Medicine

[El_Machinae]

High blood pressure is a symptom, not a disease. It's like a fever, it's a sign that something else is wrong. And, like a fever, it can cause it's own problems under certain conditions.

But why would you want to do this? There is no scientific evidence that "below average" cholesterol levels actually provide a benefit - unless there are also some other risk factors involved... Apart from the lifestyle changes (nutrition, activity, stop smoking etc.) that are warranted at all times you should not use medication when their potential side effects outweigh the potential benefit... US cholesterol guidelines

I'm talking about raising HDL, not lowering cholesterol. The correlation between high (and healthy) HDL and a delayed onset of aging symptoms is my reasoning. Of course, I have no proof that it's causative, but I figure to work with the data we're given.

It's just one example of one indicator that I'd like to have help in raising above 'average' guidelines. Heck, I wouldn't mind having help finding more indicators to watch out for.

 

[Brighteye]

106,000 deaths by drug side effects
98,000 from medical errors
115,000 from bedsores
88,000 from infections
108,800 from malnutrition
199,000 from outpatients
37,136 from unnecessary procedures
32,000 from surgeries

That's a total of 783,936 deaths per year, but only 5 to 20% are reported, which would mean 10,000 to 40,000 deaths per day (that's one person killed by modern medicine every 2 to 5 seconds!).

This is hilarious! 115,000 a year die in America from bed sores?! 200,000 die from that terrible disease 'outpatients'?

These aren't causes of death. These are a joke.

 

[Brighteye]

Oho!
So conventional medicine doesn't know anything about asthma or hypertension?
Well, that's just a lie.
We know that asthma is constriction of the airways (probably the larger airways), and we know what constricts them. This is inflammation caused by, most commonly, allergies, although severe asthmatics can have an attack induced by the turbulence of the airflow.
We can make the smooth muscle relax by giving the person bronchodilators. We know that we can do this because if we put the drugs onto a dissected strip of smooth muscle we see it relax, and we can measure this.
I have done the experiment. Are you going to tell me that I was actually seeing a holographic projection? That I was fooled my a global conspiracy with advanced technology that can fool my eyes, and that they choose to use their technology in such a silly way?

Hypertension has some unclear aspects, but it is caused by a combination of obesity, chronic inflammation and sympathetic nervous activity all of which combine to make your kidneys retain too much salt and therefore too much water. I have data from a number of experiments on this subject too. Are you going to tell me that these causal links do not exist? How do you think the body works?

(Essential) hypertension is indeed mostly caused by obesity (and the host of related problems), and anyone in this situation can lower his blood pressure by losing weight. In fact, even if we starve healthy rats we still see a drop in blood pressure as they become skinny. This doesn't mean that medical science has nothing to offer. It means that in this one case, the drugs are the second best option, as I tell every medic I teach.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Wow! aab1 is demonstrating some schizophrenic level delusions!

 

[El_Machinae]

Aab1: keep in mind that for the time being, people are going to die from something. As we shift the variables and treatments, the 'villains' of death are going to change. Important things to realise are that life expectancies are going up, and (more importantly) the five-year survival rates of many threatening diseases are already going up.

Granted, many people's diseases are caused by stupid things (transfat, smoking, obesity, etc.). But even if people don't get these things, odds are good that they died from something else.

An intelligent approach is two-tiered: prevention and cures.

 

[Sidhe]

Wow! aab1 is demonstrating some schizophrenic level delusions!

I was wondering when you'd make an appearance, popcorn?

 

[Turner]

Let's keep the personal attacks out of it.

 

[Sidhe]

Let's keep the personal attacks out of it.

Ironically I have a friend who's schizophrenic and these sorts of theories are pretty consistent with paranoid schizophrenia, I kid you not, in his case the government were trying to monitor him 24/7, in the end he ended up covering all his electrical appliances in aluminium foil, to stop the sattelites rays from penetrating his equipment and being used as bugging devices. Not that I think Aab1 is crazy but it's definitely got all the hall marks of schizophrenia, mind you I don't think Nanocyborgasm is qualified to make that diagnosis being a physician not a head doctor

I had the same thought though, mind you there are plenty of conspiracy theorists who aren't mental just deluded, I suppose it's difficult to tell?

 

[Perfection]

It's possibly possible.

So in other words, you're completely clueless and are spouting nonsense?

 

[CartesianFart]

I think the problem is that no one in here is well learned in the subject of bio-medicine and chemistry and having some knowledge of the pharmeceautical industry respectively.

 

[Perfection]

I don't think you should need to to trust medicine.

 

[Narz]

So in other words, you're completely clueless and are spouting nonsense?

What'd Turner just say you troglodyte?

I'm agnostic on the issue.

 

[Fifty]

Wow! aab1 is demonstrating some schizophrenic level delusions!

You're just mad because he's revealed that you're 1000x worse than Hitler!!!!

One thing we have to keep in mind before we question aab's sanity too harshly is that he comes from a forum where such behavior is encouraged. There are few if any people there who will dispute any sort of claim that is anti-medicines, mainly because over over-extension. They realize (correctly) that the average American diet isn't very great, and that crappy diet leads to a lot of health issues. They don't stop there, though, and end up believing all sorts of wild crap like that doctor's don't advocate good diet, or in extreme cases like aab, that doctor's are the very personification of evil. The more reasonable of the raw-dieters don't speak up against them, because they don't seem to care much for rational debate, they care more about enouraging eachother blindly.

Believe it or not, his aren't quite the oddest things I've encountered in those raw communities. One lady spent a long time detailing to myself and perfection how she can (seriously) manipulate the flow of time, and manifest material things with her mind.

 

[CartesianFart]

You're just mad because he's revealed that you're 1000x worse than Hitler!!!!

One thing we have to keep in mind before we question aab's sanity too harshly is that he comes from a forum where such behavior is encouraged. There are few if any people there who will dispute any sort of claim that is anti-medicines, mainly because over over-extension. They realize (correctly) that the average American diet isn't very great, and that crappy diet leads to a lot of health issues. They don't stop there, though, and end up believing all sorts of wild crap like that doctor's don't advocate good diet, or in extreme cases like aab, that doctor's are the very personification of evil. The more reasonable of the raw-dieters don't speak up against them, because they don't seem to care much for rational debate, they care more about enouraging eachother blindly.

Believe it or not, his aren't quite the oddest things I've encountered in those raw communities. One lady spent a long time detailing to myself and perfection how she can (seriously) manipulate the flow of time, and manifest material things with her mind.

The earth is flat!Believe me!

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't think you should need to to trust medicine.

I don't know what you're intending to communicate here.

A faith in medicine is useful, because then you get the placebo effect tacked onto actual physiological benefits of medicine.

Unless you mean that it's sad that people need to turn to medicine, and that life is better if you're not in need of medical services. That, I can agree with.

 

[Taliesin]

I'm talking about raising HDL, not lowering cholesterol.

The easiest way I know of is to become an alcoholic. I'm not sure that would help the big picture, though.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, or you could go with two servings of alcohol a day. We were going to do it with wine, but it's hella expensive in the long run.

 

[Fifty]

I don't know what you're intending to communicate here.

A faith in medicine is useful, because then you get the placebo effect tacked onto actual physiological benefits of medicine.

Unless you mean that it's sad that people need to turn to medicine, and that life is better if you're not in need of medical services. That, I can agree with.

Nobody can speak for perfyboo but perfyboo, but I'll just say that I read his statement as something like that you don't need to trust medicine, as there's enough evidence that it works that blind trust is not required.

Could be wrong though. I'm operating on 2hrs of sleep and I'm practically brain dead from paper-writing

 

[Taliesin]

I think he was responding to CartesianFart's post about possessing knowledge about biochemistry and pharmaceutical science. Perfection said, "I don't think you should need to [in order] to trust medicine."

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

You're just mad because he's revealed that you're 1000x worse than Hitler!!!!

You got me!

Believe it or not, his aren't quite the oddest things I've encountered in those raw communities. One lady spent a long time detailing to myself and perfection how she can (seriously) manipulate the flow of time, and manifest material things with her mind.

I believe you. There are some real wackos out there.

This is all just another conspiracy theory. If we take it to its logical conclusion, there is no disease at all without the medical establishment. So all that cancer, HIV, and heart disease wouldn't exist if it weren't for the medical establishment causing more harm than good with their quackery.