Ayurvedic nutrition for weight loss (and general sanity)

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  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
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    SLLRunner wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Food is full of ... life force.

    Let's see. Food is full of all sorts of things. Macro and micronutrients. These can be quantifiably assessed.

    Life force? How does one measure that? How does one tell one food has it vs. one that doesn't? If I baked a cake with love and mindfulness out of organic ingredients, would it have life force?

    And... eating foods bring you closer ... to a "divine state". What exactly is that? Where does it exist?

    It may take practice, like seeing the picture in the 3-D drawings. Or it might be like trying to understand "red" if you are color blind.

    My fiance doesn't experience food the way I do, and that's ok. When I told him I'd planted bell peppers, he asked when they would start producing. Other than needing to fit something into a Massachusetts gardening season, that's completely irrelevant to me. I get joy from harvesting food from my garden. He gets joy from golf. This is fine.

    I feel connected with Nature and Source when I grow food. Eating the rainbow makes me happy,

    Oh man, I wish I had room for a garden because love fresh veggies, and I'd love to have fruit trees again as well, but type of food does not make a person more or less spiritual. Besides this, I understand this lifestyle involves vomiting, which is outrageous and just insane. I only found this out through my own research, and not because any of those who support this lifestyle answered my question about puking some pages back.

    http://holisticonline.com/ayurveda/ayv-treatment-panchakarma.htm

    Just did a bit of reading. I mean WTF?
    Prior to starting Panchakarma, oiling and heating of the patient is done to bring the excess doshas from the limbs to their proper reservoirs in the digestive tract, from which they can be expelled. The doshas are then excited by a procedure called utkleshana, a therapy that makes the excess dosha anxious to leave the body. One to three nights prior to the start of Vamana, the patient is asked to drink one cup of oil two to three times a day until the stool becomes oily, or he feels nauseated (This treatment is called oleation or sneehana). Kapagenic diet is given to aggravate Kapha. On the morning of the Panchakarma, kapha aggravating foods such as basmati rice and yogurt with salt is given to further aggravate the kapha. Oil massage and fomentation are administered on the night before the day of Vamana. The application of the heat to the chest and back will liquefy kapha.
    Therapeutic vomiting (Vamana)

    This treatment is used when there is congestion in the lungs causing repeated attacks of bronchitis, cough, cold or asthma. The objective of the therapy is to induce vomiting to get rid of the mucus causing excess kapha. A drink consisting of licorice and honey, or calamus root tea is given to the patient. (Other substances used include salt, and cardamom) Vomiting is induced by rubbing on the tongue. 4-8 vomiting is the target. After vomiting the patient will feel very comfortable; most of the congestion, wheezing and breathlessness will disappear along with the clearing of the sinus.

    How is puking supposed to help get rid of lung maladies? The stomach and the lungs are not even connected! I can't believe nonsense like this is making a comeback. I miss science.

    Yeah, freaking scary in my opinion, especially since I know the hell of being a teen and young woman with bulimia. I'm lucky I didn't get any physical damage from all the bingeing/purging, and 100% blessed that I got myself into treatment.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
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    miriamtob wrote: »
    This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included.
    So you don't understand it, but you absolutely know that it is legitimate, elegant, complex, and is a science. I've already explained, it fails the philosophical requirements of being science.
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong.
    So you're cool with me giving you a bloodletting for all the ill humors causing you to believe in Ayurveda? I mean, ill humors are an ancient tradition.
    Honestly, you have it completely backwards - the older the knowledge, more likely it is to be wrong. Seriously, you think people from an era of geocentrism, believing the sun goes around the Earth had a lot of things right?
    miriamtob wrote: »
    From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.
    You're strawmaning. No one is asking to discard knowledge, we're asking to not use practices that rely on a provably false foundation. You're also falsely appealing to choice as being automatically a good thing. Honestly, it isn't always better to have more options. If Steve Jobs didn't have options about how to treat his cancer, chances are he'd still be alive.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
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    Lead poisoning from Ayurvedic "medicine":

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5326a3.htm

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001842/

    Not to mention the whole thing about the humors is laughably stupid.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    Orphia wrote: »
    Lead poisoning from Ayurvedic "medicine":

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5326a3.htm

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001842/

    Not to mention the whole thing about the humors is laughably stupid.

    I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but just the idea that anyone could cling to that concept in the modern world... didn't the ancient Greeks and Romans ascribe to the idea of body humors as well?

  • ejbronte
    ejbronte Posts: 867 Member
    edited June 2015
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    Here's a nice, compact site on Ancient Greek medicine:
    http://medicalnewstoday.com/content/info/medicine/ancient-greek-medicine.php

    The concept of "humors" or "elements" that need to be kept in balance is very old, and lasted a very long time; and when you think about it, we are still utilizing the basic concept of "balance" when we talk about meeting our macros and micros. Our foundation for this is, of course, very different, but the basic concept of equilibrium seems to be at the base of almost every medical theory.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
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  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    edited June 2015
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    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    Just because a practice or belief is very old does not give it legitimacy. We now know aether does not hold the universe together. The Greeks believed there were four elements; earth, air, fire, and water. We now know there are 118. Even though the Greek belief is older doesn't make it correct or helpful.

    There is no need to impart "life force" in to foods for them to work. Modern testing allows us to know what a food is made of. Life force is not burned off by a Bunsen burner.
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    Just because a practice or belief is very old does not give it legitimacy. We now know aether does not hold the universe together. The Greeks believed there were four elements; earth, air, fire, and water. We now know there are 118. Even though the Greek belief is older doesn't make it correct or helpful.

    There is no need to impart "life force" in to foods for them to work. Modern testing allows us to know what a food is made of. Life force is not burned off by a Bunsen burner.

    @jgnatca are you responding to me? this is way outside of what I'm talking about.

  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
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    @margaretlb4, I appreciate you starting this thread, as it has been thought provoking and has strengthened my resolve to always look at both sides of the issue with equal consideration. I agree that integrative medicine is the wave of the future and I don't promote "extreme edge-of-the-internet aryuveda" (just LOVE that term) either!
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited June 2015
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    Chopra and the business he instituted isn't the extreme edge of the internet ayurveda in this country. The drugs they marketed to ayurveda providers for major illnesses like cancer and AIDS were not marketed to the fringes of ayurveda.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    Find out what is in homeopathic treatments.

    http://www.scibabe.com/the-weekly-woo-homeopathy-or-theres-no-medicine-in-my-medicine/

    FDA rules regarding homeopathic treatments.
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    Options
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Find out what is in homeopathic treatments.

    http://www.scibabe.com/the-weekly-woo-homeopathy-or-theres-no-medicine-in-my-medicine/

    FDA rules regarding homeopathic treatments.

    oscillococinum (sp?) is homeopathic and works for me. It's what everyone on film shoots uses for the first sympton of flu-like colds, sold at every deli in NYC, now at some truck stops....I wonder if it didn't work if it would be so omnipresent? I've been taking it for years...it def tastes like sugar placebos, but it dang sure knocks the yuck out of your system.

    I also thought some of the replies of the blog you posted were interesting, particularly the exchange from the 4th year medical student, and then the obnoxious person underneath them.
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
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    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.
  • snikkins
    snikkins Posts: 1,282 Member
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    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

  • ogmomma2012
    ogmomma2012 Posts: 1,520 Member
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    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    Deepak Chopra is a scam artist. He takes the word 'quantum' and twists it into a best-selling book. Why aren't you worried?