Skepticism, Skeptics & Debunkers

No worse than Deutschland uber Alles.

As far as sauerkraut is concerned "Lave as mãos" should be the watchwords.

Perry

 

And never, ever, put your damaged finger in the soup after having put it into your anus to keep it warm!

Cheers.

 

Hell's teeth! That's a mind boggling image.

 

Ok, I am glad that is clear--boat-related topics it is.

Alister McGrath, to those who may not know, is the theist to Dawkins being an atheist, and a critic of Dawkins' opinions on religion and the existence of god. Overall, I have not found much in McGrath that is very convincing. He offers counterpoints to Dawkins and others, but I don't think he wins.

By the way, let's hear it for vegetarians!

Eric

 

Oh Eric.

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/veg_index.html

You have the guts of a carnivore , not a ruminant.

http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm

However, nautically speaking, good news.

http://www.omerwingsail.com/

Regards,

Perry

 

I was just wondering.... If vegetarians eat only vegetables, why don't humanitarians eat only humans?

I read both Dr. Atkins books years ago and put his diet into practice three years ago. My heart is very healthy and my blood cholesterol remains low despite eating eggs, bacon, sausage, steaks, cheese and the like every day of my life, with only sparing amounts of vegetables, bread, pasta potatoes or anything else white. I avoid (and have come to detest) sweets.

Atkins gets no respect from the medical establishment basically because he was a skeptic and paid no respect to that 'holy grail' of medical research studies, the Framingham Heart Study.

Atkins contended that when you look at non-industrialized populations you will notice that they rarely if ever die of the sort of degenerative diseases that plague industrialized populations. You must logically conclude that they must be doing something right, diet wise.

He further contended that when you go back before circa 1920, those disease states rarely occurred in the industrialized world, either. So what happened? What happened, according to Dr Atkins, was that about 20 years earlier, circa 1900, white flour mills opened up around the industrial world, greatly increasing the populations consumption of simple white starches, virtually the same as sugar to the human body.

He point out studies of Innuit, Alleut and Tli Cho tribes in the frozen north that basically eat only meat and fat their whole lives, yet have NO heart disease until they come into the cities and adopt the western diet. Ditto for primitives living in northern Scandinavia subsisting on a diet of mostly wild bird eggs.

So Atkins contends that we came from ancestors that only very rarely died of heart attacks and strokes, and almost never got diabetes. Now we (in the industrialized world) can generally expect that the vast majority of our population will die of these same degenerative diseases that were rarities in our great grandparents lifetimes.

So the white coats scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. They started this Framingham Heart Study to try to sort it out. And after years and years (it's the longest medical study in history; still going strong, too) of interviews, autopsies, medical exams and endless statistical manipulations, they announce that they have got it all figured out; The Culprit is Cholesterol! And Fat; especially 'Saturated' Fat. It's bad, all bad. And how do they know this? The people in the study that eat foods low in these 'bad' things die of these degenrative conditions like about 12% less frequently than those who indulge in these 'wicked' food ways. Ta Da!!!!!!!! 12 freaking percent!!! That's what you can hope for!!

So Dr Atkins looks at conclusions of the magnificent thing known as the Framingham Heart Study says "Wait, all we get is a 12% reduction for eating a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet? That sucks! I want to get back to where out ancestors were or to where the 'primitive' people are, with virtually ZERO % chance of heart attack and stroke! How do we do that?"

The white coats were not amused. Atkins had not paid tribute to the iconic Framingham Heart Study and instead postulated that far from avoiding these 'bad' foods, we should instead eat these almost exclusively, eating only sparingly the very things the magnificent Framingham Heart Study had said should be eaten without restriction!

Who was this man, Atkins? Was he a REAL doctor? How dare he say these things! He must be a fool! His theories can't possibly be right! We will thwart and discredit him at every turn! We will never accept his premise! We will never admit we are wrong, no matter what the evidence is!

And that's pretty much how it stands today


Jimbo

 

Your very lucky, very lucky indeed, I too enjoy good health but then so does my Mother and Father who are in thier 80's
Some people are not born well, if we were all born at a fair advantage then some credibility could be applied to your competitive spirit.

You were born well not eaten yourself well ,--enjoy your given life.

Never eat on an empty stomach.

 

if I remember Atkins died of a massive heart attack

and the argument against his research I think Im just going from memory here was that the Innuit, Alleut and the like ate so much fish that the fatty acids or something like that counteracted the fats they ocationally ate from seals
kinda like why the Japanese had so little heart disease

what can I say
Im a skeptic

love B

 

;-)!!!!

 

This is completely untrue!

But the opponents of Atkins during his life have perpetuated this and other ridiculous untruths to further smear him even after his death. How sad is that:?:

Dr. Atkins died of 'multiple organ failure precipitated by brain death', which was the result of a complication of a severe head trauma he suffered from slipping and falling on ice.

http://www.carbsmart.com/atkins2003.html

As his brain stem ceased to function, his organs began to shut down. His failing heart and kidneys caused his blood pressure to fall. Doctors gave him drugs and IV fluids to support his falling blood pressure, but his failing kidneys caused him to retain these fluids rather than excrete them. This caused him to gain something like 50 lbs during his hospitalization. His opponents mercilesly taunted that he had become obese as a result of his diet!

Here's a quote from one of his detractor's websites:

"Also, his weight was an unhealthy 258 pounds when he died in April of last year."

It's important to note that all these organ failures were the result of brain death as the result of severe head trauma, not a degenerative disease process. How sad that these myths surrounding his death still persist.

Jimbo

 

Guillermo
Does your wife know that you say this sort of thing to men on internet forums?

As for popular diets and Mr Atkins (not including Guillermos's soup).

If you exercise, limit your food intake and eat a balanced range of foods you shouldn't need a radical diet. Radical diets appeal to the overweight and the Atkins theory appears to be one way of losing weight fast but I wouldn't stay on it for long. There are too many indications that you would just die of something even nastier than obesity. I was interested in this after a friend of mine had to stop the diet after suffering severe ketosis.

Exercise is a good medicine for healthy longevity, better still go sailing, on an ocean passage you eat little and use a lot of energy, it's a very good weight loss activity.

 

My wife and I became vegetarians while sailing on our sailboat from England to California. We did not have refrigeration on board, and so we could not keep meat, from the hoof or from the sea, for very long. By the time we arrived in San Diego, we simply decided to stay on a vegetarian diet. We have not regretted it--we have a fine diet and we are both very healthy.

One cannot simply stop eating meat, because you will not get all the nutrients and protein that you need. So you have to be careful that you do eat a balanced diet with properly mixed foods for complementary proteins, and do so in moderation.

We do eat eggs and milk which are animal by-products; you don't have to kill the animal to get them. Such people are called ovo-lacto vegetarians, which I always thought sounded kind of kinky. When I am out with a client for lunch or dinner, and I cannot get a meatless meal, I will get a tuna salad sandwich. But I have come to just not like the taste of beef, pork, or poultry.

Eric

 

Actually these peoples eat very little fish. Some of these groups NEVER eat fish. What they eat mostly is seal and whale meat and blubber, with emphasis on the blubber. And the pre-industrial western civilizations ate mostly beef and pork, yet heart disease was a rarity before the 1920's. Vegetables were less available before the 'green revolution' farming methods came along, too. So the typical diet was mostly meat.

Jimbo

 

Hey Eric
there is a really good book by a guy named Howard lyman or lineman or something like that called the Mad Cowboy
generations of his family had been ranchers and he gave up meat in order to battle cancer
and won
great book
you might like it
B

Jim
I havnt looked into the Atkins diet other than hearing it was a all meat diet or something like that
Ill go look up the cause of death
but I do remember it was kinda a huge controversy when he died because it was linked to a bad diet
B

Jim you’re welcome to eat as you please 
but a quick search on Atkins found the following 


in February of 2004 the city medical examiner’s report released information that Dr Atkins age 49 had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension. The report was quoted by physicians committee for the responsible medicine. The report was sent to a physician in Nebraska who was thought by the coroner’s office to be the treating physician and so should not have had access to the report. The city medical examiner then refused further comment 
however 
the family also refused to allow an autopsy and the medical examiner made his assessment based on an external exam and the patients medical records noting a history of heart attack and also noting that there was also a head injure most likely resulting from his collapse

I have no idea what eskimo's actually eat
I just remember taking a cultural anthropology class way back when and salmon was taught as being a major component in the native diet I would certainly agree that muktuk is a basic staple of all eskimo diet ( my neighbor loves the stuff ) and muktuk is pure blubber from seals and whales
but the seals eat fish and so have a huge fatty accid content
I think
it was about thirty years ago and I was asleep through most of the class
I can ask my neighbor who as luck would have it is an Inuit
( never taisted better smoked salmon in my life, the man is god with a fish )

oh
preindustrail western civilization ate mostly potatoes, roots, vegetables things like that
Meat was a luxury
pre bronze age man was a scavenger eating mostly bugs and roots

 

With you Boston. My course work on the topic is from 25 years ago.... I had that the hunter/gathering diet was ~15% animal protein which is also reflected in contemporary primates. Studies indicated that humans evolved with this diet and are presumed to be genetically optimized as omnivores. A quick look around and it seems that these ideals have been updated and the diet was higher towards the animal component then I had from my studies. Also coming out is how remarkably diverse and adaptable the enteric flora is in humans.... suggests to my mind how varied our diet can be.

Part of abstract from:

The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets: meat-based, yet non-atherogenic
L Cordain1, S B Eaton2, J Brand Miller3, N Mann4 and K Hill5

Conclusion: The high reliance upon animal-based foods would not have necessarily elicited unfavorable blood lipid profiles because of the hypolipidemic effects of high dietary protein (19-35% energy) and the relatively low level of dietary carbohydrate (22-40% energy). Although fat intake (28-58% energy) would have been similar to or higher than that found in Western diets, it is likely that important qualitative differences in fat intake, including relatively high levels of MUFA and PUFA and a lower omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio, would have served to inhibit the development of CVD. Other dietary characteristics including high intakes of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and phytochemicals along with a low salt intake may have operated synergistically with lifestyle characteristics (more exercise, less stress and no smoking) to further deter the development of CVD.

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2002) 56, Suppl 1, S42-S52. DOI: 10.1038/sj/ejcn/1601353
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v56/n1s/pdf/1601353a.pdf