Dying To Have Known (A Gerson Therapy Documentary)

Pixel8

I dunno Monty... i don't know why cancer in kids is going down and i haven't researched it so i don't know but from the graphs i found myself about ALL men and women cancer death rates in the U.S. from 1930-2006, it seems clear that conventional cancer treatments are working terribly badly.

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

I dunno Monty... i don't know why cancer in kids is going down and i haven't researched it so i don't know but from the graphs i found myself about ALL men and women cancer death rates in the U.S. from 1930-2006, it seems clear that conventional cancer treatments are working terribly badly.

Fair enough.

The question I would ask though is, what are those graphs for men and women actually showing? Are those statistics chosen by the American Cancer Society (?) to show the cancers that have both the greatest and least improvements in treatment? (e.g. to show the progress that can be made, and the progress that needs to be made)

It's tricky to find good statistics. I found this one from the UK which shows trends in 5-year survival rates for several common cancers, in 4 series dating from the 80s. In every one (that I looked at) there is improvement in survival rates over time.

Pixel8

Monty Burnz wrote: »

The question I would ask though is, what are those graphs for men and women actually showing? Are those statistics chosen by the American Cancer Society (?) to show the cancers that have both the greatest and least improvements in treatment? (e.g. to show the progress that can be made, and the progress that needs to be made)

It says its from the American Cancer Society based on data from the U.S. Mortality Data 1960-2006, U.S. Mortality Volumes 1939-1959 etc. written at the bottom of the graphic...

It's showing how many in 100,000's of Men and Women are dying of Cancer every year from 1939-2006, i though that was fairly obvious...? It's a lot isn't it.

And remember: Cancer mortality rates are measured up to 5 years after treatment. So according to conventional medicine, if you have chemotherapy and you survive after it for 5 years but die in year 6, you're still classed as a cancer survivor.

Why would they ever change the measurement of cancer success to 5 years in the first place? i smell a rat... This alone should raise alarm bells in your head as to the truthfullness and thoroughness of their own cancer success statisitcs.

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

It's showing how many in 100,000's of Men and Women are dying of Cancer every year from 1939-2006, i though that was fairly obvious...? It's a lot isn't it.

Yeah, that bit is obvious - I'm asking what they were trying to show, or what their agenda was when they created the graphs. They are making a case - I'm just wondering what the case actually is.

Pixel8 wrote: »

And remember: Cancer mortality rates are measured up to 5 years after treatment. So according to conventional medicine, if you have chemotherapy and you survive after it for 5 years but die in year 6, you're still classed as a cancer survivor.

The data above does not include people who have had cancer and died later than 5 years after treatment, so can you imagine what the *real* cancer death rates would be if they included all those as well? And more to the point, why would they ever change the measurement of cancer success to 5 years in the first place? i smell a rat...

What were the survival rates back in the days when people ate more healthily and got more excercise, before modern medicine? Virtually nil, I would suggest. You got cancer, and you died. End of.

On Wikipedia it cites a guy who operated on 60 people with breast cancer, and there were two survivors. You can imagine how good their odds were without surgery when patient number 60 was told that out of the previous 59 patients who were operated on, 57 were dead, and she still thought it was worth the agony for that tiny chance of success.

The renowned Scottish surgeon Alexander Monro saw only 2 breast tumor patients out of 60 surviving surgery for two years.

You'll notice that in the 1800s, they were using a 2-year survival horizon, not 5 years. Part of the conspiracy? Nope. You need to set a number of years that people survive at least as long as, or you can't put together any statistics at all. That's just basic statistics.

Pixel8

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Yeah, that bit is obvious - I'm asking what they were trying to show, or what their agenda was when they created the graphs. They are making a case - I'm just wondering what the case actually is.

Are you actually serious? Did you not see the link at the end of my post with the graphs?
Source: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-026238.pdf

Would you not maybe click that link and find out for yourself what its all about? You're research abilities leave a lot to be desired... I feel like im in playschool here.

amacachi

Cancer isn't due to vitamin deficiencies, it's a fungus.

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

victorhelsing

To begin with, be aware that Simoncini is not a physician, or at least, not any longer.

http://www.cancertreatmentwatch.org/reports/simoncini.shtml

Before I go on, I will admit that I am violating a basic rule: You cannot argue science with someone who does not believe in science.

Where do you start with "Doctor" Simoncini? It requires a little knowledge of medicine to fully enjoy the comedic aspects of the video, but even a non medical person can understand the lunacy of his claims, with a little bit of effort.

To begin, he states that all cancer is caused by a fungus, and along the way, declares it is candida albicans, a commonly known fungus responsible for "yeast" (fungal) infections in women. Incidentally, despite what is claimed in the video, excellent antifungal agents are available, EVEN WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION, to treat and cure this infection. Oops.

He goes on to explain that:
1) Every cancer (tumor) is white
2) Candida is white.
therefore proves that therefore proves that
3) Every tumor is caused by candida.

You might as well argue that cheese is white, the moon is white, therefore the moon is made of cheese (or out of respect for "Doctor" Simoncini, perhaps the moon is made of candida albicans).

Of course, to begin, every cancer is not white. Two commonly known skin cancers, melanoma and Kaposi's sarcoma (common in AIDS) are deep red to black in color.

How can some cancers be white (lightly pigmented) WITHOUT being candida infection (which is also white)? It is quite simple. Cancer by its nature is the uncontrolled proliferation of cells, which grow so rapidly that they exceed the ability of local blood vessels to supply them with blood (which is red, or when diluted by nearby tissues, pink, such as your skin and the mucous members of the lips, mouth, etc.) When these cells grow so densely and so rapidly that they crowd out the blood vessels, they are naturally hard and white. The sclera (white part) of your eyes usually crowd out the vessels so tend to be whitish as well, but don't treat yourself with bicarbonate to get rid of the candida infection in your eyes.

If you look at lots of these tumors on CAT scan or MRI (I have), or if you look at lots of these tumors under the microscope (I have), you see a magnificent proliferation of these very dense cells, often so much that they die off in the center because they choke off their blood supply. And in all of these examinations, you see none of the features expected for fungi (yes, I have viewed fungal elements under the microscope as well, in relation to treating fungal infections, which have nothing to do with cancer.)

Freedom of speech on the internet is wonderful, but it does allow some extremely bizarre (and false) ideas to be propagated beyond their natural ability to survive in the wild. Thanks for sharing this one with us.

P.S. To complicate the picture a little bit, there is a fungus that commonly causes liver cancer in the third world, by growing on improperly stored nuts and producing a cancer causing agent called "aflatoxin" which causes a genetic frame shift mutation inducing cancers. Unfortunately for "Doctor" Simoncini, these cancer cells grow rapidly and have nothing to do with the fungus once the genetic damage has been introduced, and alas, the causative fungus is NOT candida albicans. And cervical cancer, common in women, is caused by a sexually transmitted virus (Human Papilloma Virus, HPV).

And for those who believe that all fungus is white, as he claims, how do you account for blue (green) cheese, or black mold?

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

Are you actually serious? Did you not see the link at the end of my post with the graphs?
Source: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-026238.pdf

Would you not maybe click that link and find out for yourself what its all about? You're research abilities leave a lot to be desired... I feel like im in playschool here.

There is no need to be offensive.

My question is very, very simple. What case are they trying to make in that document? What is their agenda? Does the idea of an organisation having an unstated agenda baffle somebody on the CT forum?

Penn

Could everyone remember to keep things civil and refrain from insults. Thanks.

Wibbs

Monty Burnz wrote: »

That would be Linus Pauling who died of...cancer? So much for his cure...

Ehh the man was 93 years of age.

Pixel8 wrote: »

The best thing you can do is invest in a really good Juicer and start juicing raw fruit and veg every day!

It's pretty obvious that our mothers and grannies were right all along about eating your fruits and veges and your greens etc. and that macdonalds every day is only going to lead to a fat diabetic mess, yet we all question the Gerson Therapy when it's practically common sense! Eating fruit and veg has been proven over and over again to be the healthier option yet we still question this?

Well with a caveat. Keep the fruit levels low. Fructose is about the worst sugar one can ingest in a effort to stave off diabetes and most fruits are chock full of it. Juicing releases even more fructose. Not good. In any event humans are not designed to eat fruit every day, just like we're not designed to eat MaccyDees. Fruit was seasonal in the wild, plus smaller and more densely nutritious than modern varieties no matter how organic they are. If I found myself to be pre diabetic I'd not be juicing anyway.

As for this diet therapy. I dunno it may have some validity or there may be an explanation for some of the results. I don't share quite the same out of the box hostility to the notion anyway. Scientifically they only way to clearly increase longevity in an animal(without going genetic) is through diet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction#Research_history There are all sorts of theories as to why this may work. Insulin regulation being one target(IMHO the biggest), but also it may majorly boost immune response. Nothing so dumbly simplistic as "the cancer needs X food to survive", but that the bodies own immune response gets triggered.

Monty Burnz

Wibbs wrote: »

Ehh the man was 93 years of age.

This is true, but he was killed by the disease he claimed to have a cure for (or perhaps more accurately, that some people are claiming he had a cure for).

Wibbs

Monty Burnz wrote: »

This is true, but he was killed by the disease he claimed to have a cure for (or perhaps more accurately, that some people are claiming he had a cure for).

One form of the disease and death brings its own excuse, but equally one could argue that his long term ingestion of high dose vit C staved off occurrence of said cancer until his 90's. I wouldn't without further evidence, but I'd be open to it. The man was one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century. Yes doesn't mean he can't be as wrong as the next guy, but I'd give his opinion more ear. Certainly the evidence against his vit C helps in cancer patients theory was based on one well dodgy study that didn't follow the protocols of his study that showed a benefit. It would be interesting to revisit IMHO.

Iwannahurl

Wibbs wrote: »

Ehh the man was 93 years of age.


Well with a caveat. Keep the fruit levels low. Fructose is about the worst sugar one can ingest in a effort to stave off diabetes and most fruits are chock full of it. Juicing releases even more fructose. Not good. In any event humans are not designed to eat fruit every day, just like we're not designed to eat MaccyDees. Fruit was seasonal in the wild, plus smaller and more densely nutritious than modern varieties no matter how organic they are. If I found myself to be pre diabetic I'd not be juicing anyway.

As for this diet therapy. I dunno it may have some validity or there may be an explanation for some of the results. I don't share quite the same out of the box hostility to the notion anyway. Scientifically they only way to clearly increase longevity in an animal(without going genetic) is through diet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction#Research_history There are all sorts of theories as to why this may work. Insulin regulation being one target(IMHO the biggest), but also it may majorly boost immune response. Nothing so dumbly simplistic as "the cancer needs X food to survive", but that the bodies own immune response gets triggered.

You're on the ball re caloric restriction (with optimal nutrition) as well as the role of insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome.

Gerson was convinced that cancer and other degenerative diseases were disorders of metabolism. One reason he fell foul of doctors and medical convention was that he advocated broadly the same (holistic) approach to these diseases, which certainly doesn't fit with the medical model. This also goes some way towards explaining why alternative therapies are popular: many patients get sick and tired of being sent from Billy to Jack having their problems treated as if they were separate entities that just happened to be occupying the one host. Gerson and his successors regarded that as a false dogma, and IMHO they were right.

Rational evidence-based discussion of these matters is the way to go, IMO, regardless of which aspect is being addressed (eg medical or sociological).

It's a pity that this is being discussed in Conspiracy Theories -- not an appropriate forum, a mon avis.

Pixel8

Has anyone seen the documentary Transcendent Man?

It's about an inventor and futurist called Ray Kurzweil who is very highly regarded that presents his bold vision of the Singularity, a point in the near future when technology will be changing so rapidly, that we will have to enhance ourselves with artificial intelligence to keep up. He invented the Flatbed scanner and machines to help the blind see again, among other things, and is considered by people like Bill Gates to be a genius.

Anyway, in the docu he also talks about developing type 2 Diabetes and having the symptoms of heart disease and curing it with Vitamin Supplements and a change in diet! He would take up to 200 vitamin tablets per day and eventually cured himself, how can this be explained if vitamins and minerals do not cure disease? I don't think he tried conventional medicine though, i wonder why...

Watch the full documentary here: http://www.theopensource.tv/ray-kurzweil/transcendent-man-video_edddeb763.html

There are examples just like this one all over the net, but most of us just don't hear about them. 200 tabs a day sounds a bit extreme but this is what people are talking about when they say HIGH DOSE vitamins and minerals whereas all the tests and case studies done on vitamins in the past were LOW DOSE studies, big big difference. High dose vitamin therapy is the therapy curing people, not low dose therapy...

eilo1

Pixel8 wrote: »

Has anyone seen the documentary Transcendent Man?

It's about an inventor and futurist called Ray Kurzweil who is very highly regarded that presents his bold vision of the Singularity, a point in the near future when technology will be changing so rapidly, that we will have to enhance ourselves with artificial intelligence to keep up. He invented the Flatbed scanner and machines to help the blind see again, among other things, and is considered by people like Bill Gates to be a genius.

Anyway, in the docu he also talks about developing type 2 Diabetes and curing it with Vitamin Supplements and a change in diet! He would take up to 200 vitamin tablets per day and eventually cured himself, how can this be explained if vitamins and minerals do not cure disease? He never tried conventional medicine, i wonder why...

Watch the full documentary here: http://www.theopensource.tv/ray-kurzweil/transcendent-man-video_edddeb763.html

There are examples just like this one all over the net, but most of us just don't hear about them. 200 tabs a day sounds a bit extreme but this but this is what people are talking about when they say HIGH DOSE vitamins and minerals whereas all the tests and case studies done on vitamins in the past were LOW DOSE studies, big big difference. High dose vitamin therapy is the therapy curing people, not low dose therapy...

Type 2 diabetes is lifestyle related, there is a HUGE amount of evidence that diet change and exercise will improve glycemic control.
There is no conspiracy in it. The problem is that people prefer to take a table than go for a run and cut out the sweets.

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

Anyway, in the docu he also talks about developing type 2 Diabetes and having the symptoms of heart disease and curing it with Vitamin Supplements and a change in diet! He would take up to 200 vitamin tablets per day and eventually cured himself, how can this be explained if vitamins and minerals do not cure disease? I don't think he tried conventional medicine though, i wonder why...

If I come up with an anecdote about one moron who started taking vitamins to cure a disease, will that cancel out your anecdote about one man who claims/is claimed to be a genius? :pac:

Iwannahurl

Wibbs wrote: »

One form of the disease and death brings its own excuse, but equally one could argue that his long term ingestion of high dose vit C staved off occurrence of said cancer until his 90's. I wouldn't without further evidence, but I'd be open to it. The man was one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century. Yes doesn't mean he can't be as wrong as the next guy, but I'd give his opinion more ear. Certainly the evidence against his vit C helps in cancer patients theory was based on one well dodgy study that didn't follow the protocols of his study that showed a benefit. It would be interesting to revisit IMHO.

It is impossible to prove a negative in this case, ie that Linus Pauling would have died younger if he hadn't been taking Ascorbate in high doses. In any case an N=1 study is hardly generalisable!

Mention of Pauling and Vitamin C reminds me of a book I found by accident many years ago, and which changed forever my attitude to "alternative" medicine, cancer research and science in general.

Dr. Evelleen Richards, who at the time was a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, was the author and her book was Vitamin C and Cancer: Medicine or Politics?

The book is a well written, cogently argued and meticulously researched analysis of the controversy that arose when Pauling started to promulgate his theories about Vitamin C and cancer. What I found most interesting about it was what Richards called "the politics of therapeutic evaluation". Vitamin C was expected by the 'cancer establishment' to pass the test of the canonical Randomised Controlled Trial. However, the same authorities were happy to permit the use of chemotherapeutic agents like 5FU, which became standard treatments without ever having proven their worth in an RCT. Indeed, IIRC, it used to be regarded as unethical to conduct placebo-controlled trials on cancer patients.

Here's the abstract from her paper on the same topic in the peer-reviewed journal Social Studies of Science:

This paper reconstructs and analyzes the content and context of the debate over the efficacy of vitamin C in the treatment of cancer, and compares it with medical responses to, and evaluations of, two other cancer drugs — the cytotoxic drug SFU (conventionally used in the treatment of gastro-intestinal cancers) and the `naturally-occurring' (but recombinant DNA-produced) drug interferon. This comparative approach is designed to facilitate the integration of microsociological and structural levels of analysis of the processes by which knowledge claims about therapeutic efficacy are evaluated by the powerful adjudicating medical community. It is argued that the assessment of medical therapies is inherently a social and political process; that the idea of neutral appraisal is a myth; that clinical trials, no matter how rigorous their methodology, inevitably embody the professional values or commitments of the assessors; and that judgements about experimental findings may be structured by wider social interests, such as consumer choice or market forces. It is concluded that the necessarily social character of medical knowledge cannot be eliminated by methodological reform, and that this has important implications for the social implementation of medical therapies and techniques.
~ Social Studies of Science November 1988 vol. 18 no. 4 653-701

I also recall reading excellent critiques of aggressive cancer treatment in the academic literature on the developing science of palliative medicine. There was also an incisive and eye-opening review of the scientific evidence for chemotherapy by Dr Ulrich Abel (a professor of biostatistics at the University of Heidelberg, IIRC), Chemotherapy of advanced epithelial cancer: a critical survey.

In short, it's quite possible to find evidence-based and authoritative support for "alternative" approaches and viewpoints, if you care to look for it. It's not necessary, or helpful, to postulate ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to explain how conventional cancer treatments are where they are.

Wibbs

Iwannahurl wrote: »

It is impossible to prove a negative in this case, ie that Linus Pauling would have died younger if he hadn't been taking Ascorbate in high doses. In any case an N=1 study is hardly generalisable!

Oh I agree 100%, hence I said "I wouldn't [believe it] without further evidence"

In short, it's quite possible to find evidence-based and authoritative support for "alternative" approaches and viewpoints, if you care to look for it. It's not necessary, or helpful, to postulate ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to explain how conventional cancer treatments are where they are.

+1

elio1 wrote:

Type 2 diabetes is lifestyle related, there is a HUGE amount of evidence that diet change and exercise will improve glycemic control.
There is no conspiracy in it. The problem is that people prefer to take a table than go for a run and cut out the sweets.

Yep I can think of two of the latter and I can also think of one guy who did the "alternative" route, effected a huge dietary change and "cured" himself of type 2 diabetes. He had a bad case of it too. Well past the pre diabetic stage. I say "alternative" but there was nothing alternative about it. Other than he didn't go the usual route. I say "cured" but he had a pretty much entirely lifestyle driven condition and obviously still at a reversable point for him. Interesting documentary here http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/simply-raw-reversing-diabetes-in-30-days/

Imagine the average reaction of the "pill for every ill" crowd if their GP told them they required a complete change to their diet and lifestyle that would take long months of hard work to effect a change, no pills required? I feel for doctors it has to be said.

eilo1

I know what you mean, I was chatting to an endocrinologist about this a while back and he said if you could just put the affects of exercise and diet in a pill you would cure 50% of illness.

Iwannahurl

The INTERHEART study conducted several years ago found that nine easily measured -- and potentially modifiable -- risk factors (smoking, lipids, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and psychosocial factors) account for over 90% of the risk of acute myocardial infarction.

Max Gerson, using the knowledge available to him in the the first half of the 20th Century, directly addressed most of those risk factors, adding some of his own (empirically-derived) theories.

Around the same time as the INTERHEART study above, a paper appeared in the British Medical Journal which claimed to identify a strategy that could reduce cardiovascular disease by more than 80%:

The Polypill strategy could largely prevent heart attacks and stroke if taken by everyone aged 55 and older and everyone with existing cardiovascular disease. It would be acceptably safe and with widespread use would have a greater impact on the prevention of disease in the Western world than any other single intervention.

A year later, a different team of researchers and academics published another paper in the Christmas edition of the BMJ: The Polymeal -- a more natural, safer, and probably tastier (than the Polypill) strategy to reduce cardiovascular disease by more than 75%.

Data on the ingredients of the Polymeal were taken from the literature. The evidence based recipe included wine, fish, dark chocolate, fruits, vegetables, garlic, and almonds. Data from the Framingham heart study and the Framingham offspring study were used to build life tables to model the benefits of the Polymeal in the general population from age 50, assuming multiplicative correlations.

Have a guess which approach has garnered the greater level of attention and research interest. (As it happens the Polypill was mentioned on RTE Radio 1 just this evening. An Irish research study is looking for volunteers to enrol in a study).

Major gains have been made in the prevention and treatment of heart disease in recent decades, thanks to research such as the Framingham Heart Study and other major investigations like it. I would suggest that cancer prevention and treatment have not kept pace, despite the obvious common risk factors. Again, conspiracy theories don't explain how these situations evolve. Just look at the huge effort needed to tackle smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and stress, individually and in combination.

Pixel8

eilo1 wrote: »

Type 2 diabetes is lifestyle related, there is a HUGE amount of evidence that diet change and exercise will improve glycemic control.
There is no conspiracy in it. The problem is that people prefer to take a table than go for a run and cut out the sweets.

What does "diet change" actually mean? It means eating more fruit and veg and less meat, dairy and processed foods, which is the exact same as more vitamins and minerals! What is fruit and veg? it's vitamins and minerals.

So those who say something can be fixed with diet change actually mean things can be fixed with high dose vitamins and minerals. They're one and the same.

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

So those who say something can be fixed with diet change actually mean things can be fixed with high dose vitamins and minerals. They're one and the same.

Or they mean it can be fixed with more excercise and less sugars, fats, cholesterol etc. etc. and normal amounts of vitamins and minerals. Linus Pauling was taking 12,000 mg of vitamin C per day.

Pixel8 wrote: »

What does "diet change" actually mean? It means eating more fruit and veg and less meat, dairy and processed foods, which is the exact same as more vitamins and minerals!

When a doctor tells you to eat more fruit and veg, I don't think they are talking about eating 170 oranges per day.

Monty Burnz

Some info on Linus Pauling's claims being put to the test (I can only assume it is true, I'm not a medical historian):

In 1976, Pauling and Dr. Ewan Cameron, a Scottish physician, reported that a majority of one hundred "terminal" cancer patients treated with 10,000 mg of vitamin C daily survived three to four times longer than similar patients who did not receive vitamin C supplements [11,12]. However, Dr. William DeWys, chief of clinical investigations at the National Cancer Institute, found that the study was poorly designed because the patient groups were not comparable [13]. The vitamin C patients were Cameron's, while the other patients were under the care of other physicians. Cameron's patients were started on vitamin C when he labeled them "untreatable" by other methods, and their subsequent survival was compared to the survival of the "control" patients after they were labeled untreatable by their doctors.

DeWys reasoned that if the two groups were comparable, the lengths of time from entry into the hospital to being labeled untreatable should be equivalent in both groups. However, he found that Cameron's patients were labeled untreatable much earlier in the course of their disease—which means that they entered the hospital before they were as sick as the other doctors' patients and would naturally be expected to live longer.[/FONT]
Nevertheless, to test whether Pauling might be correct, the Mayo Clinic conducted three double-blind studies involving a total of 367 patients with advanced cancer. The studies, reported in 1979, 1983, and 1985, found that patients given 10,000 mg of vitamin C daily did no better than those given a placebo [14-16]. Pauling criticized the first study, claiming that chemotherapeutic agents might have suppressed the patients' immune systems so that vitamin C couldn't work [17].

But his 1976 report on Cameron's work stated clearly that: "All patients are treated initially in a perfectly conventional way, by operation, use of radiotherapy, and the administration of hormones and cytotoxic substances." And during a subsequent talk at the University of Arizona, he stated that vitamin C therapy could be used along with all conventional modalities [18]. The participants in the 1983 study had not undergone conventional treatment, but Pauling dismissed its results anyway.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html

Pixel8

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Some info on Linus Pauling's claims being put to the test (I can only assume it is true, I'm not a medical historian):
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html

haha quackwatch, ah yes, the special interest website owned by people from the pharmaceutical industry. Everything on that website is absolute lies and that's been proven many a time... gimme another source...

Monty Burnz

Pixel8 wrote: »

haha quackwatch, ah yes, the special interest website owned by people from the pharmaceutical industry.

Can you offer any proof for that?

Pixel8 wrote: »

Everything on that website is absolute lies and that's been proven many a time... gimme another source...

Again, can you offer any proof?

Are you saying that the studies did not happen?

Here's more on the subject: http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/c.html

King Mob

Pixel8 wrote: »

haha quackwatch, ah yes, the special interest website owned by people from the pharmaceutical industry. Everything on that website is absolute lies and that's been proven many a time... gimme another source...

Lol, Cause you use Natural News as a source.
A site owned by a person form the alternative health industry.

clever_name

I think some people are mixing up two very important but different things, prevention & cure.

A healthy diet and exercise will help prevent many diseases, might even cure a few, but if you think all doctors are liars and should be replaced with dietitians then good luck if you ever get seriously ill.

Wibbs

Pixel8 wrote: »

What does "diet change" actually mean? It means eating more fruit and veg and less meat, dairy and processed foods, which is the exact same as more vitamins and minerals! What is fruit and veg? it's vitamins and minerals.

So those who say something can be fixed with diet change actually mean things can be fixed with high dose vitamins and minerals. They're one and the same.

You do realise that a) meat and dairy are significantly higher in vitamins and minerals than fruit and 90% of veg? It's one reason we outstripped our ape ancestors. We started eating more meat. and b) have you heard of hypervitaminosis? Toxicity of vitamins basically. Vitamin A being the right bugger in particular. If you ever get the chance a read of the Polar memoir of Doug Mawson, entitled IIRC the Blizzards home or home of the blizzard, my memory fails, but he describes the serious fcuking agony and pain of A hypervitaminosis from eating the livers of the sled dogs(carnivores have far higher amounts in their liver). Indeed one of the very first diseases in early humans(other than small levels of dental caries) is hypervitaminosis in a homo erectus female. A condition that fcuked her up and killed her in the end. You can't really get more 'natural' than a 1.6 MYA Homo Erectus person.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

When a doctor tells you to eat more fruit and veg, I don't think they are talking about eating 170 oranges per day.

This.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Some info on Linus Pauling's claims being put to the test (I can only assume it is true, I'm not a medical historian):
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html

From what I've read on the subject MB there was a bit of quackery on both sides of that argument debate.

Iwannahurl

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Some info on Linus Pauling's claims being put to the test (I can only assume it is true, I'm not a medical historian):
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html

I recall one snippet from Ulrich Abel's critique of the evidence base for cancer chemotherapy at the time (way back in 1992).

Randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trials were not the norm in the investigation of cancer drugs at the time, and may still not be for all I know.

Abel cited a particular example of the bad science used to justify the use of certain chemotherapeutic agents, which were in widespread use despite the lack of evidence from RCTs. Chemotherapeutic agents were being licensed for clinical use purely on the basis of Phase 2 clinical trials. A poor facsimile of an RCT was being cobbled together in the following manner.

A single-arm Phase 2 study was initiated. In other words, all cancer patients in the trial were given the same treatment in order to assess the anti-tumour activity of the drug(s). The tumours of some patients "responded" to the chemotherapy, whereas others didn't. The researchers then concocted a two-arm study by creating two post hoc groups of patients, responders and non-responders, and compared their survival time and/or other indicators. If the "responders" did better than the "non-responders", then the treatment was deemed to be successful.

The problem with such an approach were many and serious. Since there was no randomisation and intention-to-treat analysis (admittedly not a concept well-recognised in the 1980s and early 1990s) there was absolutely no control of confounding and bias. Indeed the confounders and biases were so extreme that they practically guaranteed misleading results. Abel pointed out that this method could lead to a situation in which a treatment that was lethal to all non-responders appeared to produce a positive outcome. In other words, those patients strong enough to withstand the treatment were being arbitrarily assigned post hoc to the 'intervention' group, while those fatally susceptible to the drugs toxicity were being labelled 'controls' after the fact. "Responders" would survive, "non-responders" would die, therefore a drug showing anti-tumour "activity" would be deemed effective regardless of what killed the non-responders.

Anti-cancer drugs were licensed and widely used back then on the basis of such junk science. Some of those drugs are still in widespread use today, I suspect, and are only now being superseded by much more sophisticated chemotherapeutic agents. However, I presume clinical trials of cancer treatments are much better run (and scientifically sound) these days.

Pixel8

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Can you offer any proof for that?

http://www.realscam.com/f16/doctors-data-sues-quackwatch-232/

http://chiropractorhealthblog.com/why-do-people-quote-quackwatch-org.php

Stephen Barret the guy who runs Quackwatch isn't even a medical doctor, he's a psychiatrist and not even a board certified psychiatrist at that. He is an obvious Big Pharma shill.