This article from Dr. Mercola supports the theories I have been developing about nutrition and genetics. I usually post health articles to my wellness blog--Wel-life.org--but feel this is also relevant to genealogy. I hope to soon have genealogy site, also.
You Are What Your Grandmother Ate
You may have read already about the research showing that the diet of a mother can have an influence on a specific gene for at least two generations.
This study on mice looks at "epigenetic" changes made to DNA, involving genes that can be silenced or activated based on exposure to chemicals.
Half of the mice in the study were fed a nutrient-enriched diet, while the control group ate a standard diet. Exposure to those high amounts of nutrients in the womb changed the coats of the mice offspring from golden to dark brown fur, while the offspring of the control group remained unchanged.Not only that, but the children of the darker-coated mice were similarly affected; they also had dark brown fur.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 14, 2006; 103(46): 17308-17312
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
When I was actively seeing patients it was very clear what my primary responsibility was -- to teach my patients to eat the way their ancestors ate. If I could facilitate that change alone and have them avoid processed foods, trans fats and the ridiculous excess of omega-6 fats nearly all consume, the vast majority of them would have radically improved health.
However, this information should not cause you to worry about the diets of ancestors. First of all, it is likely that they were eating far healthier than you, but even if they weren't your body has incredible, dynamic healing capacities that have the potential to reverse much of the damage.
Mirto from Carnation, Alabama commented in Vital Votes:
"There is way too much emphasis placed on such things as blaming our condition on the fact it runs in the family (genes). What runs in the family is an eating pattern that has been passed down from generation to generation.
"I saw it in my family and was heading down a road that was the consequence of this. I drastically changed my diet, including taking supplements, and no longer have to take any drugs, including aspirins.
"When you see a number of members of a family being overweight, check what kind of food they eat, it's appalling. The cook or cooks of the house usually picked up the style from their mother, who picked it up from her mother and so on. First of all that's a problem right there. You would be much healthier eating at least 75% of your food raw, which I usually do ... "
As far as genes go, I firmly believe that conventional wisdom imputes to them a far more exaggerated influence on your health than they really have. Fact is, genes are little more than information storage facilities that don't do much to influence your health. Rather, it's the expression of your genes, influenced by how you live your life, that weighs far more heavily on your health than anything else.
Dr. Gene Weber from Yakima, Washington also pointed out regarding that issue:
"When we go to the doctor a lot of the time, genetics are used against us to force the issue for prescribing what I feel are unneeded drugs, many for long term.
"There was a study done by Dr. Pottenger more than 60 years ago known as Pottenger's Cats that basically helps explain how we are what we eat, and how we can change our 'genetic' outcome by improving our lifestyle. This of course involves diet, exercise, and our emotional state to name a few. We need to know these things so we can make better choices when it comes to health care
Showing posts with label Dr. Mercola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Mercola. Show all posts
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
America's Health Dilema
Here's a quote from Dr. Mercoa's website:
Cheat Disease by Changing Your Environment
It has become clear to many that efforts to halt the growing epidemics of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and cancer are failing.
Many experts believe a primary reason is easy access to unhealthful foods and busy lives that squeeze out exercise.
As a result, many new preventative health initiatives in states, cities and communities are being inaugurated across the United States.
On September 28, the American Cancer Society (ACS) concluded that only by creating a "social environment that promotes healthy food choices and physical activity" can the United States reduce cancer deaths linked to obesity and lack of exercise.
In response, on October 6 the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation announced an agreement with several food companies to adopt the ACS' nutritional guidelines for snacks sold in schools. Other initiatives, sponsored by government agencies, universities, or private businesses, are growing in number.
Current U.S. health spending is $2.2 trillion a year, and it could reach $4 trillion by 2015. Taking care of the sick accounts for roughly 96 percent of these costs, with only about 4 percent going toward prevention.
USA Today October 18, 2006
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Dr. Mercola's Comment:
USA Today ran a week-long series on what to do about America's out-of-control health care costs, and they featured experts suggesting more natural solutions. The problem is growing, and the facts are so compelling that even the CDC's director of prevention and health promotion can't ignore them, saying that:
"Two-thirds of the deaths and 80 percent of the cost of health in this country are associated with chronic disease. This country is dramatically moving in the wrong direction."
Why is this important to know?
Well, let me tell you. Our current system is really good at ACUTE care but, as you can see from the conservative estimates of the CDC, that is not what people are dying from.
So when you apply the ER drug/surgical model to chronic disease you have an unmitigated disaster that dramatically exacerbates the problem.
And it's getting worse.
In 2001, fully half of all bankruptcies were the result of medical problems and most of those (more than three-quarters) who went bankrupt were covered by health insurance at the start of the illness. That's 700,000 U.S. households devastated by medically related bankruptcies, with more than 2 million people affected.
But some are taking steps to turn this around, using the only method that will work -- preventing people from getting ill in the first place. In urban Philadelphia, researchers from America and the UK have joined in a social experiment with a huge medical upside:
Offer easy access to healthful foods to an urban neighborhood where little to no options currently exist, except for processed, fast and trans-fatty foods.
This experiment has nothing to do higher insurance premiums or newer, even more expensive and dangerous drugs, and everything to do with the real heart of the health care conundrum. It's all about trading a dangerous cure-based mentality fueled by unnecessary toxic drugs and procedures that may kill you for one focused on treating the true causes of disease safely and naturally.
Cheat Disease by Changing Your Environment
It has become clear to many that efforts to halt the growing epidemics of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and cancer are failing.
Many experts believe a primary reason is easy access to unhealthful foods and busy lives that squeeze out exercise.
As a result, many new preventative health initiatives in states, cities and communities are being inaugurated across the United States.
On September 28, the American Cancer Society (ACS) concluded that only by creating a "social environment that promotes healthy food choices and physical activity" can the United States reduce cancer deaths linked to obesity and lack of exercise.
In response, on October 6 the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation announced an agreement with several food companies to adopt the ACS' nutritional guidelines for snacks sold in schools. Other initiatives, sponsored by government agencies, universities, or private businesses, are growing in number.
Current U.S. health spending is $2.2 trillion a year, and it could reach $4 trillion by 2015. Taking care of the sick accounts for roughly 96 percent of these costs, with only about 4 percent going toward prevention.
USA Today October 18, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
USA Today ran a week-long series on what to do about America's out-of-control health care costs, and they featured experts suggesting more natural solutions. The problem is growing, and the facts are so compelling that even the CDC's director of prevention and health promotion can't ignore them, saying that:
"Two-thirds of the deaths and 80 percent of the cost of health in this country are associated with chronic disease. This country is dramatically moving in the wrong direction."
Why is this important to know?
Well, let me tell you. Our current system is really good at ACUTE care but, as you can see from the conservative estimates of the CDC, that is not what people are dying from.
So when you apply the ER drug/surgical model to chronic disease you have an unmitigated disaster that dramatically exacerbates the problem.
And it's getting worse.
In 2001, fully half of all bankruptcies were the result of medical problems and most of those (more than three-quarters) who went bankrupt were covered by health insurance at the start of the illness. That's 700,000 U.S. households devastated by medically related bankruptcies, with more than 2 million people affected.
But some are taking steps to turn this around, using the only method that will work -- preventing people from getting ill in the first place. In urban Philadelphia, researchers from America and the UK have joined in a social experiment with a huge medical upside:
Offer easy access to healthful foods to an urban neighborhood where little to no options currently exist, except for processed, fast and trans-fatty foods.
This experiment has nothing to do higher insurance premiums or newer, even more expensive and dangerous drugs, and everything to do with the real heart of the health care conundrum. It's all about trading a dangerous cure-based mentality fueled by unnecessary toxic drugs and procedures that may kill you for one focused on treating the true causes of disease safely and naturally.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Prayer Works
This is from Dr. Mercola:
Prayer and Medical Science
This Commentary originally appeared in Archives of Internal Medicine
by Larry Dossey, MD
"It is fatal to dismiss antagonistic doctrines, supported by any body of evidence, as simply wrong." Alfred North Whitehead, 1948 1
THE RANDOMIZED, controlled trial by Harris et al2 on the effects of remote intercessory prayer on outcomes of patients admitted to a coronary care unit evoked several comments from physicians.
Several respondents implied that the attempt to study the remote effects of prayer is wrong in principle. This is because, according to Dr Sandweiss,3 science deals with facts, not "miracles." Yet, if events occur in controlled laboratory studies, as suggested by evidence cited below, these happenings presumably follow natural law and are not considered miraculous.
We should be cautious in calling events miraculous or mystical, because the subsequent course of history may reveal that these terms reflect little more than our own ignorance. For example, when Newton invoked the notion of universal gravity in the 17th century to explain his observations, he was charged by his contemporaries with surrendering to mysticism, as prayer researchers are often accused today.
As philosopher Eugene Mills4 describes, "[Newton's critics] disapproved of his failure to explain why bodies behaved in accordance with his laws, or how distant bodies could act on one another . . . This sort of worry no longer bothers us, but not because we have answered it."
Today we are as baffled by the remote effects of prayer as Newton's critics were by the distant effects of gravity. But, just as the dispute over gravity gradually abated, the debate surrounding intercessory prayer may also diminish with time, even though our ignorance about the mechanism involved may remain.
Dr Van der Does5 dismisses the effects of intercessory prayer because they would be indistinguishable empirically from the effects of clairvoyance and telepathy, which he implies are nonsense. (He presumably means not clairvoyance or telepathy, which are forms of anomalous cognition, but psychokinesis, the anomalous perturbation of distant events.) However, there is considerable evidence that neither telepathy nor psychokinesis is nonsense,6 in which case the indistinguishability between prayer and psychokinesis would not invalidate prayer.
Dr Sandweiss3 also refers dismissively to psychokinesis, apparently unaware of the evidence favoring this phenomenon. For example, in Foundations of Physics, one of physics' most prestigious journals, Radin and Nelson7 reported a meta-analysis of 832 studies from 68 investigators that involved the distant influence of human consciousness on microelectronic systems.
They found the results to be "robust and repeatable." In their opinion, "Unless critics want to allege wholesale collusion among more than sixty experimenters or suggest a methodological artifact common to . . . hundred[s of] experiments conducted over nearly three decades, there is no escaping the conclusion that [these] effects are indeed possible."
While these hundreds of studies do not involve actual prayer, they nonetheless deal with whether human intention can, in principle, affect the physical world at a distance.
In recent years, researchers have also studied the effects of mental efforts to change biological systems.8 Scores of controlled studies have examined the effects of intentions, often expressed through prayer, on biochemical reactions in vitro, on the recovery rate of animals from anesthesia, on the growth rates of tumors and the rate of wound healing in animals, on the rate of hemolysis of red blood cells in vitro, and on the replication rates of microorganisms in test tubes.
Testing prayer in lower organisms makes sense for the same reason we test drugs in nonhumans. We share physiological similarities with animals and bacteria; if prayer affects them, it may affect us as well.
These studies are too often ignored, even by researchers interested in the effects of intercessory prayer in humans. This is unfortunate because many of these studies9 have been done with great precision and have been replicated by different investigators in different laboratories. They make up the basic or bench science underlying the objective study of prayer.
Dr Sandweiss3 says that since we know that prayer cannot operate remotely, taking this possibility seriously requires us to "suspend natural law," which results in "pseudoscientific mischief." But, as there is no agreement among scientists about which natural laws govern consciousness, it is imprudent to declare which laws might be violated and what mischief might result.
Several outstanding scholars have emphasized our appalling ignorance about the basic nature of consciousness. John Searle,10 one of the most distinguished philosophers in the field of consciousness, has said, "At our present state of the investigation of consciousness, we don't know how it works and we need to try all kinds of different ideas."
Philosopher Jerry A. Fodor11 has observed, "Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness."
Recently Sir John Maddox,12 the former editor of Nature, soberly stated, "The catalogue of our ignorance must . . . include the understanding of the human brain . . . What consciousness consists of . . . is . . . a puzzle.
Despite the marvelous success of neuroscience in the past century . . ., we seem as far away from understanding . . . as we were a century ago . . . The most important discoveries of the next 50 years are likely to be ones of which we cannot now even conceive."
If these observers are anywhere near the truth, we should be hesitant to declare emphatically what the mind can and cannot do.
Dr Sandweiss3 states that Harris et al have taken "a P value out of context" and that their P value is "out of control." He implies that the beliefs and practices of physicians depend strongly on statistically valid studies and that P3D.04 is too weak to justify a change in "current theories." Do P values determine what we physicians believe and how we practice medicine?
This is a noble sentiment, but evidence suggests we are not as objective as Dr Sandweiss implies. Yale surgeon and author Sherwin B. Nuland13 states, "Unlike other areas in which fads come and go, medical styles [of practice] are meant to be supported by irrefutable evidence. That assumption is so far off the mark that the term 'medical science' is practically an oxymoron."
Referring to a 1978 report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment,14 Nuland states, "no more than 15 percent of medical interventions are supported by reliable scientific evidence."
Richard Smith,15 editor of the British Medical Journal, agrees, stating, "only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence. . . . This is partly because only 1% of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound and partly because many treatments have not been assessed at all."
And David A. Grimes16 of the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine states, "much, if not most, of contemporary medical practice still lacks a scientific foundation."
These observations suggest that a double standard is perhaps being applied to prayer research, according to which levels of proof are demanded that may not be required of conventional therapies-the "rubber ruler," the raising of the bar, the ever-lengthening playing field.17
Do serious scientists really believe that the effects of intercessory prayer are fantasy, as several letter writers imply? No doubt some do.
But in a recent survey18 of the spiritual beliefs of American scientists, 39% of biologists, physicists, and mathematicians said they not only believed in God, but in a god who answers prayers.
The highest rate of belief was found in the field of mathematics, which is generally considered the most precise of all the sciences. Many distinguished scientists favor prayer. A long list of individuals, including Nobelists, who have been cordial to consciousness-related events, such as distant, intercessory prayer, has been assembled by philosopher David
Griffin.19
Should the empirical study of intercessory prayer be abandoned, as several letter writers imply? More than a century ago, a similar debate took place among British scientists about telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, which, like prayer, presume that consciousness can operate remotely.
Nobelist Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), the discoverer of thallium, contrasted his own approach with that of his fellow physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867), famous for his work in electricity and magnetism. Crookes20 stated:
Faraday says, 'Before we proceed to consider any question involving physical principles, we should set out with clear ideas of the naturally possible and impossible.'
But this appears like reasoning in a circle: we are to investigate nothing till we know it to be possible, whilst we cannot say what is impossible, outside pure mathematics, till we know everything. In the present case I prefer to enter upon the enquiry with no preconceived notions whatever as to what can or cannot be.
The spirit of open inquiry would seem to validate Crookes' stance. Scientific puzzles do not solve themselves unaided. How are the mysteries of consciousness and prayer to be resolved unless researchers take a stab at them?
Dr Sandweiss3 suggests that the lack of an accepted theory underlying intercessory prayer diminishes the respectability of this area of investigation. In the history of medicine, however, we have often tolerated ignorance of mechanism and absence of theory. Examples include the use of aspirin, colchicine, and quinine, as well as the use of citrus fruits in scurvy, as Harris et al point out. The mechanisms of action of most general anesthetics are still a mystery, yet that does not preclude their use.
While it is true that there is no generally accepted theory for the remote actions of consciousness, many mathematicians, physicists, and biological and cognitive scientists are currently offering hypotheses about how these events may happen.
Hypotheses that are compatible with the distant effects of intercessory prayer have been advanced by Nobel physicist Brian Josephson,21 physicist Amit Goswami22 of the University of Oregon's Institute of Theoretical Science, mathematician and cognitive scientist David J. Chalmers,23, 24 systems theorist Ervin Laszlo,25 mathematician C. J. S. Clarke,26 and many other respected scholars.27
These models of consciousness generally advocate a nonlocal view of the mind-a view in which consciousness is not localized or confined to specific points in space (such as the brain) or time.
Levin28 has developed a theoretical model of how prayer may heal that takes several of these hypotheses into account. I have described the implications of a nonlocal model of consciousness for medicine.29 Dr Hammerschmidt30 suggests that Harris et al are "putting God to the test" in their study. Are tests of prayer blasphemous, and are prayer researchers heretics?
I have found that investigators in this area approach their subject with reverence and respect; indeed, I have not found a single exception. They seem to epitomize the view of chemist Robert Boyle,31 the 17th-century author of Boyle's Law, who suggested that experimental scientists are "priests of nature" and that science is so sacred that scientists should carry out their experiments on Sundays as part of their Sabbath worship.
Dr Goldstein32 is "concerned with the potential effect of [the Harris et al] study and its publication on the reputation of hospitals involved and on the integrity of health care organizations in general." The reputation of any healing institution is precious and should be protected, but the suggestion that a hospital's reputation will be endangered by the indiscriminate use of prayer is exceedingly hypothetical.
It is more likely that the widespread application of prayer will enhance the reputation of healing institutions, in view of the facts that nearly 80% of Americans believe in the power of prayer to improve the course of illness,33 and nearly 70% of physicians report religious inquiries for counseling on terminal illness34 yet only 10% of physicians ever inquire about patients' spiritual practices or beliefs.35
In a survey36 of hospitalized patients, three fourths said they believed their physician should be concerned about their spiritual welfare, and one half said they believed their physician should not only pray for them but with them. It is unlikely that prayer could threaten the reputation of hospitals to the extent of many conventional therapies.
A recent meta-analysis of prospective studies by Lazarou et al37 found that more than 100,000 persons die in US hospitals each year from adverse drug reactions, "making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death." A recent survey38 of American adults asked about their concerns before checking into a hospital or other health care facility.
Sixty-one percent were "very concerned" about being given the wrong medicine, 58% about the cost of treatment, 58% about the negative interaction of multiple drugs, 56% about medical procedure complications, 53% about receiving correct information about medications, and 50% about contracting an infection during their stay. Concerns about being indiscriminately prayed for did not make the list.
Dr Pande39 suggests that the analogy by Harris et al with James Lind's discovery of the healing potential of citrus fruits in scurvy is inappropriate. A person deprived of vitamin C will develop scurvy, whereas a person deprived of prayer or believing in God's existence, he states, will not become unhealthy.
There is evidence to the contrary. Scores of studies40, 41 suggest that, on average, individuals deprived of religious meaning live shorter, less healthy lives than people who follow some sort of religious path, which almost always includes prayer.
Drs Sloan and Bagiella42 question whether Harris et al are justified in suggesting that intercessory prayer be considered an adjunct to conventional medical practice, since there is no consensus in medicine about this controversial intervention.
There is indeed no consensus, but whether this is because of a lack of data or ignorance of current evidence is a valid question.43 Certainly further investigation of intercessory prayer is warranted, but we need not wait until all the answers are in before employing prayer adjunctively. This view is represented by Lancet editor Richard Horton44 in his "precautionary principle."
Horton states, "We must act on facts and on the most accurate interpretation of them, using the best information. That does not mean that we must sit back until we have 100 percent evidence about everything. When the . . . health of the individual is at stake . . . we should be prepared to take action to diminish those risks even when the scientific knowledge is not conclusive."
Although skepticism is an invaluable component of scientific progress, it can shade into a type of dogmatic materialism that excludes intercessory prayer in principle,45 as when Newton's critics condemned universal gravity as occult nonsense without weighing the evidence.
Both true believers and committed disbelievers in intercessory prayer might heed the view of mathematical physicist and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead,46 who coauthored Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell:
" The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of its existing modes of knowledge. Sceptics and believers are all alike. At this moment scientists and sceptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted: fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophical adventure. The Universe is vast."
Larry Dossey, MD
Santa Fe, NM
Archives of Internal Medicine 2000 Jun 26;160:1735-1738.
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Dr. Mercola's Comment:
There appears to be no question that prayer works. We have many studies now that document that. The science is very solid in excellent peer-reviewed publications. The science is so solid, that it is criminally negligent for physicians not to recommend it.
And talk about cost-effective; there is no cost to prayer except for time. It makes no logical sense to me why someone would not utilize this resource. A simple powerful application of prayer is journaling which articles have showed to be useful in treating chronic illness.
For those who are interested in further reading on this subject, I have read and can recommend Dr. Larry Dossey's excellent reviews of the subject of prayer and distant healing. A must for those interested in this area.
Healing Words : The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine
Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It
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References
1. Whitehead AN. Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York, NY: Philosophical Library; 1948:227.
2. Harris WS, Gowda M, Kolb JW, et al. A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit. Arch Intern Med 1999;159:2273-2278.
3. Sandweiss DA. P value out of control. Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1872.
4. Mills E. Giving up on the hard problem of consciousness. J Consciousness Stud. 1996;3(1):26-32.
5. Van der Does W. A randomized, controlled trial of prayer? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1871-1872.
6. Bem DJ, Honorton C. Does psi exist? replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychol Bull. 1994;115:4-18.
7. Radin DL, Nelson RD. Consciousness-related effects in random physical systems. Found Phys. 1989;19:1499-1034.
8.Dossey L. Distant intentionality: an idea whose time has come. Adv J Mind-Body Health. Summer 1996;12:9-13.
9.Dosssey L. Controlled experimental trials of healing. In: Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1999:211-235.
10. Searle J. Quoted on front cover. J Consciousness Stud. 1995;2(1).
11. Fodor JA. The big idea. Times Literary Supplement. July 3, 1992:20.
12. Maddox J. The unexpected science to come. Sci Am. December 1999;281:62-67.
13. Nuland SB. Medical fads: bran, midwives and leeches. New York Times. June 25, 1995:A15.
14. Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Medical Technologies. Washington, DC: Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United States; 1978:7. Publication NTIS/PB-286929.
15.Smith R. Where is the wisdom? BMJ.1991;303:798-799.
16.Grimes DA. Technology follies: the uncritical acceptance of medical innovations. JAMA. 1993;269:3030-3033.
17. Radin D. A field guide to skepticism. In: The Conscious Universe. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1997:205-228.
18. Larson EJ, Witham L. Scientists are still keeping the faith. Nature. 1997;386:435-436.
19. Griffin DR. Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration. Albany: State University of New York Press; 1997:12-13.
20. Crookes W. Quoted by Braude SE: The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science. New York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1986:86.
21.Josephson BD, Pallikara-Viras F. Biological utilization of quantum nonlocality. Found Phys 1991;21:197-207.
22.Goswami A, Reed RE, Goswami A. The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. New York, NY: Jeremy P Tarcher/Putnam; 1993.
23. Chalmers DJ. The puzzle of conscious experience. Sci Am 1995;273(6):80-86.
24. Chalmers DJ. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1996.
25. Laszlo E. The Interconnected Universe: Conceptual Foundations of Transdisciplinary Unified Theory. River Edge, NJ: World Scientific Publishing Co; 1995.
26. Clarke CJS. The nonlocality of mind. J Consciousness Stud. 1995;2(3):231-240.
27. Dossey L. The return of prayer. Altern Ther Health Med. November 1997;3:10-17, 113-120.
28. Levin JS. How prayer heals: a theoretical model. Altern Ther Health Med. January 1996;2:66-73.
29. Dossey L. Reinventing Medicine. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1999.
30. Hammerschmidt DE. Ethical and practical problems in studying prayer. Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1874.
31. Boyle R. Quoted by: Hellman H. Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc; 1998:26.
32. Goldstein J. Waiving informed consent for research on spiritual matters? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1870-1871.
33. Wallis C. Faith and healing. Time June 24, 1996: 58-63.
34.Cassell EJ.The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1991.
35.Maugans TA, Wadland WC.Religion and family medicine: a survey of physicians and patients.J Fam Pract.1991;32:210-213.
36.King DE, Bushwick B.Beliefs and attitudes of hospital patients about faith healing and prayer.J Fam Pract.1994;39:349-352.
37.Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA 1998;279:1200-1205.
38. Patient concerns: ICR for American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. USA Today December 7, 1999:7D.
39. Pande PN. Does prayer need testing? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1873-1874.
40. Levin JS, Larson DB, Puchalski CM. Religion and spirituality: research and education. JAMA 1997;278:792-793.
41. Koenig H. Exploring links between religion/spirituality and health. Sci Rev Altern Med. Spring-Summer 1999;3:52-55.
42. Sloan RP, Bagiella E. Data without a prayer. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1870.
43. Larson DB, Milano MAG. Are religion and spirituality clinically relevant in health care? Mind/Body Med 1995;1:147-157.
44.Horton R. The new public health of risk and radical engagement. Lancet 1998;352:251-252.
45. Dossey L. The right man syndrome: skepticism and alternative medicine. Altern Ther Health Med May 1998;4:12-19, 108-114.
46. Whitehead AN. Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York, NY: Philosophical Library; 1948:129.
Prayer and Medical Science
This Commentary originally appeared in Archives of Internal Medicine
by Larry Dossey, MD
"It is fatal to dismiss antagonistic doctrines, supported by any body of evidence, as simply wrong." Alfred North Whitehead, 1948 1
THE RANDOMIZED, controlled trial by Harris et al2 on the effects of remote intercessory prayer on outcomes of patients admitted to a coronary care unit evoked several comments from physicians.
Several respondents implied that the attempt to study the remote effects of prayer is wrong in principle. This is because, according to Dr Sandweiss,3 science deals with facts, not "miracles." Yet, if events occur in controlled laboratory studies, as suggested by evidence cited below, these happenings presumably follow natural law and are not considered miraculous.
We should be cautious in calling events miraculous or mystical, because the subsequent course of history may reveal that these terms reflect little more than our own ignorance. For example, when Newton invoked the notion of universal gravity in the 17th century to explain his observations, he was charged by his contemporaries with surrendering to mysticism, as prayer researchers are often accused today.
As philosopher Eugene Mills4 describes, "[Newton's critics] disapproved of his failure to explain why bodies behaved in accordance with his laws, or how distant bodies could act on one another . . . This sort of worry no longer bothers us, but not because we have answered it."
Today we are as baffled by the remote effects of prayer as Newton's critics were by the distant effects of gravity. But, just as the dispute over gravity gradually abated, the debate surrounding intercessory prayer may also diminish with time, even though our ignorance about the mechanism involved may remain.
Dr Van der Does5 dismisses the effects of intercessory prayer because they would be indistinguishable empirically from the effects of clairvoyance and telepathy, which he implies are nonsense. (He presumably means not clairvoyance or telepathy, which are forms of anomalous cognition, but psychokinesis, the anomalous perturbation of distant events.) However, there is considerable evidence that neither telepathy nor psychokinesis is nonsense,6 in which case the indistinguishability between prayer and psychokinesis would not invalidate prayer.
Dr Sandweiss3 also refers dismissively to psychokinesis, apparently unaware of the evidence favoring this phenomenon. For example, in Foundations of Physics, one of physics' most prestigious journals, Radin and Nelson7 reported a meta-analysis of 832 studies from 68 investigators that involved the distant influence of human consciousness on microelectronic systems.
They found the results to be "robust and repeatable." In their opinion, "Unless critics want to allege wholesale collusion among more than sixty experimenters or suggest a methodological artifact common to . . . hundred[s of] experiments conducted over nearly three decades, there is no escaping the conclusion that [these] effects are indeed possible."
While these hundreds of studies do not involve actual prayer, they nonetheless deal with whether human intention can, in principle, affect the physical world at a distance.
In recent years, researchers have also studied the effects of mental efforts to change biological systems.8 Scores of controlled studies have examined the effects of intentions, often expressed through prayer, on biochemical reactions in vitro, on the recovery rate of animals from anesthesia, on the growth rates of tumors and the rate of wound healing in animals, on the rate of hemolysis of red blood cells in vitro, and on the replication rates of microorganisms in test tubes.
Testing prayer in lower organisms makes sense for the same reason we test drugs in nonhumans. We share physiological similarities with animals and bacteria; if prayer affects them, it may affect us as well.
These studies are too often ignored, even by researchers interested in the effects of intercessory prayer in humans. This is unfortunate because many of these studies9 have been done with great precision and have been replicated by different investigators in different laboratories. They make up the basic or bench science underlying the objective study of prayer.
Dr Sandweiss3 says that since we know that prayer cannot operate remotely, taking this possibility seriously requires us to "suspend natural law," which results in "pseudoscientific mischief." But, as there is no agreement among scientists about which natural laws govern consciousness, it is imprudent to declare which laws might be violated and what mischief might result.
Several outstanding scholars have emphasized our appalling ignorance about the basic nature of consciousness. John Searle,10 one of the most distinguished philosophers in the field of consciousness, has said, "At our present state of the investigation of consciousness, we don't know how it works and we need to try all kinds of different ideas."
Philosopher Jerry A. Fodor11 has observed, "Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness."
Recently Sir John Maddox,12 the former editor of Nature, soberly stated, "The catalogue of our ignorance must . . . include the understanding of the human brain . . . What consciousness consists of . . . is . . . a puzzle.
Despite the marvelous success of neuroscience in the past century . . ., we seem as far away from understanding . . . as we were a century ago . . . The most important discoveries of the next 50 years are likely to be ones of which we cannot now even conceive."
If these observers are anywhere near the truth, we should be hesitant to declare emphatically what the mind can and cannot do.
Dr Sandweiss3 states that Harris et al have taken "a P value out of context" and that their P value is "out of control." He implies that the beliefs and practices of physicians depend strongly on statistically valid studies and that P3D.04 is too weak to justify a change in "current theories." Do P values determine what we physicians believe and how we practice medicine?
This is a noble sentiment, but evidence suggests we are not as objective as Dr Sandweiss implies. Yale surgeon and author Sherwin B. Nuland13 states, "Unlike other areas in which fads come and go, medical styles [of practice] are meant to be supported by irrefutable evidence. That assumption is so far off the mark that the term 'medical science' is practically an oxymoron."
Referring to a 1978 report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment,14 Nuland states, "no more than 15 percent of medical interventions are supported by reliable scientific evidence."
Richard Smith,15 editor of the British Medical Journal, agrees, stating, "only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence. . . . This is partly because only 1% of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound and partly because many treatments have not been assessed at all."
And David A. Grimes16 of the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine states, "much, if not most, of contemporary medical practice still lacks a scientific foundation."
These observations suggest that a double standard is perhaps being applied to prayer research, according to which levels of proof are demanded that may not be required of conventional therapies-the "rubber ruler," the raising of the bar, the ever-lengthening playing field.17
Do serious scientists really believe that the effects of intercessory prayer are fantasy, as several letter writers imply? No doubt some do.
But in a recent survey18 of the spiritual beliefs of American scientists, 39% of biologists, physicists, and mathematicians said they not only believed in God, but in a god who answers prayers.
The highest rate of belief was found in the field of mathematics, which is generally considered the most precise of all the sciences. Many distinguished scientists favor prayer. A long list of individuals, including Nobelists, who have been cordial to consciousness-related events, such as distant, intercessory prayer, has been assembled by philosopher David
Griffin.19
Should the empirical study of intercessory prayer be abandoned, as several letter writers imply? More than a century ago, a similar debate took place among British scientists about telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, which, like prayer, presume that consciousness can operate remotely.
Nobelist Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), the discoverer of thallium, contrasted his own approach with that of his fellow physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867), famous for his work in electricity and magnetism. Crookes20 stated:
Faraday says, 'Before we proceed to consider any question involving physical principles, we should set out with clear ideas of the naturally possible and impossible.'
But this appears like reasoning in a circle: we are to investigate nothing till we know it to be possible, whilst we cannot say what is impossible, outside pure mathematics, till we know everything. In the present case I prefer to enter upon the enquiry with no preconceived notions whatever as to what can or cannot be.
The spirit of open inquiry would seem to validate Crookes' stance. Scientific puzzles do not solve themselves unaided. How are the mysteries of consciousness and prayer to be resolved unless researchers take a stab at them?
Dr Sandweiss3 suggests that the lack of an accepted theory underlying intercessory prayer diminishes the respectability of this area of investigation. In the history of medicine, however, we have often tolerated ignorance of mechanism and absence of theory. Examples include the use of aspirin, colchicine, and quinine, as well as the use of citrus fruits in scurvy, as Harris et al point out. The mechanisms of action of most general anesthetics are still a mystery, yet that does not preclude their use.
While it is true that there is no generally accepted theory for the remote actions of consciousness, many mathematicians, physicists, and biological and cognitive scientists are currently offering hypotheses about how these events may happen.
Hypotheses that are compatible with the distant effects of intercessory prayer have been advanced by Nobel physicist Brian Josephson,21 physicist Amit Goswami22 of the University of Oregon's Institute of Theoretical Science, mathematician and cognitive scientist David J. Chalmers,23, 24 systems theorist Ervin Laszlo,25 mathematician C. J. S. Clarke,26 and many other respected scholars.27
These models of consciousness generally advocate a nonlocal view of the mind-a view in which consciousness is not localized or confined to specific points in space (such as the brain) or time.
Levin28 has developed a theoretical model of how prayer may heal that takes several of these hypotheses into account. I have described the implications of a nonlocal model of consciousness for medicine.29 Dr Hammerschmidt30 suggests that Harris et al are "putting God to the test" in their study. Are tests of prayer blasphemous, and are prayer researchers heretics?
I have found that investigators in this area approach their subject with reverence and respect; indeed, I have not found a single exception. They seem to epitomize the view of chemist Robert Boyle,31 the 17th-century author of Boyle's Law, who suggested that experimental scientists are "priests of nature" and that science is so sacred that scientists should carry out their experiments on Sundays as part of their Sabbath worship.
Dr Goldstein32 is "concerned with the potential effect of [the Harris et al] study and its publication on the reputation of hospitals involved and on the integrity of health care organizations in general." The reputation of any healing institution is precious and should be protected, but the suggestion that a hospital's reputation will be endangered by the indiscriminate use of prayer is exceedingly hypothetical.
It is more likely that the widespread application of prayer will enhance the reputation of healing institutions, in view of the facts that nearly 80% of Americans believe in the power of prayer to improve the course of illness,33 and nearly 70% of physicians report religious inquiries for counseling on terminal illness34 yet only 10% of physicians ever inquire about patients' spiritual practices or beliefs.35
In a survey36 of hospitalized patients, three fourths said they believed their physician should be concerned about their spiritual welfare, and one half said they believed their physician should not only pray for them but with them. It is unlikely that prayer could threaten the reputation of hospitals to the extent of many conventional therapies.
A recent meta-analysis of prospective studies by Lazarou et al37 found that more than 100,000 persons die in US hospitals each year from adverse drug reactions, "making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death." A recent survey38 of American adults asked about their concerns before checking into a hospital or other health care facility.
Sixty-one percent were "very concerned" about being given the wrong medicine, 58% about the cost of treatment, 58% about the negative interaction of multiple drugs, 56% about medical procedure complications, 53% about receiving correct information about medications, and 50% about contracting an infection during their stay. Concerns about being indiscriminately prayed for did not make the list.
Dr Pande39 suggests that the analogy by Harris et al with James Lind's discovery of the healing potential of citrus fruits in scurvy is inappropriate. A person deprived of vitamin C will develop scurvy, whereas a person deprived of prayer or believing in God's existence, he states, will not become unhealthy.
There is evidence to the contrary. Scores of studies40, 41 suggest that, on average, individuals deprived of religious meaning live shorter, less healthy lives than people who follow some sort of religious path, which almost always includes prayer.
Drs Sloan and Bagiella42 question whether Harris et al are justified in suggesting that intercessory prayer be considered an adjunct to conventional medical practice, since there is no consensus in medicine about this controversial intervention.
There is indeed no consensus, but whether this is because of a lack of data or ignorance of current evidence is a valid question.43 Certainly further investigation of intercessory prayer is warranted, but we need not wait until all the answers are in before employing prayer adjunctively. This view is represented by Lancet editor Richard Horton44 in his "precautionary principle."
Horton states, "We must act on facts and on the most accurate interpretation of them, using the best information. That does not mean that we must sit back until we have 100 percent evidence about everything. When the . . . health of the individual is at stake . . . we should be prepared to take action to diminish those risks even when the scientific knowledge is not conclusive."
Although skepticism is an invaluable component of scientific progress, it can shade into a type of dogmatic materialism that excludes intercessory prayer in principle,45 as when Newton's critics condemned universal gravity as occult nonsense without weighing the evidence.
Both true believers and committed disbelievers in intercessory prayer might heed the view of mathematical physicist and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead,46 who coauthored Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell:
" The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of its existing modes of knowledge. Sceptics and believers are all alike. At this moment scientists and sceptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted: fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophical adventure. The Universe is vast."
Larry Dossey, MD
Santa Fe, NM
Archives of Internal Medicine 2000 Jun 26;160:1735-1738.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
There appears to be no question that prayer works. We have many studies now that document that. The science is very solid in excellent peer-reviewed publications. The science is so solid, that it is criminally negligent for physicians not to recommend it.
And talk about cost-effective; there is no cost to prayer except for time. It makes no logical sense to me why someone would not utilize this resource. A simple powerful application of prayer is journaling which articles have showed to be useful in treating chronic illness.
For those who are interested in further reading on this subject, I have read and can recommend Dr. Larry Dossey's excellent reviews of the subject of prayer and distant healing. A must for those interested in this area.
Healing Words : The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine
Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. Whitehead AN. Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York, NY: Philosophical Library; 1948:227.
2. Harris WS, Gowda M, Kolb JW, et al. A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit. Arch Intern Med 1999;159:2273-2278.
3. Sandweiss DA. P value out of control. Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1872.
4. Mills E. Giving up on the hard problem of consciousness. J Consciousness Stud. 1996;3(1):26-32.
5. Van der Does W. A randomized, controlled trial of prayer? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1871-1872.
6. Bem DJ, Honorton C. Does psi exist? replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychol Bull. 1994;115:4-18.
7. Radin DL, Nelson RD. Consciousness-related effects in random physical systems. Found Phys. 1989;19:1499-1034.
8.Dossey L. Distant intentionality: an idea whose time has come. Adv J Mind-Body Health. Summer 1996;12:9-13.
9.Dosssey L. Controlled experimental trials of healing. In: Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1999:211-235.
10. Searle J. Quoted on front cover. J Consciousness Stud. 1995;2(1).
11. Fodor JA. The big idea. Times Literary Supplement. July 3, 1992:20.
12. Maddox J. The unexpected science to come. Sci Am. December 1999;281:62-67.
13. Nuland SB. Medical fads: bran, midwives and leeches. New York Times. June 25, 1995:A15.
14. Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Medical Technologies. Washington, DC: Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United States; 1978:7. Publication NTIS/PB-286929.
15.Smith R. Where is the wisdom? BMJ.1991;303:798-799.
16.Grimes DA. Technology follies: the uncritical acceptance of medical innovations. JAMA. 1993;269:3030-3033.
17. Radin D. A field guide to skepticism. In: The Conscious Universe. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1997:205-228.
18. Larson EJ, Witham L. Scientists are still keeping the faith. Nature. 1997;386:435-436.
19. Griffin DR. Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration. Albany: State University of New York Press; 1997:12-13.
20. Crookes W. Quoted by Braude SE: The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science. New York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1986:86.
21.Josephson BD, Pallikara-Viras F. Biological utilization of quantum nonlocality. Found Phys 1991;21:197-207.
22.Goswami A, Reed RE, Goswami A. The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. New York, NY: Jeremy P Tarcher/Putnam; 1993.
23. Chalmers DJ. The puzzle of conscious experience. Sci Am 1995;273(6):80-86.
24. Chalmers DJ. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1996.
25. Laszlo E. The Interconnected Universe: Conceptual Foundations of Transdisciplinary Unified Theory. River Edge, NJ: World Scientific Publishing Co; 1995.
26. Clarke CJS. The nonlocality of mind. J Consciousness Stud. 1995;2(3):231-240.
27. Dossey L. The return of prayer. Altern Ther Health Med. November 1997;3:10-17, 113-120.
28. Levin JS. How prayer heals: a theoretical model. Altern Ther Health Med. January 1996;2:66-73.
29. Dossey L. Reinventing Medicine. San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco; 1999.
30. Hammerschmidt DE. Ethical and practical problems in studying prayer. Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1874.
31. Boyle R. Quoted by: Hellman H. Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc; 1998:26.
32. Goldstein J. Waiving informed consent for research on spiritual matters? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1870-1871.
33. Wallis C. Faith and healing. Time June 24, 1996: 58-63.
34.Cassell EJ.The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1991.
35.Maugans TA, Wadland WC.Religion and family medicine: a survey of physicians and patients.J Fam Pract.1991;32:210-213.
36.King DE, Bushwick B.Beliefs and attitudes of hospital patients about faith healing and prayer.J Fam Pract.1994;39:349-352.
37.Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA 1998;279:1200-1205.
38. Patient concerns: ICR for American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. USA Today December 7, 1999:7D.
39. Pande PN. Does prayer need testing? Arch Intern Med 2000;160:1873-1874.
40. Levin JS, Larson DB, Puchalski CM. Religion and spirituality: research and education. JAMA 1997;278:792-793.
41. Koenig H. Exploring links between religion/spirituality and health. Sci Rev Altern Med. Spring-Summer 1999;3:52-55.
42. Sloan RP, Bagiella E. Data without a prayer. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1870.
43. Larson DB, Milano MAG. Are religion and spirituality clinically relevant in health care? Mind/Body Med 1995;1:147-157.
44.Horton R. The new public health of risk and radical engagement. Lancet 1998;352:251-252.
45. Dossey L. The right man syndrome: skepticism and alternative medicine. Altern Ther Health Med May 1998;4:12-19, 108-114.
46. Whitehead AN. Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York, NY: Philosophical Library; 1948:129.
Journaling Works
From Dr. Mercola:
Writing (Journaling) About Stress Helps Asthma, Arthritis
Writing about stressful life events helped reduce symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis in patients with these chronic illnesses. The effects of the writing exercise were still evident four months later and resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in patient symptoms.
The new findings add to a growing body of evidence linking mental health to physical well-being. Although researchers are not sure how this technique -- called "expressive writing" -- can lead to improvements in health, they speculate that it may help people better cope with stress, which can take a deleterious toll on health.
On average, asthma patients who wrote about their most stressful life event showed a 19% improvement in a specific measure of lung function, while control asthma patients showed no change, the researchers report. Rheumatoid arthritis patients were found to have a 28% reduction in symptoms, whereas control arthritis patients did not improve.
Ventilation of negative emotion, even just to an unknown reader, seems to have helped these patients acknowledge, bear, and put into perspective their distress. In this and a growing number of studies, it is not simply mind over matter, but is it clear that mind matters.
The Journal of the American Medical Association April 14, 1999;281:1304-1309, 1328-1329
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
I suspect that if the authors of this study were to have provided similar outcome evidence about a new drug, it likely would be in widespread use within a short time. This is a very powerful discipline. I have been journaling for the last fourteen years as a form of spiritual discipline. It is the rare morning where I am not able to journal. It has been an enormous benefit in my life.
For those interested in following a spiritual approach, many find the formula ACTS (Adoration (praise and worshiping God), Confession (reflection on your fewer than perfect actions), Thanksgiving (gratitude for all your blessings), and finally Supplication (Prayer requests). It is a strategy that has helped many through both good times and bad.
Writing (Journaling) About Stress Helps Asthma, Arthritis
Writing about stressful life events helped reduce symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis in patients with these chronic illnesses. The effects of the writing exercise were still evident four months later and resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in patient symptoms.
The new findings add to a growing body of evidence linking mental health to physical well-being. Although researchers are not sure how this technique -- called "expressive writing" -- can lead to improvements in health, they speculate that it may help people better cope with stress, which can take a deleterious toll on health.
On average, asthma patients who wrote about their most stressful life event showed a 19% improvement in a specific measure of lung function, while control asthma patients showed no change, the researchers report. Rheumatoid arthritis patients were found to have a 28% reduction in symptoms, whereas control arthritis patients did not improve.
Ventilation of negative emotion, even just to an unknown reader, seems to have helped these patients acknowledge, bear, and put into perspective their distress. In this and a growing number of studies, it is not simply mind over matter, but is it clear that mind matters.
The Journal of the American Medical Association April 14, 1999;281:1304-1309, 1328-1329
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
I suspect that if the authors of this study were to have provided similar outcome evidence about a new drug, it likely would be in widespread use within a short time. This is a very powerful discipline. I have been journaling for the last fourteen years as a form of spiritual discipline. It is the rare morning where I am not able to journal. It has been an enormous benefit in my life.
For those interested in following a spiritual approach, many find the formula ACTS (Adoration (praise and worshiping God), Confession (reflection on your fewer than perfect actions), Thanksgiving (gratitude for all your blessings), and finally Supplication (Prayer requests). It is a strategy that has helped many through both good times and bad.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Healthier Air Purifier
Here's a link to an article about healthier air purifiers.
http://www.mercola.com/forms/air_purifiers.htm
http://www.mercola.com/forms/air_purifiers.htm
Town of Allopath video
Check out this video about allopathy and its fallacy.
http://www.mercola.com/townofallopath/index.htm
http://www.mercola.com/townofallopath/index.htm
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Truth in Media
This is from Dr. Mercola at mercola.com
Fox Fires Reporters for Telling the Truth About Milk
In 1997, a pair of reporters prepared a report for a Fox TV affiliate in Florida about the dangers of bovine growth hormone (BGH) in milk. Lawyers for Monsanto, a major advertiser with the network, sent letters promising "dire consequences" if the story aired.
After attempts by Fox to bribe the reporters to keep quiet failed, the station agreed to air a revised version of the report. An unheard of 83 edits later (including Monsanto insisting that the word "cancer" be replaced with the phrase "human health implications"), the report was shelved and the courts took over.
Although a lower court ruled in favor of the reporters for some $425,000, a Florida appeals court denied them whistleblower protection, claiming Fox, and the media in general, have no obligation to tell the truth, in effect, having the freedom to report what is fact and fiction as real news.
YouTube.com August 22, 2006
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
This is another dramatic example of how powerfully some corporations control the media. You have heard me rant and rave about the drug companies, but they are the fairy godmother compared to Monsanto.
I simply don't know of any organization on the planet with more sinister plans to destroy the health of your future. They are the central force behind genetically modified foods and have conspired to literally own all future food by unconstitutionally patenting every seed they can get their hands on.
I posted a report two years ago that Monsanto was slowing down sales of its bovine growth hormone (BGH), Posilac, which is put in much of the commercial milk sold in the United States.
That seems to have been a temporary measure for publicity, as Monsanto recently announced plans to start producing the product themselves at a plant in Augusta, GA, instead of licensing another company to do it, and they currently sell more than 33 million doses a year.
There could be no stronger proof than this story that the corporations do not care about your health, but only their profits, and that their paid stooges in the media, the sciences, and the government are only too happy to say whatever they are being given money to say. In the instances where people try to take a stand, like the reporters in this case, they are silenced by their bosses.
There's a reason that the FDA, largely financed by their corporate "partners" these days, declared BGH safe for humans after only a brief study on a few rats. The Canadian equivalent of the FDA came to vastly different conclusions about BGH.
These factors, more than anything else, are the reason the reports you hear about what is healthy and what is not are fatally skewed.
On the brighter side, however, there's been a strong push away from hormone-infested milk and toward raw milk. I do not recommend drinking pasteurized milk, however, even if it doesn't contain hormones, because pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Raw milk, on the other hand, is one of the finest natural sources of calcium available. To find a raw milk source near you, visit the Real Milk Web site.
By the way, the video in the story above is from The Corporation. If you want to have a great video for your library I would recommend picking up a copy. I bought mine on Amazon.
Related Articles:
BGH: Monsanto and the Dairy Industry's Dirty Little Secret
Monsanto Pushes Hormones on School Kids in Their Milk
World's Largest Media Source Controlled by World's Largest Drug Compan
Fox Fires Reporters for Telling the Truth About Milk
In 1997, a pair of reporters prepared a report for a Fox TV affiliate in Florida about the dangers of bovine growth hormone (BGH) in milk. Lawyers for Monsanto, a major advertiser with the network, sent letters promising "dire consequences" if the story aired.
After attempts by Fox to bribe the reporters to keep quiet failed, the station agreed to air a revised version of the report. An unheard of 83 edits later (including Monsanto insisting that the word "cancer" be replaced with the phrase "human health implications"), the report was shelved and the courts took over.
Although a lower court ruled in favor of the reporters for some $425,000, a Florida appeals court denied them whistleblower protection, claiming Fox, and the media in general, have no obligation to tell the truth, in effect, having the freedom to report what is fact and fiction as real news.
YouTube.com August 22, 2006
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
This is another dramatic example of how powerfully some corporations control the media. You have heard me rant and rave about the drug companies, but they are the fairy godmother compared to Monsanto.
I simply don't know of any organization on the planet with more sinister plans to destroy the health of your future. They are the central force behind genetically modified foods and have conspired to literally own all future food by unconstitutionally patenting every seed they can get their hands on.
I posted a report two years ago that Monsanto was slowing down sales of its bovine growth hormone (BGH), Posilac, which is put in much of the commercial milk sold in the United States.
That seems to have been a temporary measure for publicity, as Monsanto recently announced plans to start producing the product themselves at a plant in Augusta, GA, instead of licensing another company to do it, and they currently sell more than 33 million doses a year.
There could be no stronger proof than this story that the corporations do not care about your health, but only their profits, and that their paid stooges in the media, the sciences, and the government are only too happy to say whatever they are being given money to say. In the instances where people try to take a stand, like the reporters in this case, they are silenced by their bosses.
There's a reason that the FDA, largely financed by their corporate "partners" these days, declared BGH safe for humans after only a brief study on a few rats. The Canadian equivalent of the FDA came to vastly different conclusions about BGH.
These factors, more than anything else, are the reason the reports you hear about what is healthy and what is not are fatally skewed.
On the brighter side, however, there's been a strong push away from hormone-infested milk and toward raw milk. I do not recommend drinking pasteurized milk, however, even if it doesn't contain hormones, because pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Raw milk, on the other hand, is one of the finest natural sources of calcium available. To find a raw milk source near you, visit the Real Milk Web site.
By the way, the video in the story above is from The Corporation. If you want to have a great video for your library I would recommend picking up a copy. I bought mine on Amazon.
Related Articles:
BGH: Monsanto and the Dairy Industry's Dirty Little Secret
Monsanto Pushes Hormones on School Kids in Their Milk
World's Largest Media Source Controlled by World's Largest Drug Compan
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Optical Illusion
Here's a link to an optical illusion that is just too neat!
http://www.mercola.com/2006/aug/10/
more_illusions_to_test_your_vision.htm
http://www.mercola.com/2006/aug/10/
more_illusions_to_test_your_vision.htm
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