View Full Version : Diabetes and you. or rather ...
diabetes and me. Or to be more exact, diabetes and my DH.
I know, what does this have to do with simple living. Not a damn thing, sorry. But you've always been my go-to people and here I am again. :-)
DH was just recently diagnosed as Type 2 diabetic. The last doctor he went to told him the numb patches on his legs were due to wearing his belt too tight (come to Bisbee for the fun, and be sure to stay for the show!!!). He finally got a real diagnosis, which unfortunately has nothing to do with his wardrobe choice.
As some of you know, I can go on for about six hours on the ills of refined carbs and how to get the body into ketosis for weight loss and how fat isn't actually the culprit in western disease, it's sugar and how cholesterol is a symptom and treating it as a disease cures nothing, it just adds another level of problems. Ad nauseum. :|(
All my research is finally coming in handy though, in his panic he agreed to let me try to help, we've come up with a modified sort of Atkins diet + exercise plan and after two weeks his postprandial blood sugar is nearly normal, he's also lost several pounds. Trying to keep it reasonable, not stress the kidneys, keep the energy and calories doable.
The issue is that we've got a "counsellor" that we saw for the first time today, and the bs she's spouting is directly out of nutrition 101, circa 1984. You need to increase your carbs to 60 grams per meal :0!, you can eat just about anything (as long as you take 2000 mg of metformin a day), the only thing you need to know for weight loss is calories in - calories out = fat gained or lost ... I bit my tongue. I smiled a lot.
I think I'm mostly venting here, but the thing is, I don't want DH to feel like he's got to remember two sets of conflicting info to please me and the "nutritionist". He's got enough to worry about without an ego war, and the whole world of healthy eating is new to him. He wants to do what we've worked out, but he also has another appointment where he's supposed to show his dutiful log book and how many carbs and calories he's eating and how he's treating all fat but a few tsp of olive oil like it's the enemy.
Does anyone have a good story about beating western medicine at its own game? Lol. The timing is grisly, I'm also reading Katy Butler's Knocking On Heaven's Door, which is basically about how Big Med steals people's control and obsesses over impersonal "results" at the expense of the person.
ApatheticNoMore
2-20-14, 8:16pm
Is he on statins? Well if so: ding, ding, ding (and yes I know people get type 2 diabetes without statins and did long before them). But statins can themselves pretty much cause diabetes. Online diabetics report that on statins no matter what they ate they could not get their blood sugar down (anecdotal but). Whether to stay on statins in the case of a diabetes diagnosis is something I wouldn't pretend to say but it might be reaching diminishing returns as diabetes is itself a risk factor for heart disease.
Here's what happened with with someone I know diagnosed with diabetes,. So they: got off statins (which of course I had told them not to take in the first place), ate smaller meals, lost some weight, did more exercise, took metformin, less carbs but not really a low carb diet. So blood sugar entirely normal by the A1C which is the accurate test for that (but again maintained with metforim). Of course now that being the case they think they can eat anything, gain weight and not exercise. So really you can't win for losing. I mean sucess itself becomes not positive reinforcement but backfire. Metforim truely is remarkable and has a long history of use. Heaven forbid it stop working though, the newer diabetes drugs have all kinds of ugly side effects including cancer.
onlinemoniker
2-20-14, 8:24pm
kib:
I suggest that the latest research shows it isn't in fact that carbs that are the culprit in diabetes but rather a high fat diet. High fat diets raise blood fat which blocks the insulin receptors on cells making them incapable of metabolizing carbohydrate.
Please consider doing some additional reading on this subject as a possible alternative treatment to diabetes. It's very difficult to maintain a diet with a really high percentage of protein/fat and dramatically restricted carbohydrate.
Good luck to you and your husband with this. I'm sure it's a struggle.
The nutritionist provided by my insurance company is a complete waste of time. All of her ideas and plans are at least a couple of decades out of date. I have to see her once a year as part of my diabetes plan, which is really not helping anyone, certainly not me and the insurance company. The only person benefiting is the nutritionist, and when I have my annual visit with her, I smile in the right places, nod my head (probably in the wrong places), pretend to take notes and think about Hubble in my head. Love Hubble, my baby.
And, this health stuff is about living simply and well. Just saying.
Oh, and I do control my diabetes with 1500mg/daily of Metformin, watching what I eat, most of the time, and making myself walk a lot each day. Pretty much hate exercise, but I would like to live longer, so I grudgingly do it, although just enough and no more.
Diabetes education is a farce. In the last year or so they grudgingly admitted some diabetics can lose weight and bring their blood sugar down with a low-carbohydrate diet. Obviously the one you talked to has not yet got the message.
Get Dr. Richard Bernstein's diabetes book. He was an engineer with insulin-dependent diabetes who went to medical school to better understand the disease. He has maintained his low-carb plan for something like 40 years.
He might prefer to submit to the dietitian's plan. Fine. He can have at it--try it for two weeks, testing frequently. Then he can try your LC plan and test that. The results should be proof enough.
Have him watch Tom Naughton's Fat Head movie; read his blog. Watch his YouTube video Science for Smart People. Try to get hold of the excellent CBC program My Big Fat Diet, in which Dr. Jay Wortman transforms a First Nations community with a low carb diet heavy with oolichan grease and lots of vegetables. See Dr. Peter Attia and Mark Sisson. Read Gary Taubes.
In the end, he has to make his own decisions, like my partner did. He took statins, and a number of other dangerous drugs they routinely pass out to old people. He's on dialysis now.
I am typing this between bites of salami wrapped around cream cheese. Obviously, I'm terrified of fat. :0!
ETA: "and bring their blood sugar down with a low-carbohydrate diet"
ANM, thanks. They want to put him on statins if his cholesterol doesn't come down - that hasn't been rechecked yet - he's not on them yet. She said it like you might say, 'we probably need to buy socks'. This is really a DING DING DING for me because it's so knee jerk on their part, I feel like I'm dealing with zombies. The nutritionist actually held up a blood sugar diary and said "my drug rep gave this to me, it's so awesome!" Yes, very awesome, the bloodsticks are about $1 each and this book would have you checking your blood sugar eight times a day. I feel like I'm wide awake and somehow sliding down a greased chute anyway.
OM, that's very interesting, I will definitely take a look. I have a lot of info about carbs and insulin resistance, but dietary fat blocking insulin receptors would certainly be an important piece of the puzzle. My feeling on severely limiting carbs is that he's significantly overweight as well as diabetic, it seems like carb limiting at least for now might kill two birds. I'm certainly not trying to create a high fat diet, but to balance protein, fat and a lowered amount of carbs. I don't intend to be a carb nazi forever, but I'd like him to get used to the idea of small servings of healthier carbs. Part of the issue is that DH is a "carboholic" - name a highly processed food with 50 carbs per serving or more, he's there. If he's not getting ice cream or chocolate bars or jelly beans or mashed potatoes or white bread or pasta I've gotta give him something else that's treat-y, which sometimes means some fat, or he'll never stick with this.
Jilly, thank you very much for sharing that. I don't know to what extent the metformin is responsible for DH's improvement and how much is diet and exercise. It would be nice if he could get off it eventually, but at least it seems to be a drug that does more good than harm. ... oh, I am so bad at nodding and smiling. Sigh. I have a feeling my nutritionist's favorite dietary supplement is amphetamines, she talks like a locomotive, listens not one bit, and weighs about 80 pounds. Smile. Nod. Why are you wearing a see-thru blouse in the office. Smile vacuously. Nod at wallpaper.
At first it's critical to work your meter to death. Price strips at Costco (Wal-Mart if you have to). It's important to see how your body reacts to different foods.
Excellent Australian television program on statins that has caused a furor with the medical establishment there, and set off an important debate:
Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDVf-00w5gk
Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAKaM330xzg
Teacher Terry
2-20-14, 9:11pm
Both my hubby and I lowered our big cholesterol numbers (250 & 270) by taking Phytosterol Complex 1000 mg per serving with Beta Sitosterol made by Physiologics. It is not a RX and was recommended by our Chiro. My went from 250 to 170 and my hubby down to 200 in a few months. We just took one per day but you can take as many as 3. My doctor was shocked. YOu may want to give it a try. It also is not expensive-something like $18/bottle of 100 capsules.
At first it's critical to work your meter to death. Price strips at Costco (Wal-Mart if you have to). It's important to see how your body reacts to different foods.
Excellent Australian television program on statins that has caused a furor with the medical establishment there, and set off an important debate:
Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDVf-00w5gk
Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAKaM330xzg
Thanks, Jane. I was also hoping to get a hand on Statin Nation, but it appears I'll have to pay for it. Wondering if it's got anything new, I'll start with these youtubes instead.
Teacher Terry, thank you, that's good to know. I keep not finding much evidence that blood cholesterol actually causes disease, from what I have read the body seems to send out cholesterol in response to arterial damage, to make a patch ... sometimes i feel like the medical community's obsession with cholesterol is the equivalent of looking at a guy covered in bandaids and telling him he has too many bandaids rather than asking how he got the cuts. Still, if cholesterol reduction is the goal, it's certainly better to try anything other than statins, if I have a say in it they will not cross our doorstep.
Teacher Terry
2-21-14, 2:52am
Actually from what i have read we will never take them.
Husband just lost 35 pounds and has worked an exercise program for 8 months and is now tested off statins. His bad level is way down and his good level is still not where it should be but statins dont work on that according to him.
are
Diet: seriously looked at all carbs. Allow some potato and rice but limited. Whole grain product but seriously limited. Threw out flour thus no baking. Rare processed food. Mostly simple and plain. Note that we do eat out occasionally but make much better choices.
Exercise: 3 or 4X one hour low impact cardio with mix of other exercises per week. 2X on recumbenant bike per day. 2 or 3X Bodypump weight class per week.
I am not diabetic, and my only experience comes from talking with tons of doctors about diabetes. My question is always, why is diabetes epidemic these days?? When I first started doing market research and would ask doctors what % of their patients do they treat for diabetes the answer was about 10%. Now, it's consistently 30%+. Over 30%! This is an epidemic!
So, if you google, "why is diabetes epidemic?" you get articles like this one in the Huffington Post by Mark Hyman (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/diabetes-obesity-treating_b_397775.html), which really kind of states the obvious, but confirms that it's complex. There is no one magic bullet to add or subtract to make it all go away.
However, I do like this quote from one of the commenters: "A lot of people get confused about what to eat, 'it is all so complicated.' I simply say 'Eat the food that God makes, and leave the man made junk alone.' If God doesn't make it, don't eat it. This makes things less complicated."
I think it's fine to demonize chemicals and sugars, but it's probably not so wise to demonize one macronutrient over another. All in balance. My own personal bias is that HFCS plays a huge role in how out of whack our bodies are, which is of course only one of many sugars--all of which are nasty culprits, but the ubiquity of HFCS and the fact that it's a relatively new compound that has been infused into every canned and boxed thing we eat makes it a more dangerous suspect in my mind.
kib, I know it's hard to change your partner's eating habits. I keep waiting for the shoe to drop for my DH, because he is not a healthy eater either. He simply does not have an acquired taste for good, simple food. Give him an asparagus and it's nothing to him without a quarter of pound of butter, charred beyond recognition and left for dead. I guess baby steps are the best way--and at least it sounds like he's open to your suggestions.. Good luck.
Here's another comment from that article:
Last year I went to my doctor for a checkup, my blood sugar was over 300. I left armed with Rx for Metformin, Micronase, Lisinopril. After making lifestyle changes ie diet, no white flour no refined sugar no HFCS reduced carbs and walking 2-3 miles per day and a 20+% weight loss, I was able to throw away the drugs and have maintained fasting blood sugar levels of 100+-5 for the last six months. I do take daily vitamins and alpha lipoic acid.
I have no doubt that most people are eating themselves into the doctor's office and subsequently the cemetery by not being aware of the poisons they put in their mouth.
This topic is so interesting to me as most of dh's side of the family has diabetes and all the other ailments that go along with it. Several of his female relatives (fat, forty and fair) have had their gall bladders removed. They act as if it is all perfectly normal. DH is next in line for the diabetes train if he doesn't get some weight off. I concur that a trip to a conventional doctor is so frustrating. It surely feel like one is talking to zombies as they spout the same advice regardless - take a pill. I have been having some pretty serious knee pain. My one and only trip to see what it might be was a waste of time and co-pay as all I got was what pain reliever would you like to try? When I told her that I would just like to figure out what is causing the pain and that I had no interest in taking pills, she had nothing to offer. I have come to believe that we have to be our own healers. In dh's case, we are spending a great deal of time shopping and cooking whole foods. For the rare occasions when we eat bread, it is sprouted such as Alvarado bread. He just needs to move a lot more and that will get the weight off. Changing food preferences is gradual. I would imagine too that living in Bisbee that your food choices might be limited.
More on statins from Dr. Duane Graveline, who was damaged by them: http://www.spacedoc.com/ Also see Cholesterol Clarity by Moore and Westman.
A little tangential, but interesting, was the series of dietary experiments done by fit, healthy Sam Feltham in which he ate 5000 calories a day on various diets one month at a time and carefully charted the results. The results are pretty telling, but low carbohydrate, high fat produced the best results in all categories. (So far, he's completed low fat, high carb; low carb, high fat; and vegan.)
People with Metabolic Syndrome or Hyperinsulinemia are by definition sensitive to carbohydrates. They generally will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes if they don't change their diets substantially. Again, your meter is your friend.
Catherine, what you said is interesting because I agree in large part ... well I'm an atheist, but within the definition most people have of God, yes, eat what God made. I think the reason it might make sense to demonize carbs more than proteins or fats is that the vast majority of foods that we've tampered with in some way from God's definition are carbohydrates. Most fruits are not "as God intended", they've been genetically modified to be sweeter and bigger - not to mention available in much greater quantity than our ancestors probably ate. Modern grains have very little to do with nature's original intentions either. White rice is just ... weird, it's so removed from the original plant grain. So just because a food is "whole" doesn't mean it's actually what we were originally designed to eat.
Hey Jane, I know, ask my doctor, :~) but how soon after a meal is optimal to check blood sugar to determine effect? Should it be two hours, or is 10-20 minutes after a more sensible idea?
Eta: I also note that a lot of the "manufactured whole foods" like tras fats and factory beef get demonized too, so it's not Only carbs.
Most fruits are not "as God intended", they've been genetically modified to be sweeter and bigger - not to mention available in much greater quantity than our ancestors probably ate.
So true...so many fruits are so sweet now that it is hard to eat them. Those little nectarines that are everywhere are like sugar bombs. One thing that has motivated DH to move more is buying him a pedometer. He has gotten into the game of doing 10000 steps or more per day so that's a start at least.
...
Hey Jane, I know, ask my doctor, :~) but how soon after a meal is optimal to check blood sugar to determine effect? Should it be two hours, or is 10-20 minutes after a more sensible idea?...
See, that's why you need to get Bernstein's book! I would hesitate to guess. You could look it up, and take an average of several pages' recommendations...I know those strips are (unconscionably) expensive, but hey--ill health is a money-making opportunity!
See, that's why you need to get Bernstein's book! I would hesitate to guess. You could look it up, and take an average of several pages' recommendations...I know those strips are (unconscionably) expensive, but hey--ill health is a money-making opportunity!
Indeed it is. I'm ok with the idea of spending a lot on the strips to begin with, I can certainly see the value of getting to know your body. But I think Accu-chek is shamelessly promoting the idea of excessive testing for life, and it's irritating to think of people sitting around excitedly asking themselves how they could encourage other people to waste $2000 a year, year in and year out for the rest of their lives.
To be honest, if it was a saliva test I'd have the man spitting in a cup every ten minutes, but, despite delusions of physican-hood, drawing blood makes me queasy. I will definitely get the Bernstein book.
There are meters that are virtually painless now, so multiple sticks aren't so bad.
Thank you again, Jane. I just ordered the Bernstein book and read the first couple of chapters, a new feature on Amazon when you order a book. This is definitely up my alley, wouldn't it be lovely if people like Dr. B existed in real life (i.e. MY life, ha ha.) Looking forward to reading the rest of it.
I agree; medical science hasn't yet caught up with the nutritional findings of substituting slow carbs for fast. Doctors are so scared of being sued if they aren't 100% clinical in their approach in pushing the drugs and the hormones in a needle.
It's my life. After I visit a doctor, they just sign something and close up shop at the end of the day. A few years ago I got a heart arrhythmia. The doctor told me it was binge drinkng. I don't drink. I asked if he could check out the vagus nerve in the hiatal region but he didn't. He just prescribed a sledgehammer drug and called it a day. I'm okay now--but it could have been done a better way if my doctor was not so leary of the AMA.
Type 2 diabetes is beatable--I know people who have changed their diets and exercised more and gotten better. The Atkins diet may be a bit to extreme but I believe it's going in the right direction. Refined carbs and lack of exercise are sometimes the cause of type 2.
Thank you, George. I think what gets me the most frustrated is that I've had an interest in medicine all my life, and I've spent a lot of time studying the issues and diseases of the body that pertain to me personally. I have a vested interest in being knowledgeable about those things! When I see a doctor, I don't assume that they will know everything there is to know about my particular issue. What I can't stand is being summarily dismissed by someone who doesn't have the info I do, because whatever they know is all they need to know. "I don't have information about low carb diets and diabetes but I'm interested in what you found", or even, "that's not how the protocol I use works" is an acceptable answer, "you're wrong (because I haven't done my homework but I'm the expert)" isn't. I don't know a lot about diabetes (yet!) but you can bet I'll have more info under my belt than this "expert" by the time I'm done.
I am very confident that DH can improve his situation dramatically. He actually likes to exercise, but he's a refined carb junkie and about 60 pounds overweight. We can fix that! I agree that Atkins is too extreme for the long haul, but it's an amazing jump start. What I found with it when I lost weight years ago is that you can come to value and savor the carbs you mindfully choose to eat when you place restrictions on them ... so you're actually maximizing the joy of ice cream by eating a scoop of it rather than mindlessly gobbling an entire quart of the stuff.
Actually, Dr. Atkins' diet is not as extreme as many people think. After the first two weeks on a very low-carbohydrate plan, the dieter adds carbs back five grams at a time until they stop losing weight. He allows fruit and whole grains, among other add-ins. Maintenance is pretty liberal. (Far more liberal than paleo or vegan, among others.)
He was a brave pioneer, constantly battling a clueless establishment and media critics. When he died, a fit 71-year-old who regularly played tennis, walking to work on icy streets, the critics ramped up their assault and spread rumors that he died grossly overweight of heart disease. He died of a head injury, and was pumped full of steroids to try to save him--thus the weight. (His death certificate is widely available.) I saw him on Larry King's show shortly before his death; he was in fine shape.
He was a cardiologist who adapted a low-carbohydrate diet to help his patients, not the quack the media tries to portray.
Just had to get that off my chest.
I couldn't agree more with everything you've written, kib. I avoid doctors; I believe that unless you have something as obvious as a compound fracture or a simple infection, most of them are out of their element. I'm just terrified of falling sick and into their clutches, as sad as that sounds. I've seen them do irreparable harm to several people close to me with their geriatric cocktail of drugs, and I'm not signing up for that. So far I've avoided being condescended to, but that's just luck.
When (if) I seek a medical practitioner, I'll look for a functional medicine specialist who believes in treating the cause, and not the symptoms, of illness. And I think I'll go fee for service, to avoid having to deal with the gatekeepers and treatment nannies.
Thank you, George. I think what gets me the most frustrated is that I've had an interest in medicine all my life, and I've spent a lot of time studying the issues and diseases of the body that pertain to me personally. I have a vested interest in being knowledgeable about those things! When I see a doctor, I don't assume that they will know everything there is to know about my particular issue. What I can't stand is being summarily dismissed by someone who doesn't have the info I do, because whatever they know is all they need to know. "I don't have information about low carb diets and diabetes but I'm interested in what you found", or even, "that's not how the protocol I use works" is an acceptable answer, "you're wrong (because I haven't done my homework but I'm the expert)" isn't. I don't know a lot about diabetes (yet!) but you can bet I'll have more info under my belt than this "expert" by the time I'm done.
I am very confident that DH can improve his situation dramatically. He actually likes to exercise, but he's a refined carb junkie and about 60 pounds overweight. We can fix that! I agree that Atkins is too extreme for the long haul, but it's an amazing jump start. What I found with it when I lost weight years ago is that you can come to value and savor the carbs you mindfully choose to eat when you place restrictions on them ... so you're actually maximizing the joy of ice cream by eating a scoop of it rather than mindlessly gobbling an entire quart of the stuff.
I hope I didn't sound to "down" on doctors. They have forgotten more medical knowledge than I will ever learn in my lifetime but (and this is a bit but) not all of them stay up to date with all the latest information. Many of them are on the level of technicians not medical scientists and they usually don't have a lot of time to hypothesize and work your a particular patient's problem so they go for a) what they know usually works (usually a drug or surgery) and b) what won't get them in trouble with the AMA.
I follow a revised Atkin's diet in that I eat a lot of both raw and steamed vegetables during the week. I know that I can't eat this way every single day so on the weekends I eat some cookies, cake and other refined carbs. Then starting Monday I start eating healthy again until Friday. I have accepted myself as imperfect and so "work with it."
Be easy on yourself and your DH and find out what works for you.
Thanks, George. I certainly would never think I knew as much as someone learns in med school, not by a very long shot, but I have made an effort to learn a lot about the few things that I know are really relevant to my own body, and I've made a tremendous effort to go beyond the AMA in getting my info. I tend to be fearless, creative, aggressive and "in the zone" when it comes to creating protocols for myself. I like the scientific approach and I don't mind experimenting, but I want to know the science behind the rationale for doing something. It's my firm belief that if a doctor hasn't learned the science behind a recommended protocol, they shouldn't be recommending it, and if they call something their specialty, it's their responsibility to actually do the ongoing work of deep learning, not just rely on pharma summaries and ama bulletins.
So a lot of my frustration comes from the fact that this is not my disease. I'm subduing the part of my personality that's howling in outrage at the sheeple behavior of our professionals, while trying to avoid being a doormat who gets lectured with pseudo-scientific soundbites that range from totally meaningless to potentially harmful, and balancing that with running interference to keep the worst of the wrong info from filtering into my DH's subconscious.
Jane, again thank you, those two youtubes were an excellent summary of my perspective! Perhaps the most amazing tidbit of new info: drug companies can excuse people with severe side effects early on in a study under the reasoning that these people would suffer too much and perhaps not follow the protocol, throwing off the results. So the people who have the worst side effects are not represented in summary findings. (Which apparently doesn't skew the results at all. Hmm.)
ETA: I agree with you George, you can't be perfect all the time. I know a lot of people who diet during the week and allow themselves to indulge a bit on the weekends (I think that's called the No S plan? (S for Saturday and Sunday.)) It's good to know that can work for diabetics too.
ApatheticNoMore
2-23-14, 3:16pm
Sometimes I wonder if doctors even have the right skill set or maybe it's mindset :\ (although this may be more the system than them - I mean the insurance companies, lack of time, etc.). Having spent years in the computer field, diagnosing is huge (and I'm quite good at it :)). Now dumb machines and code do not even begin to approach the complexity of the human body I am sure, they are mostly just doing what they are asked at some level. But far too little effort is spent in real curiosity and exploration and rationally getting at diagnosis and root cause in medicine it seems to me - far too little spent in that *process*.
Of course with diabetes you actually do have at least a disease diagnosis, I guess ...
I just finished watching a couple of YouTube videos on ketogenic diets for cancer. In this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44SuI-YrTm4, Dr. Seyfried comes out and says that the standard of care is killing people. You absolutely have to do your own research.
ANM, yes. One of the reasons I didn't become a doctor (admittedly there were other reasons entirely of my own making), was that even as a pre-med student it was apparent that there was A Protocol for being graduated as a physician, and that a lot of side avenues and important branches were pruned off this protocol very early on. Nutrition isn't important. Reproductive rights aren't important. Chiropractics and acupuncture and herbal medicine are all quackery. Emotions have nothing to do with physical health or chemical processes. Diet, exercise and lifestyle stress has nothing to do with health. This pruning ranged from offensive to downright obtuse.
I do agree with George, I think there are probably a lot of physicians out there who started out with hopes of re-growing the tree after med school was over, only to discover that avenue pretty well cut off between insurance, time stress, peer pressure, the average person's willingness to eat a pill and call it good, and the AMA's apparent desire to write protocol while wearing blinders made of dollar bills.
Thanks once again, Jane, another entertaining treat for a Sunday afternoon.
gimmethesimplelife
2-24-14, 12:21am
Hey, KIB, it's good to hear from you again.....just wish it was about a more upbeat topic. That said, I have read through this thread and have done some thinking. I am still of the belief that Western Medicine has its uses, and I still believe in universal health care. I also on the other hand also believe in the power of diet and of slowing down and eliminating stress. I myself have taken herbal medicines and the first experience I had with it - drinking Echinacea tea one day while sick with a cold during my Portland, OR, days and waking up cold free the next morning - gave me a desire to learn more and to dig deeper.
I have planted fruit trees here in Phoenix (and my peach trees are blooming now, and my fig tree has taken off to a good start) and this summer will be buying non GMO seeds from a store down your way in Tucson called Native Seed Search - great place to buy seeds sent up from Mexico of beans and squash the Tarahumaras in the Sierra Madres live on) - and I'm doing my part to eat better and to start growing at least some of my own food.
I also am a big believer that the typical employed American lifestyle with it's insane demands and high burnout/low emotional support primes most people to just pop pills and move on to keep the pace going, and there is insufficient time for most people to probe further into other health avenues than popping a pill and keeping the race going. My friend Marissa that is having (due to Medicaid expansion in AZ) her tumor surgically removed is online a couple of hours a day now at my house researching diets to reverse/prevent cancer and is making the effort to learn what she can do on her limited income to eat healthier and stack the odds better in her favor. This makes me so happy to see - on the one hand she is accepting gratefully the tumor removal, what Western Medicine can do for her - and on the other hand, she is probing further and looking into what exactly she can do from here on out on her own.
And I'm not sure where I meant to go with this post, it's all over everywhere. Maybe my point is blending whatever help you can get into something that works for the individual. Rob
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