Why real food works (and medicine doesn't) to create health

My previous post featured a Ted Talk by a gentleman who recovered his health fully after years of the compounded ill effects of serious injury and medications. Briefly, he broke his back which led to surgery and being put on a lengthy list of meds that grew over time as he became progressively more ill and depressed.

Eventually an insight came to him that he should at least die with dignity and grace for the sake of his young son by getting off all the medications, and the stupor they had kept him in for years. He felt he was ready to die, and this was the most constructive father's legacy he could give his son. He did not anticipate the chain of insights and events this one change engendered in him. And he didn't die, far from it in fact, he found his way back to fully robust health, an athletic level of health.

His insight led him to discover the cause of health.

The cause of health is a concept we generally are not all that familiar with in the modern industrialized world. It shifts focus from cause of disease to cause of health, and in so doing replaces confusion as to why we are not well with clarity as to how to become healthy, and stay healthy.

In my blog I've focused mostly on a whole food plant based diet as a cause of health, in this post I would like to begin to look at how "medications" are generally counterproductive to health.

In the Ted Talk referenced above the father refers to "radical fasting" as one of the many things he did on his road to recovery. I would like to take gentle issue with the idea fasting is radical, it is in fact a normal physiologic response to serious injury and disease. In the natural pre-industrial setting we are evolved from, serious injury or disease essentially immobilized us for the first stage of recovery. When sick enough we don't feel like eating, if force fed our body simply regurgitates. The body takes control, and we are driven completely by autonomic systems, which some call the body's innate intelligence.

And whether we appreciate it or not, our body's vast and hugely complex web of autonomic functions, our body's innate intelligence, is focused solely on making us perfectly healthy under every possible circumstance we find ourselves in. We can be in quite toxic conditions and not even be aware of it, but our autonomic systems are crystal clear on what has to be done, and operate at maximum capacity to rid our body of toxins 24/7/365, birth to death. Unfortunately, in a post-industrial world, autonomic function capacity can't always keep up with the toxic onslaught.

That is why so many "modern" humans are sick with chronic conditions. We have to figure out how to "help" our subconscious autonomic function do it's job keeping us healthy. It's not that difficult really, the principles of the cause of health are simple and logical, it begins with "stop putting in toxins". It begins with diet.

Everyone thinks they are on a healthy diet. Ask anyone, see what they say. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007-2008), approximately 68 percent of American adults are now overweight or obese. And it's not because we are inactive, we are inactive because we are overweight. Get healthy, see what happens. Your body will "want" to move more.

There's an important reason for the "immobilization" of fasting, it refocuses all energy on the body's innate capacity to heal, and the body either heals and becomes mobile again, or if injury or disease are too great to overcome, the body dies.

There are some things modern medicine is good at, serious injury being a prime example, and we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. As we really begin to understand the cause of health we can trust ourselves to make intelligent choices in how and when we avail ourselves of modern medicine's beneficial aspects. And equally important we also become much more aware of it's counterproductive aspects.

So in the natural world we only do a prolonged fast when circumstances "force" it on us. It's good to keep that in mind because prolonged fasting is a rigorous and potentially dangerous process not to be taken lightly. In the opinion of every fasting expert I'm aware of, we should only do prolonged fasting under the care of expert supervision. We can however do safe forms of intermittent fasting if we choose, which can be very beneficial.

Let's return to "medications are generally counter productive to health", a potentially complex topic, so I'm going to simplify by looking at general principles and concepts. We all have become familiar with the power of placebo. It's a wonderous psychophysical aspect of the immune system, but it has limits. We can believe for example we are immune to biomechanical impact, but a bullet can still kill us. Briefly then, placebo has it's origin in psychology (belief), but exogenous mechanical forces ultimately trump placebo. If one is given a fatal dose of poison, but is told and believes it's vitamin C, chances are quite good one will die anyway.

And this is the key thing to understand about placebo, it's a real effect, but limited by contrary mechanical forces. However, the key point, it puts "wind in the sails" when coupled to positive mechanicals. We want to use the power of placebo by believing in the principles that together comprise the cause of health. So...placebo is really effective when coupled with positive mechanicals, like real food, positive social connections, good quality sleep, clean air and water, sunlight, rigorous physical activity, etc.

So how do we know "meds" are not all they're cracked up to be? Not only do they not overcome the contrary mechanicals of crap diet and lifestyle, on average they actually compound them into a downward spiral of degrading health. If it weren't so, we would all be at robust (athletic) levels of health taking all our prescribed meds, even into our 80's and beyond. Meds as a cause of health is a science fiction if there ever was one.

Again, there are exceptions, primarily antibiotics when we really need them (which isn't all that often), they counteract bacteria, turning a potentially dangerous situation into a temporary situation. Just as surgery turns many life threatening conditions into temporary conditions.

Generally speaking pharmacological medications mask systemic conditions and make chronic conditions gradually worse. They do not address the real problem, because they can't. Only the body can heal itself when we manage to "get out of it's way". So called "modern" medicine doesn't recognize this basic premise to begin with!

And this is the crux of the spiraling "health care" disaster we see in our health, and economy. Conditions "treated" with meds continue to grow worse, and as time goes on we need more and more "masking"...more meds, new and "better" meds.

Knowing when exceptions are appropriate is the intelligent use of medical advice. You do not have to do everything your doctors tell you. Unfortunately "modern" MDs are not trained in the cause of health, they are only trained in the cause of disease and phatmacology. The best advice is to approach medical advice with caution. Become informed, learn the cause of health and practice it in your own life...it's a frame of reference that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Some of the things "alternative medicine" does are genuinely quite healthful, therapeutic bodywork comes to mind, but much if not most of alternative medicine is basically placebo. Whole foods engage the cause of health, fractionated versions of them generally do not.

So yes, believe in magic and placebo, it is real, but infinitely more effective when contextualized with reality.

I want to end this post with credit given to the person who introduced me to the cause of health, as he has done for so many others, Dr. Douglas Graham. Thank you Doug!

We Can come back from illness to robust health

This gentleman did, probably from a lower place than anyone reading this. I found his story inspirational, I hope you do too.

The Essential Principles of Lasting Weight Loss

I'm going to let Jeff Novick do all the talking in this post, his presentation will hold your interest and could not be more informative. If you've had a tough time losing weight, or those last few pounds, or it continues going up and down, this video is for you. Jeff is plant based, but the same principles apply, Paleo or plant based.

Set aside a few moments and give this one a watch, you deserve it!

3D Farming - A Vision for an Ideal Future

Are we humans careening headlong toward some kind of Blade Runner dystopian future, with ever larger human populations, existing in ever more crowded cities, while destroying the earth's ecosystem and most of the other species we share Earth with along the way?

Or will the 6th great extinction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction) collapse human populations along with bees, fish, millions of other species, polar ice caps, and rainforests (the lungs of the planet)?

I tend to think Mother Nature still runs the show, and while we can't predict at what point she'll have "had enough", at some point forests will come back without help from us (hubristic) humans, the atmosphere will recover, and Gaia primordial mother earth will continue as a life sustaining organism.

And, to get on my soap box for a minute, an idea like this one:

"humans means of long term survival will be to colonize Mars" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars)

falls into the category of smart people being incredibly stupid. It's right up there with the idea we can re-engineer human health using synthetic products from laboratories. The stupidity in both ideas is the same: the gross misapprehension of the vast complexity of the biology we are, and that which we evolved from, and are inextricably part of.

So, let's see here: we can destroy earth's life generation and sustainment capacity by some (pick a number) gross percentage, but then survive as a species by migration to a planet with absolutely no life generation and sustainment capacity? Hello! ...welcome back to planet earth.

The 1 trillion? (https://www.livescience.com/54660-1-trillion-species-on-earth.html) species spawned by earth's ecosystem, including us humans, are a product of that one ecosystem, dependent on it, and (new religion) technology will not change that. 

The hubris principle, subset of Freud's "death instinct" (https://www.verywellmind.com/life-and-death-instincts-2795847), says we will try, and population collapse will increase at that point. In fact this is a process already underway...have a look around.

We cannot predict with certainty what gross percentage of earth's living populations will have to collapse for an ecological reset to occur (it's probably a fibonacci ratio), but it's a process that could take centuries, with points of acceleration along the way. It's too big to "see" in real time, which is why we generally don't know it has already begun. Meanwhile life, as we know it, continues.

Let's do what we can to heal the earth by getting out of it's way. Let's also do what we can to heal our own personal health by getting out of our body's way. Let's stop buying into the idea we can live on toxic substances.

As a species we will have to find more efficient means of sustenance congruent with nature. Here's a stellar example, 3D farming, with biodiversity, a vision for an ideal future:

nationalgeographic.com/video/shorts/ 3D Farming

Anthony Williams Medical Medium...and celery juice:)

Anthony Williams The Medical Medium is becoming very popular. I first heard about him from my sister and a good friend I've been in the "health recovery" trenches with for years.

Then Youtube vids started popping up on his celery juice program, purported to reverse a wide range of health conditions, and I watched a few of them. The program couldn't be simpler -- juice and drink a head of celery every day before you eat or drink anything else. And then give it some time to do it's magic before consuming anything else.

Williams claims it's important that it be only celery juice, which is typically juiced with a mix of veggies, and maybe a bit of lemon, apple and ginger for flavor. He is quite adamant on this point, saying the pure celery juice is much more effective in reversing poor health conditions than a mix of veggies/fruits.

One continues this program until all poor health conditions are reversed and normal robust health ensues. One can also continue the daily celery juice program indefinitely.

Williams has several books, I haven't read any of them yet. I have researched him a bit, on his website I viewed the intro vid, and watched a few Youtube interviews with him. Basically he claims to have been given the gift of mysticism from an early age (5 if I recall), when he began hearing a voice telling him what was wrong with people's health, and what they could do about it.

There is no way of verifying a claim like that, but his basic message is "whole plant foods are the cause of health", a message that goes all the way back to Hippocrates, with many iterations along the way saying the same thing, most recently an increasing number of MDs reversing diseases and getting patients off of "life-time" prescriptions.

With a message that simple, that clear, and that effective, I'm inclined to think Williams is in some kind of conversation with higher power. And the mysticism "container" for the message is clearly resonating with a huge population of folks who might not otherwise be exposed to it. You go Dude!

Now, what about this idea that pure celery juice every day first thing reverses disease and restores health? First, let's establish one thing, there's no harm in it, the first principle of healing "first do no harm".

Williams says the unique combination of celery salts cleanses and renews the liver, a critical detoxification organ.

I can't comment on that, but I will say the whole food plant based diet is predicated in no small part on the idea whole foods present macro and micronutrients to the body in their most bioavailable form, and concentrated forms of sugars, fats, and salts should be eliminated from the diet.

Curious, I've done the celery juice first thing myself for 5 days, and I can think of a few other reasons this program could be very beneficial.

I tend to skip breakfast most days (easy intermittent fast method), and some days the celery juice was later, and some earlier. In both cases I noticed a marked reduction in hunger in spite of the fact one large head of celery juiced affords about 2.5 cups of juice, which according to Cronometer.com is 50 whole calories (click to enlarge):

That ain't many calories! But somehow my appetite is quenched for hours. Maybe there is mystical power in celery juice. Or perhaps 50 calories is not sufficient to kick start glucose metabolism for the day, and the detox period extends a bit longer.

So perhaps a key benefit is appetite suppression, not a bad thing in a culture of overconsumption.

In addition, you are consuming a high level of micronutrients relative to number of calories (click to enlarge):

So perhaps another benefit is higher quality of micronutrients, and in a higher ratio to calories, both key concepts in the WFPB disease reversal diet.

Quality of celery counts, I've found good quality in the Foxy organic brand available in many supermarkets.

Type of juicer makes a difference too (but use what you have), there is nearly universal agreement the best juicer for leafy greens and veggies in general is the masticating type, here's an excellent choice:
Omega Masticating Juicer

The Cause of Health vs The Cause of Disease

Here's a provocative idea: if our societal focus in medicine shifted from the cause of disease to the cause of health, we, as a society, would be way way healthier, something like 80%.

What is "the cause of health"? It's a set of conditions, in no particular order: meaningful social connection, love, family, lots of "light" and clean whole plant foods with high levels of micronutrient density combined with a high level of energy "kept" relative to energy expended in digestive / elimination / detoxification processes, continuous access to low toxicity environments, clean air and water, sunshine, sufficient quality and durations of sleep, challenging levels of physical activity on a regular basis, a sense of purpose.

Energy efficient nutritionally dense foods are a core concept in "cause of health". All of these factors are important, but the point of departure with leverage for most people will be change of diet. There is a saying "you can't exercise your way out of a bad diet". So yes, "diet and exercise" are both important, but as your weight drops rapidly from a correct diet your ability and innate desire for activity will increase. If your weight isn't dropping rapidly toward a lean healthy level, and you've been doing a paleo diet, you might want to consider a whole foods plant based diet with no "empty calorie" substances (sugar, white flour, oils). It's delicious, and once you figure it out, easy to do and maintain.

Here's another idea, instead of lifespan as a measure of health, let's look at quality of life parameters: at what age does a chronic condition set in? At what age do we begin taking meds for them? At what age are we no longer able to run (a very basic indicator of health and quality of life)? Or even walk unassisted?

Life span has been increasing until very recently, but if current trends continue today's children will be the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents. On the other hand "life span with quality" has been dropping for decades, and is now accelerating at an alarming rate, especially in youngest populations.

What went wrong? Well, many things, environmental degradation is high on the list. But I'm going to suggest something else is more directly responsible, with a far greater impact on health. And that something is technology. Or perhaps more accurately, an over reliance on technology, coupled with "wishful thinking" exaggerations and misapprehensions about what technology can do. We may have entered an era where the total impact of modern medicine on health has become counterproductive.

How can that be?

I think of myself as a bit of a technologist, and I love technology. My life long avocations and vocations all have technology at the core. I "grok" technology pretty well, and that gives me a sense of what's possible in the physical universe, and what is not.

Another area of strong interest for me is psychology, and the biological force at the base of psychology, which might be characterized as "animal" instinct. I have come to think of the essence of Freud's work as the attempt to examine and understand the collision of animal instincts with civilization, especially in a post industrial world setting. (Recommended reading: Freud's career summation essay, "Civilization and Its Discontents".)

What are instincts? Everything our brain and autonomic systems do on a "non-thinking" level, from regulating heart beat to the shock of adrenalin that occurs the instant danger appears in our sensory awareness field. It's the aggregate of all autonomic functioning, which has one overarching function: to keep us alive, as an individual, and as a species.

The most basic way to understand instincts that I have come across is put forth in the short book "The Pleasure Trap", where instinct is characterized as "the motivational triad", the three basic forces that function to keep us alive and well, but can backfire on us in the post-industrial technologic world. They are 1) seek pleasure, 2) avoid pain, and 3) conserve energy. Perfect recipe for life as a couch potato right?

And this would be a good place to remember that instinct "drives" our behavior to a significantly greater extent than we are consciously aware of. Hiding in this thicket is the reason addiction can be so difficult to overcome...but that's another topic.

So...getting back to over reliance on technology, and in particular medical/pharmaceutical technology, the motivational triad explains a lot.  Let's call it couch potato medicine. Or maybe medicine intended to manage the ill effects of the couch potato lifestyle.

The technologist in me does not see this as a black and white situation. Broadly speaking there are significant aspects of modern medicine to be greatly appreciated, surgery for example. Even there however are many common conditions that are far better treated with diet/lifestyle modifications, heart disease for example, the leading killer of Americans. But when banged up from a traffic accident we are tremendously grateful for an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital emergency room, and antibiotics when really needed. Modern medicine, perhaps surgery in particular, can be truly miraculous.

So what about surgery's sibling, pharmacology? Unfortunately progress there is harder to see. In fact, in broad stroke efficacy comparisons of pharmacology to diet/lifestyle modifications, pharmacology has been in a pronounced regression trend for a few decades, which is roughly correspondent to the decrease in "lifespan with quality" mentioned earlier. This is couch potato medicine at it's finest.

How did this unfortunate state of affairs come about? In very simple terms, it comes down to profit, the one area where pharmacology has achieved a progression trend of mind numbing magnitude. And how did it achieve this? The promise of technology, the silver bullet solution to all our problems, magic, in the form of a simple pill.

It may be the most seductive form of marketing there is. To some extent even the purveyors are seduced. But it's not working, the rapid decline of health measured in quality of life tells the real story. Not only is it not working, it is counterproductive. At base it's not all that different than good old snake oil, but it's dressed in (promise of technology magic) super fancy clothes, and it is a (profit) giant.

The MDs who actually do reverse and heal the common chronic conditions, do so by first putting patients on a "cause of health" program, and second by taking them off the medications that have been prescribed. It's not easy, it's more labor intensive than prescription pad medicine, and we've been raised with magic bullet thinking. But the list of docs that practice (let's call it) "whole foods medicine" is getting longer and longer, as we collectively begin to see the emperor is wearing no clothes, and demand for true health increases. And as demand for true health medicine increases it increasingly becomes a social norm, and become easier to do.

To be clear, I am not saying get rid of doctors, or all medications. I am saying begin to demand true health practices and the system will change for the better.

So yes, the consistent application of "cause of health" principles reverses a long list of the common physical malfunctions that are reducing quality of life way too early, and ending life prematurely for the vast majority of us.

But the application of modern pharmacology typically only slows disease progression, is expensive, and has side effects which have further negative impacts on health.

I'm pretty sure modern pharmacology is not the program Hippocrates envisioned when he said "let medicine be thy food".

WHEN VEGAN DIETS DON'T WORK

Dr. Michael Klaper on why some can have issues when adopting a whole foods plant based diet.

I'm not going to say much about this interview of Dr. Klaper except it's excellent, informative, and comprehensive but concise.

And I will also say many (myself included) view Dr. Klaper as one of the heroes of the whole foods disease reversal movement. If you're pressed for time and want to get a sense of why that is so, just watch from 17:33 to 23:35. If you do that I'll bet you'll want to find the time to view the rest of it too.

From 17:33
https://youtu.be/u8YlCOCEUsk?t=1055

From the beginning
https://youtu.be/u8YlCOCEUsk