Is the holistic movement under attack?

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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:07 pm

Since the holistic movement has lots of pseudo science, I tend to be skeptical of everyone in the holistic movement.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby BlueHeron » Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:40 pm

I think a healthy skepticism is a good thing and should be applied to both the holistic movement and more mainstream science. Both can be influenced by economic interests, and both can involve people so entrenched in a belief system that they're unwilling to look at new evidence.

There is some good in the holistic movement, but too often, it gets taken over by fear-mongering and pseudoscience. Our basic lack of scientific literacy shows.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby Kristopia » Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:47 pm

BlueHeron wrote:If you look at news sources that don't have an ax to grind, it's pretty clear that Bradstreet probably committed suicide. I don't blame his family for not wanting to believe that. I do blame people who try to create a conspiracy out of this tragedy to further their own ends - as if the AMA hires hit men.

I assume you will continue to believe as you do without the "proof" you require of me. That is the nature of conspiracy theorists. By the way, it is impossible to prove a negative, that is, you cannot prove something - God or a conspiracy - does NOT exist. That is the nature of logic.

This right here. The onus of proof for a belief about a conspiracy, or in a God, or in whatever a person is putting forth is on the person making the claim. It is not up to logic and science to disprove claims, but it is up to the claimants to prove their points.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Fri Aug 28, 2015 2:16 pm

Conspiracy theories do provide great source material for fictional works. Conspiracy theorists can probably earn lots of money as novelists.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby awest27 » Fri Aug 28, 2015 3:06 pm

I think the preferred method of attack against doctors like McDougall is the steady release of articles claiming that fat and animal products are good for health.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 pm

It is hard to get rid of fat and animal products since they are part of the traditional diets. People probably started with brown rice. After the switch to white rice, many cultures have a hard time getting rid of even white rice. What people don't notice is the transition to larger and larger amounts of fat and animal products as people become richer as is happening now in china and india. Instead of just eating animal products monthly or weekly, the new middle class is now able to eat animal products every day and 3x a day. Many countries already transitioned to industrial food and large amounts of animal products. When I was a kid growing up in asia, people could already eat animal products 3x a day and there was already many cases of diabetes as has happened with my maternal grandmother who was obese and also had heart disease. I would guess that my maternal grandmother used to be skinny when she was in china. My mother was also skinny when she was young. People who give up oil and animal products will always be painted as extreme by the mainstream.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby openmind » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:24 am

colonyofcells wrote:It is hard to get rid of fat and animal products since they are part of the traditional diets. People probably started with brown rice. After the switch to white rice, many cultures have a hard time getting rid of even white rice. What people don't notice is the transition to larger and larger amounts of fat and animal products as people become richer as is happening now in china and india. Instead of just eating animal products monthly or weekly, the new middle class is now able to eat animal products every day and 3x a day. Many countries already transitioned to industrial food and large amounts of animal products. When I was a kid growing up in asia, people could already eat animal products 3x a day and there was already many cases of diabetes as has happened with my maternal grandmother who was obese and also had heart disease. I would guess that my maternal grandmother used to be skinny when she was in china. My mother was also skinny when she was young. People who give up oil and animal products will always be painted as extreme by the mainstream.


This weekend I ran into a young man who is seeing a Chinese acupuncturist for a number of ailments. This acupuncturist has his on a strict Paleo Diet, with unrestricted meat but restrictions on what kind of vegetables he can eat.

My advice to anyone here is to stay away from the vast majority of 'alternative medicine' or 'holistic healing'. It is no better than traditional medicine (and probably worse, becasue there is little regulation) and most practitioners that I know of have adopted the Paleo Diet or some other low carb nonsense.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby MikeInFL » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:22 pm

openmind wrote:..My advice to anyone here is to stay away from the vast majority of 'alternative medicine' or 'holistic healing'. It is no better than traditional medicine (and probably worse, becasue there is little regulation) and most practitioners that I know of have adopted the Paleo Diet or some other low carb nonsense.


Seems to me WFBP is alternative/holistic, is it not? Healing with food is not mainstream as far as I know. And I'm finding some impressive results with alternative approaches, curing T2 diabetes, cancer, etc.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:15 pm

Lifestyle changes are mainstream. I heard both pritikin diet and dean ornish diet are now covered by medicare. The mainstream is pushing the mediterranean diet which is also a healthy diet. The government has a diabetes prevention program :
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/ ... iculum.htm
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby StarchHEFP » Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:49 am

MikeInFL wrote:
openmind wrote:..My advice to anyone here is to stay away from the vast majority of 'alternative medicine' or 'holistic healing'. It is no better than traditional medicine (and probably worse, becasue there is little regulation) and most practitioners that I know of have adopted the Paleo Diet or some other low carb nonsense.


Seems to me WFBP is alternative/holistic, is it not? Healing with food is not mainstream as far as I know. And I'm finding some impressive results with alternative approaches, curing T2 diabetes, cancer, etc.


Let's say that WFPB/lifestyle change is the ORIGINAL medicine as Hippocrates intended! And all the guidelines for pretty much everything (cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc.) recommend lifestyle changes FIRST. It's just they differ on what kind of lifestyle changes they recommend, but the common theme usually includes eat more plant foods and exercise more.

In fact, lifestyle medicine is a new and upcoming "board" within the board of Preventive Medicine, and someday it will totally be mainstream.

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/convincing-doctors-to-embrace-lifestyle-medicine/
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby BlueHeron » Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:11 am

"Alternative medicine" is not a very clear category, and I would not lump all of it together. I think it's possible to use alternative medicine in an intelligent way (and I would say the same of conventional medicine - which can also be driven by profit). I don't think it's true that alternative practitioners as a rule push a Paleo diet - certainly not any more than mainstream doctors do.

I would also say that the Paleo diet is probably more healthful than what most Americans are eating. It eliminates dairy and processed food and emphasizes fruits and vegetables. It is not the same as Atkins.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:24 pm

There are paleo people who eat starch like tubers and winter squash. There are also paleo people who are more similar to Atkins diets even though the paleo diet is supposed to be high in animal protein rather than fat. The paleo people, atkins and weston price foundation people tend to attend the same conferences.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby BlueHeron » Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:33 pm

colonyofcells wrote:There are paleo people who eat starch like tubers and winter squash. There are also paleo people who are more similar to Atkins diets even though the paleo diet is supposed to be high in animal protein rather than fat. The paleo people, atkins and weston price foundation people tend to attend the same conferences.


Yes, I should have differentiated. Paleo in practice is all over the place. There's junk Paleo (Paleo donuts!) just like there's junk vegan.

But I think that a lot of people in the US would improve their health by following Paleo in giving up processed foods and dairy.
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Re: Is the holistic movement under attack?

Postby colonyofcells » Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:54 pm

All paleo diets are high in animals products (usually about 50%). If a paleo diet with safe starches slips into low animal products, it has already become similar to the pritikin diet.
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