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  #31   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 00:03
LC FP LC FP is offline
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Plan: Atkins
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M Levac thanks for the link to MS as a chronic infection. I have a number of family members affected by MS and I have to look into this further. Physicians are funny in their beliefs about certain diseases. They are very quick to label something as quackery even if it seems pretty plausible at first glance. Physicians who treat people with chronic fatigue syndrome with antibiotics are castigated by their peers, and even physicians who treat patients who are known to have Lyme Disease with long term antibiotics are frowned upon. MS has such a weird and variable natural history that accepting the standard autoimmune theory as sacrosanct seems just as foolish.
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  #32   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 00:36
LC FP LC FP is offline
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Plan: Atkins
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WereBear we're still fighting over the recent USPSTF (United States Preventive Services Task Force) recommendation against routine PSA testing as an effective prostate cancer screening test. The Urology societies really blew their tops when this was announced. The whole concept of "overdiagnosis" of prostate cancer and its alarming extent is something that I and many others were barely aware of prior to this controversy. When the same argument is made against breast cancer screening the firestorm will really blaze, as you referenced.

Washington Post story:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...a-overdiagnosis

Latest Cochrane recommendations:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23440794
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  #33   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 04:04
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"
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In NASA, there's one job occupied by one person, it's the safety officer. He's the only guy who can call the whole thing off on a whim. Here's how it works, simplified. If everybody says "IT'S A GO!", his job is to disagree with everybody else and find the one thing that makes him say "NO GO!", and launch is aborted. We all know what happened when we ignored him this one time. More recently in the movie WWZ, Brad meats a guy who's job is called as he explains "the tenth man" with basically the same job. When the other nine men all agreed the zombie email was some sort of code for a military operation, he decided that the zombie email really was about zombies. In the Canadian and Quebec government, we have something called the ombudsman who's job is similar.

Anyway, the point is that it seems like there is no such safety mechanism in the medical profession. I believe there should be. After all, we're talking about the safety of those who put their lives in the hands of other people, the safety of those who allow others' belief to decide their fate. We used to have something like that in the form of a second opinion. Today you'd be hard pressed to find a doc who even suggests you get a second opinion. In fact, it seems the medical profession shuns second opinions now, and condemns any doc who goes against the dominant paradigm. Atkins is a famous example of this phenomenon.

We could argue that we have ample safety mechanisms in the form of groups of people with group opposite views. For example, the cancer society (standard thinking) vs the SCSC group (different thinking), or the statinators vs the THINCS group. We could also argue that there is somebody who keeps everybody in check from a liability point of view, but that only applies to the docs as they become liable if the procedure goes against the group's belief and fails. If it goes with the group's belief and fails, there's no liability. In other words, they've done all they can, but only if it also fits their belief. They haven't really done all they can. Within each of those groups, there is nobody who's job is to disagree with everybody for the sole purpose of the safety of the patients, no safety officer. I believe one consequence of this lack of a safety officer is that trials that recruit patients for experiments with non-conventional cancer treatments only allow really really sick patients. This creates a bias in favor of failure of the experiment just by virtue of the patients' survival potential. He's about to die, might as well try anything at this point. The non-conventional treatment is not given a fair chance to succeed. And even with success, this treatment isn't accepted as standard practice. It remains non-conventional, a last resort. A safety officer would change all that.

Imagine if the doc had the legal obligation to tell you to consult - to give you an appointment - with the safety officer who's job is to disagree with the doc, who would then genuinely offer you all the alternatives he knows about. In fact, the safety officer would fail at his job if he didn't offer you all the alternatives he knew about.

Last edited by M Levac : Sat, Sep-21-13 at 04:15.
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  #34   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 04:13
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear
But when I bring up actual research... from recognized bodies like the ones quoted here, it bounces right off a doctor's skull, they smile brightly at me, and repeat, "But you have to get this done."

Hehe, I think that situation is very pertinent to my last post. Instead of telling you "you have to get it done", the doc would tell you "I have to give you an appointment with the safety officer". Brilliant.
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  #35   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 04:16
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ojoj ojoj is offline
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Plan: atkins
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We had this going on in the UK a few months ago - Sad, but interesting?!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/c...diotherapy.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...Run-review.html


Jo xxx

Last edited by ojoj : Sat, Sep-21-13 at 05:43.
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  #36   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 06:12
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is online now
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M Levac
We used to have something like that in the form of a second opinion. Today you'd be hard pressed to find a doc who even suggests you get a second opinion. In fact, it seems the medical profession shuns second opinions now, and condemns any doc who goes against the dominant paradigm. Atkins is a famous example of this phenomenon.


You are right! I hadn't even thought of that, but it's true. Every one of them has the same opinion.

I believe it was Dr. Bernstein, chatting in a Jimmy Moore podcast, who highlighted a problem with diabetes treatment. Going with the Bernstein plan raises the problem of blood sugar dipping too low, so the process needs to be monitored as the body adjusts to the new diet. However, it results in far better blood sugar control, and drastically lowers the risk of complications.

He said doctors have explained to him that administering the current diabetes protocol, a high carb/low fat diet with "insulin to cover," is considered the Standard of Care, and so even if patients go blind and lose limbs, that's considered "normal," and they won't get into any trouble for it.

But if a patient gets into trouble from blood sugar that dips too low... THAT they can be sued for.
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  #37   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 06:42
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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It just occurred to me that the debate of carbs-vs-calories is an attempt to change the dominant paradigm, but we don't need to do this. All we need is a safety officer within the group who's sole function is to disagree with the group's paradigm. This is so much easier to do than to try to change a group's paradigm directly. Taubes et al are all trying to convince one group of people who believe it's all about calories. It just can't be done. I mean, it can, but only as they all die one by one and get replaced with new members who believe differently. It's a slow process. Introducing a safety officer into the group - along with a comprehensive protocol to follow - has an immediate effect.

Let's think. Cancer would benefit tremendously from this. Diabetes, obesity, childhood epilepsy, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, basically all diseases of civilization would benefit equally.

To put it differently, a safety officer tempers overzealous experts. This would have the secondary effect of sieving out the bad experts we read about every day on this forum.

I'd even go as far as making a law that requires any official advocacy group include a safety officer. AMA, ADA, etc. And since those official organizations have a highly public profile, also require an equally high public profile for the opinions of the safety officer. So for example, on the ADA's website, we'd have the standard advice as it stands now, but with the addition of an obvious link to the safety officer's opinion (context appropriate or whatever), which must be in full disagreement with the standard advice, and include all known alternatives to it.

Heck, official dietary recommendations would be the first thing to take the hit. Imagine reading all about how this diet is thought to be best, but then right next to it is a link to literally the history of human dietary habits that would include all the work of Price, Stefansson, Keys, Gardner, and anybody else who contributed to the mountain of dietary knowledge.
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  #38   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 08:25
ojoj's Avatar
ojoj ojoj is offline
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Plan: atkins
Stats: 210/126/127 Female 5ft 7in
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Location: South of England
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ojoj
We had this going on in the UK a few months ago - Sad, but interesting?!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/c...diotherapy.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...Run-review.html


Jo xxx



And heres what the mother says http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n551eqgmlI


....... and then theres this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-MI...ature=endscreen ???
Jo xxx
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  #39   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 08:53
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Posts: 25,842
 
Plan: DDF
Stats: 202/185.4/179 Female 67
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Progress: 72%
Location: San Diego, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LC FP
WereBear we're still fighting over the recent USPSTF (United States Preventive Services Task Force) recommendation against routine PSA testing as an effective prostate cancer screening test. The Urology societies really blew their tops when this was announced. The whole concept of "overdiagnosis" of prostate cancer and its alarming extent is something that I and many others were barely aware of prior to this controversy. When the same argument is made against breast cancer screening the firestorm will really blaze, as you referenced.


Oh yeah, remember not that many years ago when they said they could loosen up on the mammogram scheduling?
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  #40   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 09:38
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Posts: 6,498
 
Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"
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Progress: 5%
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Just a quick idea. If cancer occurred once, it proves the two things I explained above, but it does something more. It tells us this body is ready to allow cancer to occur again. And again. And again. This is where the idea of metabolic disorder takes all its meaning. It makes cancer merely a symptom of an underlying cause. By curing cancer, we're just treating a symptom. Without addressing the cause directly, the symptom will return.
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  #41   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 09:55
Sagehill Sagehill is offline
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Plan: My own
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Quote:
Let's think. Cancer would benefit tremendously from this. Diabetes, obesity, childhood epilepsy, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, basically all diseases of civilization would benefit equally.

To put it differently, a safety officer tempers overzealous experts. This would have the secondary effect of sieving out the bad experts we read about every day on this forum.

I'd even go as far as making a law that requires any official advocacy group include a safety officer. AMA, ADA, etc. And since those official organizations have a highly public profile, also require an equally high public profile for the opinions of the safety officer. So for example, on the ADA's website, we'd have the standard advice as it stands now, but with the addition of an obvious link to the safety officer's opinion (context appropriate or whatever), which must be in full disagreement with the standard advice, and include all known alternatives to it.
I'm enjoying reading your thoughts, especially about safety officers for all the major advocacy groups. Very sensible, indeed.

But again, is it ever likely to happen, given how much money those groups make off of ill people, not to mention the whole med-pharm industries??
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  #42   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:15
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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I believe it's inevitable.

I think a more appropriate term for the job is devil's advocate. So I looked at what Wiki says about that. I found something very telling about the nature of such a job.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate#Origin

Quote:
The office (ed. of devil's advocate) was established in 1587 during the reign of Pope Sixtus V and abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1983.[2] This reform changed the canonization process considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors.

Without a devil's advocate, it's literally a free-for-all. Anybody and his dog can be canonized and beatified. This principle is well established in law, where the defendant has a lawyer who represents him, but most importantly this lawyer has the same expertise and respect as the prosecutor. Without a defense lawyer to temper an overzealous prosecutor, we get summary trials, sentences and executions. This paints a pretty accurate picture of the medical establishment, methinks.
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  #43   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:20
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Plan: DDF
Stats: 202/185.4/179 Female 67
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I think there is money to be made in the metabolic approach to cancer. The failure to pursue this is probably just an information cascade on the genetic origins of cancer. I truly think that any scientist going into the field of research for a particular disease truly wants to find it.

But the money to be made in the metabolic method is from finding drugs for those folks who can't/won't do the stringent sort of diet or those cancers who are clever enough to figure out how to use ketones. Yes, the pharma industry will find a way to make drugs out of whatever is discovered. They're clever that way.

This isn't a conspiracy, it is just group-think.

Last edited by Nancy LC : Sat, Sep-21-13 at 10:33.
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  #44   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:26
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Posts: 6,498
 
Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"
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Progress: 5%
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Another quick idea. Low-carb advocacy groups (like WAPF and the Atkins foundation for example) must also have a devil's advocate. After all, anybody can be wrong. But, if all they got is a book, then they're exempt from this obligation, since they're now petty salesmen. So for example, if WAPF or Atkins only had the diet books or even the book from Price himself (Nutrition and Physical Degeneration), they wouldn't need a devil's advocate, and could continue to promote those books freely as any other opportunistic vendor could.

I'm not arguing fairness, I'm arguing human error.
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  #45   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:38
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WereBear WereBear is online now
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
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The thing is, both Wheat Belly and the new one, Grain Brain, use TONS of already completed research.

It's lying around out there!
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