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On 3/1/2019 5:55 PM, Bill Norwood via Phys-l wrote:
/snip/ - What you write makes it clear to me that there is no way, fromeither the
standpoint of a physicist's thinking or a chemist's thinking, to putby
together an energy expenditure table/list which would be understandable
any layman.involved
- I do not buy it.
- My reaction is that laymen should retract/block funding from the
academics. /snip/I did not understand this paragraph from Bill's note supporting a
physician's well-publicized ideas on the role of fasting on recovery
from injuries.
It appears that the author in question, Joel Fuhrman MD wrote his book,
Fasting and Eating for Health, after recovering from an injury sustained
while competing in ice figure-skating, and after losing much muscle mass
being excluded from the Olympic team in consequence of this wasting
episode. Twelve years later, with a general practice degree in hand, he
has by now written a number of popular dieting books featuring fasting.
Perhaps I could mention two anecdotes which come to mind in this
connection. A flight instructor with whom I worked, was an enthusiast
for natural eating and derogated the medical approach to cancer for
example, citing poisons and problems with ionizing radiation.
It happened that he developed a cancer in the neck, and resisted
orthodox treatments for the reasons given. After a few months, I was
dismayed to see he was having difficulty speaking because the now
massive growth was pressing on his wind-pipe.
When he stopped working, I was fairly sure I was in his last days.
Imagine my surprise when, several months later, he was working again,
and looking very much normal and unafflicted.
I asked how he had pulled off his convincing recovery. He said that with
his wife's insistence on his seeking medical help,
he reluctantly underwent the usual cancer therapy featuring burning
x-rays, chemo-therapy etc, etc.
The second anecdote: two years ago, my horse, a Morgan gelding,
presented with stumbling, wobbling, seeming deafness and semi-blindness
and an uncharacteristic aversion to human company. These are symptoms of
two serious horse diseases, one viral, the other due to parasitic
invasion of the central nervous system. After examinations by two vets,
and blood sampling for lab tests it was confirmed that the second
alternative was implicated - a disease with a roughly 50% survival rate
- in some cases with subsequent loss of vitality. The horse
recovered, as it happened. I mention the episode because when I could
herd the horse close to a feed tray, he would eat normally, and did so
every day.
I conclude that using evidence based therapy is still not universal, but
using orthodox treatment is the best alternative we have available,
presently. What is more, my horse anecdote is opposed to the
'thousands-of-years' observations of animals fasting to recover from
injury or illness.
Brian W
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