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Nutbag Theories On Wellness — DocJay
What is your favorite stupid health theory?
I saw a patient recently with diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, hyperlipidemia and obesity. She was discussing the homeopathic “medications” and Indian spirit guidance her cleaning lady was espousing to her as a way forward. My job at times means that I have to listen to various crackpots discuss these kind of theories, so I listened for a while about this lady’s cleaner and her path to wellness.
I asked my patient — who has recently been making strides in diet and exercise — if she is feeling better. She answered yes, indeed she does. “Well, the reason your cleaning lady feels good,” I explained “is that she eats great, has a low body mass index, and exercises every single day. The other stuff this shaman suggests may hold her together, but the way for people to feel good physically is not a mystery.” Sigh.
Of important note from this interaction: Apparently if you can see out your back door from the front door there is a drain on wealth and health. Erect a barrier to stop the spirits from draining your goodies. Who knew?
Published in General
My preferred nutbag:
Though beef jerky is better. Five strips a day keep the hippies away.
Same advice for you, p.m. me for some recipes. My feather light-gluten free flour makes the most delicious Belgian waffles you’ve ever tasted.
When I had a total collapse about 15 years ago and my regular doctor could do nothing for me except prescribe medications that didn’t help, I went over the line to alternative health practitioners. Homeopathy gave me my life back. It works. You have to get way out of your box to be willing to understand it – it is completely counter-intuitive to people raised on allopathy. But I am here to tell you it works.
Like cures like. It’s easy to test: a kitchen burn treated with heat will heal quickly and without a blister or scar. My niece takes a hot bath if she gets a sunburn and it makes it better. She discovered this on her own.
I have noticed conservatives are just as bad as liberals in their own little boxes.
Oh, and I wear birkenstocks, too, and with socks if it’s cold. And I’m a conservative Christian. Takes all kinds.
So glad to hear that DocJay, was wondering… It really isn’t difficult if you make up you mind to live gluten free. I wasn’t about to cook two different meals for my family, so both daughters raised on gluten free diets. Same when cooking for my grandson, he lived with me for several years and entire family ate gluten free, and guess what? They didn’t even know it.
Docjay, those Crystals you prescribed for me have been working wonders. I’m with you – a real medical license is essential. Notice how I capitalized Crystal?
I’m sure your neighbors are upset their Sudafed isn’t available because you cooked it all.
Yes it does take all kinds and I’m glad you feel better.
This is actually a really important point. I had a friend point to all the supplements they take and their “natural” approach to wellness as the reason for his health. I directed him to look at his lifestyle: runs several times a week, eats a great diet, etc – all complies with conventional medical advice.
I believe that’s why many diehard proponents of alternative medicine tend to be very healthy – they diet and exercise and manage stress. Of course, they would point to the herbs and essential oils and such.
If I’d been on the ball 15 years ago I’d have had a whole series of foods named after me and of course, diagnosed everyone with gluten issues the only cure for which is my food line ( or more cowbell).
Right you are but I done heard her AIDS was also cured with coconut oil. Nuff said?
In a riff off John’s comment about radical changes, here’s something on another radical change. Has anyone listened to the recent Econtalk on emerging work re: the role of our suddenly hygienic environment? From the summary:
The one that drives me to distraction is every time someone other than me in the house gets a cold, my wife insists on maxing them out on symptom suppressants so that “the immune system can do its job”. No matter how many times I’ve explained that cold symptoms _were_ the immune system doing its job.
Doc, I tried some of the stuff they sell in the stores, and most of it is crap. My stuff has to be eaten within several days because no preservatives. I give away my recipes. I have a friend whose grandson is celiac but also glucose intolerant, as well as allergic to corn and soy. I made up a corn free baking powder for her, and she makes his biscuits for him.
Now even if could work, how do you keep a mouthful of oil for 20 minutes? At some point don’t you need to breathe, swallow, speak, spit, etc.? And if you sneeze with a mouthful of oil it will be time to buy a new carpet.
A while back my wife complained to me that one of her cousins was getting into “that reiki crap.” Evidently that is like a massage but instead of massaging the body they massage your “energy”.
And to think, my wife put up with surgery, chemo, and radiation when all we really needed to do was wave away the negative energy. I wonder if Obamacare will replace surgery, chemo, and radiation with reiki? It would be cheaper.
I understand, but all of sudden EVERYONE is gluten free and it’s a new market. I personally lean toward the ‘Nourishing Traditions’ way of looking at food (and grains) but I don’t agree with everything.
Wanted to read the GMO comments, but gotta go to my first cooking class- Italian!
Bacon. Any health remedy that prescribes bacon is good for you.
I have a close relative who suddenly and inexplicably developed “chemical sensitivity” which prevented her from using most soaps, dish detergents, air fresheners, etc., lest they continue to poison her body. Even though no licensed MD could find any physiological evidence of this poisoning, there were more than enough alternative “doctors” willing to enable her.
At some point her “condition” became so bad that she moved from her lifelong home in New England to the south because the fumes from her heating system were “poisoning” her too much. Then she found out how hard it is to live in the South without A/C – and all the chemicals that put into her air…
I think much more harmful than alternative medicines is the inevitable overreaction which occur when we actually identify a genuine solution.
Antibiotics and the over-use of antimicrobials is one example.
Another is dietary fat: based on a weak link between cholesterol in our food and cholesterol in our arteries, every manufacturer stripped the fat out of their foods – and in many cases replaced it with sugar, which turns out to be much worse for us. Now a crusade is forming to make sugar labelled a toxin and have it completely removed from our diet, which is overreacting in the other direction.
The same phenomenon is occurring with carbs/gluten: as anonymous points out, our bodies aren’t made for full-on carb diets. But for everyone without Coeliac disease, completely eliminating carbs is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Our bodies can handle almost anything in moderation, but unfortunately our psyche can’t.
Note to wives: Sex cures everything. What it doesn’t cure causes us men to die with a smile on our face. (Pass it on.)
Circumcision as a preventative for AIDS.
My dad has what he calls the Al Sharpton Diet.
If its white its bad; don’t eat it.
Orthorexia nervosa. The silent killer.
1. The various and sundry evils allegedly caused by gluten;
2. The miraculous properties ascribed to coconut oil;
3. The idea that the sex of a fetus is revealed by the size and shape of his or her mother’s belly.
It turned this politician – the Libertarian candidate during the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Montana – blue.
Mike,I used to know a lady with osteogenesis imperfecta. They have blue sclera. Fascinating, like Dune coming to life.
Oil pulling has quite a bit of research behind it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18408265
That’s just one but there a lot more.
The best reasoning I heard for reducing sugar consumption (not just sweets but easily converted grains to sugar, potatoes, fruit) was that until just recently in human existence sugar consumption was low and seasonal. The body then does it’s best to store that scarce sugar as fat as a precaution against starvation.