope so, but....I don't know the person.

An emoticon or some indication of chain pulling is in order if he isn't serious. It's easy to get the wrong impression around here, lol.

And mebbe I'm wound a little too tightly lately. Age has thinned my skin in more ways than one...

Thanks, Buck.

EDIT: I went back through some of Ironlung's posts. He seems to have indeed been facetious in these remarks. Sorry about the comment about being dimwitted, Ironlung. But you must practice better technique with your humor.

 

[Tomorrow]

I don't believe that. I don't take them, but I used to take a Centrum a day because my diet was horrible. I don't think any family practitioner would tell you to quit taking a multi-vitamin unless you were getting all your vitamins and minerals naturally from food. Certaintly most of that vitamin goes right back out you, but your body does utilize what it needs/is lacking. To date, I don't recall one major class action lawsuit against Centrum/One a Day/etc... Call me skeptical.

'Tis true, Buck. Here are a couple of examples.

Your doc will tell you that you do not need vitamins and supplements if you are eating a balanced diet. (Neutral vitamin value.) Even so, I take Centrum..Silver, natch. Why the Silver? Because it doesn't have iron in it. Iron can cause heart/artery inflammation, particularly bad for cardiomyopathy patients such as me. That, and the fact that the older you get, the less your body requires it, is why iron can be bad for ya.

In terms of further negative effects...any oil-based vitamin (A, E) can be (and are) overdosed. These are not easily metabolized by the body and build up excesses. Subsequent issues can develop in the liver, kidneys, and many other organs. Vitamin K can cause a world of hurt to heart patients (clotting factor buildup). I can't even eat spinach (which I love), because it is loaded with K.

I think you'll find that there are little to no proven studies that regular use of vitamins and other supplements are anything other than a (big) money making snake oil.

LOL, I say that, and I still take my vitamins because I do not eat a balanced diet. What can I say? I'm Polish.

 

[ironlung]

All apologies

EDIT: I went back through some of Ironlung's posts. He seems to have indeed been facetious in these remarks. Sorry about the comment about being dimwitted, Ironlung. But you must practice better technique with your humor.

Rj,


I missed your response to my post as it was already deleted by you. I meant no disrespect. I have witnessed first hand the horrors of cancer and I know it's no fun. I was not trying to minimise your fight, sorry if it seemed that way. I was not directly responding to your post anyway(even though it was two posts after).

I was using a little humor(very little in hindsight) how some use the almighty as the reason for everything from disease to natural disasters to accidents. In experience in my short life the karma police don't seem so fair. I could rescue a person from a flaming car and have them kick me in the nuts for forgeting their wallet. I have seen good people taken by some horrible disease that did not "deserve it" in my opinion. In my very own family the disease CADASIL(google defines it) goes back three generations at least. It is a degenerative brain disease that killed my great grandad and grandad. My mothers sister is currently confined to a wheelchair. Who knows I might have that fun stuff in my future(feel free to poke fun ). It did not show up until the late 40's for all of them.

BTW I'll be the first to agree what a dimwit I am. Don't feel like you have to delete post insulting me No hard feelings Rj?


Buckeye thanks for understanding where I was coming from. To be precise I consider myself an atheist, agnostic gives to much wiggle room.

Mr. Nomas gave me the nickname in my signature the last time I put a foot in my mouth.

 

[Tomorrow]

Rj,


I missed your response to my post as it was already deleted by you. I meant no disrespect. I have witnessed first hand the horrors of cancer and I know it's no fun. I was not trying to minimise your fight, sorry if it seemed that way. I was not directly responding to your post anyway(even though it was two posts after).

I was using a little humor(very little in hindsight) how some use the almighty as the reason for everything from disease to natural disasters to accidents. In experience in my short life the karma police don't seem so fair. I could rescue a person from a flaming car and have them kick me in the nuts for forgeting their wallet. I have seen good people taken by some horrible disease that did not "deserve it" in my opinion. In my very own family the disease CADASIL(google defines it) goes back three generations at least. It is a degenerative brain disease that killed my great grandad and grandad. My mothers sister is currently confined to a wheelchair. Who knows I might have that fun stuff in my future(feel free to poke fun ). It did not show up until the late 40's for all of them.

BTW I'll be the first to agree what a dimwit I am. Don't feel like you have to delete post insulting me No hard feelings Rj?


Buckeye thanks for understanding where I was coming from. To be precise I consider myself an atheist, agnostic gives to much wiggle room.

Mr. Nomas gave me the nickname in my signature the last time I put a foot in my mouth.

No problem at all, I.L. I did take what you said seriously...but that's been my mood lately. (A smiley face would have been great.) I thought you were a religious Nazi. But Buck set me straight, and that was appreciated...tho' I still had to clean off my boots for stepping in you-know-what in that 'self-deleted' response. From now on, I'll take what you say as genuine, first rate sarcastic humor...unless otherwise noted, lol.

Thanks again for the clarification.

Good cheer.

 

[mike c]

As soon as beginning symptoms of a cold, cough, or flu appear, put three drops of hydrogen peroxide in each ear. Lie down and wait to see if the peroxide bubbles - you'll hear it, it's loud. If it does, it's working. Wait until the fizzing sound stops, and repeat in the other ear. You will never have a full blown out cold again if you catch it early. Usually, it works within a day. I work outside, and in this weather, I'm always getting a bug. I bet I use it at least 1x a week. Haven't had a cold lasting over a day in three years. That's the truth.

I also gargle with it for sore throats, as well as oral hygene. Some mix it with 50% water because it really dries out your mouth. It's excellent as a mouth wash, and even whitens your teeth. All my uncles (dentists) recommend it for killing bacteria in the gums. If you don't floss daily, you should most definitely at least do this 1x a week. It gets between your teeth better than mouthwash.

Make sure you're using the over the counter 3% kind. It's one of the strongest anti-oxidents available, and the best, least expensive cold remedy on the market.

wow, that must have required a lot of faith the first time you dropped some on your ear. but thanks for the info!

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

wow, that must have required a lot of faith the first time you dropped some on your ear. but thanks for the info!

It's not muriatic acid. It only reacts to bacteria/virus', not healthy skin. It was a bit more of a leap of faith when I first gargled with it. Tastes nasty. It's perfectly fine in the ears - even with kids.

 

[Dan]

As soon as beginning symptoms of a cold, cough, or flu appear, put three drops of hydrogen peroxide in each ear. Lie down and wait to see if the peroxide bubbles - you'll hear it, it's loud. If it does, it's working. Wait until the fizzing sound stops, and repeat in the other ear. You will never have a full blown out cold again if you catch it early. Usually, it works within a day. I work outside, and in this weather, I'm always getting a bug. I bet I use it at least 1x a week. Haven't had a cold lasting over a day in three years. That's the truth.

I also gargle with it for sore throats, as well as oral hygene. Some mix it with 50% water because it really dries out your mouth. It's excellent as a mouth wash, and even whitens your teeth. All my uncles (dentists) recommend it for killing bacteria in the gums. If you don't floss daily, you should most definitely at least do this 1x a week. It gets between your teeth better than mouthwash.

Make sure you're using the over the counter 3% kind. It's one of the strongest anti-oxidents available, and the best, least expensive cold remedy on the market.

I am an MD who did quite a bit of research into H2O2 in college which is well understood by those into white blood cell function. H2O2 is a weak reducing agent (the opposite of an oxidizer). It is rather unstable which limits its usefulness in the body although it is toxic to bacteria and any other living cell if present in concentrated enough form. There is no way to ingest it in enough quantity to deliver it to cells. It would be neutralized in the stomach and there is no other way to deliver it. IV route would be quite caustic to the veins. It is effective in the mouth where large quantities can be delivered to the bacteria which cause plaque and then spit out.

It is very useful in making more stable caustic compounds by the white blood cells (neutrophils and macrophages). It combines readily with chloride ions to make HOCl. This is hypochlorous (not hydrochloric) acid better known to all as Clorox. This is toxic to bacteria and semistable. Think how long your Clorox can last in the bottle. HOCl also reacts with ammonia like substances called amines to make an even more stable group of compounds. White cells which eat bacteria sequester them in tiny bubbbles and deliver the compounds into them creating a high concentration due to the small volume. In fact, they can create a concentration in these bubbles (lysozomes) equivalent to that in a washing machine with clorox to whiten your briefs. Cool things those white cells.

You have to realize that it is like the African Savannah in there. 10% of our body weight is bacteria. Most are friendly and/or useful to us. Kill the friendly ones and vad bugs might take over. Bacteria have evolved strategies for fighting off WBCs just as we evolve ways to kill them. When thinkgs get out of balance problems start. Think of a yeast infection due to inappropriate antibiotics. The reverse can also happen where the immune system attacks the body instead of bugs, the autoimmune diseases. The include some arthrtitis like rheumatoid, Crohn's disease, and some kidney diseases as well as many others.

This is just one aspect to disease. There are many causes and all the fine details have not been worked out. Some diseases are total mysteries.Some cancers are clearly genetic, some autoimmune, some related to toxins we are exposed to (lung, liver, bladder, ?breast) some by viruses (liver, cervix) which are well understood. Some cancers are rare oddballs and seem to be just plain bad luck.

White cells are thought to play a role in cancer protection by killing cancer cells but the mechanism is very poorly understood. It is the WBCs way of killing bacteria which is known and an analagous mechanism is assumed for cancer but this is mostly conjecture. There is VERY little HARD EVIDENCE that antioxidants can be ingested and reduce the liklihood of cancer. Please realize that this would be extremely hard to prove. At the very least you would need a large population (tens of thousands) to reliably take a drug for many years to show a decrease in the incindence of at least one kind ofcancer as well as a control population who reliably avoided that drug or similar natural substances. It is one thing to make an hypothesis and quite another to prove that it works in something as complex as a human.

Given the vast complexity of disease the only safe statement is that there will NEVER BE a single cure for disease. There will certainly never be a single cure for cancer which is not a disease but a category of over 200 different diseases with different causes most of which are unknown beyond the obvious "a gene mutation has occurred".

My advice is to eat reasonably, exercise well, enjoy the fine things our society has to offer, and hope for the best. We can screen for some disease which may help some, but even this is remarkably hard to prove. Remember no wild animal dies of old age. We were designed to live at best into our thirties when we would succumb to a predator or disease. We so far outlive this that all sorts of things happen which we were not designed to deal with. Bones and joints are mechanical - all mechanical things wear out over time. Degenerative arthritis is just that. We can't make new brain cells, when enough die we get senile.

Apologies for the length.

 

[mtrycrafts]

So do you think this has some merit, or just BS?

Be wary, be very wary of that claim. I have some real MD friends and asked one. BS. was the short answer. The rest is not repeatable.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Be wary, be very wary of that claim. I have some real MD friends and asked one. BS. was the short answer. The rest is not repeatable.

Not to be incensitive, but how would one MD's opinion matter here?

Dan - no pun intended. BTW, nice reply. I'm not an advocate for or against pH levels in the body. I can say that H2O2 in the ears (early detection) does rid you of an oncoming cold. Now if that cold reaches your lungs, you're out of luck!

 

[Dan]

Not to be incensitive, but how would one MD's opinion matter here?

Dan - no pun intended. BTW, nice reply. I'm not an advocate for or against pH levels in the body. I can say that H2O2 in the ears (early detection) does rid you of an oncoming cold. Now if that cold reaches your lungs, you're out of luck!

My MD ness only reflects a certain amount of training and experience. It doesn't make me smarter or better, just maybe more experienced with some diseases. There are plenty of PhDs who know far more than I do about this as well as a few others. It was just coincidental that you brought up H2O2 when I had done two years of research into the biochemical pathways I discussed. My lab director was a Buckeye but we did our work in Ann Arbor.

By the way colds are caused by viruses. These are not killed in quite the same manner as bacteria which I was discussing and are rather resistant to oxidation in vivo. Viruses are usually killed through an antibody reaction. Antibodies are proteins. Also, most of these viruses enter throught the oral/nasal route. Perhaps you would do better taking your H2O2 as nose drops. I am also unclear what effect H2O2 could have on your auditory system if you have a hole in your eardrum which many people do. No audioholic wants to lose hearing.

As for pH, the pathophysiology I learned in med school showed that we are very well buffered. A buffer resists changes in pH quite strongly. Only when we have a serious organ derangement, especially lungs, kidneys or the GI tract do we get into acidosis or alkalosis. These are serious life threatening conditions and the people are usually in ICUs. Doctors monitor electrolytes including bicarbonate which closely reflects pH very carefully. Standard teaching is to be very aggressive in avoiding electrolyte imbalances.

Finally, I have nothing against you trying or advocating H2O2. However one subject does not a clinical trial make. Thousands of subjects are needed to demonstrate clinical efficacy in a study that you would need to truly prove your point. I wish you a healthy winter.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I don't know about you, but I do not want to spend the last 10 years of my life locked-away in a nursing home while Alzheimers turns my brain into pudding.

Maybe I should take up smoking. I'll look cool too.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

I don't know about you, but I do not want to spend the last 10 years of my life locked-away in a nursing home while Alzheimers turns my brain into pudding.

Maybe I should take up smoking. I'll look cool too.

I know where you're coming from. My grandmother who is 85 just recently forgot who her great grandkids belonged to (my sister and my kids). She was asking my mother who's kids these are (they were Christmas shopping last week for the family). My mother who is 61 is struggling with this.

We lost my grandfather several years ago to a number of different causes - but he was 100% mentally there. That was extremely hard. He had an abdominal aortic aneurysm that was caught in time before it had burst. He also went through a major hip replacement not long after. After he received his "clean bill of health," they found an inoperable tumor on his liver. He was given less than a year to live. He didn't make it 7 months. Collapsed in the bathroom from what they think was a blood clot, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with that tumor.

With the agonizingly slow pace the medical community moves, and how fast time goes by, does our generaltion really have time to wait for clinical trials? Does disease fuel the medical community, and do they have something to lose if cures are found for all these diseases? How much do the drug companies stand to lose if cures are found? Are labs being paid not to release cures? There's astronomical money in cures, but even more in treating and proloning the disease.

What if the medical community found through clinical trials that H2O2 actually was a safe means of reducing the common cold to a day or two? Why haven't they done that yet? What would that do to the two isles in Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, and every pharmacy at the local corner? My opinion is they absolutely can't afford to do that. There's just way too much money to be made in treating the problem, and not catching it right away.

I may be paranoid, but that's my (and I'm sure plenty of others) opinion on how our medical community works. I think that's a big reason so many peolpe take health care into their own hands - such as eating organic foods, taking their vitamin C, cleansing their systems (detoxifying?) with concoctions of maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice; and the benefits of eating more leafy green vegetables, garlic, spicy foods, (you know)...

Is there more than pure madness to alternative medicine? What do we have to lose? My wife's a physical therapist, and disagrees for the most part how chiropractors diagnose and treat patients, but she also knows there's great chiropractors out there that actually do help patients. The same goes with MD's and those who practice alternative medicine.

RJ's sister who is 74 runs in marathons. She's got her PhD and may follow alternative medicine. Is it her lifestyle, simple exercise and diet, or is there more to it? We may be studying the wrong population when it comes to fighting disease. I don't think Annunaki is totally off base when he says the power of the mind helps to keep a body healthy. We know stress definitely doesn't help.

I don't mean to sounds like a bleeding heart liberal bent up on alternative medicine, but it pains me to see family/friends/coworkers keeling over from disease that could have been prevented using alternative means of managing disease. If an MD gives someone X months to live, why not refer them over to someone who believes they can make a positive change (with legal disclaimners of course)? The MD has basically written them off, and her education at that point will not improve the chances of furthering that persons life expentancy. I'm not advocation high doses of chemo in the last 6 months of someones life, but possibly dramatically changing the diet, or simply looking at other options.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Not to be incensitive, but how would one MD's opinion matter here?

Dan - no pun intended. BTW, nice reply. I'm not an advocate for or against pH levels in the body. I can say that H2O2 in the ears (early detection) does rid you of an oncoming cold. Now if that cold reaches your lungs, you're out of luck!

when there is no evidence for that voodoo posted, it is solid. But, ask around. Call NEJM or any medical journals.

Where did you get the other notion about H2O2? Any journal references to this or is the same as that silly Airborne pills that is being pushed. VOODOO.

 

[mtrycrafts]

With the agonizingly slow pace the medical community moves, and how fast time goes by, does our generaltion really have time to wait for clinical trials? .

Don't wait. Do as the voodoo peddlers are marketing. You do have a choice. We all do. That is why there is such a huge market for these voodoo products, both medical and audio. How is it different from audio voodoo? Exactly the same. Gullible people buy into it thinking that there must be a conspiracy, or the voodoo peddlers know more than the whole of science.