Robert Paterson's Weblog

When the Corporatists discover how they have been betrayed in health - watch out

This image shows the sale of Indulgences. By paying money to the pope, you got a certificate that guaranteed that the person named would go to heaven. Millions were raised this way. The money was used to pay off the Vatican's debts and to rebuild St Peters. You may laugh at this. How gullible could people be?

The point of this post is that the story  of Indulgences is being played out again right now. Today we pay money to the institution of medicine to make us well. The church did not save our souls and medicine today is not saving us from the epidemic of chronic illness.

In the 1500's when the trick was revealed, the result was the Reformation. I think that the same massive change in society is about to take place again. When the fallacy of medicine as confronted by chronic illness is revealed to millions who will have paid their money to have no cure; when it is seen that this has been a huge confidence trick that has enriched people who had a vested interest in our suffering; then the whole system will come down. 

We are not quite at this point yet. Right now many still put all their faith in medicine. 

Most of us believe that only medicine can save our health. What this means in practice is that most believe that only by paying for drugs, test and treatments have we any chance of getting well. Most of us cannot imagine any alternative. We too have given up all our power to the church of medicine.

But some of us are taking charge. Some of us are using diet and lifestyle to keep us well and even cure us. I had thought that this example might help many others do the same. But I am finding out that this is not true. Many that I know well seem to discount entirely what has happened to me and to Robin and continue to place all their faith in their doctors.

They trust their doctors even though there is no evidence that what their doctors have on offer us making any difference in chronic illness. 

For, who knows of anyone that has been cured of type 2 diabetes by only obeying their doctor? Who knows of anyone who has been cured of MS by their doctor? Who knows of anyone that has had their depression "cured" by drugs? Who knows of anyone who has had IBS or Crohns cured by drugs? Who has had bad psoriasis or arthritis cured by drugs? In spite of the "War on Cancer" cancer rates continue to rise. Taking an overall view, while there have been a few victories, deaths are no less than in the 1950's. Heart disease was all but unknown before 1900. Today it remains the # killer - in spite of the billions spent on statin drugs. But in spite of the vast amount that we spend on healthcare, it has not halted the epidemic of chronic illness and it cures almost no one.

So why do most people still depend on their doctor?

I think the answer to my own question is that not enough have been failed yet. But within 5 years as the boomers go into full on chronic ill health the failure will be felt. The second reason is culture. Too many people cannot imagine that medicine cannot help them. 

Why this cultural blindness?

I think that the answer is cultural and starts in our schools. We are taught over 12 years to submit to the authority figure. Any questioning of her rule is punished. What is rewarded is compliance with doctrine. We are not taught to question or to think for ourselves. 

We have been taught to remain stunted and even infantile in our development.

In the worst case we remain tribal and childlike. Our emotional age might be 6 on a good day. The world is seen as a mystery where only god like beings such as a teacher, a doctor or a boss can help us. In such a world, we are helpless. Even if we were granted freedom we would not know what to do with it. So our poor health cannot be anything to do with us. Our little pleasures of smoking, fast food and TV are all we have. They are us. Without them we would be nothing. So only a pill, the healthcare system can save us and god help the politician that does not see it this way. For we have a lot of votes.

Nearly as bad are those of us who live like teens. We look to our parents to solve the problems of the world while we get on with having a good time. We find shiny toys very important. We seek status symbols. We believe that only the experts know what to do to fix things. We don't have to do any work or thinking because that's their job. Other people's approval is very important. Especially the approval of authority figures such as our boss or a doctor. We cannot possible say, "I won't take that drug - haven't you read about the side effects!" We frown on people who do rebel and tell each other smugly that they are stupid outsiders. We do our own job and we don't care about anything else. That would be someone else's problem. We never think about the consequences of what we do. We support the persecution of innovators. We choose not to explore what is going on because that is not our role. We dare not disobey the leader. He must be right. 

But then there is a growing set of people who share a different culture. We are like parents. We believe that the world demands our participation because it will affect our kids and all the generations to come. We found school awkward. We might have been the kids who got into trouble by asking too many questions. We find watching team sports very boring. We would rather play ourselves. We tend to work for ourselves. We find bureaucracies very challenging. We have learned that the toys do not bring happiness. We do a lot of critical reading and we talk a lot among ourselves about how the world is going. Many of us have gone beyond talking and are now leading our lives quite differently from the rest of the culture. But this group is not very large and has no power and is easily discounted.

The 1% is outside all of this. They are the ones that hold the strings that make us all dance.  The greatest lie that the 1% uphold is the Corporate Dream of "Success". Work hard. Go to school. Take out school debt. Take out a mortgage. Move to the city. Borrow to get a car. Put your kids in daycare while you have a career. "Go on girl you can do it all". When you have health insurance with your job, you will be well. Fit in. Obey. Support the persecution of outsiders.

But as more and more cannot get jobs, have their pensions taken away, get early retirement, lose their homes, sink into debt and get ill and not get better, find that they cannot have it all, this group will start to wake up. And when they do.....

In France it was not the peasants that lead the revolution, it was the betrayed lawyers and bureaucrats. In Russia it was not the peasants but the lawyers and the middle class.

I see the tipping point in chronic illness. Many people I know still have faith in the old system. They are obeying orders. They are being good. They see the alternative but are too scared to act. But they will pay a terrible price. They will lose their health. They will die after enduring terrible treatments. They will go bankrupt because of the costs. They will break up their families. 

They will see that their choice to obey, took them to a terrible place. They will awaken. They who have lost so much will have no mercy.

They will see how they have been used. This is what caused the Reformation. This is what will drive our own. 

The clock ticks.

Back on PEI - Giving a talk at MacPhail Saturday Oct 26 at 6pm

I am very excited to be back soon on my beloved PEI.

I will be giving this years George McRobie Lecture at the MacPhail Homestead on Saturday night Oct 26 at 6pm.

The evening begins at 6 pm with a reception and cash bar, followed by the lecture at 7 pm.

The title of my talk will be, “Food & Health; the PEI Opportunity.” 

I have become convinced that the connection between health and food, that some see now, will become THE key idea over the next 30 years and will drive not only a change in how and what we eat but of course in how we grow food. In time I think that this may lead to PEI becoming a HAVE province.

In my talk I will:

• Explain the connection between food and the epidemic of chronic illness that not only affects PEI but of course the world today
• We will see why those of you who on PEI are growing food in a new/old way will be the key suppliers of what will become a massive demand for genuine quality
• We will see why such an approach to growing food can only scale using a network of small producers
• We will see how chefs and restaurants on PEI and elsewhere are the key bridge between the old and the new system
• We will see how large institutions such as universities will add positive pressure to the shift and expand the infrastructure needed to get into the mainstream
• We will look at the opportunity for PEI to create a full employment economy and a much healthier society

This lecture series is named in honour of Dr. George McRobie, Patron for The Homestead Farm, the new sustainable agriculture entity operating at the Homestead. George McRobie has long been one of the world’s leading proponents of sustainable agriculture and appropriate small-scale technology.

Register in advance by phoning 902-651-2789, or [email protected].

 

 

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Our Biome - the next step in understanding our health

In the 18880's we discovered germs. We saw them as universally bad. Now we are starting to understand that we are in reality a huge ecosystem of bacteria. It may be that the health of this ecosystem is the most important aspect of our health. A healthy Biome = a healthy me.

This is where Paleo hits science. The aim is to eat what makes our gut healthy.

I follow this with Michael Pollans's NYT article that will tell you more.

Here is the lede: (Full Link Here)

"I can tell you the exact date that I began to think of myself in the first-person plural — as a superorganism, that is, rather than a plain old individual human being. It happened on March 7. That’s when I opened my e-mail to find a huge, processor-choking file of charts and raw data from a laboratory located at the BioFrontiers Instituteat the University of Colorado, Boulder. As part of a new citizen-science initiative called the American Gut project, the lab sequenced my microbiome — that is, the genes not of “me,” exactly, but of the several hundred microbial species with whom I share this body.

These bacteria, which number around 100 trillion, are living (and dying) right now on the surface of my skin, on my tongue and deep in the coils of my intestines, where the largest contingent of them will be found, a pound or two of microbes together forming a vast, largely uncharted interior wilderness that scientists are just beginning to map."

I end with a link to a short book that has the whole story up to now. This short book is very easy to read and is short. You will know a lot in an hour. 

Here is the blurb

"To paraphrase famed biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, “nothing in nutrition and health makes sense except in the light of the gut microbiome.” In Honor Thy Symbionts, the lens of our evolutionary past is focused on modern issues of obesity, GMO foods, diabetes, the rise in C-section births, ecology of our gut microbes, our African microbial origins, government dietary recommendations, probiotics vs. prebiotics, food poisoning, and more.

This collection of 21 short essays is not organized as a single book – with a beginning and obvious end. But a collection of musings ranging from 600 to 2,000 words in length. Though a wide range of topics is covered, a microbial thread connects all of the essays. This decidedly Darwinian (evolutionary) perspective is a nod to the reality that ninety-percent of the cells in the human body are not even human, but microbial. This makes humans super organisms – however, more microbe than mammal. This biological truth is reframing the scientific and philosophical conversation around Who are we? The ultimate questions of health and disease in our modern world will hinge on the speed at which we discover and accept that we have always lived in a microbial world and much that ails us is in fact discordance with the once symbiotic relationship we coevolved with these tiniest forms of life.

Jeff Leach is the Founder of the Human Food Project."

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The good news is that there is a huge drop in kids eating sugar - what about your family?

I saw this today and was encouraged - maybe like smoking 30 years ago, the change is taking place and it is happening in the right place - the home.

Link here.

"That's particularly true for kids. NPD reported these shifts in behavior for children younger than 18, last year vs. in 1998:

• Drank fruit juices 16 fewer times than in 1998.

• Ate cookies eight fewer times than they did 15 years ago.

• Ate ice cream seven fewer times than in 1998.

• Ate cake five fewer times than 15 years ago.

Not that some sweets aren't on the increase. Yogurt consumption, for example, is way up. Kids ate yogurt on 23 more occasions in 2012 than in 1998. And they ate fruit rolls four more times last year than they did 15 years ago.

But overall, children are reducing sweets consumption at a faster rate than grown-ups. "Parents are clearly controlling the amount of sweets their kids are eating," Balzer says.

Parents like Charlene Florian.

Before she had kids, her favorite treat was a Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream cone. Florian hasn't just mostly cut out ice cream. Since her 8- and 9-year-old daughters were born, she has eliminated virtually all refined sugars from her diet and her family's. When her kids do eat sweets, it's usually things sweetened with honey or unrefined maple sugar.

Little wonder neither daughter has ever had a cavity: no refined sugar.

"I will never let it come in the house," says the skin care business owner who lives in Newport Beach, Calif. "If they decide to eat it when they're older, that's up to them. But they both accept that as long as they live at home, they won't have sweets."

She makes occasional exceptions — outside the house. And when she makes those special treat trips to Häagen-Dazs with the kids — and they get the cookies-and-cream ice cream — she forbids toppings.

As for those sweet treats that her kids bring home from birthday parties or on Halloween, "I'll eventually toss them in the trash, and they won't even notice."

 

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14,500 diabetes patients on PEI - so why is the Diabetes Association working against their interests?

Diabetes? What does your doctor tell you to do? What should you do

Diabetes? What does your doctor tell you to do? What should you do

Your doctor will likely put you on a diet. This link is to a post I made on the PEI Diabetes Association site that shows you the official diet and what it means - It will make your diabetes worse - it is in effect a high sugar diet!

Your alternative is to take a low sugar diet seriously - that means you have to cut most of your simple carbs out and find a diet that you can sustain for the rest of your life.

Here is what it is like to do this ansd the typical Doctor response (link to more here)

"Yet another story from a person with type 2 diabetes, who has tried an LCHF diet:

At an appointment with my doctor, after being on an LCHF diet for one year (diabetes checkup):

The first thing she asks me is…. “What have you done?” – with a big smile.
“I started eating an LCHF diet”, I say.
“I just knew it had to be something like that!”, she says.

All numbers are good. Blood sugar normal, cholesterol numbers good, blood counts…. everything that can be measured is great (all was not good a year ago). My waistline has shrunk by 5 inches, and I have lost more than 30 pounds (have acquired more muscle mass too, so my fat loss is probably significant).

In addition I have completely stopped taking some antidiabetic medications (don’t need them anymore), and am currently taking half the dose of the last remaining antidiabetic medication that I take daily. I don’t need more than that when I eat an LCHF diet.

Then comes the funny part (or the not so funny part). She tells med that many of her patients have changed their diets to an LCHF diet on their own. And they all lose weight, they all improve their health markers, become healthier and feel much better.

“Isn’t this amazing?!”, she says, adding “And I am not allowed to recommend this to my patients, because we have to follow the official guidelines. Our whole society is sugar-poisoned.”

Congratulations!

The doctor’s idea that she is not allowed to recommend an LCHF diet is a common urban legend, that is spread by ignorance. As a physician in Sweden you may certainly recommend an LCHF diet. I have done so to appropriate patients more or less daily for the past six years, with results similar to the above.

Previously on diabetes"

 

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14,500 diabetes patients on PEI - so why is the Diabetes Association working against their interests?

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14,500 diabetes patients on PEI - so why is the Diabetes Association working against their interests?

Here is the meal example that the PEI Diabetes Association recommends.

This meal plan will drive a large challenge to your insulin - which is what Type 2 Diabetes is - when your insulin has given up due to too much load. 

By the end of this post you will see that this diet will make your diabetes worse. This raises important questions for me as to what is going on at the association.

Let's look at what this means.

Breakfast - The core of it is cereal and toast - all grains that have a very high "sugar" load. The result will be to challenge your insulin even more. An orange - high fructose load - more challenge and goes straight to the liver and is converted to fat. Low fat milk - the lower the fat the dairy, the higher the lactose load. Lactose is a sugar. Peanut butter - peanuts are the most allergenic of any food you can eat.

There is almost no protein or fat in this meal that means that you will be hungry an hour after you eat it. 

Lunch - the core is bread. Again a huge load of sugar

The meat is low fat - it is not animal fat that is the problem it is vegetable fat.

So the recommendation to use margarine versus butter is the opposite of where science stands on fats now.  Carrot sticks = high sugar - grapes high fructose.

Low fat yoghurt is low fat becuase they have replaced the fat with corn starch. Corn starch is a high sugar load food. Low fat dairy has a high lactose load too and drives a challenge to your insulin.

Such a meal will cause you to be hungry very soon after.

Dinner and snacks - all low fat = high sugar - crackers = sugar. Or fruit = high sugar. Potatoes have a high starch and so high sugar load

So here is my question. Explain to me and to others how a high sugar diet helps? Explain to me why you are not current with the research on metabolic syndrome? You say to avoid sugar - but this diet is mainly sugar - explain why you are confused?

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Here is the first part of a 3 part series on how a community in Alert Bay have taken charge of their health by giving up the modern diet and returned to their ancestral ways - a high fat and high protein diet. Weight has dropped and so has Type 2 Diabetes. 

I am so excited by this. Here is the science.

 

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The FDA and BIg Pharma want us to be ill? - 3 issues this weekend suggest they do

This weekend I saw a number of news items that caused me to think more about the role of the corporatization of health. It is clear to me that there is a a group of people who don't want us to be healthy and who are invested in our being ill. If I am right what can we do?

In this post I make a case for the problem and I offer up a way of dealing with it. 

Breast Cancer and the BRCA1 Gene

First of all, if you wish to test for the Breast Cancer Gene that affects abiut 10% of women but also drives a very high chance of getting Breast Cancer, you will have to have at least $4,000. For this test and the gene are subject to copyright! Link Here

"Unlike routine tests for diabetes or high cholesterol, however, the BRCA gene evaluation — performed by only one company in the United States, Myriad Genetics — is phenomenally expensive, with a “list price” close to $4,000 when a related genomic-rearrangement test is included in the analysis, which oncologists typically recommend."

If you go to 23andme you can get a whole range of gene tests for $99! Testing for genes is no longer expensive. But if you have the copyright and you have a gene and a test that is rooted in a killer problem, then you can charge what you want. What a business!

C Difficile and Fecal Transplants

C Difficile is a major cause of death now. It is caused by a failure of our gut health. Poor diet and the use of antibiotics can kill off the good bacteria leaving us exposed to the bad. THE way of curing this is very simple and works in less than 2 days. It costs almost nothing. It is called a "Fecal Transplant". And yes it is just that. Good poo from a person with a healthy gut is given to the sick person via an enema. Think Blood Transfusion. 

There is next to no risk. The patient is often at death's door and time is critical. But now the FDA want to regulate this. Not by setting a standard that any practitioner can get ready to apply but by demanding a lengthy application for a licence to experiment on a human. More at this link here at Wired. 

This can be a death sentence if there is no time. I have to ask why? I can only think that the FDA are against treatments that cannot be monetized by their supporters.

The FDA is always quick to step in when there is a non corporate idea. 

Alzheimers and Vitamin B

Alzheimers could become the most expensive disease out there as many boomers get it. Of course the real costs are social. Sufferers demand such a high level of care. Big Pharma have been trying for ages to find THE drug and have failed. We are starting to understand though that Alzheimers is a lifestyle disease. It is avoidable. The pathway is diet again. 

High levels of Vitamin B preserve brain power and size. More at this link

"Older people’s brains shrink about 0.5 percent a year from the age of 60, and faster in people with vitamin B12 deficiency, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease, Smith said. If that pace can be significantly slowed before full-blown Alzheimer’s develops, it may delay the disease’s progression so that older people can enjoy better lives until they die from another cause.

“If you delay the onset by five years, you can halve the number of people dying from it,” says Jess Smith, a research communications officer at the Alzheimer’s Society, a U.K. charity."

So here is the Big Pharma issue. More research has to be done. But in today's research climate, unless there is a blockbuster pill that can be copyrighted, there is no money. Research into real health does not get funded.

“We need bigger studies and more evidence that looks at what homocysteine is doing and what is actually going on in the brain.”

A. David Smith agrees. He plans a study of B vitamins in 1,200 people over 70 with MCI and elevated homocysteine. He needs 6 million pounds ($9.1 million) to pay for it. Miller plans another large study and wants to see if folic acid in flour in the U.S. leads to different results there. Meanwhile, the lack of blockbuster-drug potential presents funding hurdles.

“The pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to make any money on this and the supplement companies aren’t going to have enough money to do it,” Miller said. “This would have to be government-funded. I’m just not sure the climate is right for it now.”

The good news is that the American Gut Health project has shown us that we can crowd fund this kind of research. I have sent my poo in already! I also participate in the D Action Study to study the impact of Vitamin D.  I am going to apply to test my genes at 23andme. I want to check out my ancestry which is a major factor in health risk.

I think that my health is up to me. I do my own research. I help others do theirs. I take action. We can all do this can't we?

If gut health IS the core health issue. Then all of us can take control. If you wish to know more about this, Michael Pollan has written a wonderful introduction here. If you want to know even more, Jeff Leach has a short book for $2.99 that is the bible here. 

Health is the arena where we as individuals can beat the system.  

 

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Your kids know what is best - 9 year old boycotts a school dance sponsored by Coke

One of my favourite Doctors in the field of Health, versus Healthcare, is Dr Yoni Freedhoff.  Yesterday was Mother's Day and I challenged mothers to do the right thing with their children's diet and avoid Junk Food. 

Of course, many children know what the right thing is too and we can take our lead from them. Companies like McDonalds and Coke work hard to get into the schools. It is not just that they offer cash strapped schools a deal on dispensers but they sponsor a lot of activities. 

The schools are very vulnerable to this pressure. But if the kids push back....

Here is the post from Dr Freedhoff's site about this today. Full quote:

"A little while back I received an email from a blog reading grandparent. He wanted to let me know about his 9 year old granddaughter's response to learning that her school dance was to be funded by Coca-Cola,

"Dear Dr Freedhoff,

Thought you would like to know that my granddaughter Frances (9) has refused to participate in a Cola-Cola dance which her school has arranged as part of some sports sponsorship thing, this without any prompting from me. She must have been reading your blog. She wants to wear a t shirt with "water " written on it."

I reached out to him and asked if his granddaughter might want to write a short comment regarding her decision as well as send along a photo of her protest shirt.

She obliged!

"I did not want to be in the coca cola dance, because little children shouldn't be dancing in the favor of a soda company. Also my sports teacher shouldn't be encouraging small children to drink it. You need to stick to healthy foods like fruit,vegetables,meat,and occasionally oils and sweets.

-Frances-"

And for those public health folks who think partnerships of their organizations with the food industry are a-ok now you know that even some 9 year old kids perceive them as problematic conflicts on interest.

Granddad - I imagine you're darn proud of your granddaughter. Good on her! "

 

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Young Mothers Today - What will your kids think of you in 10 years time?

This was a brutal piece of propaganda in WWI. It showed a father's children asking him the question that he had to give the right answer to.

So Mothers and Grannies and Dads of today. What will be your answer to your kids in 10 years time - When they know that you knew now about junk food but you said and did nothing? 

Is it not a parent's job to protect? 

I think that it is certain that in 10 years time, the link between chronic illness and the obesity and Type 2 Diabetes and junk food will be clear to all of us. There will be no debate anymore. It will be clear that this food is poison. It will be the same as the link between smoking and cancer. You would surely never advocate your kid smoking now would you? Would you go to the store and buy your kid cigarettes as a matter of course?

We all "Know" this now deep down. We know now that this kind of food is the worst thing we can give our kids.

It will be hard for our kids to forgive this if we just go along. "You pestered me into eating this." Everyone was doing it" "I was too tired to cook" "There was so much advertising, I fell for it" "The school said it was safe" "All your friends were eating it and I did not want you to be left out"

These excuses will be answered with "But, you knew Mummy!"

 

So, what's your stand?

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