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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
That sounds like a good reason to stay away from California.
Are you sure you don’t have an aneurysm or something?
Frequent migraines is more common than you’d think. I had a negative CAT scan when they started.
Yeah, I get them maybe once a year when I’m real hungry. But the air pressure thing–I just imagine this thin, strained blood vessel in your head, swelling and unswelling…
But yeah, it’s probably nothing.
I actually only met Jack Hunter once quite a few years ago, so I don’t know if he is a racist but I do know he is a clever guy who could make me smile.
thanks for the tips. I will check them out. The doc says if I have muscle aches to take CoQ10 at a high enough dose to make them stop. Did you try that?
If I remember correctly you guys in the Bay area paid millions extra for a public building to ensure it was correctly Feng Shuied… And then there’s this:
Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is trying to get the Legislature to urge government planners to adopt building standards that follow principles of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of designing a happy living space. Those principles include a sense of completion, symmetry and balance, and proportion and rhythm in architecture.
When asked at a press conference if he is wasting the Legislature’s time with the symmetry of buildings when the state budget is $15 billion out of whack, Yee said lawmakers are already doing plenty of weighty things.
There’s 100 mg in my multi and I was taking a softgel with 100 mg for a while. I’ve since stopped the softgel. Wasn’t sure I was benefiting, and they weren’t cheap. I haven’t read any conclusive studies or heard any examples of it helping people. I wonder if it is more theory than reality.
Damn it.
Never read it, and my views about sugar aren’t that extreme. But, sugar cane fields were harvested by slaves. During the 15th-17th centuries, Spain and Portugal used African slaves for that purpose in the Americas, including the Carribean. Slaves in the U.S. are primarily associated with cotton fields, but sugar cane plantations were even harder on the slaves that worked them. If you consumed sugar during that period you were supporting slavery. There was no way not to harvest those fields economically without it.
In any case, if you expunge processed sugar from your diet you’re healthier for it. I haven’t, and at my age I feel it.
Oh my, yes. Reiki.
A massage therapist explained it to me (and she was qualified to explain it, you see, because she had a DEGREE in Reiki): She stands over her clients and moves their energy (or something) around while they lie on the table. She was emphatic that all of this is accomplished without her actually touching the client’s body. At all.
“So–these clients come in and lie down and pay you to…NOT give them a massage?” I asked, with what I thought was laudable self-control. I didn’t laugh once.
You really can sell almost *anything* to *someone*.
Whenever I hear someone going on about how “natural” is better, I point out that nature is smallpox, bad teeth, and death at age thirty from an infected cut.
I like your line even better. Mind if I borrow it?
Feel free.
Kay, you should make a cookbook and put it on Amazon as an e-book. I’d love to buy it.
I’ve read a lot of info about the benefits of taking CoQ10 over the years, and that it’s especially essential for people taking statins, but can’t cite a study. I trust my doc so I believed her and didn’t ask her for backup info, maybe I will next time!
MOST ANNOYING THING (its not really quackery): The use of the word “superfood”. This is a marketing term used to sell supplements. The annoying thing is when you see young twenty something women blogging about a new recipe use “some amazing new superfood from Ecuador” or wherever… WRONG. FAIL. :(
Incidentally, raw vegan eating is extraordinarily healthful, but mostly I think by accident. It is really hard to eat too much rich food when eating raw vegan. (My version of raw vegan also allows for as much meat as you want, it just has to be raw or sear on the outside but cool on the inside. So not vegan, but you get it.) Its hard to eat too much grain because raw grain is kind of lame to eat unless you sprout it, and even then it pretty much sucks. Since butter, cream and eggs are out, all those rich sauces, ice cream etc are out. Bar food is gone. Beer and liquor is out.
About the only thing you can really load up on too much is fruit and vegetable sugars, but it really isn’t appetizing when you aren’t able to foil it with savory foods.
I like what Dr. Mark Crislip, MD says on his podcast, QuackCast about homeopathy: Would you buy a martini from a homeopathic bartender? The less liquor he puts in and the more he shakes it up, the stronger it gets.
Lucy P. All my recipes start from Bette Hagman’s books. She gives you a thorough education in different flours, how they work and react in difference combinations, and how to make up for the lack of gluten, so your finished product is tasty and chewy if yeast bread. Some flours were not available at the time of her first book, but as she learned, she wrote another book. I’ve adjusted her recipes to accommodate my own diet needs. I’m allergic to soy, and lactose intolerant, but learned that powdered buttermilk is lactose free. She has egg free recipes, and there is an egg replacement product on the market. Arrowroot can be substituted for corn starch.
She died at age 85 in 2007.
The Gluten-free Gourmet 1990
More from the Gluten-free Gourmet 1993
The Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy 1996
The Gluten-free Gourmet Bakes Bread 1999 (w/instructions for bread machines, 7 pages to understanding gluten free flours.)
The Gluten-free Gourmet Makes Dessert 2002
The difference is that the red yeast rice is far less reliable a dosage.
Well it’s the first stab at a solution. Or maybe I should say “the first step in an iterative process.” The plan is to try this for three months, test again to see whether it has the desired effect, and adjust as necessary. The reason I like the naturopathic approach is that we start with the gentlest approach (diet and exercise) and step up the intensity of the treatment if/when necessary. I have a catastrophic health care plan with no prescription coverage, so that is one reason I would rather not be on Lipitor for the rest of my life.
Is that legal?
It’s likely generic lovastatin would be much cheaper than Red Yeast Rice, even without insurance.
Or, you might wonder if cholesterol is a symptom of something else and look for the root cause.
Mike H:
Well! I’m getting back into an intense exercise program and had to stop RYR because I am SO sore (especially lower back) and couldn’t tell whether it’s the RYR or just the usual exercise soreness. When the exercise soreness subsides, will try RYR again to determine whether I can handle it, discuss lovastatin with the doc, drink some beer, check out your other LDL and triglyceride assists…
Thanks Mike! I really do appreciate your input, and also thanks to Doc Jay for this forum in which we can discuss our nutbag theories.
You wouldn’t think so. I was shocked when our health insurance company told us that we could keep our plan. They did add some things to it required by Obamacare that I didn’t want to pay for and the premiums went up 60%, but we’re saving $1000 + per month in premiums and as long as we stay reasonably healthy it’s cost effective.
Like what?