Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About

[Sev]

And also being exposed to some degree of germs is good. It makes your body trained to defend.

Actually that's believed to be the cause of auto-immune diseases, where the body starts to attack itself. The immune system needs something to work on, otherwise it starts working on itself.

[sv-wolf]

Here's a test you could try...

Go sit in a glass sealed clean room and eat wheat germ and tofu and oranges and brussels sprouts and broccoli and ecchinacea and water for 90 days - don't forget to exercise. Get a full checkup. You should be perfectly healthy.

now

Cut the end of your finger with a scalpel and someone with a mask and a tyvek suit can come in and rub a slide containing live ebola virus on the cut on your finger. Seven days later there is a greater than 80% chance you will believe in the germ theory. Of course your organs will be almost completely liquified, but you'll believe for a moment or two before that happens.

Good point cb360. However, as I pointed out, the germ theory does not only claim that germs are present in a disease process, which your example would effectively demonstrate, it claims that they are the 'cause' of disease. Further, in orthodox circles germs are usually seen as the unique cause of disease. And further still, that germs of whatever kind are universally the unique cause of their various diseases. Given the meaning of the term 'cause,' these claims carry with them the inescapable conclusion that the only effective way you can eradicate disease is to eradicate germs. This is far from true.

Subisidiary 'causes' are tacitly acknowledged, for example, in a (often misguided) attempt to boost the immune system through vaccination. But there is a great deal that can be done to prevent disease. Your sarcastic comment on the dietary approach is pretty misguided since, when approached sensibly, it has resulted in saving countless lives. There is well researched evidence to show this and I have seen the results clinically many times myself.

80% fatality rate in just one highly abnormal situation is not enough to demonstrate a 'cause.'

I think the theoretical position is important for reasons I mentioned earlier, but basically what interests me as an 'alternative' health practitioner (I don't like the term. I think it is misleading) is maintaining the health of my clients. Orthodox medicine is spectacularly good in emergency, life-and-death situations, but statistically, it is not all that effective at treating chronic and day-to-day ailments, and can often do as much harm as good. Many of the public claims made for it are demonstrably untrue, or at the very least controversial. Public health programmes in particular are prone to put a very heavy 'spin' on the 'facts' to suit political needs.

I'm interested in the possibility of utilising the body's own resources and the fundamental necessities of life: exercise; food; right thinking; physical manipulation; etc to maintain health. I don't pretend to have anything like all the answers, but have plenty of anecdotal evidence of diseases which have responded to 'alternative' treatment where more orthodox approaches have failed.

[cb360]

I wasn't being sarcastic about the diet. I believe 100% that we would all be healthier if we ate a balanced diet full of fresh produce and fruit while avoiding fried stuff and eating too much overly processed foods. And exercising at least three times a week in a way that raises your heart rate for an extended period of time. I still maintain that if you take a specimen who is the picture of health and sealed him up up in a glass room and exposed him to the right viruses or bacteria (shigella, typhoid, etc.), that he will eventually contract the ailment associated with aforementioned bacteria if the live bacteria contacts his bloodstream. They may take longer to get it - they may fight the effects better, but ultimately the bacteria alone is enough to cause even a remarkably healthy person to contract an illness that is only associated with that specific bacteria when nothing else has changed in that environment except the addition of that specific bacteria. You can't get Typhoid without the presence of the bacterium Salmonella Typhi - it's impossible. No bacteria or virus will get 100% of the people 100% of the time. But the fact that certain bacterias cause certain illnesses is a resounding yes in my opinion - relative health of the infected notwithstanding. Remarkably healthy people get these communicable illnesses all the time - they can only get them by contacting the bacteria that causes the illness.

[sv-wolf]

Hi cb360

You and I could debate how we personally understand the concepts of 'cause' and 'the germ theory' till the cows come home, but what concerns me principally is how the Western medical establishment understands these terms, and what the consequences are for the maintenance of health in our society.

In its attempt to identify and diagnose disease, Western medicine is highly reductive and has a very strong tendency to search for a single 'cause' to explain each 'disease' process. This tendency is particularly pronounced when the medical establishment applies the germ theory to public health issues. I'll give you an example. Some years ago some research was published which showed that babies in daycare were more prone to respiratory infections than those that stayed at home with their parents. Applying the germ theory, the public health gurus developed a specific vaccine to be administered to these infancts. The vaccine contained eight bacteria associated with these ailments. Putting aside for one moment the possible disastrous effects of a massive and varied dose of pathogens on the children's immature immune systems, it never even occured to these people to question whether there were any other 'causes' or 'factors' which might explain the research findings.

It never occured to them, for instance, to question whether the infants' reduced physical contact with their mothers might affect their resistance to disease (we know it does, just as we know that physical contact with a sexual partner also boosts the immune system). Nor did it occur to them to ask whether mothers who sent their babies to daycare might be less liable to breastfeed them (another significant factor). Or whether there was a psychological element involved in institutionalising children at such a young age. If you had asked the public health officials they would probably have dismissed such considerations as irrelevant. Examples like this could be multiplied over and over.

The relationship between the very rigidly understood 'germ theory' and orthodox medicine's attitude to vaccination programmes is at the heart of this. Vaccination programmes are presented to the public by bodies with a financial, political or professional interest in the matter (drug companies, the medical establishment) as an unquestioned success. But when you start to look in detail at the evidence, this is far from the case. And in some instances they have been shown to have done more harm than good. Sometimes a drastic approach is necessary, but there are often much better ways of deaing with disease.

The medical estabishment interprets the germ theory in a highly monolithic way. The human body, in its view, is a passive piece of machinery which is subject to 'attack' from without by 'invading' microbes, and we must wage 'war' on them to bring relief to the 'victims'. (Get the language!). In this view, germs are like snipers, they strike randomly and unpredictably, and the only way to control disease it is to eliminate the microbes. But this, we know, is nonsense. A well-fed child will, in general, contract fewer diseases and survive them better than a malnourished one. I have colleagues who travel regularly to 'disease-ravaged' countries who treat themselves through clinical nutrition, have never had a vaccination in their lives and never succombed seriously to disease.

In a casual way, I'd go along with Sev and agree that the cause of disease is a chicken and egg thing, that it is both the presence of microbes and a pre-existing state of body tissues that determine the existence, nature and course of disease. But there is a polemical issue here and it is worth holding out for a radically different view of the matter.

Of course, I agree with you that you cannot succomb to Typhus without the Salmonella T. bug being present, and a similar situation is true of all other forms of germ-oriented disease. But there is an interesting issue here. To some extent this point holds true only because of the way specific diseases are defined. 'Typhus' or 'typhoid' or 'dysentary' or 'cholera' or 'influenza' are merely generic names for a collection of diagnostic symptoms found in a textbook. The actual symptoms produced by a specific microbe or 'disease' can vary considerably from individual to individual and from time to time. While some 'diseases' have very characteristic symptoms, others produce symptoms which vary so much that two people may have the same 'disease' but no symptoms in common. And we are talking here only of those symptoms regarded as diagnostically significant by orthodox medicine. People often produce other, very individual, symptoms in response to the presence of a particular disease, which a doctor would ignore from a diagnostic point of view but which may be of great significance to the sufferer.

This comes very much back to my point that the pre-existing condition of the body's tissues and organs is all-important. Why does a single microbial 'invasion' produce such varied results in different people? Why does it affect organ a in person A and organ b in person B? People's organs and their biochemistry differ one from another in ways that you would never guess from reading a standard medical textbook. Your stomach is a different shape to mine and functions differently. The chemical composition of your digestive enzymes will not be exactly the same as mine. Nor will they aid the digestion of food in the same way. The condition of our bodies changes constantly, as they respond to internal and external factors. Environmental and psychological stress, poor nutrition, poor or inappropriate exercise, unhelpful habits of mind will all have an effect on our health. The orthodox germ theory asserts that each 'disease' has a single 'cause' and that cause is a microbe. Well... you tell me!

P.S. a sidelight on this, which I have no decided views upon, but whch I find very intreresting, is the question of whether 'symptoms' are 'caused' by the disease, or by the body in response to the disease and as an attempt to regain a state of health. Orthodox medicine would go for the former and claim that symptoms are a bad thing and must be supressed. Other practitioners might take the second view and argue that they are a good thing and, so long as they are not threatening in themselves, should be left alone. Mostly all this is a plea to open up some very rigid thinking on the subject and get a diaogue going.

[cb360]

I think it's fair to say that you've given this more thought than I have. It's never been all that important to me and only in the last few years have I begun to consider 'alternative' viewpoints. I have my own problems with the medical community - the state of health care in the US is in equal turns astonishing and despicable. It's hard to believe the progress that has been made in the last half century - I'm equally amazed that in a nation of this vast wealth we have not figured out a way for everyone to have basic health care. I don't disagree with a lot of your views in considering environment and other factors. I do think that looking at all those factors simultaneously creates a difficulty in producing a reproducable experiment or control group. That doesn't mean the ideas are faulty of course - just that the science will have to catch up with the ideas until some verifiable results can be produced. I do think it's possible.

[CNF2002]

Wow lots of reading there. I'm too lazy to read it all!

If you dont believe germs and bacteria cause disease, go drink out of a mucky pond for a week during your exercise and protein shakes and let us know how you feel.

[oldnslo]

I had someone tell me last week that smoking is actually healthy, as the toxins in cigarettes kill germs and viruses. We humans presumably are stronger than the bugs. Of course he was a smoker.........

[CNF2002]

Sounds logical. I'm going to go drink some Raid.

[oldnslo]

Raid will only be efective if your body is infested with ants or other insects, in which case you might need an entomologist.....however, alcohol is a germ-killing agent, so it might help a host of diseases. It may not cure you, but you won't care....

[CNF2002]

True if you mean rubbing alcohol...that'll clean me up. Ethanol is too watered down, the germs will just have a party.