Fasting Cancer – by Dr. Valter Longo
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We’ve previously reviewed Dr. Longo’s “The Longevity Diet”, and whereas that one was about eating, this one is (superficially, at least) about not eating. Nor is this any kind of dissonance, because, in fact, it’s important to do both!
That said, he discusses not just fasting per se, but also the use of a personalized fast-mimicking diet, to accomplish the same goal of not overloading the metabolism—as overloading the metabolism results in metabolic disease, and cancer is, ultimately, a metabolic disease of immune dysfunction with genetic disorder*—which makes for quite a deadly trifecta.
*not in the sense of “hereditary”, though certainly genes can influence cancer risk, but rather, in the sense of “your gene-copying process becomes disordered”.
The first three chapters (after the introduction, which we’ll comment on shortly) are devoted to explaining the principles at hand:
- Fasting cancer while feeding patients
- Genes, aging, and cancer
- Fasting, nutrition, and physical activity in cancer prevention
In those chapters, he details a lot of the science for exactly how and why it is possible to “feed the patient and starve the cancer” at the same time.
After that, the rest of the book—another nine chapters, not counting appendices etc—are given over to fasting and nutrition in the context of nine main types of cancer, one chapter per type. These are not hyperspecific, though, and are rather categorizations, such as “blood cancers”, and “gynecological cancers” and so forth. It’s comprehensive, and while it could be argued that it may mean chapters feel irrelevant to some people (à la “I have never smoked and have no pressing concern about my lung cancer risk” etc), the reality is that it’s good to know how to avoid them all, because if nothing else, it’d be super embarrassing to get a cancer you “thought you couldn’t get”. So, it’s honestly worth the time to read each chapter.
In the category of criticism, he did open the introduction with a handful of anecdotes to defend the consumption of (well-established group 1 carcinogens) red meat and alcohol as “secondary concerns that might not be such a big deal”, even discussing how surprised his colleagues in the field are that he has this view. Suffice it to say, it’s contrary to the overwhelming body of evidence, and reads suspiciously like a man who simply doesn’t want to give up his steak and wine despite his own longevity diet forswearing them.
The style is self-indulgently autobiographical and very complimentary, and (in this reviewer’s opinion) it can be tedious to wade through that to get to the science, but at the end of the day, his self-accolades might be needless fluff, but they don’t actually remove anything from the science in question.
Bottom line: as you can see, there are good and bad things to say about this book, but the information contained in the good makes it well worth reading through the stylistically questionable to get it.
Click here to check out Fasting Cancer, and starve cancer cells while nourishing your healthy ones!
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Compact Tai Chi – by Dr. Jesse Tsao
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A very frustrating thing when practicing tai chi, especially when learning, is the space typically required. We take a step this way and lunge that way and turn and now we’ve kicked a bookcase. Add a sword, and it’s goodnight to the light fixtures at the very least.
While a popular suggestion may be “do it outside”, we do not all have the luxury of living in a suitable climate. We also may prefer to practice in private, with no pressing urge to have an audience.
Tsao’s book, therefore, is very welcome. But how does he do it? The very notion of constriction is antithetical to tai chi, after all.
He takes the traditional forms, keeps the movements mostly the same, and simply changes the order of them. This way, the practitioner revolves around a central point. Occasionally, a movement will become a smaller circle than it was, but never in any way that would constrict movement.
Of course, an obvious question for any such book is “can one learn this from a book?” and the answer is complex, but we would lean towards yes, and insofar as one can learn any physical art from a book, this one does a fine job. It helps that it builds up progressively, too.
All in all, this book is a great choice for anyone who’s interested in taking up tai chi, and/but would like to do so without leaving their home.
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Dangers Of Root Canals And Crowns, & What To Do Instead
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Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, a dentist, tells us that it’s a lot rarer than people think to actually need a crown or a root canal; there are ways of avoiding such:
The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth?
First, some of the problems with the treatments that are most popular, especially in the US:
Problems with root canals:
- Involves cleaning and filling the tooth’s main canal but leaves microtubules that can harbor dead tissue and attract bacteria.
- This can lead to infections, often undetected for a long time due to the nerve removal, potentially harming overall health and weakening the tooth.
- Root canals often result in brittle teeth that can break, necessitating crowns.
And then…
Problems with crowns:
- A crown requires significant removal of tooth structure (up to 1.5 mm of enamel), making the tooth more vulnerable and sensitive.
- Crowns can also lead to new cavities underneath due to weak bonding to dentin.
- The cycle often leads from a healthy tooth to fillings, crowns, root canals, and eventual extraction (and then, perhaps, an implant in its place). That’s great for the dentist, but not so great for you.
Biomimetic dentistry the exciting name currently being used for what has been more prosaically called “conservative restorative dentistry”, which in turn has also been known by other names in recent decades, and its goal is to strengthen and preserve natural teeth as much as possible.
Methods it uses:
- Treats affected but still living teeth with non-invasive procedures.
- Uses ozone treatment to kill bacteria in deep cavities, avoiding direct nerve exposure.
- Applies conservative partial restorations like onlays instead of full crowns.
Benefits of this approach:
- Preserves enamel, minimizes trauma, and reduces the risk of tooth death.
- Maintains long-term tooth structure and health.
- 95% success rate in saving affected teeth without resorting to root canals.
In short, Dr. Jorgensen says that 60–80% of traditional crowns and root canals can be avoided. Which is surely a good thing.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Tooth Remineralization: How To Heal Your Teeth Naturally
Take care!
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Curious Kids: what are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?
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“What are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?” – Emma, age 10, from Shanghai
Hello Emma, and thank you for this very interesting question!
Let’s start by exploring what we mean by personality. Have you noticed no two people are completely alike? We all see, experience, and understand the world in different ways.
For example, some people love spending time with friends and being the centre of attention, whereas other people are more shy and enjoy having time to themselves.
Your unique personality is shaped by your genes as well as various influences in your environment. And your personality plays an important role in how you interact with the world.
The big five
Did you know there are scientists who spend time researching personality? Their research is concerned with describing the ways people differ from each other, and understanding how these differences could be important for other parts of life such as our health and how well we do in school or at work.
There are many different perspectives on personality. A widely accepted viewpoint based on a lot of research is called the five factor model or the “big five”. According to this theory, a great deal of a person’s personality can be summarised in terms of where they sit on five dimensions, called traits:
- the introversion-extraversion trait refers to how much someone is outgoing and social (extroverted) or prefers being with smaller groups of friends or focusing on their own thoughts (introverted)
- agreeableness captures how much someone tends to be cooperative and helps others
- openness to experience refers to how much a person is creative and enjoys experiencing new things
- neuroticism describes a person’s tendency to experience negative feelings, like worrying about things that could go wrong
- conscientiousness encompasses how much a person is organised, responsible, and dedicated to things that are important to them, like schoolwork or training for a sports team.
A person can have high, low, or moderate levels of each of these traits. And understanding whether someone has higher or lower levels of the big five can tell us a lot about how we might expect them to behave in different situations.
So what shapes our personalities?
A number of factors shape our personalities, including our genes and social environment.
Our bodies are made up of many very small structures called cells. Within these cells are genes. We inherit genes from our parents, and they carry the information needed to make our bodies and personalities. So, your personality may be a bit like your parents’ personalities. For example, if you’re an outgoing sort of person who loves to meet new people, perhaps one or both of your parents are very social too.
Our personalities are influenced by the genes we get from our parents.
KieferPix/ShutterstockPersonalities are also affected by our environment, such as our experiences and our relationships with family and friends. For example, some research has shown our relationships with our parents can influence our personality. If we have loving and warm relationships, we may be more agreeable and open. But if our relationships are hurtful or stressful, this may increase our neuroticism.
Another study showed that, over time, young children who were more physically active were less introverted (less shy) and less likely to get very upset when things don’t go their way, compared to children who were less physically active. Although we don’t know why this is for sure, one possible explanation is that playing sport leads to reduced shyness because it introduces children to different people.
While we’re learning more about personality development all the time, research in this area presents quite a few challenges. Many different biological, cultural and environmental influences shape our development, and these factors can interact with each other in complex ways.
Is our personality fixed once we become adults?
Although we develop most of our personality when we are young, and people’s personalities tend to become more stable as they get older, it is possible for aspects of a person’s personality to change, even when they are fully grown.
A good example of this can be seen among people who seek treatment for conditions like anxiety or depression. People who respond well to working with a psychologist can show decreases in neuroticism, indicating they become less likely to worry a lot or feel strong negative feelings when something stressful happens.
Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to mailto:curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
Tim Windsor, Professor, Director, Generations Research Initiative, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University and Natalie Goulter, Lecturer, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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In This Oklahoma Town, Most Everyone Knows Someone Who’s Been Sued by the Hospital
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McALESTER, Okla. — It took little more than an hour for Deborah Hackler to dispense with the tall stack of debt collection lawsuits that McAlester Regional Medical Center recently brought to small-claims court in this Oklahoma farm community.
Hackler, a lawyer who sues patients on behalf of the hospital, buzzed through 51 cases, all but a handful uncontested, as is often the case. She bantered with the judge as she secured nearly $40,000 in judgments, plus 10% in fees for herself, according to court records.
It’s a payday the hospital and Hackler have shared frequently over the past three decades, records show. The records indicate McAlester Regional Medical Center and an affiliated clinic have filed close to 5,000 debt collection cases since the early 1990s, most often represented by the father-daughter law firm of Hackler & Hackler.
Some of McAlester’s 18,000 residents have been taken to court multiple times. A deputy at the county jail and her adult son were each sued recently, court records show. New mothers said they compare stories of their legal run-ins with the medical center.
“There’s a lot that’s not right,” Sherry McKee, a dorm monitor at a tribal boarding school outside McAlester, said on the courthouse steps after the hearing. The hospital has sued her three times, most recently over a $3,375 bill for what she said turned out to be vertigo.
In recent years, major health systems in Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere have stopped suing patients following news reports about lawsuits. And several states, such as Maryland and New York, have restricted the legal actions hospitals can take against patients.
But with some 100 million people in the U.S. burdened by health care debt, medical collection cases still clog courtrooms across the country, researchers have found. In places like McAlester, a hospital’s debt collection machine can hum away quietly for years, helped along by powerful people in town. An effort to limit hospital lawsuits failed in the Oklahoma Legislature in 2021.
In McAlester, the lawsuits have provided business for some, such as the Adjustment Bureau, a local collection agency run out of a squat concrete building down the street from the courthouse, and for Hackler, a former president of the McAlester Area Chamber of Commerce. But for many patients and their families, the lawsuits can take a devastating toll, sapping wages, emptying retirement accounts, and upending lives.
McKee said she wasn’t sure how long it would take to pay off the recent judgment. Her $3,375 debt exceeds her monthly salary, she said.
“This affects a large number of people in a small community,” said Janet Roloff, an attorney who has spent years assisting low-income clients with legal issues such as evictions in and around McAlester. “The impact is great.”
Settled more than a century ago by fortune seekers who secured land from the Choctaw Nation to mine coal in the nearby hills, McAlester was once a boom town. Vestiges of that era remain, including a mammoth, 140-foot-tall Masonic temple that looms over the city.
Recent times have been tougher for McAlester, now home by one count to 12 marijuana dispensaries and the state’s death row. The downtown is pockmarked by empty storefronts, including the OKLA theater, which has been dark for decades. Nearly 1 in 5 residents in McAlester and the surrounding county live below the federal poverty line.
The hospital, operated by a public trust under the city’s authority, faces its own struggles. Paint is peeling off the front portico, and weeds poke up through the parking lots. The hospital has operated in the red for years, according to independent audit reports available on the state auditor’s website.
“I’m trying to find ways to get the entire community better care and more care,” said Shawn Howard, the hospital’s chief executive. Howard grew up in McAlester and proudly noted he started his career as a receptionist in the hospital’s physical therapy department. “This is my hometown,” he said. “I am not trying to keep people out of getting care.”
The hospital operates a clinic for low-income patients, whose webpage notes it has “limited appointments” at no cost for patients who are approved for aid. But data from the audits shows the hospital offers very little financial assistance, despite its purported mission to serve the community.
In the 2022 fiscal year, it provided just $114,000 in charity care, out of a total operating budget of more than $100 million, hospital records show. Charity care totaling $2 million or $3 million out of a $100 million budget would be more in line with other U.S. hospitals.
While audits show few McAlester patients get financial aid, many get taken to court.
Renee Montgomery, the city treasurer in an adjoining town and mother of a local police officer, said she dipped into savings she’d reserved for her children and grandchildren after the hospital sued her last year for more than $5,500. She’d gone to the emergency room for chest pain.
Dusty Powell, a truck driver, said he lost his pickup and motorcycle when his wages were garnished after the hospital sued him for almost $9,000. He’d gone to the emergency department for what turned out to be gastritis and didn’t have insurance, he said.
“Everyone in this town probably has a story about McAlester Regional,” said another former patient who spoke on the condition she not be named, fearful to publicly criticize the hospital in such a small city. “It’s not even a secret.”
The woman, who works at an Army munitions plant outside town, was sued twice over bills she incurred giving birth. Her sister-in-law has been sued as well.
“It’s a good-old-boy system,” said the woman, who lowered her voice when the mayor walked into the coffee shop where she was meeting with KFF Health News. Now, she said, she avoids the hospital if her children need care.
Nationwide, most people sued in debt collection cases never challenge them, a response experts say reflects widespread misunderstanding of the legal process and anxiety about coming to court.
At the center of the McAlester hospital’s collection efforts for decades has been Hackler & Hackler.
Donald Hackler was city attorney in McAlester for 13 years in the ’70s and ’80s and a longtime member of the local Lions Club and the Scottish Rite Freemasons.
Daughter Deborah Hackler, who joined the family firm 30 years ago, has been a deacon at the First Presbyterian Church of McAlester and served on the board of the local Girl Scouts chapter, according to the McAlester News-Capital newspaper, which named her “Woman of the Year” in 2007. Since 2001, she also has been a municipal judge in McAlester, hearing traffic cases, including some involving people she has sued on behalf of the hospital, municipal and county court records show.
For years, the Hacklers’ debt collection cases were often heard by Judge James Bland, who has retired from the bench and now sits on the hospital board. Bland didn’t respond to an inquiry for interview.
Hackler declined to speak with KFF Health News after her recent court appearance. “I’m not going to visit with you about a current client,” she said before leaving the courthouse.
Howard, the hospital CEO, said he couldn’t discuss the lawsuits either. He said he didn’t know the hospital took its patients to court. “I had to call and ask if we sue people,” he said.
Howard also said he didn’t know Deborah Hackler. “I never heard her name before,” he said.
Despite repeated public records requests from KFF Health News since September, the hospital did not provide detailed information about its financial arrangement with Hackler.
McAlester Mayor John Browne, who appoints the hospital’s board of trustees, said he, too, didn’t know about the lawsuits. “I hadn’t heard anything about them suing,” he said.
At the century-old courthouse in downtown McAlester, it’s not hard to find the lawsuits, though. Every month or two, another batch fills the docket in the small-claims court, now presided over by Judge Brian McLaughlin.
After court recently, McLaughlin, who is not from McAlester, shook his head at the stream of cases and patients who almost never show up to defend themselves, leaving him to issue judgment after judgment in the hospital’s favor.
“All I can do is follow the law,” said McLaughlin. “It doesn’t mean I like it.”
About This Project
“Diagnosis: Debt” is a reporting partnership between KFF Health News and NPR exploring the scale, impact, and causes of medical debt in America.
The series draws on original polling by KFF, court records, federal data on hospital finances, contracts obtained through public records requests, data on international health systems, and a yearlong investigation into the financial assistance and collection policies of more than 500 hospitals across the country.
Additional research was conducted by the Urban Institute, which analyzed credit bureau and other demographic data on poverty, race, and health status for KFF Health News to explore where medical debt is concentrated in the U.S. and what factors are associated with high debt levels.
The JPMorgan Chase Institute analyzed records from a sampling of Chase credit card holders to look at how customers’ balances may be affected by major medical expenses. And the CED Project, a Denver nonprofit, worked with KFF Health News on a survey of its clients to explore links between medical debt and housing instability.
KFF Health News journalists worked with KFF public opinion researchers to design and analyze the “KFF Health Care Debt Survey.” The survey was conducted Feb. 25 through March 20, 2022, online and via telephone, in English and Spanish, among a nationally representative sample of 2,375 U.S. adults, including 1,292 adults with current health care debt and 382 adults who had health care debt in the past five years. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample and 3 percentage points for those with current debt. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher.
Reporters from KFF Health News and NPR also conducted hundreds of interviews with patients across the country; spoke with physicians, health industry leaders, consumer advocates, debt lawyers, and researchers; and reviewed scores of studies and surveys about medical debt.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
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Real Self-Care – by Pooja Lakshmin MD
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As the subtitle says, “crystals, cleanses, and bubble baths not included”. So, if it’s not about that sort of self-care, what is it about?
Dr. Lakshmin starts by acknowledging something that many self-help books don’t:
We can do everything correctly and still lose. Not only that, but for many of us, that is the probable outcome. Not because of any fault or weakness of ours, but simply because one way or another the game is rigged against us from the start.
So, should we throw in the towel, throw our hands in the air, and throw the book out of the window?
Nope! Dr. Lakshmin has actually helpful advice, that pertains to:
- creating healthy boundaries and challenging guilt
- treating oneself with compassion
- identifying and aligning oneself with one’s personal values
- asserting one’s personal power to fight for one’s own self-interest
If you’re reading this and thinking “that seems very selfish”, then let’s remember the “challenging guilt” part of that. We’ve all-too-often been conditioned to neglect our own needs and self-sacrifice for others.
And, while selfless service really does have its place, needlessly self-destructive martyrdom does not!
Bottom line: this book delivers a lot of “real talk” on a subject that otherwise often gets removed from reality rather. In short, it’s a great primer for finding the right place to draw the line between being a good-hearted person and being a doormat.
Click here to check out Real Self-Care and “put your own oxygen mask on first”!
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Are You A Calorie-Burning Machine?
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Burn, Calorie, Burn
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you whether you count calories, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of answers:
- About 56% said “I am somewhat mindful of calories but keep only a rough tally”
- About 32% said “I do not count calories / I don’t think it’s important for my health”
- About 13% said “I rigorously check and record the calories of everything I consume”
So what does the science say, about the merits of all these positions?
A food’s calorie count is a good measure of how much energy we will, upon consuming the food, have to use or store: True or False?
False, broadly. It can be, at best, a rough guideline. Do you know what a calorie actually is, by the way? Most people don’t.
One thing to know before we get to that: there’s “cal” vs “kcal”. The latter is generally used when it comes to foodstuffs, and it’s what we’ll be meaning whenever we say “calorie” here. 1cal is 1/1000th of a kcal, that’s all.
Now, for what a calorie actually is:
A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1℃
Question: so, how to we measure how much food is needed to do that?
Answer: by using a bomb calorimeter! Which is the exciting name for the apparatus used to literally burn food and capture the heat produced to indeed raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1℃.
If you’re having trouble imagining such equipment, here it is:
Bomb Calorimeter: Definition, Construction, & Operation (with diagram and FAQs)
The unfortunate implication of the above information
A kilogram of sawdust contains about a 1000 kcal, give or take what wood was used and various other conditions.
However, that does not mean you can usefully eat the sawdust. In other words:
Calorie count tells us only how good something is at raising the temperature of water if physically burned.
Now do you see why oils and sugars have such comparably high calorie counts?
And while we may talk about “burning calories” as a metaphor, we do not, in fact, have a little wood stove inside us burning the food we eat.
A calorie is a calorie: True or False?
Definitely False! Building on from the above… We will get very little energy from sawdust; it’s not just that we can’t use it; we can’t store it either; it’ll mostly pass through as fiber.
(however, please do not use sawdust to get your daily dose of fiber either, as it is not safe for human consumption and may give you diseases, depending on what is lurking in it)
But let’s look at oil and sugar, two very high-calorie categories of food, because they’re really easy to physically burn and they give off a good flame.
A bomb calorimeter may treat them quite equally, but to our body, they are metabolically very different indeed.
For a start, most sugars will get absorbed and processed much more quickly than most oils, and that can overwhelm the liver (responsible for glycogen management), and lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diabetes, and more. Metabolic syndrome in general, and if you keep it up too much and you may find it’s now a lottery between dying of NAFLD, diabetes, or heart disease (it’ll usually be the heart disease that kills).
See also:
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
- 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Meanwhile, we know all about the different kinds of nutritional profiles that oils can have, and some can promote having high energy without putting on fat, while others can strain the heart. Not even “a fat is a fat”, so “a calorie is a calorie” doesn’t get much mileage outside of a bomb calorimeter!
See also:
A calorie-controlled / calorie-restricted diet is an effective weight loss strategy: True or False?
True, usually! Surprise!
- On the one hand: calories are a wildly imprecise way to reckon the value of food, and using them as a guide to health can be dangerously misleading
- On the other hand: the very activity of calorie-counting itself promotes mindful eating, which is very good for the health
There is a strong difference between the mind of somebody who is carefully logging their pre-bedtime piece of chocolate and reflecting on its nutritional value, vs someone who isn’t sure whether this is their second or third glass of wine, nor how much the glass contained.
So if you want to get most of the benefits of a calorie-controlled diet without counting calories, you may try taking a “mindful eating” approach to diet.
However! If you want to do this for weight loss, be aware, that you will have to practice it all the time, not just for one meal here and there.
You can read more on how to do “mindful eating” here:
Dr. Rupy Aujla: The Kitchen Doctor | Mindful Eating & Interoception
Take care!
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