A Cure for Cancer?

Kathy Freston is a blogger at The Huffington Post, not one of my regular reads. But I read Kathy Freston's blog because she writes well about the connection between health and a vegan lifestyle. She comes from a "New-Agey" perspective (my opinion) that shows up in her books on wellness and lifestyle, but she definitely does her research when it comes to veganism and health.

She is beginning a new series of interviews with well-known doctors and researchers on the health benefits of a plant-based diet. The first was published today and she has started at the top of the mountain, interviewing Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study, a book based on the largest study ever undertaken on the connection between diet and health. (Dr. Campbell became a vegan as a result of his own research. 'Ya 'gotta love scientists who have an objective commitment to evidence when it leads them away from where they've been all their lives.)

In the interview, Dr. Campbell affirms what he wrote in his book—that casein, which makes up 87% of beef protein and milk/dairy products, is the number one dietary cause of cancer. And the case isn't a lot better for other non-beef meat protein. Here's a snippet from the interview:

KF: This is sounding like it's a cure for cancer; is that the case?

TCC: Yes. The problem in this area of medicine is that traditional doctors are so focused on the use of targeted therapies (chemo, surgery, radiation) that they refuse to even acknowledge the use of therapies like nutrition and are loathe to even want to do proper research in this area. So, in spite of the considerable evidence--theoretical and practical--to support a beneficial nutritional effect, every effort will be made to discredit it. It's a self-serving motive.

Did you see that? A cure for cancer! You would think this would make the headlines of every news outlet in the world. Dr. Campbell has never been afraid to implicate government and medical establishments for their unwillingness to follow the trail of evidence or participate in research that would support nutritional protocols.

No one is trying harder than Lance Armstrong to find a cure for cancer vis-a-vis his Livestrong Foundation. I noticed yesterday that Lance wrote a strong back-cover recommendation for Rip Esselstyn's book, The Engine 2 Diet—a vegan diet book. Esselstyn is the son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn who wrote Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (based on a vegan, plant-based diet). Rip was a professional tri-athlete for 10 years before becoming a firefighter in Austin, Texas. (His firehouse in Austin—Engine 2—has become almost completely plant-based with tremendous reductions in weight and cholesterol counts among his fellow firefighters, and has garnered national media attention.) He knew Lance Armstrong through professional athletics and their Austin connection, so Lance was happy to write a rec for Rip's book. So here you have one of the world's leading cancer fighters writing a recommendation for a plant-based diet book in spite of the fact that he doesn't follow a plant-based diet himself nor does he use his bully pulpit to press for more scientific research into the power of plant-based foods to cure cancer. All this in the face of T. Colin Campbell, one of the world's smartest scientists (in this area) saying, "Yes, diet represents a cure for cancer."

It's all very puzzling.

Anyway, I hope you'll read Kathy Feston's short interview with Dr. Campbell. It's very encouraging to read the hopeful words of one who has done so much research on why we get cancer and how it can be prevented and cured. The interview is here.

A Bleak Future?

Marc Faber is a 63-year-old Swiss-born economist and financial analyst who has spent a lifetime living internationally and studying the economies of the world. He's smart (magna cum laude Ph.D in economics at age 24) and highly respected, living in the U.S. now. His financial newsletter is read by all major investment houses and wealthy individual investors. I've seen him quoted for years, though have not subscribed to his newsletter.

A short video interview with Faber, posted yesterday at Yahoo Finance, has him predicting the fall of capitalism in the U.S. and the radical fall of standards of living in the West in the coming years -- in other words, an economic revolution due to the U.S. government's inability to manage its debt load and resulting inflation. Given that the U.S. dollar has lost 95% of its value since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913 -- a century, in other words -- he doesn't feel it will take but a few years for it to lose the remaining 5% of its value, meaning it will become worthless and devaluation will occur -- and an economic tsunami (revolution) of some sort -- the institution of some new form of currency by the government. (These kinds of devaluations have occurred frequently in other countries throughout history, most notably Argentina in recent years, but never in the U.S.)

Here is what he wrote in his September newsletter which he expounds on in the interview:

"The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today, wars, massive government debt defaults and the impoverishment of large segments of Western society."

I would place more weight on Marc Faber's opinion than I would those in Washington today who continue to promise a bright future while implementing policies that cannot but produce the opposite.

It is not too soon for people to be aware of these possibilities and start creating the defenses they think best for surviving what may be a rocky future -- and the younger you are, the more likely you will live to see this scenario unfold. As for me, my hope is not in the policies or intelligence of men. But that doesn't mean that godly people won't suffer along with the rest, so I am concerned about these issues as well. I think self-sufficiency (food, water, shelter) is the first place to begin thinking about from a long-term perspective.

The interview with Faber is only 5-6 minutes long, and worth watching more than once to grasp the import of his words as they are filtered through his Swiss accent. You have to go here to watch the video.

The Obese Elephant in the Room

A couple of weeks ago I posted some thoughts on President Obama's speech to Congress on his healthcare proposals. My chief observation was that his efforts are focused on fixing a "system" that is oriented around disease management instead of disease prevention. Health and food writer, and national spokesperson on all things related, Michael Pollan, addressed the same issue in his usual thorough and eloquent style.

The heart of his article (and complaint about the president's "plan") is this:

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.

He concludes his article this way (with my addition in brackets drawn from his article):

All of which suggests that passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis. To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our health — which means going to work on the American way of eating.

But even if we get a health care bill that does little more than require insurers to cover everyone on the same basis, it could put us on that course.

For it will force the industry, and the government, to take a good hard look at the elephant in the room [i.e., obesity based on a broken industrial food system] and galvanize a movement to slim it down.

You can read his whole New York Times op-ed piece here.

Birthday, Garden, and Congaree

Went to Columbia for Ellen's eighth birthday party last Friday. Seems like yesterday when she was water-born in a tiny cabin in Ashe County, NC:

Jen fixed an amazing vegan chili supper and cake for Ellen's guests (and parents) and a cool piñata modeled after their dog Blue:

Their garden has one of the nicest arrangements of raised beds I've ever seen:

Farmer Dan hard at work early Saturday morning:

On Saturday Daniel and I spent a few hours at the Congaree National Park which contains "the largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States." Cedar Creek flows through the park:

The cypress trees are enormous:

The cypress tree roots send up shoots, called "cypress knees," the purpose of which seems unclear to the experts:

Notice the size of these "knees" in front of Daniel:

We didn't see any large wildlife (we saw signs where the wild pigs had been rooting), but the butterflies and other wildlife are everywhere:

The butterflies seem to sense the salt (?) on our skin, landing on my hand and on a vent hole in Daniel's "Croc" shoe. I took a cool movie of the butterfly on my hand opening and closing its wings, but accidentally deleted it off my camera. Bummer:

A huge wasp nest:

Amazing to think of how wild our nation once was—especially how many huge trees once existed—and sad to think how few of these places remain. I was very impressed with this park—the facilities, staff, etc. There are a couple miles of boardwalks and other hiking trails, making it easy to see the bottomlands. I'd like to make a return visit to see more.