Hello, and welcome to Savvy Natural Healer!
My name is Robert Rister, and I'm the author or co-author of nine books about the rational use of scientifically based natural remedies, including Healing without Medication, 753 pages of documented complementary healing techniques that covers many complex topics in far greater depth than I can provide here. Now that I have a regular readership of this blog, I realize I should have called it Savvy Natural Healers, because every page distills not just my experience but the experience of many other healers from all over the world.
I'm generally considered a "conservative" commentator on natural health. That means I take care to give you the facts, and to tell you what level of proof is behind them.
Although my books are often shelved under the heading "alternative medicine," the fact is, there is no alternative to medicine. Sometimes you absolutely have to have the help of a doctor to get well (and, as you'll read on almost any site of this type, you can't use the information here to make a medical diagnosis or as a substitute for doctor-directed care' always see a physician for emergency treatment).
I consider what I'm providing you here to be "complementary healing." That is all the techniques you can use to take charge of your health while your doctor is taking care of your illness. I try to give you some information your doctor won't have time to give you, and also to give you some considerations for lowering the risk of occurence or recurrence of disease.
Thank you for visiting my site. Please come back often, and please share your questions, comments, and insights in the comments sections for each page.
My name is Robert Rister, and I'm the author or co-author of nine books about the rational use of scientifically based natural remedies, including Healing without Medication, 753 pages of documented complementary healing techniques that covers many complex topics in far greater depth than I can provide here. Now that I have a regular readership of this blog, I realize I should have called it Savvy Natural Healers, because every page distills not just my experience but the experience of many other healers from all over the world.
I'm generally considered a "conservative" commentator on natural health. That means I take care to give you the facts, and to tell you what level of proof is behind them.
Although my books are often shelved under the heading "alternative medicine," the fact is, there is no alternative to medicine. Sometimes you absolutely have to have the help of a doctor to get well (and, as you'll read on almost any site of this type, you can't use the information here to make a medical diagnosis or as a substitute for doctor-directed care' always see a physician for emergency treatment).
I consider what I'm providing you here to be "complementary healing." That is all the techniques you can use to take charge of your health while your doctor is taking care of your illness. I try to give you some information your doctor won't have time to give you, and also to give you some considerations for lowering the risk of occurence or recurrence of disease.
Thank you for visiting my site. Please come back often, and please share your questions, comments, and insights in the comments sections for each page.
37 comments:
What can be done to help someone whith a congestive heart failure cough, using homepathy
First of all, congestive heart failure, especially with shortness of breath/cough, is something that should be treated by a physician, and you absolutely, positively should not change your medication routine because of anything you see on the internet, either here or anywhere else.
That being said, physicians with a homeopathic orientation would usually add Oscillococcinum to treatment for congestive heart failure with cough. A lot of homeopathic remedies originated as a way to treat "central delusions," that is, health symptoms that appear in the context of recurring themes of emotional life. This remedy isn't one of them. It was designed just to relieve cough.
It absolutely is not enough treatment for congestive heart failure by itself, and the reason you shouldn't use it without talking with your physician is this: Get your doctor to give you everything he or she can. But beyond that, there's some evidence (and it's in the peer-reviewed medical literature, which is to say, at least one editorial board thought it was scientific) that Oscillococcinum can relieve cough.
Hi, I am disabled due to having lupus (SLE) and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. The lupus causes chronic pain and chronic fatigue. I don't have organ involvement at this time. I am 30+ pounds overweight. I am most likely a pre-diabetic. I've been looking for a moderate, holistic approach to guide me with an opinion to assist me in my health betterment. Perhaps you can help me with some suggestions? Thanks.
Here's a place to start, with an emphasis on start: Omega-3 fatty acids. See if a small dose, just one capsule a day of fish oil, or, if you are vegan, one of the algae products, helps. Omega-3 fatty acids are inexpensive, easy to obtain, usually helpful, and unlikely to interfere with anything your doctor has prescribed or you are doing otherwise.
And, it just happens I was (1) giving some thought to presenting a new article on lupus and (2) I am meeting with a woman who has both lupus and PCOS in the next 10 days or so to get her inputs on what works. (Your timing is phenomenal.) Please check back here in the next 10 days or so, and please feel free to comment any time. There's no magic supplement for you, but this may help.
Are you familiar with nutrition writer Sally Fallon and her book, "Nourishing Traditions?" It turns much of what I understand about nutrition on its head (she says it's not good to eat too much plant-based fats; that there are carcinogens in extruded cereals; that canola oil is bad for us; that rancid oils are carcinogenic -- ie if you use oil at too high a temperature and it denatures.) I would love help assessing the validity of some of these claims. Thank you!
I haven't read the book.
I will agree that I'm not keen on most plant-derived fats, at least in the form we actually get them. Anytime you have to send a plant oil through a distillation tower, heating it to about 450 degrees F with a nickel catalyst, just so it will sit in nice little block on your kitchen table at room temperature, I think there's a problem. I don't have as big a problem with cold-pressed oils, in moderation. By moderation I mean at most a few tablespoons a day.
As for canola oil, it is not poisonous in and of itself, but add it to an environment where you have Helicobacter pylori (many people in North America and almost everybody in parts of Latin America) or some strains of fungi, and you get carcinogens. Just because your body absorbs a carcinogen does not mean you will automatically get cancer, but I avoid them, too.
And I take the bold view that fried food isn't necessarily bad. Fried food that's been fried in oil used over and over again is the problem (you might get away get with 2 or 3 uses, but restaurants might use oil 20 or 30). As for rancidity, that applies not just to cooking oils but any product that contains cholesterol (dried eggs, dried milk) that is stored for long periods at the wrong temperature.
Thank you for your questions. This is just my off the cuff response before my morning coffee. Please feel free to make me think a little harder.
Do you have any information on recurring shingles?
Thanks so much for your prompt response -- and all that before morning coffee, too! (Fallon shies away from coffee, and CHOCOLATE, if you can believe...).
May I follow up on the rancidity discussion? If I cook something in canola oil (turns out mine is unrefined -- oops), and it overheats and goes rancid, does that mean that I'm creating carcinogens in my home kitchen? And I'm feeding this to my kids, of course. What do you recommend for high-heat cooking? I've heard avocado oil, refined canola, and grapeseed. Fallon likes coconut oil, but it doesn't seem to go that high, and it has a pronounced coconut flavor. Yummy on popcorn, though...
May I check some other Fallon claims as well? She has you soak nuts to get rid of some kind of enzyme inhibitor. And doesn't like coffee, which she says can lead to "adrenal exhaustion." I've seen some reference to adrenal exhaustion as a '50s notion that's been discredited.
She also advocates eating fermented foods (serving the same role as the pickle in the cheeseburger, I guess) and soured milk products. Also for digestion? Absorption? I haven't kept it straight.
And in fact, she's a big fan of butter and meat and liver. And raw milk, though my pediatrician nixed that notion pretty quickly. Almost nothing processed, not even whole wheat pasta and breakfast cereals.
Is this more food for thought? Here's a link to her website:
http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm
A lot of the info in her book is listed here, in case you're interested. I'd love to hear as many thoughts as you have - before of after coffee.
Thanks!
Sara
The Weston Price website? One of their board of directors once took me out for an overdone steak and fries. And it was delicious.
If you aren't using the same cooking oil over and over again, I don't think you are accumulating any significant concentrations of carcinogens. Free radicals released by heating the oil to smoking are not necessarily carcinogenic, especially if you counterbalance them with some food source of antioxidants, like a cherry sauce or even that pickle we talk about so much. The main concern of carcinogens from canola is the carcinogens created when it is used as biodiesel.
I agree with you, coconut oil is little too coconut-y for most frying. But at risk of suggesting sacrilege, I recommend plain old lard. They really do still sell it, although I haven't seen it in the states without being labeled manteca (Spanish) in years. If you are going to use a fat, use one that is heat-stable. Lard is. And, frankly, it tastes better. If you are vegetarian, then do grapeseed or avocado.
Soaking nuts to rid them of an enzyme inhibitor? Yes, I've heard of this. One natural health commentator quotes another and another, and nobody knows where this idea started.
Actually, what's being soaked away isn't an enzyme inhibitor. It's an enzyme trigger. Any time you remove a bitter principle from a food, you make that food less likely to trigger a reflex along your vagus nerve that speeds up the release of stomach acid and the passage of food through your stomach. If you have heartburn, that's a good thing. If you have slow digestion, it's not.
There is an "antizyme," ornithine decarboxylase, in some nuts, and soaking can leach it out. This antizyme can affect the action of anti-inflammatories in the digestive tract, but all the other foods you eat do, too. If you want to cancel out the antizyme, just eat a piece of fruit. But I wouldn't worry about it.
Having grown up on a farm and having milked cows, let me just say I only drink pasteurized milk. You look at enough cow udders up close, you pasteurize. And as for processing grains, that's not always a bad thing. Corn, in particular, releases more lysine, copper, and zinc if it's ground. The wheat plant developed some defenses that keep animals from eating it. Namely, it contains some opioids that lock on the same receptors that are occupied by cocaine. Drive the animal that eats you a little bonkers and maybe they won't eat all your children (seed). Ordinary white flour contains less of the opioids than whole wheat flour or wheat berries.
My point of view is that there is usually some value in nutritional dogma, but there are choices you can make that are more important than almost all the "rules." Just think before you eat.
I'll give the website a look and post again in a day or two. Please feel free to help me sharpen my thinking.
Steak, huh? That sounds like them. Though overdone steak wouldn't be part of the regimen...
OK, so I'm feeling like I understand the oil stuff, and I won't panic if I overheat my oil. Nor will I bother soaking nuts.
What about eating lots of fat? The Weston Price folks think that animal fat is great for you and somehow interpret many heart studies as showing that people who eat higher levels of fat and cholesterol do better than those who eat very low levels of fat. or fat derived from vegetable sources.
Also, Fallon says that microwaving food transforms it into a carcinogenic version of itself. Haven't heard that before. you?
And what about the emphasis on fermented products and soured milk? I forget the rationale... do you think that's important? perhaps for digestive enzymes?
I also have a different but possibly related question -- is there any scientific basis to the notion that an acidic body causes all sorts of illness? I heard from a conspiracy-theory-prone friend that lemon is a cure for cancer -- that it causes the body to become alkaline, which somehow is good. (This in itself confuses me, because lemons are acidic...) This claim appears many places (not about lemon and cancer per se, but about alkaline bodies being good), but it seems like one of those echo-chamber comments, repeated endlessly, without attribution. I've seen someone note that the body maintains a remarkably stable pH. But in one of your columns, you refer to slightly acidic blood caused by something. Is there anything to any of this?
My feeling is that even if you take the dimmest view of humankind and believe that the pharmaceutical industry is withholding life-saving treatments from people, that if lemon were really a cure for cancer, that someone would have figured that out by now. if for no other reason than to with the Nobel Prize for medicine.
Your thoughts/comments?
Thanks again!
Sara
Eating a lot of anything for your health, or, more precisely, your health's depending on a single "superfood" or "super nutrient" is just as wrongheaded as the idea everybody has to take Lipitor.
The wonder of the human body is that it can work with a tremendous variety of inputs. Where we go wrong is making ourselves either dependent on one kind of food or scared of it. Our bodies can usually sort it all out. After all, there are people who live on whale blubber, and there are strict vegans, and both manage to live out healthy lives.
Is there anything to acid-base balance? Yes and no. Concerning your lemon question, what makes something acidic is how many hydrogen ions it can donate to surrounding molecules. When the acid in lemon juice is all donated out, what you've got left is the citrates and carbonates and so on that are basic. Those find their way into the bloodstream, and if you get enough of them floating around, they neutralize the acidity in your system.
I think that the importance of the concept is greatly overstated, but it's still real. Someone who has nothing to sell you (other than books and DVDs) is John Berardi, who did a really good explanation a few years back. Here's a link (which won't show up here, but you can cut and paste):
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/bases.htm
Does the pharmaceutical industry withhold discoveries?
You betcha. For both good and bad reasons.
There is a line of research, for instance, that has already been able to turn skin cells into stem cells and those stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells that cure, not just treat, cure diabetes.
Guess who funds that line of research? One of the major insulin makers, of course. And they have to deal not with finding a course of action that makes them profit but also the ramifications of dealing with the governments (in most of the world) and insurance companies (in the US) that pay for it. It's not just the drug companies themselves. And it's pretty complicated. In a way, it's amazing we ever get anything that works.
Of course, money talks. The thing is, that's also true in alternative medicine. There is a doctor in Arizona, for instance, who really does cure diabetes with diet. But my point of view is that if you have three weeks to take away from work and you can spend $10,000 to stay in a room in an inn in the desert with a share bathroom, you probably can take care of yourself in a lot of other ways. I'm most impressed with diets that work and don't cost a lot of money.
I believe in moderation in all things nutritional, including moderation. You are stronger than the nutrition-minded would lead you to believe.
About the recurring shingles question, sorry, your question just showed up in my inbox.
If shingles are recurring, my first thought would be, are they really shingles? That's something a doctor has to determine, but I would think it might be a recurring infection, if there's a skin breakout, or nerve damage, if there's not.
And having had shingles myself, anyone who keeps getting them certainly has my sincerest sympathy.
Again, I'm sorry to take so long to respond, and please feel free to comment again if there's a way to be more helpful.
Thanks again for the insights. It would appear that I have to open my mind. It all seems to keep coming down to eating tons of fruits and veggies every day. I like the moderation mantra. Even too much of a good thing can be a problem.
One other question -- I am very deficient in vitamin D. (I live in Seattle, but that's only been for 2 years.) I'm taking vit D supplements, lately with meals, realizing that D is fat soluble. I take 2000 iu per day, but I think I should take 4000, given how low my levels are.
Any suggestions for increasing my stores? Besides go to Hawaii? Is there vit D in butter? And is there a link between vit D deficiency and MS? I've heard that lately...
Thanks again. I love having a personal nutrition and health guru!!
Sara
I was in Seattle summer before last and I found myself looking for suntan lotion. That is, until I decided to climb Mt. Rainier. Then it snowed. And it got so foggy we could only see about 25 feet at times.
4000 IU really ought to do the trick unless there is some other issue, and you don't need to look for that issue if a blood test comes back and tells you that you have enough vitamin D.
And in a city with as many Scandinavian roots as Seattle, surely you can find some natural, high-potency source of vitamin D like cod liver oil. Way better than butter. There are actually flavored cod liver oils that don't taste horrendously fishy. I prefer cherry.
A couple years ago I worked through the winter in Copenhagen. One of the dietary interventions that works for them, other than putting butter in everything (you don't gain weight if they don't turn the heat on until January), is pickled herring. I actually got to like the stuff, although a dinner party with eight different kinds of pickled herring, fried herring, and rice pudding with cherry sauce (but no herring) did strike me as a bit herring-heavy. When I went to Sweden, I went herring fishing. The little critters sun themselves right next to the shore. Easy to catch.
Harder to pickle.
But I digress.
Vitamin D deficiency and MS? Well, it won't be enough to give you MS. And if your immune system got a lot of challenges as a child, vitmain D deficiency should not, at least that's my hunch, increase your risk of MS as an adult.
The scientist working on this issue is named Dr. M. T. Cantorna, by the way. If you want to get an update straight from the source in a few months, google Cantorna.
One of the nice things about vitamin D supplements is, they are incredibly cheap. There should be no financial problem keeping you from getting you all you need.
Hi again - It's Sara from Seattle. Would you please enlighten me on the benefits of coconut oil? I have a virgin, unrefined, expeller-pressed, solid coconut oil. It's saturated, but somehow good? I just used it to fry cornmeal-encrusted shrimp, and it seemed to take the heat (until I had too few shrimp in the pan, at which point my fire alarm went off....).
Can it possibly help people lose weight? Anyway, that's one claim i've seen.
Thanks for your insights!
Sara
Hi, can you do a bit on stomach cancer or gallbladder cancer? I would be very interested in reading that. Thanks.
Hello!
The first thing I would tell you is that any kind of natural treatment for liver cancer or liver disease, especially silymarin, not only won't help gallbladder cancer, it will aggravate symptoms. There was a study at Scott & White Hospital in Texas, near where I live, that tried using silymarin for cancer of the bile duct/gallbladder with predictably negative results.
From the standpoint of a natural approach, the best things you can do to support medical treatment of cancer of the stomach or gallbladder are on the lines of the Sodi-Pallares diet and some dietary modifications I describe on another blog, www.anticancercombinations.com.
I can't give you medical advice or a medical diagnosis, but I will be happy to answer any specific questions.
Robert
Thank you for your comments sir! I will check out your other blog.
Dear Dr. Rister,
Have you read the story of a woman who went into remission 13 months after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer? Apparently she used Dr. Sodi-Pallares' diet, as advised in your blog.
Two links to her story can be found below:
http://ourcancercenter.uwhealth.org/stories/entry/alyssa-brewer/
http://www.nbc15.com/blogs/carleenwild/35161414.html
Her husband details what they did on the second link.
Thanks for sharing this. I personally know of one other person who has gone into remission from "terminal" pancreatic cancer on her own modification of Dr. Sodi's diet in the last two years.
This isn't exactly Dr. Sodi's diet--but you can't argue with success!
I know one other person who has gone into remission from "terminal" pancreatic cancer recently. She was diagnosed in 2007. If there is any one food that pulled my friend through, it was tomatoes. She absolutely loves them. Great source of potassium. That and she did a lot of bodywork and meditation.
Again, thanks for sharing the links, and I'd recommend anyone should consider their approach as an addition to medical treatment.
You're welcome. Any time a PC patient goes into remission is very exciting for me as well.
Why do you think the Sodi-Pallares isn't more popular among alternative practitioners?
I personally do not have cancer, although I've taken interest in cancer and nutrition because my grandmother was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. I saw that you suggested the Sodi-Pallares diet to a person above who asked about stomach and gallbladder cancer - would you suggest the same for a patient with colon cancer?
First of all, my sincere sympathies to your grandmother and all her family. This is a hard thing to deal with.
Dr. Sodi lived in a different era. He died in 2003 at the age of 90. It's probably worth mentioning that Dr. Sodi's downfall was that he diagnosed himself. He had the ability to shake hands with someone and tell you about the state of their heart. He was that good. But when he himself developed shortness of breath, he convinced himself he had atherosclerosis and all he needed to do was to follow his own diet. It turned out he had pulmonary fibrosis. Even at that, he was still going strong until age 89.
Sodi's methods for treating heart attack finally got the nod from the American Heart Association in 1998, although his first papers about them were published in 1946. If he just had lived to be 150, maybe he could have promoted the cancer treatment, too. I started trying to get the word out in 2000, although matters were complicated by the fact that Mrs. Sodi was dying and he was a lot sicker than anyone knew.
This diet for colon cancer? That's a tricky one. I can't give advice for a specific person, but I know that anyone who has had surgery for colon cancer is going to super-sensitive to (and probably told not to eat) much in the way of fiber. Even juicing is going to be problematic, and I would be wary of anything raw. The last thing anyone with colon cancer needs is a food-borne infection.
I will ask a doctor in Argentina who uses her own variations on this method to treat colon cancer and see if there is something to pass on. I think you'll be automatically notified when I post what she has to say.
Howdy...from Texas! My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer with metastasis to the liver and colon on 27 Nov 09. She was given 3-6 months. The Dr. said chemo would only extend her life by a couple of weeks, so she chose not to do chemo.
She has had an extremely difficult time eating...nothing taste good and she constantly vomits.
This is all new to me. In your opinion, what sort of diet regimen might be helpful?
I am sorry to hear about your mother. What I will tell you about what I have learned about cancer, the hard way, is that sometimes just a bite or two is all people can get down. It doesn't do any good to worry about what they aren't eating, but there are some ways you can fix up what they do.
(1) Sometimes people who have had various cancer treatments can't taste one kind of food but they can taste another. Combining fat (in small amounts), acidity (again, in small amounts), sweetness, and savory in the same food sometimes helps it stay down. For "savory" go with meat or soy but stay away from MSG. If a sprinkle of salt makes the difference between eating something and eating nothing, I'd say go with the sprinkle of salt. Even Dr. Sodi told his patients they needed about the equivalent of a thimble full of salt a day. Bay leaf and kefir lime leaf, used in appropriate dishes, sometimes help with the hold-down factor. Take the leaves out before serving.
(2) If you eat a specific food while you have nausea from chemo, eating that same food when you aren't on chemo still makes you nauseous (generally). It's a deeply ingrained memory.
My own mother died of breast cancer back in the 1990's, although she managed to outlive the "six months" she had been given in 1984 by 11 years. One thing I learned to my considerable dismay was that favorite foods are not a good idea when there's a lot of nausea and vomiting. Not only could she not keep them down, the memory of the nausea made the food unappealing later.
(3) If you can't make food taste good, at least make it look good. The more pleasant associations you can tie to food, the better. And if your mother can stand having someone around her even if she prone to throw up, it is much, much better that she take her meals with company than alone, if she is not embarrassed.
(4) Sometimes adding a little ginger to a dish helps with the nausea.
(5) And, finally, as I write in much greater depth at www.anticancercombinations.com, cancer doesn't feed on sugar (exactly). If a little sugar helps cover a metallic taste in the mouth, go for it!
I hope this helps. If you have any other specific questions, please ask. I know it's a tough row to hoe.
Robert
I can't help but notice the Sodi-Pallares diet is very, very similar to the Gerson therapy. Did the two doctors ever collaborate? Also, what about the NCI's findings that the Gerson therapy didn't produce "conclusive" results? Does that mean anything for the Sodi-Pallares diet?
I believe Gerson and Sodi met at some point, probably back in the 1940's, but Sodi developed his approach to diet when he was treating his own mother back in 1944.
There is a major difference between Sodi and Gerson, namely, Sodi didn't have a problem with meat or fat and he wasn't all that into juicing. Sodi's diet has been tested once in the US, in a hospital in Massachusetts, with "preliminary" indications that it works for cancer. The issue always is, do you deprive your volunteer of some other possibility to test whether your treatment works. That's the problem with all of cancer research, whether it's medications, diets, Gerson, or Sodi.
It took over 50 years for the American Heart Association to endorse Sodi's glucose-insulin-potassium treatment for cardiovascular trauma, not just heart attacks but also vascular injuries during accidents. I can tell you personally that it can save a life. Or I could, but that wasn't your question.
For colon and pancreatic cancer, the Gerson approach has one complication that has nothing to with cancer. The kitchen has to be spotlessly clean. The last thing you want to do is to give someone with colon or pancreatic cancer E. coli or Salmonella. Sodi worked the last 25 years of his life in Mexico City. Although you actually could drink the tap water in his neighborhood, he knew that most of his patients did not have that luxury and so his diet emphasized cooked foods.
One thing I would tell you beyond anything about diet or medication is that human will is an amazing thing, and that loving attention is probably more important than medicine. Not that I would necessarily tell my doctor that.
Thank you for your comment, and I am happy to continue the discussion.
Thank you for your response. Please know that my question was asked out of curiosity, and was in no way an attack on anything you have published or Sodi has produced.
Oh, I didn't take it that way. I am just saying that there is almost always another way, and people can improve on what experts tell them. If that weren't true, I wouldn't have anything to write about.
Best,
Robert
Dr. Rister -
Have you heard of the Kanzius Machine? It's a cutting edge way to treat, and very likely even cure, cancer that is being funded in part by the US Congress, being tested at centers like MD Anderson and advocated by Nobel Prize Winner Richard Smalley. They're still about 3 years away from testing it on humans, but the way it works is gold nanoparticles are injected into cancer cells, which are then heated to oblivion by radiowaves, thus destroying the cancer cell.
Here's a link:
http://kanziuscancerresearch.com/index.php
What is your opinion on this? Early trials have evidently revealed very promising results.
Yes. One of my publishers knew him personally, and another of my publishers followed his work with intense interest.
There is one thing to be kept in mind about this kind of treatment. It's a great idea for solid tumors. Lymphoma and leukemia, not so much. Apparently the machine isn't really good for whole-body radiation. It is ironic that Kanzius (who had lymphoma) could not be saved by his own machine, but it is still a wonderful legacy to humankind.
I will be publishing some articles on the machine later this year, and I'll link them from here.
hi and thanks for all your helpful posts.
last night i was suggesting that if cholesterol only comes into play when high blood pressure nicks your artery and the cholesterol flows in to plug the hole, it was my own reasoning that normal blood pressure would make cholesterol numbers fairly irrelevant. i had never seen or heard anything resembling that notion until this afternoon when i read about the israeli study quoted below. i'm very interested in this idea.
do you have a citation for the following info you provided in the march 19, 2008 blog, "do diabetics really need lipitor?":
"In five years of follow-up of 2,482 diabetics aged 45 to 74, Israeli researchers found that 5 per cent of the diabetics died. Cholesterol, however, was not the predictor of death. Blood pressure was. Israeli doctors found that getting blood pressure under control while diabetes could still be treated with diet was ideal. About 5 per cent of diabetics who had high blood pressure died over the five-year period. About 4 per cent of diabetics who managed to control their blood pressure suffered the same fate."
thanks
hi and thanks for all your helpful posts.
last night i was suggesting that if cholesterol only comes into play when high blood pressure nicks your artery and the cholesterol flows in to plug the hole, it was my own reasoning that normal blood pressure would make cholesterol numbers fairly irrelevant. i had never seen or heard anything resembling that notion until this afternoon when i read about the israeli study quoted below. i'm very interested in this idea.
do you have a citation for the following info you provided in the march 19, 2008 blog, "do diabetics really need lipitor?":
"In five years of follow-up of 2,482 diabetics aged 45 to 74, Israeli researchers found that 5 per cent of the diabetics died. Cholesterol, however, was not the predictor of death. Blood pressure was. Israeli doctors found that getting blood pressure under control while diabetes could still be treated with diet was ideal. About 5 per cent of diabetics who had high blood pressure died over the five-year period. About 4 per cent of diabetics who managed to control their blood pressure suffered the same fate."
thanks
For what it's worth, I think you are right. Inflammation, however, probably trumps both cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.
Here's the citation. There is another blogger, Jenny Ruhl (www.diabetesupdate.blogspot.com) who probably can get into this in a whole lot more depth than I can (or most doctors can), but I am always happy to enter the conversation. Thanks for your comment.
The American Journal of Cardiology, Volume 84, Issue 3, Pages 294-298
A.Tenenbaum
Hello sir, is there anyway you could link me to the study that confirmed this?
"Sodi's diet has been tested once in the US, in a hospital in Massachusetts, with "preliminary" indications that it works for cancer."
I am interested in it. Thank you.
My files are in storage, and we are having the first snow in central Texas since 1996, so I can't pull the study right now. I'll be glad to take a look through the files in the near future (in the next two weeks) and let you know the citation. There was also a study of "intensive" insulin therapy as an adjunct therapy for stomach cancer by a team led by a Dr. Hatooka Shunzo in Japan, but what they call "intensive" is what most endocrinologists would call "loose" control of blood sugars.
A Dr. U. N. Das has articulated a theory of glucose-insulin-potassium as an anti-inflammatory in cancer.
Sorry I can't give you a better answer right now, but I'll give this another look when I can get to my files.
No problem! I can wait 2 weeks. I'll keep checking back eagerly! Thanks.
A good place to ask questions about new developments is the website for Dr. Sodi's partner in practice, www.sodipallares.com.mx. It's in Spanish, but if you don't read Spanish, Babel Fish or Google Translation isn't entirely awful.
I have heard from Dr. Sodi's nephew recently but I don't have the details on the clinical trial (at some hospital in western Massachusetts) yet.
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