My information is backed by scientific research

INTRODUCTION: With mainstream medicine offering such abysmal odds, if you or a loved one has cancer, I recommend you scour journals for a possible treatment they likely overlooked that is supported by research from reputable scientists. Inexplicably, even the mainstream stuff from university researchers isn't well disseminated. Example: my girlfriend's Mom had cancer, went to the University of Michigan cancer center, and the oncologists she saw didn't know about some of the cutting-edge research I found that was PERFORMED BY U OF M RESEARCHERS!*

This is how I learn: by reading, evidently more than the supposed experts, and I don't profess to be a cancer expert—that's just one of countless topics I cover in health, and I also read about physics, chemistry, technology, and much more. Thus, it is frightening to learn that I had to bring those University of Michigan oncologists up to speed.

*The University of Michigan research I mentioned was performed by scientists in another department (not oncology), but since it:

  1. dealt with cancer and was published in a prestigious journal (where I found it)
  2. specifically dealt with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (what my girlfriend's mother was being treated for)
  3. utilized a benign substance (a safe food preservative, I kid you not) they found “to effectively reduce and prevent tumorigenic properties in vitro and in vivo

… then those U of M oncologists indeed should have known about that! Why didn't they know until I told them? Probably because they don't read as widely as I do. My point? Very valuable information about cancer may be found in journals on other topics. Ditto for everything else.

Reference: Joo N E, Ritchie K, Kamarajan P, Miao D, Kapila Y L. Nisin, an apoptogenic bacteriocin and food preservative, attenuates HNSCC tumorigenesis via CHAC1. Cancer Medicine 2012. [PDF]

Media Matters lied when they said I claimed “to be responsible for … schemes such as a 'magic bullet' for cancer.” I don't do cancer research and never claimed that I invented a “magic bullet” cancer cure. While other doctors are out golfing or boating, I spend my time reading various books or journals. The editor of one of those journals excitedly published an article and editorial on something that researchers found to be amazingly effective. This substance may not be a “magic bullet,” but it very well could be an important stepping-stone to it. In the years since I first discussed this, additional research has shown that this drug does indeed cause a certain type of cancer to regress, even though that cancer is characteristically highly resistant to treatment. Years before I knew of this advance, my mother died—not of cancer, as you might have guessed, but from the treatment for it. This experience prompted me to spend more time studying how people can avoid cancer.

The New York Times: Why Preventing Cancer Is Not the Priority in Drug Development
Excerpt: “There's more money to be made investing in drugs that will extend cancer patients' lives by a few months than in drugs that would prevent cancer in the first place.”
Comment: The same is true with diabetes and heart disease. Do doctors and hospitals truly want very healthy people? Do prostitutes want moralistic men with a healthy fear of disease?

The potential for cancer is in our genes, but for every switch that turns cancer on, there's a switch to turn it off. In layman's terms, those “off switches” are sometimes referred to as “magic bullets” that contrast their selective effects with the brutal nonselective side effects of typical chemotherapeutic agents. When I find exciting new information about cancer or other health topics, I pass that information along to my readers. To see how little most doctors know about preventing cancer, ask your doctor what steps you can take to minimize your cancer risk. Then read my tips, and see who knows more.

Every bit of my information is backed by research conducted by credible scientists and published in reputable journals. Admittedly, some of the research I write about may sound implausible to people without much scientific background. For example, contact allergies may help ward off certain types of cancer. That may sound really hokey, but researchers discussing it have a plausible scientific explanation for that statistical association. Skeptical? Read the article: Association between cancer and contact allergy: a linkage study. Then read Allergies: their role in cancer prevention, which extensively reviewed the scientific literature on cancer and allergies, or this summary of it: Miseries Of Allergies Just May Help Prevent Some Cancers, Study Finds. Also see More Evidence That Allergies May Help in Fighting Brain Tumors, or if you've had your morning coffee, Prediagnostic Plasma IgE Levels and Risk of Adult Glioma in Four Prospective Cohort Studies.

Want more? How about Allergies Linked To Lower Risk Of Brain Cancer, or Allergies Lower Risk of Low And High-Grade Glioma, Study Finds. That study, Assessment of Type of Allergy and Antihistamine Use in the Development of Glioma, stated that “All types of allergies appear to be protective with reduced risk for those with more types of allergies.” Although this information seems offbeat, it is very intriguing and potentially useful to people with functioning brains.

Other examples:

Therefore, what may sound wacky often makes perfect sense to educated people, while those lacking the brainpower or inclination to understand it may only scratch the surface before going berserk making wildly irresponsible allegations about my discussions of that research. Criticizing me for reporting or commenting on the research of reputable scientists is as stupid as shooting the messenger.

Here's another example: some gluten-free baking products can be hazardous to your teeth (especially if consumed repeatedly) and irritate some tissues so much you may wonder if you're coming down with a sore throat. I've never seen any science journal say that, so how can I plausibly report it?

Simple: I combined real-world observations with common science knowledge, using incontrovertible logic to make the connection that led to the now-frigging-obvious conclusion. I'll break this down: After switching to gluten-free baked goods, I often noticed mouth and throat irritation that vaguely felt like an incipient sore throat but more like a chemical burn.

And that's exactly what it was: a chemical burn induced by baking powder, a chemical leavening agent that releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into batters and doughs. CO2 is produced via the reaction of an alkali (a base) and an acid. Quoting from the Wikipedia:

The acid in a baking powder can be either fast-acting or slow-acting. A fast-acting acid reacts in a wet mixture with baking soda at room temperature, and a slow-acting acid will not react until heated in an oven. Baking powders that contain both fast- and slow-acting acids are double acting; those that contain only one acid are single acting. By providing a second rise in the oven, double-acting baking powders increase the reliability of baked goods by rendering the time elapsed between mixing and baking less critical, and this is the type most widely available to consumers today. Double-acting baking powders work in two phases; once when cold, and once when hot. Common low-temperature acid salts include cream of tartar and monocalcium phosphate (also called calcium acid phosphate). High-temperature acid salts include sodium aluminum sulfate, sodium aluminum phosphate and sodium acid pyrophosphate.

In an effort to replicate the airiness of many baked goods with gluten (which rises well), food manufacturers often load their mixes and finished products with double-acting baking powder. That isn't a problem IF the product is baked long enough at a sufficient temperature so even the core is thoroughly heated, but that doesn't always happen. Why?

  1. People may eat the batter, which is often intensely more flavorful than the finished product.
  2. Completely baked gluten-free products are often dryer than their counterparts with gluten; incomplete baking allows gluten-free ones to seem reasonably moist.

With this information, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. It explains why I experience throat irritation after eating many gluten-free baked goods and especially their batters. I occasionally noticed similar irritation after eating gluten batters including double-acting baking powder, but they don't need as much of it, so generally there's a lower concentration of acid. Strong acids can immediately damage teeth and soft tissues, while weaker ones (e.g., from carbonated beverages) can erode tooth enamel if repeatedly consumed. Bases can damage teeth and soft tissues, too, but that's a subject for another day.

Incidentally, I love to pass along information like this that sounds hokey until its scientific and logical underpinnings are presented. Small minds cannot wrap themselves around anything but simple thoughts, so anything that isn't Twitter-length and utterly elementary puts them into a tizzy and often triggers them into alleging that the person who knows more is an idiot.

That reminds me of my best friend's sister. When we were teenagers, I used a word she didn't know (I'd read the dictionary and was three years older). Because she didn't know it, she assumed I made the word up and concluded that I was an idiot. My friend laughed when his sister alleged that, saying the word is valid, though reasonably esoteric, and I was smart, not stupid. His sister is actually quite intelligent (she's now a cardiology nurse practitioner), but at that time she was arrogant enough to presume that if she didn't know something, it must be bullshit. Obviously not. No matter how brilliant or knowledgeable one is, there's always someone who knows more about some topics.

My blog and books include many thousands of references to science articles, so it was absurd of Media Matters to suggest that the information I discuss is not supported by science. Hogwash. The facts I report and my opinions are all based on science and logic.

When evidence points to a conclusion contrary to what the supposed experts say, I tell my readers what I believe. Every time I've gone against the grain of conventional medical “wisdom,” I've subsequently been proven correct years or decades later, such as when I asseverated that the net benefits of HRT outweigh its risks in most women. I was a lone voice in the wilderness, but I was correct and others were dead wrong, giving bad advice that killed more women per year than terrorists have in the past few decades in the United States! In another article, I mentioned other examples of me being ahead of the pack. As Mark Twain said, “A man with a new idea is a crank—until the idea succeeds.” That's a price innovators pay: the best ones are ridiculed, often savagely.

“The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
Anonymous

“Small minds cannot comprehend big spirits. To be great you have to be willing to be mocked, hated, and misunderstood. Stay strong.”
Robert Tew

“There's nothing more dangerous than a closed mind.”
Anonymous

“The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.”
Wayne Dyer

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Søren Kierkegaard

Other than investigating a new source of nontoxic antifungal compounds, my medical research is focused almost entirely on developing new medical devices (generally electronic ones) for cardiologists, neurologists, and other doctors. I write about what cancer researchers discover, but that's it in terms of cancer.

UPDATE

Drugs Aim to Make Several Types of Cancer Self-Destruct: That article appeared in a section on “New Approaches to Fighting Cancer.” Who would discuss such a thing? The Quack Times? No, that article appeared in The New York Times on December 22, 2012.

I wrote about that subject years ago. This isn't the first time I discussed a subject years before others, and in some cases (not this one) even before researchers were credited with a discovery I made (and discussed in print) a decade or two prior.

I am now being paid for doing something I've done for a long time: being way ahead of the curve—for inventing the future. I know that small-minded sheeple are eager to ridicule new ideas and the ones who conceive them, but I am not a spineless coward who seeks the comfort of thinking inside the box.

Years after my girlfriend met me, she confided that when we first met and heard me talking about what I could do, she thought I was just a bullshitter full of hot air, thinking “there's no way he does any of those things.” She eventually realized everything I said was true when she saw working models of things she once presumed were just fantasy. Incidentally, she works as a neuropsychologist assessing intelligence. She has disdain for the intellect of most physicians she knows, but she says she's never met anyone as creative as I am. I can take what seems like a wild idea and turn it into a working prototype in a few days to a few weeks. I'm going to make my employer very rich by tapping 1% of my ideas. I have far too many ideas for them to utilize, so I'd like to find investors looking to fund The Next Big Things (yes, plural). I also want to give away many of my other ideas—the ones less valuable, but still could form the basis for a very profitable company. I want to help kickstart an American recovery.

Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Comment: … and our girlfriends. :-)

Is there a need for a doctor such as myself to serve as a bridge between what researchers uncover and what you might learn from your doctor? You bet there is! Here is an example that illustrates how most doctors are behind the times. A UCLA study found that nearly all patients with high-grade bladder cancer do not receive guideline-recommended care. Of the 4545 bladder cancer patients included in the study, how many do you think received the comprehensive care recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Urology Association?

90 percent? 75 percent? Half of them?

Not even close! Just ONE of those 4545 cancer patients received the recommended treatment! That is almost as unlikely as your lifetime risk for being struck by lightning, so it is downright pathetic when doctors who routinely treat cancer patients are so poor at giving them the most up-to-date care. When well over 99% of doctors fail to do that, it is obvious that information is not adequately filtering down to medical practitioners.

Research: 90 Percent of Pediatric Specialists Not Following Clinical Guidelines When Treating Preschoolers With ADHD

Comment: This is just the tip of the iceberg. When I served on a committee reviewing medical records to assess whether doctors in my hospital followed guidelines, as well as when I saw countless medical records documenting prior care, it is obvious that for docs to NOT follow guidelines, even utterly elementary and commonsensical ones, is very common. Worse yet, when I'd notify physicians in writing what they did wrong, they'd still make the same mistakes month after month. Hidebound? Incorrigible?

The situation is even worse for patients and the many people who dearly hope NOT to become patients. I usually spend at least a couple hours per day reading medical research. After doing that day in and day out for many years, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, I've accumulated a mountain of information pertaining to virtually every medical specialty, disease, condition, and more, such as how to improve mood, brainpower, and sexual pleasure. After practicing medicine in a variety of settings, from prestigious university hospitals to ones in the middle of nowhere, I know what treatments and information patients receive: almost always just the basics—the usual prescriptions and whatnot, but rarely the myriad facts that could take their health and happiness to the next level. In medicine, there is a tacit misconception that health is the absence of disease. That's fine for individuals who don't care how they feel or look, how mentally sharp and creative they are, or how quickly they age, but for most of us, who do care about such things, there is a real need to have that information filter down from researchers to doctors and everyone else.

The question is, how to best accomplish that goal? The obvious choice seemed to be books and similar content published on websites, but while everyone needs that info, few people are avid readers. If I published all the information I've amassed, it would total tens of thousands of pages: too much for virtually any doctor or nonprofessional to read and absorb.

So what's the solution? First, condense that info into an online database designed to make it easy for doctors and others to see how health and happiness can be improved by using research that rarely filters down to medical practitioners and their patients. However, I know that most people would rather surf to a website about sports or celebrities than learn how they can improve their bodies and minds, so I needed a way to not just get that information to people but to integrate it into their lives—transparently, with little or no effort on their part.

Making it simple and easy is key, because even topnotch doctors do not have enough time or mental capacity to memorize and implement all of that info.

You're probably wondering how I can transparently transfer information to people who could benefit from it. A few years from now, when you are using the invention I am now developing, you will see how easy I made it to help you become not just healthier and happier, but better looking, more energetic, smarter, more creative, more productive, and more satisfied in more ways than you likely can imagine.

In short, I am committed to improving your life and the lives of other Americans and people around the world. Unlike most dreamers, I am also a doer, and I will help people in some very surprising ways. Henry Ford said that if he “asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” Figuratively, I will not give you a better horse; I will give you something much better. Not only will it augment your health and happiness, but it will save you money and time, be fun to use, and become an indispensable part of your life. My device will also make it easy and highly enjoyable to help less fortunate people in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Every great advance is met by skeptics who say it can't be done. By ridiculing good new ideas, they manifest their close-mindedness.

An advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 brilliantly explained how “the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently” who are “crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Notes:

  1. In Lethal Placebo, Dr. David Katz, Director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center, wrote that “quite possibly more than 90,000 women have died prematurely … over the past decade, due to a wholesale abandonment of all forms of hormone replacement.” Had those women listened to me, tens of thousands of premature deaths could have been prevented. You might think, “He who laughs last, laughs longest,” but this is no laughing matter; it is a crying shame.
  2. Many Patients With Advanced Cancers Get Treatments That Won't Help, Study Finds
  3. Cancer Data Not Readily Available for Future Research based on Who Shares? Who Doesn't? Factors Associated with Openly Archiving Raw Research Data
  4. Study shows only 50 percent of cancer apps actually contain clinical evidence
  5. 'Oddball science' has proven worth, biologists say
The views expressed on this page may or may not reflect my current opinions, nor do they necessarily represent my past ones. After reading a slice of what I wrote in my various websites and books, you may conclude that I am a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. Wrong; there is a better alternative. Just as the primary benefit from debate classes results when students present and defend opinions contrary to their own, I use a similar strategy as a creative writing tool to expand my brainpower—and yours. Mystified? Stay tuned for an explanation. PS: The wheels in your head are already turning a bit faster, aren't they?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”

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