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  #46   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:51
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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I forget exactly where I read this, maybe here. It's an increased communication between the doc and the patient, all done through the net, as the patient can both consult and make notes in his records, same for the doc. It does many positive things, but pertinent to my idea of devil's advocate, it improves quality of care through reduction of errors, detectable by both the doc and the patient. So here devil's advocate, by contradicting the doc, would go through the doc's orders and ultimately find the errors as well, and maybe even more efficiently since he would be an equally proficient doc.
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  #47   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 10:55
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Posts: 6,498
 
Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"
BF:
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Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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I just thought of this last one. I could be wrong about it all. So, to test my idea of devil's advocate is pretty easy. Implement it in one hospital, and measure its efficacy through end-point only. Does the rate of treatment success go up or down, independently of which treatment was used? That's the barometer.

And since I could be wrong about it all, let's use a devil's advocate to oppose the idea of devil's advocate, and come up with all known alternatives, and see which one's best.
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  #48   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 14:25
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
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Posts: 14,602
 
Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
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I like your idea of the devil's advocate. It might be the only way a patient hears the downsides of treatment, or what the stats are from different choices.

One absolutely crucial book to read about this subject is How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America by Otis Webb Brawley, M.D., with Paul Goldberg. From Amazon:

Quote:
Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary—and often unproven—treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs.


The part that lingers with me is how he describes those routine PSA testing procedures, part of early detection of prostate cancer, which turn into a "harvesting" process for surgeons, urologists, oncologists, and other medical companies. These readings are ambiguous and not well understood. Yet it's easy to get an insured patient to "take precautions" and wind up with treatment for something that would never have led to a problem in the patient's lifetime.

Dr. Brawley described a man recently retired, in good health, and enjoying himself, until the fateful day his wife got him to take a free screening from a van in the local area. His elevated PSA (which Dr. Brawley characterized as something that would take decades to turn into a problem, and thus pointless to worry about in a man of 65) became his doom.

He was convinced to "not take a chance" and got surgery. That decision led to incontinence, impotence, constant pain in his back, repeated infections, and such an erosion in his quality of life, marriage, and hobbies that he committed suicide three years later.

That is not a life that's been saved.
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  #49   ^
Old Sat, Sep-21-13, 14:46
Sagehill Sagehill is offline
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Here's a doctor calling for patient advocates, in an NPR article, How Many Die From Medical Mistakes In U.S. Hospitals?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...n-u-s-hospitals
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  #50   ^
Old Thu, Sep-26-13, 20:20
locarb4avr locarb4avr is offline
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Plan: My own plan
Stats: 220/126/132 Male 65in
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Would not bet on it.
Just one low carb cancer patient can break his theory.
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  #51   ^
Old Fri, Sep-27-13, 00:14
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ojoj ojoj is offline
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Plan: atkins
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Quote:
Originally Posted by locarb4avr
Would not bet on it.
Just one low carb cancer patient can break his theory.


Working on that theory. I know of several people who've had the recommended treatments and die anyway - long, slow , painful deaths. Trying low carb as well or instead of, seems the better option to me

Jo xxx
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  #52   ^
Old Fri, Sep-27-13, 04:32
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ojoj
Working on that theory. I know of several people who've had the recommended treatments and die anyway - long, slow , painful deaths. Trying low carb as well or instead of, seems the better option to me

Jo xxx


This can become an option, and a research path, if we demand it.

One of the things that has always freaked me out about current cancer treatments is that they are themselves carcinogenic. How can this possibly work, long term? Why are we so stubbornly stuck in these methods that were not that good in the first place? Refining a lousy system only makes it less lousy. It cannot change its fundamental lousiness.

If cancer is of metabolic origin, and there's a lot of pointers indicating so, we have a route to much better outcomes. We don't have consistently good outcomes with our present system. That's a clear sign that we are on the wrong road.
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  #53   ^
Old Thu, Jan-22-15, 09:30
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
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An excellent new review of the alternate "cell environment" theory on the Origins of Cancer. On the website HealthInsightUK, much about the work of breast cancer researcher, Mina Bissell.

Cancer and Genes: Have We Got it Badly Wrong?

http://healthinsightuk.org/2015/01/...it-badly-wrong/
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  #54   ^
Old Thu, Jan-22-15, 10:20
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is online now
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Plan: DDF
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Quote:
Working on that theory. I know of several people who've had the recommended treatments and die anyway - long, slow , painful deaths. Trying low carb as well or instead of, seems the better option to me

Yeah, just so long as you don't do something idiotic like Steve Jobs. He had a curable, or manageable form of pancreatic cancer. He decided he could treat it better than the doctors and he was wrong.

I think the way to go is to merge diet (ketogenic) along with the best possible treatment, if there is one with a decent shot at helping.
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  #55   ^
Old Thu, Jan-22-15, 10:53
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bkloots bkloots is offline
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Plan: LC--Atkins
Stats: 195/162/150 Female 62in
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This is a terrific conversation. Just too many links!

I've just waded through Feinman's The World Turned Upside Down. Recommend listening to his interview with Sam Feltham on Smash the Fat. Sorry--don't have a link. But Janet does! P. S. here it is:

http://live.smashthefat.com/the-wor...ed-upside-down/

Nobody in my family dies of anything, so I'm skipping the colonoscopy and mammogram indefinitely. I'm "old" now so the government nags me about them now and will pay for them. You can thank me, taxpayers, as I morph into an increasingly useless old person. I also get my thyroid med for "free" via mail order pharmacy. I do spend quite a bit out of pocket for vitamins and other supps. Where's the government when you really need it?

Feinman states that the first LC revolution was kicked off by Gary Taubes in 2002 with his NYT article, "What if it's all been a big fat lie?" But Atkins called his 1972 book Diet Revolution, and I call that the first--it only took thirty years for it to heat up.

Now...off to follow some of those links. Thanks everybody.

Here's the quote I lifted from the original article:
Quote:
This is how Warburg described the metabolic origin of cancer in 1924, “Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by the fermentation of sugar.” -

Last edited by bkloots : Thu, Jan-22-15 at 12:04.
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  #56   ^
Old Thu, Jan-22-15, 11:04
CWatt's Avatar
CWatt CWatt is offline
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Plan: Keto, gluten/nut-free
Stats: 245.8/179/149 Female 65"
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Location: Southern Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ojoj
Working on that theory. I know of several people who've had the recommended treatments and die anyway - long, slow , painful deaths. Trying low carb as well or instead of, seems the better option to me


I'm working on that theory too. In my extended family it seems every single one of us has some form of cancer/pre-cancer - and it's a really big family!

So when I was diagnosed with metabolic disorder, and pre-cancerous polyps - I was determined to stay as low carb as I could, and hopefully it works!

If not, well I would rather die eating low carb, than the torture I have watched my family members go thru with chemo and cancer drugs.
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  #57   ^
Old Thu, Jan-22-15, 16:54
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy LC
Yeah, just so long as you don't do something idiotic like Steve Jobs. He had a curable, or manageable form of pancreatic cancer. He decided he could treat it better than the doctors and he was wrong.


He was a long term fruitarian -- and didn't stop with his diagnosis. Kids, don't do that at home!
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  #58   ^
Old Fri, Jan-23-15, 01:33
io_oakley io_oakley is offline
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Plan: Ketogenic
Stats: 240/170/155 Male 71 inches
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There is a lot of good information on the web relating to cancer, and non-traditional ways to prevent or fight it. Here is just some of what has interested me.

One is the sugar issue since it has been established that cancer cells thrive on sugar and do not survive well on ketones. This is one way in which a HFLC diet may prevent cancer or be used as part of cancer treatment.

It is interesting that in one research project, a researcher did cell sampling on corpses of 50 year or older accident victims, and found that all of them had numerous cancer cells. This tells us that development of cancer cells is common, but our bodies control them via our immune systems. This suggests we look to immune function, but also tells us that biopsies done today are not scientifically valid for determine the need for treatment.

Another interesting fact is that often we have elevated blood levels of Alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (nagalase), an enzyme that turns off proteins that otherwise would activate macrophages in our immune system. Nagalase is produced by many types of cancer cells, viruses, and by a fetus, all of which would be attacked and killed by macrophages if they didn't have this defense of their own. For some reason, some kids with autism have unusually high levels of nagalase in their blood, perhaps related to immune system dis-function.

There is one cancer treatment originated in Japan, and currently being used in Germany and Switzerland which claims a good success rate. The protein that activates macrophages, GcMAF, is extracted from healthy people and injected into people with cancer to attack the cancer cells; once the cancer cells are knocked back, the body's own production of this GcMAF protein takes over, and as long as the precursors for production of GcMAF are available, we then control newly formed cancer cells.

Gc protein is in the albumin family. It is also known as Vitamin D binding protein, and as Gc-globulin. It is encoded by the Gc gene. Gc protein binds to Vitamin D to transport it to target tissue. When it is transported to the liver, it is acted upon by T cells and B cells by the deletion of two of its three sugar molecules. This makes the protein GcMAF or Gc macrophage activating factor, which then switches on macrophages when they are needed to fight cancer and viruses. Nagalase prevents Gc protein from becoming GcMAF by removing all three sugar molecules from the Gc protein (deglycosylates it).
Since Vitamin D is part of the process adequate blood levels of Vitamin D are important.

There is a significant relationship between some cancers and low Vitamin D levels, so if you don't live on or near the equator, or even if you do, but do not get enough sunlight, or don't supplement with Vitamin D, your 25(OH)D blood levels will be low and you will have an increased risk. Some of the researchers suggest keeping your 25(OH)D level between 50 and 60 nl/mL which might require 5,000 IU a day of Vitamin D in the late autumn, winter, and early spring when direct sunlight is inadequate. Most people have woefully low levels of 25(OH)D; people with dark skin are particularly low because the dark skin blocks UVb sunrays from penetrating the skin to turn cholesterol into Vitamin D.

Then, there is the seed oil issue. Seed oils were promoted as a supposedly healthy replacement for saturated fats. Seed oils like corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower, canola, etc. are polyunsaturated which means that these molecules are missing some hydrogen atoms that saturated fats have. In order to maintain some stability at least two sets of carbon atoms in the polyunsaturated carbon chain will double bond, but this bond is weak and easily broken. Exposure to oxygen can break the bond, i.e., oxidize (burn) the fat, and this is damaging, particularly when these fats are part of our cellular structure. This oxidation produces toxic aldehydes, one of which is 4-HNE which is associated with Parkinson's. There is correlation between cancer and the presence of polyunsaturated fats in cells. In addition it is know that polyunsaturated fats suppress immune function, and inhibit production of thyroid hormones, both of which contribute to cancer.

On the issue of low thyroid hormones, metabolism is dependent on the thyroid hormones so if we are deficient in these hormones, our cellular respiration is low; many systems then don't work adequately. Cells do not die at a normal rate, and we are more prone to cancerous mutations. Thyroid hormones are essentially iodine bound to tyrosine, the tyrosine being a carrier and the iodine being the active agent. Selenium is involved in the process of regulating the amount of active and inactive thyroid hormone, so it is important in the process too.

(As to weight gain, farmers have long known to fatten livestock with grains high in polyunsaturated fats, and that saturated fats make livestock lean.)

Not only does iodine regulate cellular respiration and programmed cell death, it also acts as an antioxidant in binding polyunsaturated fats to slow their oxidation. If iodine is bound up by polyunsaturated fats, it is not available to regulate cellular respiration and programmed cell death.

Is it any wonder that researchers are claiming that Vitamin D deficiency, Iodine deficiency, Selenium deficiency, and sugar contribute to cancer, and that therapies based on the understanding of these factors are more than the snake oil that conventional medicine claims.

These concepts are only part of the picture, but enough to consider something besides the failed poison, burn, and cut approach of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqMohmjJ4mg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PsyaYNX1dw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6LDqyZguU
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  #59   ^
Old Fri, Jan-23-15, 02:29
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Rosebud Rosebud is offline
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Plan: Atkins
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Quote:
These concepts are only part of the picture, but enough to consider something besides the failed poison, burn, and cut approach of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

Failed? Are you sure about that? I've said this before in this forum and been completely ignored, but there are many, many thousands of cancer survivors (ojoj, didn't you have surgery for cancer once? I did, back in the eighties, and here I am, still going strong. ) who have had surgery, radiation and, or chemo for their cancers and are now alive and well. And some cancers, such as the lymphomas and some leukaemias are now completely curable with chemo. So careful with your "failed" statements there, mate.
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  #60   ^
Old Fri, Jan-23-15, 04:04
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
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Progress: 134%
Location: NC
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Another Cancer survivor, eight years, and give thanks every time near the world class hospitals in this area that diagnosed early and treated with most innovative procedures available at that time. So a LC diet, no grains, no sugar, now with longer periods of IF, is the current "treatment" plan, with the support of my oncologist. If anything changes at an annual checkup, there will be no hesitation to employ conventional treatments.
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