9 West Tea House

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 11:20 am

Originally posted by Aleldar:

No smoking, little red meat, little exercise, hardly fried foods, uses olive oil for cooking.

nobody is touching my read meat - I'll go postal

I want my steaks and I want them rare

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 11:33 am

Originally posted by fable:
But as I remarked above, examples and testimonies from individuals are worth a lot less in this (or any other) instance where causation of a disease is being established, instead of a good doubleblind study.

You also make it sound like this is a straight shot: sugar to cardiovascular disease.

I'm not sure that this really has anything to do with what ya'll are talking about. My Grandpa was diabetic and had absolutely no history of heart disease/problems. He died of heart failure, cause unknown but supposedly his being diabetic had nothing to do with how he died.

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 11:40 am

Originally posted by fable:
 Like I said, there's been no direct link established between eating processed sugar, and cardiovascular disease.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, your premise -- that there is a lack of definitive research to connect sugar consumption and heart disease -- is an easy position to defend given the state of medical research. So easy in fact that we could almost say, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, that appeal to the medical literature is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Isn't this the same argument the tobacco industry used to great effect to defend its toxic practices, the argument that the chemical industry still uses? Medical research is not the bastion of rationality we perhaps wish it to be, nor can it be the final arbitrator of clinical focus. For one, it is open to compromise. It has been estimated that between 45 to 60% of medical scientific papers are invalid due to incorrect use of statistics, bias, or fraud. This is a significant impediment due to that fact that it takes a number of published research articles to establish definitive causality. Another point that should be made is that investigation of dietary factors is woefully inadequate except in situations where there is money to be made. Further obstacles exist in that the industries representing said dietary factors are not keen on allowing the promulgation of information detrimental to their livelihood.

Finally, as much as conventional medicine resists this fact, medicine is not "scientific" in the way physics or other hard science are. The focus of these sciences is the exploration of natural phenomena and the expansion of consensual knowledge through a rigorous approach based on logic and experimentation. The focus of medicine is the promotion of health and the treatment of disease. Clinical practice, for ethical and practical reasons, does not have the luxury of waiting for the results of rigorous investigation or the establishment of clinical consenuality in many cases. Medicine is, and always has been, largely empirical. Being on the cutting edge of medicine often means flying in the face of established "scientific" knowledge. For example, in the 1970s the idea that diet had anything to do with cancer or that a bacteria like H. pylori was causal in ulcer formation was rounded derided in medical circles. Yet protocols that used these empirically-garnered observations continued to be utilized, observations that have now been validated by "scientific" studies. Why did this happen? Because doctors, unlike scientists, have a responsibility not necessarily to posterity, but the living breathing individual suffering right before them. In summary, I agree with the basis of your statement, but I find the spirit of your argument a bit disingenuous.

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 11:56 am

Originally posted by Xandax:
nobody is touching my read meat - I'll go postal

I want my steaks and I want them rare

*Thantor quietly kidnaps all of Xandax's steaks, then sits back in a fortified bunker to watch the fireworks*

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 2:41 pm

To play devil's advocate for a moment, your premise -- that there is a lack of definitive research to connect sugar consumption and heart disease -- is an easy position to defend given the state of medical research. So easy in fact that we could almost say, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, that appeal to the medical literature is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Isn't this the same argument the tobacco industry used to great effect to defend its toxic practices, the argument that the chemical industry still uses?

Not probably the best example you could have chosen, since there *have* been doubleblind studies linking tobacco inhalation and carcinogens, which is what started the FDA warnings about tobacco.

scully1 · Post by **scully1** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 10:14 pm

@Fable: Isn't this getting a bit off-topic?...I didn't realize the purpose of this thread was to argue or debate. I thought it was, as Thantor said, a place to process certain emotional issues related to current world events, namely the recent terrorist attacks in the US and their aftermath; and/or the upcoming holiday season. Along with other various traumas that may be affecting us.

With respect, I'm surprised you and Thantor haven't taken this medical debate to PM, especially since you're now a moderator on this forum

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Sat Dec 08, 2001 10:26 pm

@Loner It's Thantor's thread, so surely if he doesn't mind it going off-topic, there's no problem...

@Thantor Spamming your own topic?

Bad Thantor!!

[ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: Georgi ]

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 1:30 am

Originally posted by thantor3:
*Thantor quietly kidnaps all of Xandax's steaks, then sits back in a fortified bunker to watch the fireworks*

NOOOOOOOOO - my steaks.

*Xandax places stamps all over himself, so he can be mailed and thus going postal

*

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 6:32 pm

Originally posted by Georgi:
@Loner It's Thantor's thread, so surely if he doesn't mind it going off-topic, there's no problem...

Anytime Thantor wants me to stop taking bribes from sugar producers in South and Central America, he has but to ask.

In any case, we could all use a sanity break these days, a bit of clean virtual air to sweep away the tangled mess of modern Western culture. (For those who feel I am being unfair, I am perfectly willing to add any other culture to that statement, even if I don't know what it is. Yes, I am that courteous.)

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 9:29 pm

@Loner: Thanks for getting me back ontrack.

@fable: I am loathe to cut off your primary source of income during the holidays. But right after that...

@Georgi: Yes... I learned from the master.

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Sun Dec 09, 2001 9:32 pm

This is a modified form of an article I wrote for Cascade Life:

In Five Element theory, the season of winter is related to the Shen and Pang Guang (roughly, the Kidney* and Bladder) organs, the emotion of fear, and the taste of salt. The Kidneys in Chinese medicine differ dramatically from their Western counterpart. The Kidneys are the root of all the Yin and Yang present in the body because they store the Jing or Essence. Essence differs from Qi ("vital force") in that it is both the basic substance of the life force and the energetic component responsible for development. It is the Jing that moderates growth, reproduction, and the speed of aging. It is said that the Kidneys "open to the ears". It is interesting to observe that the ability to listen is enhanced during the icy, silent months of winter.

The Water element presents difficulties for the American lifestyle because it challenges many of our cultural beliefs. For example, the element of Water is concerned with listening to our intuition and natural rhythms. There are many ways that ability to do this is compromised in Western culture, such as the strong focus on the external and the rational. But one particular way I want to focus on here concerns the betrayal of intimacy. According to the Inner Tradition of Chinese medicine, the highest aspect of healing is concerned with assisting an individual with fulfilling their individual destiny. In other words, helping them to recognize their inner nature and empowering them to then take action consistent with this truth. This "intimacy with one's true self" is foundational not only for energetic balance and establishing healthy relationships with others, but also for being able to hear and respond to one's natural rhythms. The ability to do this can be severely damaged by acts that rupture the fabric of intimacy, including incest, rape, abuse, and divorce. Each of these involves the issues of boundaries in some fashion. A boundary fixes or indicates a limit. They mark out territory. Humans mark out territory by setting boundaries and, like animals, defend them in a number of ways. Incest generally occurs before the proper functioning of boundaries is fully developed. Therefore, it serves to erode of the foundation upon which boundaries are predicated *before* they are established. In rape, there is a definite crossing of established boundaries of which the victim is well aware. The result is to shatter established boundaries invasively from "outside to inside". In contrast, divorce involves a serving of a Heart-to-Heart connection between consenting partners, resulting in a shattering of boundaries from "inside to outside".

According to Chinese medicine, the way a person interprets a betrayal is dictated by their constitutional type, but in almost all cases the Fire element, which is related to the Heart, is wounded. This results in a complex series of energetic imbalances. To illustrate one, a key pattern of dysfunction resulting from betrayal is that the energies of the Kidney begin to overcontrol the Heart, decreasing its capacity for joy, trust and intimacy. As Lonney Jarret, LAc. notes:

"As the Heart opens to intimacy in a new relationship, pain from old relationships that has been trapped in the Heart may reemerge. In an attempt to shut the pain off at its source the Kidney may overcontrol the function of the [Heart]. It is fear, the emotion of the Kidneys, which accompanies this closing down of one's Heart... People often interpret this fear as an indication that they are not safe in the present relationship. Hence, as a reaction to past pain, they withdraw from the relationship in an attempt to avoid facing their fears rather than consciously responding to the unique merits of their present situation."

The path of healing for each person is highly individualistic. In general, however, it usually involves first bringing the pain, wounding, a patterns resulting from the betrayal into awareness, then educating and assisting the individual in pursuing the desired changes. A pivotal component in this process is reawakening the person's ability to make new choices in the face of habitual behavior. It is often the case when a betrayal takes place that an individual can cause more pain and more damage than occurred in the initial wounding by their own reactions, inability to release, and interpretations of what occurred. The power to choose, which is related to the will and governed by the Kidneys, thus become central to the healing process.

* Chinese organ names are capitalized to indicate their difference from the Western physical organs.