TED talk -- Dr. Joel Fuhrman


jts

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In ths TED talk Dr. Joel Fuhrman gives a few examples of recovery from disease.

Warnings:

1. These examples are quite graphic and explicit and maybe should not be shown on OL.

2. Nothing is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. It's all from his experience as a quack doctor.

3. He lists only success stories. For every success story there are probably ten or a hundred failure stories. How do I figure this? The beyondveg website.

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Refusal to consider all outcomes is a sure sign of observer bias.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Refusal to consider all outcomes is a sure sign of observer bias.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you have some kind of disease and the best the doctors can do is tell you to go home and die. Imagine you learn that there is an alternative with mixed results, 5% success, 95% failure. How would you proceed?

If you insist on being morbidly negative, your reasoning probably will be: it might not work, therefore I should not try it. I figure slim chance is better than no chance.

But perhaps it is not necessary to go purely on chance. Perhaps it is possible to figure out what the 5% did right that the 95% did not do and what the 95% did wrong that the 5% did not do.

I could give examples but you would argue about details and lose sight of the main point.

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Sorry for the top post.

I would do careful controlled studies. What you proposed in totally insufficient to come to -any- conclusions pro or con.

Again. Apologies for the top posting.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you have some kind of disease and the best the doctors can do is tell you to go home and die. Imagine you learn that there is an alternative with mixed results, 5% success, 95% failure. How would you proceed?

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I would do careful controlled studies.

You are saying if you had diabetes or cancer or heart disease, you would become a scientist. What would you do about the disease while you are doing your scientific studies? Nothing?

Back to the video. Start the video at 15 minutes. This is the story about a man who reverses heart disease by nutrition. The cardiologist never before saw anyone reverse heart disease by nutrition. He does nothing except see heart patients day in and day out and this is the only time he saw heart disease reversed by nutrition. Dr. Fuhrman claims he sees this as the normal thing.

If you had the same health problems this man had (hypothetically speaking), while you are doing your carefully controlled studies, what would you do about the heart problem? Which would you prefer? The cardiologist? Or someone like Dr. Fuhrman (health science based doctor)? Or maybe you do it on your own without the help of a doctor?

If you went with the cardiologist, you would have the benefit of being politically correct and of having everybody's approval and of not being a kook. But you probably would not get well, any more than his other patients do. But not getting well would be okay because you did the scientific way.

If you went with health science (nutrition etc.), with or without a doctor, you might reverse the heart problem completely (and probably other health problems too because healing is usually not selective). But dammit! You would be politically incorrect and everybody would call you nasty names. You might be tempted to tell the world how you dunnit but you would be well advised to be silent about your recovery because it's not according to the peer reviewed medical journals.

Which way would you go? Which is more important? Beating the disease? Or conforming to society?

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I would do careful controlled studies.

You are saying if you had diabetes or cancer or heart disease, you would become a scientist. What would you do about the disease while you are doing your scientific studies? Nothing?

Back to the video. Start the video at 15 minutes. This is the story about a man who reverses heart disease by nutrition. The cardiologist never before saw anyone reverse heart disease by nutrition. He does nothing except see heart patients day in and day out and this is the only time he saw heart disease reversed by nutrition. Dr. Fuhrman claims he sees this as the normal thing.

If you had the same health problems this man had (hypothetically speaking), while you are doing your carefully controlled studies, what would you do about the heart problem? Which would you prefer? The cardiologist? Or someone like Dr. Fuhrman (health science based doctor)? Or maybe you do it on your own without the help of a doctor?

If you went with the cardiologist, you would have the benefit of being politically correct and of having everybody's approval and of not being a kook. But you probably would not get well, any more than his other patients do. But not getting well would be okay because you did the scientific way.

If you went with health science (nutrition etc.), with or without a doctor, you might reverse the heart problem completely (and probably other health problems too because healing is usually not selective). But dammit! You would be politically incorrect and everybody would call you nasty names. You might be tempted to tell the world how you dunnit but you would be well advised to be silent about your recovery because it's not according to the peer reviewed medical journals.

Which way would you go? Which is more important? Beating the disease? Or conforming to society?

My motive would be to find causes and from that cures. Anything is is quack-quack.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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My motive would be to find causes and from that cures. Anything is is quack-quack.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I think you contradict yourself, unless you mean you would become a kook like me but don't want to admit it.

Conventional doctors usually are not interested in causes. If you don't believe me, ask a doctor about causes. What you get is "we are not good at causes" and "that's not my job". Conventional doctors do mostly 5 things: tests followed by diagnosis followed by cut poison burn. Nothing in that about causes.

But health science doctors (those you call quacks) are about causes. Listen to their lectures and read their books and what you get is mostly causes.

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My motive would be to find causes and from that cures. Anything is is quack-quack.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I think you contradict yourself, unless you mean you would become a kook like me but don't want to admit it.

Conventional doctors usually are not interested in causes. If you don't believe me, ask a doctor about causes. What you get is "we are not good at causes" and "that's not my job". Conventional doctors do mostly 5 things: tests followed by diagnosis followed by cut poison burn. Nothing in that about causes.

But health science doctors (those you call quacks) are about causes. Listen to their lectures and read their books and what you get is mostly causes.

Medical -researchers- are interested in probable causes. Which is why they do science. Medical Doctors who follow received knowledge are, in a sense, no better than shamans who try to sing the demons out of people.

I throw in my lot with Salk and Sabin. Their scientifically sound research removed the threat of polio from the human race.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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What's wrong with good nutrition?

It makes sense if you don't stress your body with crap through bad food choices, your body's own defence mechanisms are freed up to attack other threats.

I think that's the reasoning behind Fuhrman's work. I know I can't find a flaw in this approach.

The hyperbole is simply marketing.

Michael

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  • 1 month later...

From the video and the responses to it so far, there appear to be two views:

1. Most diseases are not behaviorally caused.

2. Most are.

One view mostly depends upon the research of doctors, "experts", and scientists... while the other places most of the responsibility on how we live. I obviously belong to the latter because assuming personal responsibility for maintaining the physical vessel which houses my spirit is in logical harmony with being morally accountable for the consequences set into motion by my behavior.

Dennis Prager made this pithy comment about "studies":

1. They confirm what common sense already tells us.

2. They're wrong.

Greg

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In ths TED talk Dr. Joel Fuhrman gives a few examples of recovery from disease.

Warnings:

1. These examples are quite graphic and explicit and maybe should not be shown on OL.

2. Nothing is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. It's all from his experience as a quack doctor.

3. He lists only success stories. For every success story there are probably ten or a hundred failure stories. How do I figure this? The beyondveg website.

Given the lack of corroborations, why did you post this?

Ba'al Chatzarf

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In ths TED talk Dr. Joel Fuhrman gives a few examples of recovery from disease.

Warnings:

1. These examples are quite graphic and explicit and maybe should not be shown on OL.

2. Nothing is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal. It's all from his experience as a quack doctor.

3. He lists only success stories. For every success story there are probably ten or a hundred failure stories. How do I figure this? The beyondveg website.

Given the lack of corroborations, why did you post this?

Ba'al Chatzarf

There are corroborations. He has success stories from his experience as a doctor. Other doctors like him have success stories.

But the main problem from your point of view is these success stories are not published in peer reviewed scientific journals that get 60% of their revenue by advertising drugs (poisons). Publishing articles that undermine drug advertisements would not be good for business. But that is what is required to have evidence to your satisfaction. It will never happen.

A second problem is even assuming the success stories are real, we don't have much in the way of success rates. Is it 30%? Or 90%? Or 100% Or what? In the cases of failure, we would need to know more information, such as how well did the patient follow instructions? How long did the patient stick with it? What were the circumstances?

What are the success rates of the orthodox (government regulated) profession?

The orthodox medical profession tends to look upon chronic diseases as not reversible and they usually try to help the patient live with the disease instead of reversing it. This is symptoms management, not healing. It is called health care but it is more like disease care. From the doctor's point of view, disease care is more lucrative that health care.

Doctors such as Fuhrman and others are into real health care and therefore they are in the business of putting themselves out of business. When patients get well and stay well, that doesn't make for a lot of repeat business for the doctor.

In a free market, doctors would be in the business of putting themselves out of business. And any doctor who is not in the business of putting himself out of business wouldn't get any business (in a free market). And the doctor who is most effective in putting himself out of business would get the most business.

In the real world, doctors are usually not in the business of putting themselves out of business. That's why the cost of so-called health care is so high.

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I would do careful controlled studies.

You are saying if you had diabetes or cancer or heart disease, you would become a scientist. What would you do about the disease while you are doing your scientific studies? Nothing?

Back to the video. Start the video at 15 minutes. This is the story about a man who reverses heart disease by nutrition. The cardiologist never before saw anyone reverse heart disease by nutrition. He does nothing except see heart patients day in and day out and this is the only time he saw heart disease reversed by nutrition. Dr. Fuhrman claims he sees this as the normal thing.

If you had the same health problems this man had (hypothetically speaking), while you are doing your carefully controlled studies, what would you do about the heart problem? Which would you prefer? The cardiologist? Or someone like Dr. Fuhrman (health science based doctor)? Or maybe you do it on your own without the help of a doctor?

If you went with the cardiologist, you would have the benefit of being politically correct and of having everybody's approval and of not being a kook. But you probably would not get well, any more than his other patients do. But not getting well would be okay because you did the scientific way.

If you went with health science (nutrition etc.), with or without a doctor, you might reverse the heart problem completely (and probably other health problems too because healing is usually not selective). But dammit! You would be politically incorrect and everybody would call you nasty names. You might be tempted to tell the world how you dunnit but you would be well advised to be silent about your recovery because it's not according to the peer reviewed medical journals.

Which way would you go? Which is more important? Beating the disease? Or conforming to society?

Your tongue in cheek remarks crack me up, Jerry! :laugh:

It's no mystery why the idea of our bodies healing themselves if given the opportunity is so totally heretical to the narcoculture.

Greg

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