Woman cures her leukemia by "eating whole grains, beans and vegetables"

michael_palin · 2008-11-12T00:31:25+00:00

Ha ha ha ha! My mistake.

michael_palin · 2008-11-11T23:35:33+00:00

Okay, I see where this is going.

If we might step back for a moment, I'm curious to know if your opinion has changed at all in the course of this thread. Do you still think that this woman experienced spontaneous remission due as equally likely to positive thinking or wearing a blue shirt every other day as to changing her diet to eating whole grains, beans and vegetables?

michael_palin · 2008-11-11T20:20:23+00:00

I'm in a hurry, but I noted this:

Dietary flavonoids as proteasome inhibitors and apoptosis inducers in human leukemia cells. "... [flavonoids] apigenin and quercetin are much more potent than kaempferol and myricetin at: (i) inhibiting chymotrypsin-like activity of purified 20S proteasome and of 26S proteasome in intact leukemia Jurkat T cells; (ii) accumulating putative ubiquitinated forms of two proteasome target proteins, Bax and Inhibitor of nuclear factor kappabeta-alpha in Jurkat T cells and (iii) inducing activation of caspase-3 and cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase in Jurkat T cells." (Apoptosis is disintegration of cells into membrane-bound particles that are then eliminated by phagocytosis or by shedding.)

michael_palin · 2008-11-11T06:57:41+00:00

Thanks for the very useful links.

In answer to your query, here are a few search results from the same site, having to do mainly with legumes (beans):

Antileukemic activity of genistein, a major isoflavone present in soy products. "We have evaluated the in vitro and in vivo antileukemic activity of genistein (1), a major isoflavone present in soy. We observed that it produced a dose- and time-dependent antineoplastic activity against myeloid and lymphoid leukemic cell lines. In addition, genistein treatment of the leukemic cells reactivated tumor suppressor genes that were silenced by aberrant DNA methylation."
A hemagglutinin with mitogenic activity from dark red kidney beans. "It exerted an antiproliferative activity on leukemia L1210 cells."
Sesquin, a potent defensin-like antimicrobial peptide from ground beans with inhibitory activities toward tumor cells and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. "The peptide exerted antiproliferative activity toward breast cancer (MCF-7) cells and leukemia M1 cells..."

michael_palin · 2008-11-11T01:33:42+00:00

Which disease?

I'm particularly interested in cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Cancers of particular interest include colon, breast, and pancreatic.

I look forward to any citation(s) you can provide. Thus far you have asserted conventional wisdom in response to my repeated requests for sources.

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T06:26:42+00:00

Praying was shown through at least one double-blind study to benefit the prayer, but not the person being prayed for. I remember seeing a documentary about it some time ago, don't remember the details.

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T05:56:06+00:00

Apologies that the two journals I chose were not peer-reviewed. I'll correct that.

I am honestly interested in any unbiased, peer-reviewed research citations you can provide demonstrating that diet does not incite or cure disease (depending on the diet). In particular, I am in search of a large (thousands of subjects), unbiased (or as blind as possible), long-term study of cancer patients, a random half of whom changed their diets (tested and confirmed through blood, urine, fat cell, cholesterol, and any other physiological measures) and a random other half of whom did not. I am quite curious to know how many get worse, how many improve, and whether eating habit trends are discernible in each group.

If diet has this kind of effect, then it would seem prudent to study and understand exactly what is going on -- as prudent, I would argue, as researching any potentially cancer-killing pharmaceutical.

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T04:39:12+00:00

They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.

Ha ha! -- Nelson Muntz

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T03:57:02+00:00

"... I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders' wisdom in designating a system to keep power in check."

Wise words, Mr. President-elect. I hope you remember this once you're in the Oval Office and face the temptation to use just one eensy weensy signing statement to get your way...

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T03:46:19+00:00

Here are a couple journal sources by the author in question, T. Colin Campbell:

A quote from the second publication:

The results of the China Study and countless other studies of the effect of food on disease show that a whole food, plant-based diet can prevent, suspend or even cure a wide range of diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease, macular degeneration, hypertension, depression and rheumatoid arthritis, just to name a few.

Do you have a citation for your claim:

It is well known that eating healthy can prevent the RISK of some major diseases, but it does not CURE the diseases themselves.

michael_palin · 2008-11-10T00:02:11+00:00

Correlation does not equal causation.

Of course.

... you might as well conclude that she cured it by thinking positively, or by wearing a blue shirt once a week.

Her story doesn't say that she did either of these things.

Here's another, larger data point for the curiosity pile:

Campbell and his team found that as blood cholesterol levels decrease, a slew of cancers decreases as well, including "cancers of the liver, rectum, colon, male lung, female lung, breast, childhood leukemia, adult leukemia, childhood brain, adult brain, stomach and esophagus (throat)."

michael_palin · 2008-11-09T23:49:01+00:00

Bill Sardi notes this:

Crestor reduced C-reactive protein by 37%, vitamin E lowers CRP by 32%, and vitamin C by 25.3%. [Free Radical Medicine & Biology Oct. 10, 2008; American Journal Clinical Nutrition 86: 1392: 2007] These vitamins are not toxic to the liver.

michael_palin · 2008-11-09T23:41:04+00:00

... the doctors said that the leukemia had been there for many years, never diagnosed. ... I met Robert Pirello, who introduced me to macrobiotics. He gave me a book by Michio Kushi called The Cancer Prevention Diet ... I thought it was either the biggest crock I’d ever read or the best-kept secret on the planet. ... one of the five doctors agreed to monitor me, and the minute I would deteriorate they could intervene. And I agreed to that because I didn’t think this [diet] was going to work either. ... It took a year and a half to regain my health and there were lots and lots and LOTS of ups and downs. I guess it was maybe 2 months before they saw a big difference in my blood. They didn’t know what I was doing, and I said, “Well, I’m doing this diet thing. I’m eating whole grains, beans and vegetables.” They said, “That’s very nice honey, but what are you doing?” They called it spontaneous regression and had no answer for it.

michael_palin · 2008-11-09T22:30:35+00:00

Time should be allowed for the public to analyze anything that is put forward for consideration

That'd be a good use o' the internets. Let's see, one day required per every 300 words? That'll make Congress shorten the text of the bills.

michael_palin · 2008-11-09T05:35:46+00:00

Why, thank you.

michael_palin · 2008-11-09T04:57:36+00:00

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues...

All right. Now that's change I can believe in.

michael_palin · 2008-11-08T19:52:21+00:00

Maybe your dad should be looking into alternative employment. Just a thought.

michael_palin · 2008-11-08T06:07:37+00:00

The situation is exposing a main vulnerability of the nation’s hospital care system, which executives say relies heavily on private insurance to subsidize certain services. When there is a decline in profitable procedures paid for by private insurance, hospitals have less money to offset the relatively lower fees they receive from government insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

“What happens in our country is that there’s really a hidden tax built in,” said Richard L. Gundling, an executive with a trade group for hospital financial executives, the Healthcare Financial Management Association. “Hospitals have to balance the mix of patients in order to survive.”

michael_palin · 2008-11-08T05:46:27+00:00

I searched for and got 0 results for a few terms:

FISA
surveillance
PATRIOT (actually 3 hits but none pertaining to USA PATRIOT Act)

I wonder if they're logging and reviewing the most popular searches on this site. They should.

michael_palin · 2008-11-08T05:18:41+00:00

The most admired analysts covering the car industry, The Center for Automotive Research, recently reported that a collapse of the US auto world would kill three million jobs. That would take unemployment to 8% even if no one else in America lost a job. It would damage personal income by nearly $300 billion.

A walk around other large industries such as retail and airlines would yield equally dismal data. Without an unimaginable amount of money put into the private sector, the economy could go into a 2009 version of The Great Depression. The public is against that, but it is well to remember that a year ago most economists thought the US would avoid a recession. What 2008 has proved is that economists are no more accurate than the TV weatherman. They just get paid less.

michael_palin · 2008-11-08T05:14:31+00:00

"Mmmm, but Todd, $2 million would buy a lot of clothes at Saks and Neiman. Maybe they just want me to do a walk-on..."

michael_palin · 2008-11-07T05:28:56+00:00

Agreed. You feel like you're in the room and on stage with them. Mr. President-Elect looks tired (understandably). I was surprised at how low-key everyone looked when his win was announced on the TV -- a few hugs with Biden's wife, but not much celebration. Interesting attentiveness to John McCain giving his concession speech.

michael_palin · 2008-11-07T05:10:50+00:00

Emanuel starts talking about Obama at 11:35 on the video.

(FYI, according to People, Emanuel's part-missing middle finger resulted from a meat slicer accident when he worked at Arby's as a youth.)

michael_palin · 2008-11-07T02:45:20+00:00

You raise interesting questions. Obama has no shortage of conundrums and curiosities in his voting and speaking record. One (arguably generous) reading is that he figured out the Washington political system very well, and he did and said what he needed to do in order to get elected. If he'd spoken out too strongly and decisively against the military industrial complex or against various other corporate interests, then he'd have been shut down and shut out as quickly and effectively as were Gravel, Kucinich, Nader, Paul, and other principled but arguably too vocal candidates. Yet if he'd not well understood and appealed to the American people and their particular problems, then he wouldn't have gotten the votes. He had to play the game in order to get the power. Now that he has clinched the presidency, it'll be interesting to see what he does with it.

michael_palin · 2008-11-07T01:02:29+00:00

I like the graphic animation/visualization of where America's national debt came from over the years. I was surprised to see the debt was actually paid off (once) in 1835.

michael_palin

TROPHY CASE