Great op-ed in the NYT today about "the latest medical study shows..."
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/trying-to-live-forever/
and my response:
"The half-life of truth in science is about 3 seconds...." Ted Kaptchuk, author, The Web That Has No Weaver, in Chinese Herbs Class, 1992, San Diego
This is exactly why I mostly stick to tradition, for example, what the Chinese have been doing for 3000 years in an empirical, logical system of medicine. It may not seem logical at first glance, but once you take the time to actually study it, it is quite logical and 100% empirical. Isn't empiricism the basis of science?
And all of these "recommendations" the author cites, like Tara Pope, God Bless her, reporting that celery is "good" for inflammation, are either media driven to sell articles and magazines, or driven by the health food/nutritional supplement/naturopathic industrial complex; as if simply taking a pill or eating a single food could make you healthy. And its a never ending barrage; people take too many things at once. I see patient's come in sometimes with 15 bottles of things; its just too much, overwhelming to your body's internal intelligence. Like overloading input in to the computer.
Good health is a process, not a pill, based on a lifestyle, attitude, genetics, and as the author of the attached study points out, a hell of a lot of luck. Will I still enjoy a healthy lifestyle? Absolutely. Why? Because it makes me feel better; key point.
I feel a hell of a lot better meditating and eating vegetables on a daily basis, green ones, like dandelion and okra, than I do eating wonder bread and bologna with mayonaisse. I have more energy and just feel good.
And not only do I feel better, I am healthier, if we measure by the fact that I so rarely get sick, and that my skin and allergies are 1,000 times better since changing my diet and lifestyle.
I used to have psoriasis, but it cleared up 100%. I used to be terribly allergic to cats; no problem now, as the photo on my facebook page, Ayurveda, Natural Living, and Acupuncture San Diego shows. http://www.facebook.com/people/Eyton-Shalom/519282064#!/pages/Ayurveda-Natural-Living-and-Acupuncture
Do I deceive myself that I am not also lucky to be healthy? No I don't. Do I deceive myself that I won't one day die of something. Of course not. Over that I have far less control than control.
One of my happiest, nicest patients is a scientist with a lovely wife and family, in his prime, slowly wasting away from ALS. What did he do to deserve that? Absolutely nothing. He is unlucky in that way, but lucky to have the supportive family he has, the loving wife and parents. He appears much happier than his wife, in fact, who is healthy. They have had different childhoods; she was a war refugee. She faces the loss of her husband, the burden of being a caregiver.
Life is a gift, man. In the meanwhile, as my mother, of blessed memory, used to say, "you have only 1 set of eyes and teeth, take care of them." I would apply that to the whole of our bodymind.
copyright eyton shalom 2011 august use with permission
Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine in San Diego
http://www.bodymindwellnesscenter.com
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/trying-to-live-forever/
and my response:
"The half-life of truth in science is about 3 seconds...." Ted Kaptchuk, author, The Web That Has No Weaver, in Chinese Herbs Class, 1992, San Diego
This is exactly why I mostly stick to tradition, for example, what the Chinese have been doing for 3000 years in an empirical, logical system of medicine. It may not seem logical at first glance, but once you take the time to actually study it, it is quite logical and 100% empirical. Isn't empiricism the basis of science?
And all of these "recommendations" the author cites, like Tara Pope, God Bless her, reporting that celery is "good" for inflammation, are either media driven to sell articles and magazines, or driven by the health food/nutritional supplement/naturopathic industrial complex; as if simply taking a pill or eating a single food could make you healthy. And its a never ending barrage; people take too many things at once. I see patient's come in sometimes with 15 bottles of things; its just too much, overwhelming to your body's internal intelligence. Like overloading input in to the computer.
Good health is a process, not a pill, based on a lifestyle, attitude, genetics, and as the author of the attached study points out, a hell of a lot of luck. Will I still enjoy a healthy lifestyle? Absolutely. Why? Because it makes me feel better; key point.
I feel a hell of a lot better meditating and eating vegetables on a daily basis, green ones, like dandelion and okra, than I do eating wonder bread and bologna with mayonaisse. I have more energy and just feel good.
And not only do I feel better, I am healthier, if we measure by the fact that I so rarely get sick, and that my skin and allergies are 1,000 times better since changing my diet and lifestyle.
I used to have psoriasis, but it cleared up 100%. I used to be terribly allergic to cats; no problem now, as the photo on my facebook page, Ayurveda, Natural Living, and Acupuncture San Diego shows. http://www.facebook.com/people/Eyton-Shalom/519282064#!/pages/Ayurveda-Natural-Living-and-Acupuncture
Do I deceive myself that I am not also lucky to be healthy? No I don't. Do I deceive myself that I won't one day die of something. Of course not. Over that I have far less control than control.
One of my happiest, nicest patients is a scientist with a lovely wife and family, in his prime, slowly wasting away from ALS. What did he do to deserve that? Absolutely nothing. He is unlucky in that way, but lucky to have the supportive family he has, the loving wife and parents. He appears much happier than his wife, in fact, who is healthy. They have had different childhoods; she was a war refugee. She faces the loss of her husband, the burden of being a caregiver.
Life is a gift, man. In the meanwhile, as my mother, of blessed memory, used to say, "you have only 1 set of eyes and teeth, take care of them." I would apply that to the whole of our bodymind.
copyright eyton shalom 2011 august use with permission
Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine in San Diego
http://www.bodymindwellnesscenter.com
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