PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

[swgprop]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

[i subscribe to consumerlab.com - they purchase supplements and send them to commercial labs for testing to see what's really in the bottle. i also subscribe to the natural medicines database - they pull together all the published research on supplements- it's skimpy.]

Thanks for the info on ConsumerLab and Naturaldatabase, will check them out.

[raja]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

One group was given the high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet
that he suspected was the cause of pellagra, while the other group received a
more balanced diet. Within five months, the low-protein group was ravaged
by pellagra, while the other group showed no signs of the disease. After a
long struggle, during which Goldberger's ideas were opposed by those with
political motives for denying the existence of poverty, his hypothesis was
eventually accepted because it matched the empirical evidence better than
any other.

If Goldberger said pellegra was caused by a high carbohydrate diet, he was wrong.

Pellegra is caused by ignoring traditional food practices.
Chemically, the mechanism is niacin deficiencty . . . .

The traditional food preparation method of corn (maize), nixtamalization, by native New World cultivators who had domesticated corn required treatment of the grain with lime, an alkali. It has now been shown that the lime treatment makes niacin nutritionally available and reduces the chance of developing pellagra. When corn cultivation was adopted worldwide, this preparation method was not accepted because the benefit was not understood. The original cultivators, often heavily dependent on corn, did not suffer from pellagra. Pellagra became common only when corn became a staple that was eaten without the traditional treatment. (Wiki)

The price paid for ignoring traditional food practices based on evolutionary imperatives is often severe, yet people unwittingly do it every day to their detriment. Below is a more extreme example:


Pellegra victim

[jk]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Just so. There's no money in curing diseases. Plenty of money in treating them.

There are a lot of "cures" for cancer that don't involve slash and burn practices promoted by big pharma and oncologists. Many are likely worthless but could some of them be for real? You'll never see the FDA endorse any. And the system precludes "legitimizing" them because there's no ROI potential.

So people continue to subject themselves to the horrendous treatments offered up by orthodox medicine.

the fda doesn't do research. to license a drug, the sponsor/manufacturer has to submit 2 positive trials designed according to certain standards, collecting side effect data and submitting that as well. this is expensive. thus no one is doing research on already available generic drugs, let alone herbs, etc. the issue is always- "who will pay for the research?" got a cure for cancer? great! now prove it.

the other side of this coin is revealed by herbs and supplements. they are not regulated. you don't really know what they do, because there is little research. furthermore, even if you had proof that supplement x is a wonder drug, you can buy a bottle with the label "supplement x" and, upon testing, learn there is NO supplement x in it, whatsoever. [i subscribe to consumerlab.com - they purchase supplements and send them to commercial labs for testing to see what's really in the bottle. i also subscribe to the natural medicines database - they pull together all the published research on supplements- it's skimpy.]

[swgprop]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Ding, ding, ding! Why solve a problem when you can sell somebody a pill they have to take every day for the rest of their lives?

Jimmy

Just so. There's no money in curing diseases. Plenty of money in treating them.

There are a lot of "cures" for cancer that don't involve slash and burn practices promoted by big pharma and oncologists. Many are likely worthless but could some of them be for real? You'll never see the FDA endorse any. And the system precludes "legitimizing" them because there's no ROI potential.

So people continue to subject themselves to the horrendous treatments offered up by orthodox medicine.

[jimmygu3]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Same story here - I ran around to everyone I knew to be afflicted with ulcers - "Great news!" They thought I was crazy.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence that big pharma had been developing Prevacid, Nexium, Prilosec, etc. during this time :rolleyes:

Ding, ding, ding! Why solve a problem when you can sell somebody a pill they have to take every day for the rest of their lives?

Jimmy

[sadsack]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

funny you should post that ... I thought of including it in that post, and

I had a co-worker years ago who, in the late 1990s, had his gall bladder removed from what later turned out was a probable case of H.Pylori infection. None of his doctors in upstate NY had ever heard the news ... DAMN ... even I knew about this in the late 90s.

(Although you can never tell with these anecdotal stories exactly what the doctors did and why they thought they had to do it ...)

Same story here - I ran around to everyone I knew to be afflicted with ulcers - "Great news!" They thought I was crazy.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence that big pharma had been developing Prevacid, Nexium, Prilosec, etc. during this time :rolleyes:

[Spartacus]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelin...obacter_pylori

funny you should post that ... I thought of including it in that post, and

I had a co-worker years ago who, in the late 1990s, had his gall bladder removed from what later turned out was a probable case of H.Pylori infection. None of his doctors in upstate NY had ever heard the news ... DAMN ... even I knew about this in the late 90s.

(Although you can never tell with these anecdotal stories exactly what the doctors did and why they thought they had to do it ...)

Thanks. This reminds me of the discovery that the vast majority of stomach ulcers were caused by H. Pylori infections. Unfortunately, it took the better part of two decades for the work of Dr. Marshall to be recognized.

Marshall similarly swallowed H. Pylori, except in this case, the infection hypothesis was proven when he developed ulcers as a result of his ingestion:

http://www.patienthealthinternationa...ture-articles/



I remember when this went down -- this was my "Aha" moment that the average doctor didnt know WTF he was talking about.

Indeed, the saying is true . . .

"Trust, but verify"

[sadsack]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

(since I make such a big deal out of this all the time - the correlation vs causation
point's been made before, but few go to these lengths to make it)


(incidentally, here's a little on Joseph Goldberger, if you're inclined to read more on him: )

http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/goldberger/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldberger

good reading, a little long; don't know where I got it, it was on my hard drive
...

Thanks. This reminds me of the discovery that the vast majority of stomach ulcers were caused by H. Pylori infections. Unfortunately, it took the better part of two decades for the work of Dr. Marshall to be recognized.

Marshall similarly swallowed H. Pylori, except in this case, the infection hypothesis was proven when he developed ulcers as a result of his ingestion:

http://www.patienthealthinternationa...ture-articles/

The proof is in the eating
When Drs Marshall and Warren first announced they had discovered a bacterium that lived in stomachs, most experts dismissed the notion outright. After all, the stomach juices are so acidic that surely no living organism could survive in such a hostile environment? But the Australians persisted with their belief. First, Dr Warren showed that H. pylori was present in the stomachs of the vast majority of patients with peptic ulcers and grew the bacterium in the laboratory so that it could be studied further. Then, in the face of significant scepticism from gastroenterology specialists, Dr Marshall earned himself a place in medical history by swallowing an H. pylori-laced broth. One week later he began suffering headaches and stomach pains, felt nauseous and vomited, and an examination of his stomach revealed the classic signs of gastritis – the first stage in the development of a peptic ulcer.

An infectious disease
Luckily, Marshall recovered from his risky experiment. But, by proving that H. pylori infection could cause peptic ulcers, Drs Marshall and Warren pioneered a totally new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of the condition. Instead of being viewed as a “lifestyle” illness, ulcers are now known to be an infectious disease, and can therefore be treated with widely available antibiotics. Moreover, once the infection has been treated successfully it rarely comes back, sparing countless people the pain and suffering of a lifelong ulcer.

Almost all ulcers caused by H. pylori
Since the discovery of H. pylori, several tests have been developed that can tell whether someone is infected with the bacterium. These show that a staggering 90% of all patients with an ulcer are infected and are therefore eligible for antibiotic treatment. Intriguingly, however, not everyone who is infected with H. pylori develops a peptic ulcer. In fact, it is estimated that around two-thirds of the world’s population harbours the bacterium, yet most people do not have ulcers. This suggests that other factors must also be present for the damage to take place.

I remember when this went down -- this was my "Aha" moment that the average doctor didnt know WTF he was talking about.

Indeed, the saying is true . . .

"Trust, but verify"

[swgprop]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

(since I make such a big deal out of this all the time - the correlation vs causation
point's been made before, but few go to these lengths to make it)


(incidentally, here's a little on Joseph Goldberger, if you're inclined to read more on him: )

http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/goldberger/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldberger

good reading, a little long; don't know where I got it, it was on my hard drive
...

Good stuff, thanks for posting.

[Spartacus]

(since I make such a big deal out of this all the time - the correlation vs causation
point's been made before, but few go to these lengths to make it)


(incidentally, here's a little on Joseph Goldberger, if you're inclined to read more on him: )

http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/goldberger/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldberger

good reading, a little long; don't know where I got it, it was on my hard drive
...

The Third-Variable Problem:
Goldberger and Pellagra


In the early 1900s, thousands of Americans in the South suffered and died of
a disease called pellagra. Characterized by dizziness, lethargy, running
sores, vomiting, and severe diarrhea, the disease was thought to be infec-
tious and to be caused by a living microorganism of "unknown origin." It is
not surprising, then, that many physicians of the National Association for
the Study of Pellagra were impressed by evidence that the disease was
linked to sanitary conditions. It seemed that homes in Spartanburg, South
Carolina, that were free of pellagra invariably had inside plumbing and
good sewerage. By contrast, the homes of pellagra victims often had infe-
rior sewerage. This correlation coincided quite well with the idea of an
infectious disease transmitted, because of poor sanitary conditions, via the
excrement of pellagra victims.

One physician who doubted this interpretation was Joseph Goldberger,
who, at the direction of the surgeon general of the United States, had
conducted several investigations of pellagra. Goldberger thought that pella-
gra was caused by inadequate diet—in short, by the poverty common
throughout the South. Many victims had lived on high-carbohydrate,
extremely low-protein diets, characterized by small amounts of meat, eggs,
and milk and large amounts of corn, grits, and mush. Goldberger thought
that the correlation between sewage conditions and pellagra did not reflect a
causal relationship in either direction (much as in the toaster-birth control
example). Goldberger thought that the correlation arose because families
with sanitary plumbing were likely to be economically advantaged. This
economic discrepancy would also be reflected in their diets, which would
contain more animal protein.


But wait a minute! Why should Goldberger get away with his causal
inference? After all, both sides were just sitting there with their correlations,
Goldberger with pellagra and diet and the other physicians with pellagra
and sanitation. Why shouldn't the association's physicians be able to say
that Goldberger's correlation was equally misleading? Why was he justified
in rejecting the hypothesis that an infectious organism was transmitted
through the excrement of pellagra victims because of inadequate sewage dis-
posal? Well, the reason Goldberger was justified has to do with one small
detail that I neglected to mention: Goldberger had eaten the excrement of
pellagra victims.




W h y Goldberger's E v i d e n c e Was Better

Goldberger had a type of evidence (a controlled manipulation, discussed
further in the next chapter) that is derived when the investigator, instead of
simply observing correlations, actually manipulates the critical variable.
This approach often involves setting up special conditions that rarely occur
naturally—and to call Goldberger's special conditions unnatural is an
understatement!


Confident that pellagra was not contagious and not transmitted by the
bodily fluids of the victims, Goldberger had himself injected with the blood
of a victim. He inserted throat and nose secretions from a victim into his own
mouth. In addition,

he selected two patients—one with scaling sores and the other with diarrhea.
He scraped the scales from the sores, mixed the scales with four cubic centime-
ters of urine from the same patients, added an equal amount of liquid feces,
and rolled the mixture into little dough balls by the addition of four pinches of
flour. The pills were taken voluntarily by him, by his assistants and by his wife.
(Bronfenbrenner & Mahoney, 1975, p. 11)
Neither Goldberger nor the other volunteers came down with pellagra.

In short, Goldberger had created the conditions necessary for the infectious
transmission of the disease, and nothing had happened.
Goldberger had now manipulated the causal mechanism suggested by
others and had shown that it was ineffective, but it was still necessary to test
his own causal mechanism. Goldberger got two groups of prisoners from a
Mississippi state prison farm who were free of pellagra to volunteer for his
experiment. One group was given the high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet
that he suspected was the cause of pellagra, while the other group received a
more balanced diet. Within five months, the low-protein group was ravaged
by pellagra, while the other group showed no signs of the disease. After a
long struggle, during which Goldberger's ideas were opposed by those with
political motives for denying the existence of poverty, his hypothesis was
eventually accepted because it matched the empirical evidence better than
any other.

[*T*]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

We haven't seen grass-fed beef at our local farmer's markets, but I'll keep my eyes open.

What a depressing statement. How sad they come to be fed anything else.

[peakishmael]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Keith's point is there are "farms" that are raising animals on grassland where they cannot grow corn or wheat or whatever. this grassland is better for the topsoil than monoculture.

the claim is directed at cattle & pig & chicken growers inefficiently diverting grain to animal feed and to vegetarians who think the only way to grow animals is through massive grain operations

Thanks for the clarification. We haven't seen grass-fed beef at our local farmer's markets, but I'll keep my eyes open.

[Spartacus]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

thanks, I should have been clear about this:

the MEDIA will report on the book's arguments against vegetarianism because those are the most inflammatory, the most likely to generate ratings & media sales

A lot of (not all) vegetarians will try to distract from the message

The books' MAIN ARGUMENT IMHO (I don't care what the authors say, this is the main argument) is for growing animals on land that cannot be used for other purposes,

The books' MAIN ARGUMENT IMHO (I don't care what the authors say, this is the main argument) is against various agricultural practices (10 miles of neat hedgerows is not good for soil, corn is not good for cows)

(I haven't read the books, just a couple of synopses - most of the synopses, of course, focus mainly on the "angry recovering vegetarian" angle)

Exactly right, Spartacus.

We have a cattle ranch, here in Panama. All grass fed and organic. In our efforts to create a sustainable environment, we have introduce many native tree species, along water ways and hedge rows. We also maintain large areas of natural forest. The trees planted as hedge rows provide a pathway for the natural migration of wild animals; they also build soil nutrients and top soil.

There is a strong market for grass fed, organic, beef. As more people become educated on the subject, demand will increase. Feed lots do not produce healthy meat. The animals are sick and kept alive with antibiotics. Grain is not natural to their diets; it puts a tremendous strain on the animals.

I would be happy to provide reference material for anyone who's interested.

[jk]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

i just finished keith's book, as well as michael pollan's omnivore's dilemma, and they make a powerful argument against industrial agriculture- monocultures planted fencerow to fencerow as well as against industrial animal production on feedlots and in battery cages. they also point clearly to that system's enormous dependence on cheap oil.

[dummass]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Keith's point is there are "farms" that are raising animals on grassland where they cannot grow corn or wheat or whatever. this grassland is better for the topsoil than monoculture.

the claim is directed at cattle & pig & chicken growers inefficiently diverting grain to animal feed and to vegetarians who think the only way to grow animals is through massive grain operations

Exactly right, Spartacus.

We have a cattle ranch, here in Panama. All grass fed and organic. In our efforts to create a sustainable environment, we have introduce many native tree species, along water ways and hedge rows. We also maintain large areas of natural forest. The trees planted as hedge rows provide a pathway for the natural migration of wild animals; they also build soil nutrients and top soil.

There is a strong market for grass fed, organic, beef. As more people become educated on the subject, demand will increase. Feed lots do not produce healthy meat. The animals are sick and kept alive with antibiotics. Grain is not natural to their diets; it puts a tremendous strain on the animals.

I would be happy to provide reference material for anyone who's interested.