“Natural News” Takes Idiotic to the Next Level
November 13th, 2009
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Why do I even bother going to Naturalnews.com? Sometimes someone points out how badly misinformed it is, and I go, and each time, a little piece of me seems to die (metaphorically) as I see comments by others who buy into the endless stream of false and downright idiotic crap they spew. At least it works well as a one-stop-shop for all the quackery you can think of. Chances are, if there is medical advice that is false, it can be found there…
Bicarbonate of soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate or most commonly as “Baking Soda.” Is some pretty damn useful stuff and is about as versatile as household chemicals get. It’s a mild abrasive, an alkaline, it’s absorbent, water soluble and non toxic. Because of these properties it can be used as a general purpose cleaning agent, a deodorant, a leavening agent in cooking, a general purpose alkaline, for neutralizing acidic substances or as a means of generating CO2, such as when mixed with vinegar. It has useful chemical properties that help take the oxidation off oft tarnished silver and make it useful in numerous other capacities. A teaspoon will cure heartburn and in medical settings, it is occasionally used to treat conditions like acidosis.
It has it’s limits though. So while it might work as a heartburn cure, it’s not going to work as a cure for say….. cancer. Of course, that’s not what the nut balls at Natural News would like you to think:
Bicarbonate of Soda Used to Cure Stage Four Prostate Cancer:
(NaturalNews) Bicarbonate of soda or baking soda to cure cancer? The amazing abundance of alternative cancer cures is more than most of us know, close to 400! The more notorious alternative cancer cures are the ones that get attacked viciously by the Medical Monopoly. Those cures are the ones that begin to develop into public practices that threaten their monopoly.
Then there are those inexpensive non-toxic remedies that slip by the Medical Monopoly virtually unnoticed. Some become like folk medicines that can be administered individually. This type of application worked for Vernon Johnston. He used baking soda and molasses as the driving force to recover from aggressive stage 4 prostate cancer, which had even metastasized into his bone matter!
….
But he also advocates the oral aluminum free baking soda with maple syrup method in his book Sodium Bicarbonate – Rich Man`s Poor Man`s Cancer Treatment. Dr. Sircus is also a proponent of high magnesium dosages, usually transdermal, to assist healing with many maladies including cancer.
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After a few weeks, Vernon received a medical examination that confirmed his complete cure from prostate and bone cancer! His story was written up in a local California newspaper, The Valley News. Vernon`s case proves Mark Sircus`s point about oral sodium bicarbonate`s potential for healing any cancer, not just cancer in the digestive tract as Dr. Simoncini`s maintains.
Dr. Mark Sircus in his September 2009 newsletter stated: “My overall treatment philosophy for cancer is to trap the cancer in a deadly crossfire and beat the crap out of it with safe concentrated nutritional medicinals and solid health practices including plenty of sun exposure, exercise, touch via massage, and breathing techniques that you can see on Vernon`s site. But, as Vernon`s case demonstrates, the sodium bicarbonate is the lead . . . power . . . itself”.
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We are fortunate that despite all the Medical Mafia`s efforts to suppress natural cancer cures, so many options are still available. Do your own research. You can start here in the sources section.
Of course, it’s worth noting that there is no independent confirmation that the individual in question ever had cancer to begin with or that the cancer has really gone away and is not still festering and slowly killing him. Even these reports are true, a single isolated case, with little documentation and no controls proves nothing. It just about makes me weep that any other fellow member of the human species could be gullible and ignorant enough to actually believe this, and I do know, some people WILL believe this.
Anyone who understands the first thing about cancer and cancer treatment will realize that there is no magic formula to kill cancer cells. Cancer is a condition (or rather a number of conditions) in which the body’s own cells divide out of control, invading healthy tissue and damaging organs. Targeting and destroying these cells is no simple task, and doing so almost always involves some collateral damage to healthy cells. Except in the narrow circumstance where a cancerous growth is self-contained and easily removed by surgery, it comes down to trying to pick chemicals, drugs and therapies that will have a greater impact on the cancerous cells than the healthy ones.
Considering that billions of dollars and decades of research have gone into trying to find compounds that are even marginally better than existing treatments at selectively killing cancer cells, claiming that simple baking soda will “naturally” and magically fix one of the most complex problems in medicine seems absurd even for the likes of “natural news.” Of course, if this were the case, it would also have been nearly impossible to keep this information secret, as is being claimed.
Finally, as has been mentioned before: the big pharmaceutical companies, despite what some might claim, have not been able to banish all natural, non-patentable compounds from use in medicine. For treatment of mania and bipolar mood disorders, the gold standard remains simple, inexpensive, lithium salts. The most common blood thinning drug for continuing therapeutic use in heart patients is a synthetic version of a compound derived from tree bark and decades out of patent, known as aspirin. While many medicines and treatments are expensive and complex, millions of lives have been saved by substances as common and inexpensive as aspirin, iodine, rubbing alcohol or quinine.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, Quackery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 14th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Ever wonder why “alternative medicine” usually involves non-toxic compounds and pseudo-massage, as opposed to other antiquated treatments like bloodletting and trepanation?
The constant refrain from alternate medicine is that orthodox doctors and pharmaceutical companies are in some sort of conspiracy against them. This supposes that doctors would prefer their patients to not recover rather than prescribe CAM nostrums. I know doctors have a bit of a reputation for arrogance but the belief that they would prefer patients to die rather than prescribe a treatment that works just because they don’t understand how it works seems to be going a bit far. In fact, the evidence in support of this thesis is thin even by conspiracy theory standards.
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November 14th, 2009 at 5:00 am
DV82XL said:
Because you get in a lot less trouble from killing people by convincing them to inaction than you do by taking action and providing something that causes harm directly. That is the long and short of it.
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November 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Why is it known as CAM when it’s neither complementary nor alternative? I’d settle for SCAM if I could reverse engineer that acronym into something poignant.
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November 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
If you look more closely at this case you will find that, contrary to what is claimed in the Natural News article, this man was given conventional drugs for his prostate cancer. His website is here http://www.phkillscancer.com and he quotes from his oncologist’s report in March 2008:
“Pre-treatment PSA was 22 but has decreased to 5.88 after institution of Finasteride and Casodex.”
Finasteride and Casodex are androgen blocking drugs used to shrink prostate tumors. His PSA had dropped from 22 to 5.88 before he started taking sodium bicarbonate in June 2008. It looks to me like he is one of the lucky men whose prostate cancer and bone metastases respond well to androgen blockers.
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November 14th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Try googling “Dr. Sircus” to see his website. What a quack. BTW, does anyone else think that “Dr Circus” is a funny name? almost as good as Dr Buzz0 LMAO
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November 14th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Hello,
I have some questions about cancer and what you call “bad science” and CAM and natural medicine.
Two years ago I saw a small spot on my neck/shoulder area that looked very strange because it was dark and almost blue in color and had an odd shape and looked like it was deep in the skin, like if you had something stuck under your skin. I went to my doctor and he said it looked a lot like it might be cancer and sent me to a dermatologist the next day to see what she thought. Obviously when I heard the word cancer I was scared as hell and got no sleep at all that night.
So the next day I see the dermatologist and she said that it was small enough that it was best to just take off the whole thing, but she wasn’t sure it was cancer. So then right then and there she injected me with novocaine and cut it and all around it and then cut a slit down the side so that the scar left behind would blend into the lines where my neck meets my body. (You can see it, but only if you look closely, because she made cut it so that the skin folds into the creases.
So she tells me to wait and see for the lab report and to make a long story short it comes a couple days later and she calls me and tells me it is cancer! At this point I am obviously scared. However, she tells me that she has cut off hundreds if not thousands of small skin cancers and most were larger than mine and she then tells me that because of the type and the size and that it is probably very early that she is about 99% sure that the whole thing is taken care of. She says that it is never 100% sure, but that my chances of it coming back were probably about the same as my chances of getting a new skin cancer totally unrelated to it and maybe lower. Also, if nothing happens as a couple years go on, I may as well assume that it’s gone and not worry about it.
Of course, this doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. How can I be a cancer survive when I was diagnosed and cured in two days? Cancer is what I always think of being years of chemotherapy and usually death in the end. However, my doctor said the same thing and told me I was good for coming in so fast like I did.
So that would be that, except I mention this to my family and my daughter tells me that the doctors are not really telling me the whole story. They like to cut off problems when they show up but cancer is a whole body disease and the little spot was just it showing up so they cut it off and pretend I am okay. She talks to my wife and goes on the web and prints out a lot of information on how the body needs to be brought back to health and a lot of vitamins and natural supplements and products that clean it all out and heal it. My wife and my two daughters take it upon themselves to buy this stuff and encourage me to take it.
I do not know what to think because I have always had a fear of cancer which my father died of and the idea that it has not gone and my body is still sick with the underlying problems really makes me think, but also I don’t know the validity of these substances because they look very infomercial type and that seems fly by night to me. If I do not take them my family really gets going on the fear factor and tries to make it seem like I have no choice.
What is the truth?!?!?! How do I know who to listen to?!?!?!
Thank you,
Dave
(Washington State)
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November 14th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Hey, you’re right that some of the most important and life saving medications do cost pennies. Of course, not all medications are like that, but I have a few to add to your list:
Nitroglycerin – cheap, easily synthesized and first used as an explosive. It reduces blood pressure and administering it during a heart attack can save many lives, reduces the severity of heart attacks and is used in emergencies. Also used on a therapeutic basis continuously to treat angina and other heart conditions.
Bismuth subsalicylate – It’s where the “Bis” in Pepto Bismol comes from. It’s a cheap nontoxic chemical that can treat a number of digestive symptoms including diarrhea. Normally in the civilized world we think of diarrhea as an unpleasant condition, but not much more, but in many parts of the world it kills, especially children, by dehydration.
Oral rehydration – Again, dehydration kills but oral rehydration therapy is a huge lifesaver. It’s not just getting a person to drink water, because that can actually cause a salt imbalance and when people are very dehydrated, the body does not absorbe pure water as well as it should, especially with diarrhea. It’s a mix of a few cheap, avaliable substances, but critical to the life saving properties: Trisodium citrate, potassium chloride, glucose and sodium chloride (table salt)
Folic Acid – Given as a supplement to pregnant women to assure they have an ample amount, it dramatically decreases birth defects.
Flouride – only a tiny amount is needed for proper nutrition and cited as having the highest ratio of benefit to cost of any means of improving dental health
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November 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
@Dave (#6)
Cancer is not a whole body disease – it starts in one place and can spread to others. You caught it before that spread (technical term = “metastasis”) happened, so it was easy to just cut out. Once it spreads, surgery doesn’t work (since there is no single concentration to cut out), which is where chemo comes in. Chemotherapy is the use of chemicals that damage cancer cells more than they damage non-cancerous cells, so that while you may get sick from them, they’re doing more damage to the cancer – when it’s gone, you stop the chemo and recover over time (usually a few months, as far as I know – I am not an oncologist).
As to being a cancer survivor – you had a cancer, you’re alive, and it’s gone. Ergo, you survived it. Underlying health issues don’t generally have much relevance to cancer formation, and though I think that certain immune system diseases can lead to it (I know that AIDS is often followed by leukemia).
And you’re right about hte “fly by night” nature of CAMs – most of these things are completely useless, if not outright harmful. They’re mostly a moneymaking scam designed to cash in on people’s fears and suspicions.
As to who to trust, I’d go with oncologists, who spend their lives studying and treating cancer, and do so from the perspective that any treatment, first and foremost, has to *work reliably* (biology isn’t an exact science, but any treatment has to show actual statistical significance in terms of effectiveness to be accepted in mainstream oncology).
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November 14th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
David P said:
I am NOT a doctor, but I will give you this much medical advice: Don’t listen to the alternative pushers, they’re frauds and quacks. Listen to real doctors and if you have doubts about a doctor’s diagnosis or recommendations, seek out a second opinion from another doctor, but not from one of the quack gurus who will tell you baking soda or magic amulets or homeopathy will cure you.
If your doctor says not to worry and that you’re probably cured, then you should consider that to be the case. It’s not that unusual. Cancer can be easily treated if it is caught early. Skin cancer is the classic example. While it’s hard to be certain that the cancer hasn’t possibly spread and is lying dormant, if the doc says that it is highly unlikely that it did and not to worry then there’s no reason to doubt that. If it is caught early and never came back, then you probably don’t have to worry.
Anyway, you did the right thing in getting it taken care of so early and that’s why you’re cured in two days. Chemo and radiation would have come in if you let it fester to the point that it started to spread into vital organs.
As for being a “cancer survivor” I suppose you qualify for it. You had cancer and beat it. However, if “cancer survivor” invokes images of someone who nearly was killed and had a long and difficult battle to overcome cancer, then maybe it’s not the right term.
Anyway, it’s not a whole body condition at all. Stay away from the frauds.
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November 14th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
DV82XL said:
The key-word is usually. There are people who are trying to bring back trepaning, even self-trepaning, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYOOuaXzxEk .
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November 14th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Soylent said:
Sweet Jesus.
I basically posed that as a rhetorical question. I guess there is always more room at the bottom than one would think.
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November 15th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Soylent said:
I saw that video. Was it you that sent it to me or someone else? I was going to do a post about it, but the video was a bit much. I mean it even made me queezy and I have seen it all. I’m sure I don’t need to mention the dangers of that kind of thing. I’m actually surprised more haven’t died doing that!
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November 15th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Soylent said:
SCAM = Spurious Crap Advocated as “Medicine”
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November 15th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
David P said:
Your doctor sounds perfectly reasonable and competent, but if you doubt him/her, you can always seek out another doctor. The fact that it was “cancer” does not mean it was as bad as the worst cases of cancer of multiple organs. It is a broad category of diseases and it sounds like you nipped it when it was still very minor and that’s not unusual. I think your doctor sounds like they understand the situation and I’d listen to them.
Try getting your doc to talk directly to the wife and daughter if they are scaring you and pushing crap and scam products. Try sending them to quackwatch.org
You were right to go to orthodox, mainstream practitioners and that’s why you got taken car of.
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November 15th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
BMS said:
I like it!
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November 16th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I’d just like to add (and note, I am not a doctor) that melanoma (skin cancer) is a very common form of cancer, and when caught early is easily treated surgically. My grandmother, who enjoyed a lot of sunbathing in her youth, has had several melanomas. They were all removed with no fuss, clean margins (which means the pathologist looked at the thing after it was cut out and saw that the edges were all healthy tissue), and as far as we know, no metastases. (Metastases are new tumors that develop when bits of the original tumor break off and float through the bloodstream or lymphatic system and get established someplace else. It’s bad news when you have metastases, because you can’t really be sure you got them all. Chemo is often used if metastases are suspected, because it can help keep them from getting established.) Her various melanomas were probably not related to one another; skin cancer is one of those which has a nasty habit of cropping up more than once, especially if you get a lot of sun. (UV damage is a major risk factor.)
This is why it’s important to keep an eye on any moles you may have, anywhere on your body. If they start to grow rapidly, or change shape or color (especially if they become more irregular), it’s a good idea to get them removed and examined by a pathologist. Most of the time, that’s the end of it, even when it does turn out to be cancer.
Re: the SCAM acronym, I have seen that one used before on skeptical blogs, though with a variety of etymologies.
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November 16th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I think it’s true about baking soda not being helpful, but the key is to avoid getting cancer and if you can do that then you don’t need a cure. We would cut back cancer by a lot if we would get our heads together and stop using so many toxic and unnatural chemicals and all kinds of radiation. Poison the world around us and we poison ourselves. It’s no wonder!
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November 16th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
MBB said:
Check the cancer rates, broken down by age. You’ll notice that we are at levels similar to what we’ve had in the past – the only difference is that people are living longer, so many more late life cancers are being seen (people no longer die of heart attacks etc before they can get cancer).
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November 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Bicarb curing cancer? What will they think of next? (Rhetorical question thanks)
MBB said:
We have already got our heads together. Scientists have devised classification systems for compounds and elements which are known to, or may, cause cancer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogen#Classification_of_carcinogens
The lists are comprehensive and additions and changes are always being made.
I hope you realise that when you mention “unnatural chemicals” and then speculate that they are inherently bad, you are infact giving people like me, who study chemistry, a huge headache. It shows that you have little if any understanding of chemistry and therefore the world you live in.
Then you mention radiation. What radiation are you exposed to which you could actually prevent? Better yet, what radiation are you exposed to, at a measurable level, which can be attributed to being there because of humans.
Example: I suspect you cant do much about the radon gas from the ground that you’re exposed to at every moment of your life. If I recall correctly radon exposure is the most significant source of all background radiation. But you cant do anything to stop background radiation in the first place, if not only for the fact that your body itself is comprised of elements which have unstable isotopes, let alone those from your environment. So unless you are snorting the americium(-241?) isotope that is in smoke detectors on a regular basis or you’re eating radioisotopes you picked up from the UnitedNuclear website for lunch then I’m not sure what radiation exposure your talking about.
The suns UV rays on the other hand – as has been mentioned in other comments – is a real problem especially in some countries more than others ie; Australia. At least you can personally do something to prevent UV rays ie; sunscreen/hat and other clothing that protects.
Your mentioning of poisons also makes me question what kind of environmentally-utopian future you hope there will be, where everything in your environment is perfectly controlled at the molecular level by legions of nanorobots which ensure everything is ‘clean’ and ‘pure’. Sorry to bring you back to reality but its never going to happen. If it was as simple as just popping all the ‘poisons’ on the planet into a big bright red container and popping it in a rocket to send it to the sun then we would’ve done it half a century ago. You are almost certainly not aware of the the reasons why this is not possible and it comes down to your poor understanding of the world you live in (at a chemical level).
I wont deny that what I’m saying sounds offensive. But I understand that chemistry is boring to 99% of the population and that is probably the main reason why it appears that much of the population has no idea about it. While I dont have a problem if such people just go about their lives minding their own business I do have a problem when they want to say things like {the last paragraph of your post} to other people especially if those people know no better and just assume what your saying is correct.
Also, perhaps you have not considered that all those unnatural poisons that those damned industrial chemists make were in fact made for a purpose. They/we do not make them because we have some secret agenda to give people cancer or destroy the world. They are made because they have a use.
As can be seen historically many chemicals were produced and the carcinogenic effects were unknown or at least debatable, but the other properties of the chemical (eg, it might very effectively kill insects or pests) were useful to us. There are some situations where compounds are known to be carcinogenic (or very strongly suspected to be) and yet they are still used. For example, this morning I was reading about Beryllium oxide (which is actually not a unnatural chemical – it is found readily in nature in the ground…). It is extremely carcinogenic to the point where if there is spill/contamination in a lab or in industry then you literally need to have a crew in moonsuits come and cleanup. But it is still used. Infact, the computer monitor you are reading this on probably has components which were manufactured in part by a laser which quite possibly has a laser tube inside it which contains a Berrylium oxide coating on its internal walls. There are countless other less obscure examples.
As has been pointed out numerous other times on this site there is a plethora of natural chemicals which will certainly give you cancer or could turn your next child into something that looks like it came from a Resident Evil movie.
There will always be cancers. They will never all be completely preventable and/or curable with 100% success. This is do the nature of our biology and of our environment and thus all of the many complexities that they both entail.
Of course this post wont have made any difference to anything at all perhaps with exception of the fact you might think about the world you live in a bit more or even hit up Wikipedia or god forbid a library to get up to scratch on the topic(s).
PS: Since we’re on the topic of bicarb: I clean most things in my home with just two things: sodium bicarbonate and vinegar (used separately of course
). Despite the fact that vinegar stinks it is just a mixture of water and acetic acid, both of which are volatile and so leave the surface non-smelly. I sometimes need to go one step further and use stronger chemicals, usually ‘concentrated’ bleach which also contains sodium hydroxide (lye). You can buy this mixture premade sold as concentrated chlorine bleach at most stores. This will kill mold and clean drains/pipes exceptionally well. (Both bicarb and vinegar are also great to use regularly if you have young children as they are not really dangerous if they manage to get their hands on them). It also saves heaps of money.
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November 17th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Wow I completely missed the whole coal powerplants producing radioactive pollution problem. I suppose that serves me right for reading/commenting on blogs at 2:30am. If radiation from coal powerplants is a problem for you then I suppose you could move as far away as possible from them. I am having trouble thinking of any other sources of radiation that could be attributed to mankind. I dont think Chernobyl fallout or even nuclear bombs could be considered significant because most of those dangerous radioisotopes should have decayed appreciably by now or are otherwise too long-lived to be a considerable threat.
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November 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
A few random points. Our environment is in many ways cleaner now than it has been for hundreds of years. Insecticides like lead arsenate and DDT used to be sprayed liberally on fruit and around homes and toxic smog was commoner in cities than it is now – I live in London UK where ‘pea-souper’ smogs were common only 60 years ago and caused thousands of deaths. Concern about food additives has led to manufacturers using fewer antioxidants like BHT which inhibit lipid oxidation, so we may be consuming more carcinogenic lipid peroxides than we used to, ironically. As for radiation, there are those who believe that even low level radiation, including medical x-rays and background radiation, is a major cause of cancer (Google ‘John Gofman’), while others believe that low level radiation is actually good for us (Google ‘radiation hormesis’). Personally I think the idea of radiation hormesis is analogous to shooting a few of your neighbours in the hope that an increased police presence in the area will reduce crime.
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November 17th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Nescio said:
The proper analog here is sunlight: a little bit of broad spectrum light exposure is good for you; too much will damage you. While I am not a huge supporter of the idea of hormesis in that I don’t think it would be good to drink ‘radium water’, the fact remains that the evidence that there is some health benefit to low level exposure to ionizing radiation is firm.
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November 17th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
DV82XL said:
I’m not so sure about that myself, and I tend to disagree about the analogy. Sunlight causes an increase in vitamin D-3 levels which is beneficial, but it also causes DNA damage that leads to sunburn and an increased risk of skin cancer – we are looking at two separate effects of sunlight, one beneficial, one damaging. It has been argued that the benefits of increased D-3 levels outweigh the damage caused, though others disagree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_tanning#Tanning_controversy. If it was not for sunlight stimulating D-3 I think few would argue it had any benefits, apart from aesthetic ones.
Ionising radiation has no known benefits such as stimulating D-3, and either misses the nucleus and has no effect, or damages DNA, admittedly stimulating DNA repair mechanisms (the putative cause of radiation hormesis), but these are not 100% effective. To quote John Gofman, “The lowest dose of ionizing radiation is one nuclear track through one cell. You can’t have a fraction of a dose of that sort. Either a track goes through the nucleus and affects it, or it doesn’t.” There’s an interview with Gofman here where he discusses this: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/synapse.html
This article is also worth a read, I think, and describes radiation hormesis as a scientifically refuted but stubborn myth: http://www.gfstrahlenschutz.de/docs/hormeng2.pdf
On the other hand there are many sites where it is equally convincingly argued that ionising radiation is good for you, in moderation of course. To be honest, I recently gave myself a bit of a headache trying to decide which argument has the most merit. “For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert” as a great man once said.
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November 17th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
The bottom line here is that life evolved on this planet exposed to sunlight, and a flux of background radiation. To suggest that there is zero threshold damage done by ether is just not supportable. The argument that were it no for vitamin D production it would be worthless is tantamount to saying that if it wasn’t necessary for life, salt (NaCl) would have no value in our diets; tautologically true but pointless. While indeed D3 can be obtained through supplements, there are other areas like the psychological benefits of some sunlight that are also well established and I am not sure that we know everything about our body’s interaction with sunlight such that we can make the broad claim that no exposure is best.
This of course does not prove radiation hormesis is a valid hypothesis in and of itself however the Nussbaum and Köhnlein paper you linked to does not refute it ether, being a diatribe against research done that fails to support the LNT model that cherry-picks data from selected studies to hold up as being representative of all research done on the matter.
The evidence against the linear model has been solid as a rock for 40 years. Yet the LNT model prevails. Why? Follow the money and the politics. The health-physics community is divided, roughly along the lines of who puts money before principles. There have been some amazingly bitter fights within the Health Physics Society on the topic. Health physicists found that their livelihood depended upon scaring funds out of governments and science became irrelevant if the paymasters wanted to mislead the public about the hazards of radiation. If a particular study failed to find evidence of radiation’s ill effects, the data was simply forced into the LNT model. As a result radiophones and the politicians took a false rule of thumb and enshrined it in law and regulation. This then resulted in a lot of stupid but expensive procedures where people and vendors can make a lot of money thus entrenching this false standard through special interests.
I strongly suggest that you research this matter in more depth yourself. I try and avoid giving links in these discussions anymore because a lot of time is wasted I found with exchanging pointers to papers on ether side of the question and not much analysis of the subject. I now suggest that you go and find the material yourself and try and make a balance evaluation of the evidence available, and then, if you wish, we can discuss the technical questions they raise.
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November 18th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Nescio said:
Hmm… or it might be like thinking that if you occasionally stress your muscles by lifting weights, it will cause them to grow and be healthier than not doing so. This despite the fact that if you try hard enough to lift a weight beyond your capability, you can tear your muscle tissue, sever tendons and otherwise injure yourself.
Anyway, based on the evidence for homeostasis, I’d say that personally, I find the evidence compelling but not quite definitive. I’m not willing to say that there is proof positive radiation is beneficial in general, but I am willing to say that it is highly probable that it is. I suppose we could argue all day about what constitutes being “sure” of something and what constitutes just finding it to be very probable.
I hesitate to go to the level of recomending anyone expose themselves to radiation intentionally because of a perceived benefit. I don’t know that the optimal level is the same for everyone or that we have a clear idea what the optimal exposure duration, intensity and method are (dose rate aside, the more complex question would be how that dose is distributed and how that might effect things).
I’m not at all comfortable with the idea of untrained people seeking out x-rays or sitting in randon chambers for perceived benefits, especially given that they could cause harm if their math is a little off or something.
However, while I don’t believe the evidence or information exists to the point of telling people to go look for radiation exposure, I do think that the case is solid enough to tell people not to worry about taking any action to avoid things like dental x-rays or granite counter tops.
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November 19th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Nescio said:
That this seems to be true is almost undeniable. And yet… I think general belief in this is leading us into more and more problems. Combined with the general distrust of government & authority that arose in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s, many many people think they are better off trusting their own beliefs, compared to listening to experts. In fact, ‘expert’ frequently has negative connotations (how many times have you heard or read, “… xxxx according to the ’so-called experts’…”?).
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November 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
True story: Friend had abdominal pain, saw her Chinese herbalist for it for about two years. Died of ovarian cancer. Would it have been treatable if she’d seen a doctor? Who knows. Sure wasn’t treatable with birch gall and gullibility, though.
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November 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
DV82XL said:
Thanks for this reply. I will spend a bit more time looking at both sides of the argument.
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November 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
DV82XL said:
Yes that matches a memory of a paper I read long ago that indicated that slightly higher exposure to radiation than most people encounter is actually good for you. Mind you this was years and years ago I read it.
Let me see I believe the study compared people living at high elevations and in areas with higher background radiation from natural sources. The point being that people living at higher elevations experience a higher than normal exposure to solar radiation. And that there are places were the natural background radiation is higher because of various environmental factors. I think Boulder City, Colorado was one of the places used.
Anyway without the paper to reference it could also be related to other factors not considered in the paper. For example maybe the elevation itself is the factor and not the radiation.
So while there may be some support for the idea that higher levels of radiation might be good for you, I’m not planning to run out and irradiate myself.
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