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From: mef@wucs.UUCP (Mark Frisse)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Unconventional Cancer Therapy
Message-ID: <753@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 11:57:48 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.753
Posted: Tue Feb 12 11:57:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:13:30 EST
References: <532@tesla.UUCP> <690@wucs.UUCP> <6104@rochester.UUCP> <8013@brl-tgr.ARPA> <575@mako.UUCP>
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 56

> 
> Laetrile is one of the less common B vitamins. (I forget which one)
> Hard to imagine a B vitamin hurting anyone.  (if you get more than
> you need, your body dumps the extra)

Who says laetrile is a VITAMIN? And what is a vitamin?
Answer: a vitamin is a small molecule isolated from human
cells that acts as a "cofactor"
in enzymatic reactions (e.g. thiamine, riboflavin).
I've never heard of laetrile meeting these criteria!
But vitamin sounds so much better than "drug", doesn't it?
> 
> Nutritional type therapys are much better, since they work *with*
> your body, instead of *against* it, as drugs tend to do.

This generalization is simplistic and medieval.
Nutritional substances cause profound alterations in metabolism
too! (Or don't you get sleepy after a big meal?).
Pick the diet of your choice, and you'll be able to measure
dramatic changes in insulin activity, gut hormones, and
every thing else.
> 
> Alternative treatments often get a bad rep bacause people turn to
> them after conventional treatment fails.  The cancer (or whatever)
> is much worse at this point, and the conventional treatment has
> seriously weakened the body.  At this point, it's too late for *anything*
> to work. (except a miracle, see net.religion.your-favorite)

Lots of things (conventional and alternative) wouldn't work even
if one turned to them earlier.  Naturally, if something does no
harm, the time between starting the therapy and death will be
longer if you start it earlier!
> 
> Drugs work reasonable well for contagious diseases and such.
> They don't work so well for cancer, heart disease and such.


Tell my patients with Hodgkin's disease and coronary artery
disease that their drugs don't work.

> Nutritional methods work quite well, but they are slow, and
> we don't know nearly enough about nutrition at this point,
> having ignored it in favor of drug therapy.  I wonder what the
> cancer rate would be if we all ate properly, and noone smoked,
> etc.  Much lower, I know that.

I agree about our ignorance about nutrition, but we never will
learn more unless we apply the same rigor to nutrition as we
do to other fields in biochemistry.
Some say that computers aren't useful for many problems,
are you going to throw out your computer and by a pair
of dice? or are you going to try to expand upon what you know
within your present conceptual framework?
But I certainly agree that much of our concern about health
is paled by the widespread subsidization of tobacco, etc.
Mark Frisse, St. Louis