"Medically-Supervised-Water-only-Fasting-in-the-Treatment-of-Hypertension"


jts

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Does fasting treat peripheral neuropathy?

Maybe re-word the question. Fasting is not a treatment, at least not according to Shelton. He bashed 'treating systems'. Besides that, treating something does not imply treating it successfully. Can fasting help peripheral neuropathy? Damned if I know.

Even if there was a case where fasting worked on peripheral neuropathy, you would never be able to prove it. The fact that it works would not be proof that it works. At least not according to Bob Kolker.

I'm inclined to think that the fact that something works is proof that it works, or at least that it's a reasonable bet, maybe a bet with little to lose and much to gain. But that shows how irrational I am. Rational people believe that if something works, you should not try it and not even look into it, because it is crankery.

Setting Bob Kolker and all rational people aside, fasting is about unheroically doing nothing instead of what doctors usually like to do, heroically do something. Fasting is physiological rest and it allows the full power of healing. Ideally, this physiological rest is combined with physical rest and sensory rest and mental/emotional rest. Then the energy available for healing is at max.

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Does fasting treat peripheral neuropathy?

Maybe re-word the question. Fasting is not a treatment, at least not according to Shelton. He bashed 'treating systems'. Besides that, treating something does not imply treating it successfully. Can fasting help peripheral neuropathy? Damned if I know.

Even if there was a case where fasting worked on peripheral neuropathy, you would never be able to prove it. The fact that it works would not be proof that it works. At least not according to Bob Kolker.

I'm inclined to think that the fact that something works is proof that it works, or at least that it's a reasonable bet, maybe a bet with little to lose and much to gain. But that shows how irrational I am. Rational people believe that if something works, you should not try it and not even look into it, because it is crankery.

Setting Bob Kolker and all rational people aside, fasting is about unheroically doing nothing instead of what doctors usually like to do, heroically do something. Fasting is physiological rest and it allows the full power of healing. Ideally, this physiological rest is combined with physical rest and sensory rest and mental/emotional rest. Then the energy available for healing is at max.

Interesting, I'll have to give fasting a mention to my pain management doctor.

Did I mention my doctor is Bob Kolker? :)

But seriously, it seems I'm running out of options, so I'm willing to look at the alternatives to the treatments I've been trying.

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Setting Bob Kolker and all rational people aside, fasting is about unheroically doing nothing instead of what doctors usually like to do, heroically do something. Fasting is physiological rest and it allows the full power of healing. Ideally, this physiological rest is combined with physical rest and sensory rest and mental/emotional rest. Then the energy available for healing is at max.

Am I being unreasonable for preferring carefully controlled and measured double blind clinical studies? I am being unreasonable by preferring them to crack-pot claims founded on you tube videos and uncontrolled observations which do nothing to eliminate observer bias?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Setting Bob Kolker and all rational people aside, fasting is about unheroically doing nothing instead of what doctors usually like to do, heroically do something. Fasting is physiological rest and it allows the full power of healing. Ideally, this physiological rest is combined with physical rest and sensory rest and mental/emotional rest. Then the energy available for healing is at max.

Am I being unreasonable for preferring carefully controlled and measured double blind clinical studies? I am being unreasonable by preferring them to crack-pot claims founded on you tube videos and uncontrolled observations which do nothing to eliminate observer bias?

Ba'al Chatzaf

If you can find studies like that, that beat tumors and diabetes and so on, that's wonderful. But I suspect that even if you had studies like that in favor of fasting, you would not accept them as evidence because you are against fasting. Do you accept the study I pointed to at the top of this thread?

How would you do a double blind study on fasting? How would you put someone on a fast in a way that they don't know they are on a fast? Even single blind would be impossible, if the fast is properly supervised.

Observer bias. Perhaps she didn't really have a headache for 16 years nonstop but only imagined she did. Perhaps she imagined she recovered completely on day 41. In the other video, perhaps the medical test that showed a tumor was false, or the later medical test that showed no tumor was false. In the case of the Frenchman's nose, maybe the 18 surgeries he had on his nose were his imagination and he didn't really have 18 surgeries. And when the polyps went away on their own and he could breathe easily thru his nose, maybe that was just his imagination. And many more cases, all imagination.

We should reject all these cases because they have slim chance of being true, and fasting has slim chance of working. Paraphrasing William Riker of Star Trek, given a choice between slim chance (fasting) and no chance (what carefully controlled and measured double blind clinical studies offer), a rational person will take no chance any day.

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Setting Bob Kolker and all rational people aside, fasting is about unheroically doing nothing instead of what doctors usually like to do, heroically do something. Fasting is physiological rest and it allows the full power of healing. Ideally, this physiological rest is combined with physical rest and sensory rest and mental/emotional rest. Then the energy available for healing is at max.

Am I being unreasonable for preferring carefully controlled and measured double blind clinical studies? I am being unreasonable by preferring them to crack-pot claims founded on you tube videos and uncontrolled observations which do nothing to eliminate observer bias?

Ba'al Chatzaf

If you can find studies like that, that beat tumors and diabetes and so on, that's wonderful. But I suspect that even if you had studies like that in favor of fasting, you would not accept them as evidence because you are against fasting. Do you accept the study I pointed to at the top of this thread?

How would you do a double blind study on fasting? How would you put someone on a fast in a way that they don't know they are on a fast? Even single blind would be impossible, if the fast is properly supervised.

Observer bias. Perhaps she didn't really have a headache for 16 years nonstop but only imagined she did. Perhaps she imagined she recovered completely on day 41. In the other video, perhaps the medical test that showed a tumor was false, or the later medical test that showed no tumor was false. In the case of the Frenchman's nose, maybe the 18 surgeries he had on his nose were his imagination and he didn't really have 18 surgeries. And when the polyps went away on their own and he could breathe easily thru his nose, maybe that was just his imagination. And many more cases, all imagination.

We should reject all these cases because they have slim chance of being true, and fasting has slim chance of working. Paraphrasing William Riker of Star Trek, given a choice between slim chance (fasting) and no chance (what carefully controlled and measured double blind clinical studies offer), a rational person will take no chance any day.

Oh God! You are quoting a fictional character!!!!?????

Uncontrolled experiments that do not have a protocol for eliminating or minimizing observer bias often produce crap. I do not have time to waste on crack-pot nonsense, youtube videos of dubious provenance and just plain bullshit nonsense. In the field of science protocols have been developed over the centuries to minimize (but not eliminate bullshit).

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I'm strongly against alternative medicine, homeopathic remedies, and assorted quackery of that nature. Sorry - ginsing and acupuncture aren't going to cure your brain tumor. But it's important to recognize there is a world of difference between real medical science and what most doctors in this country are today practicing. Doctors do what they do for two primary reasons: they are being paid to do it, and they are afraid of being sued for not doing it. This tends to result in more checkups, testing, medicine, and surgeries than are optimal for the patient's health. In order words, much like the involvement of economic policymakers with our economy, once the doctor enters the complex process, there are very strong pressures to try to "do something" and CYA, even if it means the patient will be objectively worse off as a result. And the doctor will never, ever admit they were "wrong."

The last time I visited a doctor, I had a simple question: do I have strep throat? Apparently taking my blood pressure, weighing me, and asking all sorts of questions about my medical history were important to running the swab. The test came back negative, but the doctor wrote me a prescription for antibiotics "just in case the test is wrong." I objected that seemed unnecessary. "Well, here, I'll write you one in case." I threw it away in front of him and left the office.

My coworker's child has a enlarged optic nerve that was discovered on his last visit to an optometrist. He is completely asymptomatic and there is minimal risk of a serious condition. But over the past year, he has been referred to specialist, after specialist, after specialist, after specialist to study the "problem" - most of this conducted through the NIH. Many of the scans and tests runs have been uncomfortable or stressful to the point of making him vomit. The total expenditures resulting from this odyssey into the unknown - none of which were borne by the patient or the doctor, of course - must be well over $500,000 by this point.

It's an open secret that mammograms serve no benefit for the vast majority of women who receive them, and are likely doing harm in the aggregate through unnecessary tests and surgical procedures. Medical science has no concept of the individual - it's all about the "average patient," which doesn't actually exist in any meaningful sense. Doctor's don't consider what is best for *you,* nor do they even consider what is best for *the patient.* The consider what is best for the profession and how not to end up in court.

The truth is that unless you have an extremely serious medical condition that could result in permanent injury or death, you are virtually always better off staying away from the supergerms and concentrated illnesses of doctor's offices and hospitals. Nevertheless, call up your doctor and tell him you have a headache/upset stomach/sore foot, or some other generic ailment from modern life. I guarantee they won't hang up before scheduling an appointment, and I guarantee you won't leave without some form of medication.

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FROA #239: Never be afraid to mislabel a product.

I went to a store that was advertised as having only organic foods. Hardly anything in the store was organic (free from crap). The word 'organic' is misused. It is a ploy to get people to buy it and to charge higher prices. It is crookeder than a dog's hind leg. When I see the word 'organic' a red alert goes off in my head.

The word 'organic' doesn't even have any clearly defined meaning. Almost anything can be called 'organic'. Even things from Monsanto are called 'organic'.

Anyway, organic has nothing to do with Goldhamer's scientific study of fasting and blood pressure.

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The PBS science show Nova recently had a show about the medical benefits of fasting "Eat, Fast & Live Longer"at, Fast and Live Longer with Michael Mosley

I saw it and was impressed. Unfortunately it was only available for a month of free streaming.

http://www.pbs.org/program/michael-mosley/

http://video.pbs.org/video/2363162206/

The author and star of the show now has a book out covering fasting and related topics.

about the shows and the author

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/apr/11/guts-michael-mosley/

book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476734941/

The fasting show covered every other day fasting (eat anything you want on non-fast days), multi-day fasting, and one day a week fasting. I have done the one day a week water fasting and the show pretty much agreed with everything I knew from research and personal experience about the subject. I have not looked at the book, but I assume it covers most of what is in the shows. In the show, the author actually tries and comments on most of the fasting techniques one-by-one on camera.

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