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Why are most mfp users against holistic nutrition?

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  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    NotEmphatic wrote: »
    russelljam08 wrote: »
    NotEmphatic wrote: »
    russelljam08 wrote: »
    NotEmphatic wrote: »
    I'm confused on how being skeptical of holistic practitioners = CICO fundamentalists. They are two unrelated concepts.

    My argument is about two things:
    The pursuit of knowledge and the inhibitors on this forum of those who try to learn.
    I don't support zealots, or snake oil merchants and I don't support shouty people.
    The OP may start on one path towards knowledge and may realise that she goes on to study real science.
    Good and great!
    I bet the ancient CICO-style, fixed opinion ancient ones were the same ones who offered hemlock to Socrates and screamed at Galileo to put downed his god-less telescope!

    CICO is immutable. There is no argument against it. There is no study that shows someone eating less than they burn and gaining weight nor any study that shows someone eating more than they burn and losing weight. But it just sounds like you're trolling at this point, because no one is this far gone from reality.

    The human endocrine system is way too complex for CICO to be the final determinant of the weight loss question.
    In a perfect human machine CICO is correct - if it only has one energy variable.
    I have lots of variables...so do you.
    Science has progressed very well without your simplistic, flat-earth-CICO contribution.
    Support those who need more than what you offer as 'advice'.
    Or, stop being a hindrance to honest and curious enquiry.
    Please.

    Present the evidence.
    Still waiting for these magical humans who can bend space and time to create and destroy energy.
    Again present the evidence.
    Everything is "variable", it doesn't negate the energy in and energy out balance that ALWAYS occurs
    Again, endocrine system, hormones etc do not create energy from nothing, if it did humans would be harvested or the hormones would be produced in a lab to power the world
    It is ok to admit you ate too much
    Saying CICO isn't valid doesn't absolve you of accountability, though it is a "convenient" crutch

    Hi,
    There are too many good people on this forum who struggle.
    You present a dogmatic, unhelpful, catch-all answer and demand evidence.
    My N+1 is this:
    Excess cholestorol...naturally occurring...statins must be taken...resulting muscle weakness prevents exercise...liver overworks to negate chemicals...kidneys overwork as well.
    Human pysiology does not conform to machine-like inputs.
    We are way too complex.
    CICO is not my sole answer.
    You are negative and lack empathy.
    And...not a scientist but as religiously dogmatic as the Mormons.
    Your turn.
    Doh.

    Answered in the new thread about CICO.
  • Unknown
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  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    gpokerlund wrote: »
    Leaky gut is legit! People who dont believe it are ignorant or not educated enough to understand the impact our gut flora has on our overall health.

    Most ironic post I've read this morning.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Dad and I talked about the advances in weather prediction since we were kids...

    Which is kinda scary, considering how wrong they still get things.

  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    TR0berts wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Dad and I talked about the advances in weather prediction since we were kids...

    Which is kinda scary, considering how wrong they still get things.

    You have NO idea. Back in 1987 there was no Doppler radar. With precious little warning, our city was hit by a killer tornado. Even with the bigger storms, we are seeing very little loss of life these days, because we have decent warning. Heck, my phone tells me to the minute when I'm about to be rained on.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    TR0berts wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Dad and I talked about the advances in weather prediction since we were kids...

    Which is kinda scary, considering how wrong they still get things.

    You have NO idea. Back in 1987 there was no Doppler radar. With precious little warning, our city was hit by a killer tornado. Even with the bigger storms, we are seeing very little loss of life these days, because we have decent warning. Heck, my phone tells me to the minute when I'm about to be rained on.

    LOL. Yeah, I was 15yo back in 1987. I remember. And maybe it's different where you are (I'm in New England), but they get the forecast wrong many days. I've been caught out in the rain (heavy downpour on one particular occasion) on my motorcycle a few times when there was supposedly a 0% chance of precipitation all day.
  • Rickster1967
    Rickster1967 Posts: 485 Member
    [/quote]


    I would NOT consider physical therapy "alternative medicine," and no PT I've met would either. (I was prescribed PT by my doctor, and know many others who were.)[/quote]

    Of course PT is not part of alternative medicine - it is entirely mainstream and is taught within Medical Schools, Faculties of Medicine and such institutions

    I know because I am a PT and I work directly with doctors and surgeons

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Yes, for another example, my mother broke her hip, and was immediately after surgery working with a PT at her hospital.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568997215000245

    This is on the proof, other studies on Leaky Gut.

    Thanks for attempting to answer the question. This is what I get from the article:

    "The incidence of autoimmune diseases (AD) is increasing world-wide, mainly in western countries and the role of the environment in AD development is gradually becoming clear."

    My note: is this certain, or is it just diagnosed more? Some of the alleged culprits, of course, such as gluten, have been in the human diet for a very long time and were a much more significant portion of the diet in the past, at least for some places and groups. The article focuses just on the past 30 years, which seems inconsistent with many of the proposed causes of this supposed leaking problem. Anyway...

    "... The recent increased knowledge on the functions, mechanisms and abnormalities of intestinal permeability and the specific relationship between some common food additives and their deleterious effects on the tight-junction, prompted us to review these observations and put forward the hypothesis that increased intestinal permeability induced by the industrial food additives explains the observed surge in autoimmune disease."

    So it's a hypothesis. I would agree it's worth studying and testing. Teaching it as if it's proven and blaming everything on it when there's no evidence in many cases of a so-called "leaky gut" is a problem.

    It's also worth noting that the hypothesis looks at foods that are in the diet in greater than prior amounts over the past 30 years, and as such is really general. You'd have to see which of these contributed to so called leaky gut even if it proved to be real (which again this does not support). The foods (and additives or substances one might be exposed to) focused on are: sugar, salts, emulsifiers, organic solvents, gluten (again, I am skeptical of this one for the reasons set forth above), and various other things.

    The article then goes through how these items might operate to increase intestinal permeability -- not the same thing as saying autoimmune diseases are caused by "leaky gut" or even that there IS increased intestinal permeability in a particular case. I'd have more respect if the claim was limited to situations where that being a problem was actually diagnosed, which would be a question for a real doctor.

    But does it make sense to formulate and test a hypothesis? Sure. The problem is claiming that that means it has been proven or even is particularly likely to be the answer. It's a maybe something worth looking into, which is great for scientists, not great for "holistic practitioners" who pretend to diagnose it and who prescribe a diet based on false pretenses (many different diets, indeed).

    And again I think saying "sometimes this helps" is also great, and I'd try an elimination diet if suffering. But asserting false pretenses/more than is known, and teaching things as fact that are not is exactly the problem with what OP is being taught and some such practioners do (often with false tests that find all kinds of things that no real tests would, like parasites and adrenal fatigue and so on, as mentioned above).
    Some Holistic stuff I see is garbage. Dr Axe was telling people that everything can be cured through Bone Broth. If bone broth isn't organic, from the research I've seen, it contains massive amounts of Round-Up (there's a glycine, glyphosate displacement that occurs and glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-Up actually becomes part of the structure according to the theory by Anthony Samsel, which is strongly supported by science studies -- yes, actual studies in very reputable science journals). Dr Axe didn't mention he was pushing non-organic bone broth for around a year. That can do more harm than good.

    Organic or no, bone broth doesn't CURE anything. It's tasty as an addition to foods. That's precisely the kind of issue I see. Trying dietary changes I think makes sense if you have an illness that might be helped by it, but claiming "cutting out gluten" or "eating only organic" or "cutting out meat" cures whatever long list of diseases (just like the similar "carbs cause illness, so going low carb fixes all diseases" that you get from a different list of practioners -- and not sure which group OP was following -- IS a problem. Diet changes absolutely help some people. I mentioned above that weight loss is often helpful, that my dad (and others) improved his cholesterol from a dietary change, diet changes help with IR/T2D, high blood pressure, so on. Can they help with some autoimmune diseases? I'm sure. I don't even consider this something separate from real medicine, as I'd hope doctors would suggest looking for allergies and other food issues and how diet contributes to health.

    My problem with so called holistic practioners is using fake tests to "diagnose" fake illnesses (that the tests do not diagnose) and then pretending like there's a clear cut solution based on a specific diet or supplement or whatever. Often it probably does a little something -- hope helps, placebo effect is real, etc., and maybe you sometimes do end up eating better or eliminating a food that was bad for you specifically, and that's a nice side effect, but it doesn't make what is essentially misleading people okay. Nor spreading woo and contributing to people mistrusting medicine, refusing vaccinations, etc.

    I would NOT consider physical therapy "alternative medicine," and no PT I've met would either. (I was prescribed PT by my doctor, and know many others who were.)

    It sounds like you are not, what I term, an "absolutist". That's a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I don't buy half the stuff I read on Holistic sites. I suppose I'm different (not by choice) in not believing everything I read in Conventional Journals either.

    I was more in your camp until my wife got sick. I'm more open minded now simply because we didn't have any solutions from conventional meds/conventional docs. We tried that for over a year and I ran out of patience.

    I also believe in vaccines. I'm certainly not an anti-vaccine person. But I've seen enough with vaccines, too, to think there's some element of truth to what some anti-vaccine people are saying. Believe it or not, not all are crazy whackos. No one seems to want to get the full truth anymore. I personally believe that some people (probably those with MTHFR genetic defects) react more negatively than others to vaccines. What (I think) we'll find out is if they just made sure that those with that defect took methyl b vitamins prior to vaccination, it would be more safe for all taking vaccines.

    I don't think they know nearly enough about gut permeability (yet) to come to a conclusive way to treat it. More than gut permeability (or leaky gut), I think that they'll find more solutions with changing the gut microbiome (a completely separate issue) for changing modern medicine. That's where what most would have considered Holistic medicine 10 years ago is meeting Traditional medicine. Large drug makers are addressing the underlying causes instead of just the symptoms. Progress will be slow until projects like the Human Microbiome study are more complete.

    I just wish that more traditional medicine embraced things that potentially could help people, like DNA testing. When 23andme came out, the medical community was dead set against it. It's turning out that some of the research based on this genetic testing has already helped with some new innovations/therapies.

    Both Holistic MDs that have treated my wife's Fibromyalgia, as kids or young adults, had unexplainable Chronic Pain. They were both told it was "all in your head". Until five or six years ago, Fibro patients were considered my most conventional docs to be psychiatric patients. Perhaps this is where some of the anger I have comes from for the establishment. The arrogance of conventional doctors is at a crazy level. A company has produced a test for Fibromyalgia called the FM/a test. It was a test that was created by a researcher that was actually trying to prove that the biomarkers for Fibromyalgia weren't unique. He was shocked and found a very distinct pattern that proves that Fibro patients have a very unique pattern of Cytokines (I'm not a scientist so I hope I'm accurate on that, though I'm sure I'll be personally attacked on this). Now, nearly every doctor recognizes Fibro as a legit diagnosis but just doesn't know how to treat it. It took a decade to reach this point. That's too long for some. Yes, I'll take some hypothesis as hope and run with it. Guilty! But it beats the alternative watching a loved one die in front of you. So far, the hypotheses that I've ran with have worked. That's proof enough for me and allows me to brush off any criticism I might hear on a weight loss board.

    I agree with you that PT is not alternative medicine. That's a prime example, though, of what I'm saying about changing times. Quackwatch (a site often supported by Sciencebasedmedicine.org) once called all of Chiropractic quackery. I certainly don't agree with that. Until people question what's being put out there (and what's their vested interest in things), no real progress will be made.

    Traditional medicine has already implemented treatments/screening based on DNA results, so I'm not sure how you have reached the conclusion that the medical community is "dead set against it." Look at breast cancer screening and treatment, for example (I'm sure there are other areas as well -- this is just one that I've read about recently).
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