Reduce All Cancer Incidence by 77% with Vitamin D? - Seminar

I am always skeptical of assertions that food is inadequate for the vitamins we need, or that unhealthy amounts of food are needed for healthy doses of vitamins.

 

Just eat cod liver and you will have plenty.
I just did a Google News search and it is astounding how many news articles there are covering Cancer to falling down elderly.
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends supplements.
Read more than a few pages because the variety goes on and on.
vitamin d - Google News

 

no, they don't describe it as a correlation. they've made the classic bad science mistake of branding correlation as causation.

well then, you might be a little disappointed to find that there are actually more than that:

Items 1 - 20 of 46562

and yet, they can't come up with causative data, only correlative. hmmm...

right, because we don't serve the public or anything. we're just holed away in our little academic caves, unawares of the real world and such.

i'll be more comfortable taking the recommendation of the evidence-based review provided by the IOM next year:
Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium - Institute of Medicine

they like to use the words "evidence based" and "risk assessment" as opposed to people who get correlation falsely confused with causation and present it as fact to a public that doesn't know any better.

 

interestingly, your serum vitamin D levels vary depending on where your doctor has your blood sample analyzed:
Assay variation confounds the diagnosis of hypovit...[J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2004] - PubMed Result

 

I wonder, how would the coroner write that up? Is it worth a Darwin Award? And what would happen if I went for the yolks and spent a half hour in the midday sun? I need an email address for Morgan Spurlock ASAP.

 

Yuck!!!

 

I subscribe to Natural News. Here is the latest batch of Vitamin D articles.

Since most other countries' health organizations recognize the importance of vit D, I would tend to respect the vitamin, though I am not a fan of supplements. I prefer getting mine from the sun, whenever possible. I do not believe, as some people apparently do, that the USA's national 'health' structure is the 'best', most advanced, or even that the health of the citizenry is of much concern. As the pharmaceutical and insurance companies are underwriting (paying for) nearly all of the 'research' and 'studies', and then continue to pay doctors for prescribing their products, I would be leery of the results of any one study, and I would look abroad to other countries for supporting evidence.

As far as the germ theory - yep, there are 'germs', virii, etc., but a person's susceptibility to those organisms is what is essential - the healthier a person is, the less likely to actually get sick from any 'germ'... so, if you live a healthy lifestyle of fresh, natural food, exercise, rest, and some sunshine, then you are much less likely to 'catch' anything that's 'going around.'

Speaking of sunshine, and 'sunscreen'... an amazing percentage of sunscreens on the market contain ingredients that have been linked to cancer and other health problems. Many of us used these products for years. So, if someone gets cancer, instead of blaming the sun, how about looking at exposure to toxic chemicals that are STILL ALLOWED in personal care products!

Note here, how Coppertone sunscreen products have the highest toxicity score!

Continuing to do the things we've always done, and expecting different results, is a sign of insanity. Isn't it time to actually change our lifestyles? Really?

 

ahh yes. mike adams is a well-known opponent of evidence-based medicine. i subscribe to this site, written by a surgical oncologist and cancer researcher... here is an example of one of mike adams' ridiculous rants taken apart:

[warning: the writer is a very blunt, sarcastic dude.]
Mike Adams adds religious nuttery to his armamentarium as he slimes Patrick Swayze posthumously : Respectful Insolence

correction: the NIH and NSF (ie your tax dollars) foot the bill for a significant amount of health-related research, the NIH having spent ~$1.429 billion this year for nutrition research alone. (go look at the spending by each of the 215 areas that are being funded by NIH here: NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT) - Estimates of Funding for Various Research, Condition, and Disease Categories (RCDC))

american research is limited in some ways due to regulations, yet we still have some of the most innovative scientific minds the world has to offer. i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss research from established, reputable sources in our country.

if your immune system doesn't recognize something when it hits you, you will get sick while the immune response learns to fight, then eliminates the threat. this is why we have vaccines for the really nasty stuff. they "educate" your immune system. i'm short on time, so see here:
Science-Based Medicine Boost Your Immune System?

a nice excerpt:

"So when something allegedly boosts the immune system, I have to ask what part. How? What is it strengthening/boosting/supporting? Antibodies? Complement? White cells? Are the results from test tubes (often meaningless), animal studies or human studies? And if in human studies, what was the study population. Are the results even meaningful? Or small, barely statistically significant, outcomes in poorly done studies?

The answer, as we shall see, is usually nothing. It is the usual making a Mt. Everest out of a molehill, and a small molehill at that. If you google the phrase “boost the immune system†you will find over 288,000 pages that give advice on how to give that old immune system a lift. Curiously, a Pubmed search with the same phase yields 1100 references, most concerning vaccination. If you Pubmed ‘enhanced immune system’ you get 41,000 references mostly concerning immunology. None of the references concern taking a normal person and making the immune system work better than its baseline to prevent or treat infection. I have yet to see a quality clinical study that demonstrates that, in normal, not nutritionally or otherwise compromised people, that some intervention can lead to a meaningful increase in immune function and as a result have fewer infections. Maybe such a study exists. I can’t find it. Send me the reference. I suppose the comment section will soon flood me with examples."

(for reference, Pubmed is a database of published scientific peer-reviewed literature.)

 

I love when know-nothings come out and say things like pharmaceutical companies pay doctors to prescribe their drugs. Man I miss out on those payments!

 

Just go back and watch Cool Hand Luke.

Luke: I can eat fifty eggs.
Dragline: Nobody can eat fifty eggs.
Society Red: You just said he could eat anything.
Dragline: Did you ever eat fifty eggs?
Luke: Nobody ever eat fifty eggs.
Prisoner: Hey, Babalugats. We got a bet here.
Dragline: My boy says he can eat fifty eggs, he can eat fifty eggs. Loudmouth Steve: Yeah, but in how long?
Luke: A hour.
Society Red: Well, I believe I'll take part of that wager.

 

I'm a big fan of a balanced diet with lots of vitamin-rich veggies, regular exercise, lots of rest, some sunshine, soap, and every vaccination my doctor recommends. And once in a while I'll take a multi-vitamin pill as a placebo, especially if I'm away from home someplace where I can't get enough veggies.

 

Regular exercise, lots of rest (that's a real doosy), some sunshine and lots of nice vacations. What is it like to have limited stress (or am I assuming too much)? Somehow you'll probably fare better than most of us working class saps even if we intake higher nutrient loads.

 

Oh, excuse me. Did I say that pharmaceutical companies pay doctors to prescribe? Perhaps I should have been more specific:
They give trips - usually called 'seminar weekends' or 'workshop trips'
They buy lunch. A lot. For the whole medical office.
They give prizes, goodies, discounts on things.

And, yes, I used to work for a doctor. In a small town. Small practice. Lots of goodies from the drug reps. Constantly. Don't tell me that there isn't kickbacks and other 'considerations' for prescribing a certain company's drugs!

 

That isn't paying the doctor. We have lots of drug reps that come in and give lunches, etc, and we never use a single drug that they are pushing. That's standard practice. We are busy. If you want my time to show me your new product then you can treat us to lunch and we'll listen patiently. That in no way obliges me to ever prescribe your product once.

Drop the conspiracy theory stuff. The notion that you would ever understand the complex choices we make when prescribing a pill or treatment is impossible. I'll assume you are a "naturopath." You "alternative medicine believers" tend to all be the same. You believe in crazy weird things and think all doctors are shills for drug companies. And yet you always come crawling back to western evidence-based medicine when your disease gets bad enough.

A good friend of my fiance is all into eastern and alternative medicines. He had a simple infected hair follicle on his sacrum. Homeopathy, acupuncture, and chiropractics all failed him. As did something he was telling me about called quhuang (or whatever, I don't care - it was based on the belief that you can heal your body by just focusing on the problem or something stupid). Finally came in to see me and problem solved.

 

I am 61 years old, and came into some money just a few years ago. Before that I lived within my means. No movies. No restaurant meals. Very little "stuff." And no debt. My sister, who had more income than I, lived beyond her means: too much credit card debt and constant stress. I was not destitute by any means, but I lived on less money than (I'm fairly sure) most of the people on this board. My first car was a used POS that died almost immediately. My first new car I drove for 13 years. My next I drove for 15 years. I'm sure that I've spent less money in my life (considering how long a time I had little, and how short a time I've had much) than the average American my age employed in a good union or professional job.

I had no financial stress because I never went into debt. I bought only what I could pay cash for. The only difference now is that I can afford a lot more. So I can say it's very nice to have no money worries, and while it's nicer to have a lot than a little, financial stress has less to do with your income than with how you choose to structure your life: put yourself in a situation where you cannot live within your means, or choose a lifestyle that you can afford.

People living on or near minimum wage have a legitimate complaint, as do people who've lost their jobs due to the criminal activities of bankers and brokers. But most people's financial stress comes from their choice to go into debt in order to buy stuff they cannot afford. Bigger house, in a nicer neighborhood, farther from work; fancier car; more consumer goods, etc., etc. They are seduced by the offers of easy credit, and don't realize that the real price of that easy credit is worry and stress: They sell their souls to the bank and then complain of stress. I don't know: maybe the difference is that I didn't have a television (couldn't afford one back then) and so I was not subjected to all the brainwashing about needing a lot of crap.

Other than that, I am probably healthier than many (most???) men my age, but I've got my aches and pains. And having nobody to share my life with is very depressing. I compensate by saying "screw the world" and having as much fun as I can have alone.

Okay. Sorry for the ramble. Back to arguing about whether to accept evidence-based recommendations on vitamin requirements, or to believe the homeopaths, who give you "medicines" diluted down to pure water or sugar and then tell you you need massive doses of their one favorite vitamin to cure all your ills.

:focus:

 

Homeopathic dilutions kill me. Homeopaths suggest a 30C dilution for optimal treatment, meaning that for every 1 molecule of treatment there is 10^60 molecules of water (about 10,000 Atlantic Oceans.) This would require giving two billion doses per second to six billion people for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any patient. Yeah, I'm sure that's an effective medicine!

 

It is time to withhold all vitamins (especially Vitamin D), minerals and other life sustaining nutrients for this tread in order to let it die in peace. Amen.

 

Cool, lets all fast in the dark.
After we're all dead, we can suck the blood of the uninitiated for sustenance.

 

I think their theory is that the "spirit" of the original substance, rather than the molecules, is what does the work. Of course, considering that the original substance is something that, in real dosages, would cause the ailment, it's a good thing they dilute it out of existence.

I don't think I've ever met a proponent of homeopathy who understood numbers.

On the other hand, you should keep in mind that homeopathy originated at a time when evidence-based medicine did not exist, and when "conventional" doctors did more harm than good, by bleeding and purging patients. There's a doctor in one of Chaucer's stories who, when he is informed that a man is sick, sends a message asking for the patient's time and place of birth, rather than his symptoms, intending to diagnose him through astrology rather than by physical examination. In those days you were better off doing nothing. Homeopathy was just that, and therefore had better outcomes. Anybody who thinks the past was a golden age, should contemplate being bled whenever they had a fever, or burned at the stake to drive out devils because they had an epileptic fit, or informed that an illness was sent by god as punishment for some secret sin of theirs. Of course, there are religious nut jobs who still say that, so we have some distance to go yet before we can call ourselves rational beings.

Which brings us back to why evidence-based medicine is so unpopular.