Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Not sure where this is going, but I was reading through one thread where the OP was stating how they were addicted to sleeping medications and basically suffering from massive depression and suicidal tendencies. I'm no doctor but here's some of my thoughts regarding pharmaceutical drugs. I'm just going to write what I feel and what comes to mind, so please excuse me if I ramble or go slightly off on a tangent

Medications are sales items and unfortunately that's the essence of what they boil down to. For every drug invented there is a natural substance (herb, vitamin, mineral) that can achieve the same effect. Disease can also 100% without a doubt be cured through diet. How? It basically comes down to colloid and endocrine chemistry - for more info and thousands of case studies just Google 'Gerson Therapy' or take a look here:

http://gerson.org/gerpress/the-gerson-therapy/

Almost all cases of treating patients with drugs is harmful at some level, often causing side effects and sometimes even creating new diseases. The benefits that the patients are told that they will get from them are at best temporary; this is because pharmaceutical drugs treat the sympton rather than the cause.

If drugs are necessary and as many would like us to believe, doing a great job in treating our modern day diseases then why do the number of drugs on the market increase hugely every year? If drugs and synthetic medications (excluding antibiotics) were a necessity then with that reasoning people should be getting better from using them, doctors would learning more about the diseases and their interactions in the body and the need for drugs would be decreasing... but this isn't happening because the whole industry is actually nothing more than a giant money-making scheme. Often the drugs are purposely designed to keep a patient from getting worse, but not better.

Next time you are around a group of people, challenge each of them to come up with the name of ONE SINGLE DRUG that can cure an illness or disease. If anybody comes up with anything please PM me and let me know straightaway !!

Just as a final note I urge you to take a look into the success rates of chemotherapy and radiation. One of my family is one of the head financial managers at one of our private cancer treatment centres. The one thing he wouldn't want you to know as he takes your $30,000 cheque from you for your 6 week stay and treatment, is that the chance of successfully treating the cancer and permanantly eradicating it is 30%. That's THIRTY PERCENT.

Would you entrust your life into the hands of a treatment that has a 70% chance of faliure

Herbs have been put on earth for us to use to treat what needs to be treated. We shouldn't be ignoring what is right under our noses in favour of man made 'solutions'. There are numerous herbs and natural alternatives that are fantastic for things like depression (St Johns Wort, Rhodiola, Withania), insomnia (melatonin, valerian, zizyphus), anti-inflammatory (turmeric/curcuminoids, Boswelia, MSM), heart health (COQ10, hawthorn berry, garlic)... sometimes the basics are the best and we need to get back to them.

Beautifully written and I fully agree, there's an article on here somewhere written by tresize about foods containing healing substances yet people will always push the name of the healing substance and not the food itself which is pretty interesting.
Have you watched the documentary 'the beautiful truth' it's all about gerson therapy, it's a poorly put together piece of film but the concept is very interesting and thought provoking.
I never even take headache pills or cold medication, if I have a cold/flu (man flu ) then I'll make a lavender green tea, fill it with ginger, lemon and buy a butternut squash soup and fill it to the brim with chopped garlic :p

With our current knowledge, this is untrue, except in the sense that at some level even synthetic drugs are derived from natural ingredients or intended to mimic natural substances. For example, hydrocodone's active mechanism is based on those of natural substances, but is synthesized to operate much more acutely and with greater control. But there are others, like levothyroxine and risperidone, that don't have counterparts of any reasonable similarity. Could there be natural alternatives out there? Maybe, sure. But we certainly haven't found them yet.

Also, medications are definitely sales items, yes, because there's money in curing diseases and relieving symptoms. However, there's also money in natural supplements for much the same reason.


Or take a look here:http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-not-so-beautiful-untruth-about-the-gerson-therapy-and-cancer-quackery/
Or here: http://www.skepdic.com/gersontherapy.html

There is no scientific evidence in support of Gerson Therapy. None. The few attempts at genuine research have been terribly flawed. Gerson himself used as evidence patients who were also receiving traditional cancer treatments.

Do you know why Gerson Therapy persists? Because there's money in it.


I agree that drugs are often harmful at some level. We're introducing a foreign substance to the body, and even if it's well-targeted, there are sometimes side effects. "Almost all"? Not even close. Also, the benefits are not always temporary, and drugs do not always treat just the symptom. Some do, of course, because symptomatic relief is often sufficient while the body heals itself or because it's simply the best we can do. But others attack the cause. This is why you don't have to worry about diphtheria. Bactericidal antibiotics interfere with bacterial cell walls or enzymes to physically destroy the cells. They quite literally destroy the cause of the disease.


Because research never stops? Because we find new and more effective ways to treat illness? Because most diseases cannot be fully eradicated? Why on earth would you expect the number of drugs to decrease? I think there's something to be said for removing public marketing from the drug business, but generally the drugs that work better make more money, so companies will always be trying to find new and better treatments.


Wait, why are we excluding antibiotics?


Again, some drugs are designed to treat causes and others to treat symptoms depending on what's possible and reasonable. And again, the natural drug industry is also a giant money-making scheme.


Antibiotics. Gene therapy.


If they're hiding the odds of successful treatment, that's unethical, but still has nothing to do with the quality of the treatment itself. If 30% is the best we can do, that's just how it is for now. It's still better than the natural alternatives, which have an empirical success rate of 0%.

My problem with all of this is that you are for some reason rejecting science. Yet, I expect you believe in evolution, physics, chemistry, etc. You appear to be well-educated and intelligent, so please don't think I'm implying otherwise. I just don't understand why you would reject a particular field of scientific research. The methodology is largely the same. Yes, there are profits involved, but the evidence is vast and publicly available. I can understand rejecting the business, but not the evidence.

I don't think you can make generalizations about pharmaceuticals. There are so many kinds, with so many effects and there are many situations where a person's usage of them is an individual circumstance.

my problem is that, if drugs treatments and medications are getting better and better, why are people getting sicker and sicker? nearly all of the major disease in the western world are going up not down!

people take/get prescribed drugs to treat the symptoms of an unhealthy lifestyle. we need to find out the causes of health, not the keep treating the symptoms of unhealthy habits. people get sick, take medications, sometimes forever while the doses get higher and they remain sick. all the while the government and pharmaceutical companies sit around laughing at the sick sheeple and rake in money.

am i saying medicine is bad? no but we should be alot more careful about things and try to be healthy in the first place rather than just taking things prescribed by an unhealthy doctor who has no idea about the causes of health, only the treatment of symptoms.

That's a pretty incorrect generalization. Cancer, at least in the US, is trending generally downward. Check the most recent progress report: http://progressreport.cancer.gov/. The same is true of mortality from heart disease and stroke: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125 ... l.pdf+html. Prevalence is still an issue, but that doesn't have as much to do with treatments as it does lifestyle.

Also, remember polio, smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, measles, and rubella? Malaria? Those used to be some of the major diseases in the western world. Let's just say they aren't any more.

Thanks for all the replies, appreciate it. Good to see cancer and heart disease trending downwards, a few conferences and talks I have been to in the last few years have said otherwise (and they also provided references) so I guess it's hard to know what the exact situation is. The facts linking meat (especially processed meats) to various health issues have been around for many years but yet this type of strain on our healthcare systems are deemed 'normal' and acceptable? I do know that last year 200 million people in the US alone were treated for heart disease of some form; I would hazard a guess that only a tiny percentage of them would have been vegan/vegetarian.

Firstly, I am not against doctors and/or medications and I am all for science, studies, data etc. I had a heart attack about 3yrs ago, was put on statins and BP medications which I stayed on for a year before deciding to try and get off them and rectify things by a more natural approach. I tried 3 different statins and they all came with awful side effects including lethargy and severe muscle aches. Today I have perfect BP and cholesterol, despite have a condition called aortic stenosis which I was born with. I've had a couple of years ~ and great success from taking high doses of Omega 3's (I take an algal source of EPA/DHA), hawthorn, garlic and red yeast rice. Red yeast rice is probably the most interesting, better suited for lowering cholesterol rather than BP. It has the same actions in the body as regular statins so can actually be classed as a levostatin itself; it did temporarily get taken off the market I believe as it was too effective and comparable to regular statins so they tried to regulate it. This is due to the fact that it contains something called Monacolin K which is essentially the same as Lovastatin (prescription statin called Mevacor). Although it is recognised as an ancient and common Chinese herb it definately has merit as being one of the most potent natural means of cholesterol/BP reduction. It basically falls in the 'natural medications' category as it is essentially just fermented rice, and is an excellent option along with something like garlic and Hawthorne Berry.

For me the attraction was that I MIGHT be able to get the same end result from taking something natural and not have to suffer any side effects. Added to this my worries of using heart medication at my age (I was early 30's then), when I came across a study showing a new heart medication that initially showed great promise. Aparrently they were saying the next area of heart drugs the pharmaceutical industry wants to get into is ones that lower LDL and raise HDL. I was reading about a trial that had just been closed after 12 patients died during trials of one of these new type of drugs. Got me thinking how many people die in the development of a new drug, and what the risks are with taking prescribed medication(s) for long periods of time as I was about to.

FWIW this was a slide that I got from one of the talks I attended on heart disease and cancer last year:


Obesity & Diabetes in 2011

Ø In 1900 obesity, diabetes, heart disease & cancer were virtually non-existent

Ø Obesity is now the #1 cause of premature death

Ø In NZ, McDonalds has had 68 consecutive months of growth and profit. Obesity and diabetes have climbed at a similar rate

Ø Diabetes is New Zealand’s fastest growing disease

Ø There are 20 new diabetics every day in NZ

Ø What has radically changed is our diet/lifestyle, making our genetic expression radically change

Ø Heart disease now causes 40% of all deaths in the Western world

Ø NZ has the #2 stroke death rate in the world now (and tracking towards #1)

Ø Obesity directly causes fatty liver

Ø Fatty liver now occurs in 50% of those over 50

Ø Fatty liver increases diabetes risk by 400%

Ø Men now have 3 times the cancer rate of their Grandfathers

Ø Since 1980 the global OBESITY burden has DOUBLED

Ø Since 1980 the global CANCER burden has DOUBLED


We can expect to see cancer continue to grow as a leading cause of death unless changes start to be put into place and successfully implemented:


Ø Cancer is NOT a natural event

Ø In 1900 cancer was a rare disease (less than 1% of deaths)

Ø Frederick L. Hoffman founded the American Cancer Society stating that “diet was the way to prevent and treat cancer”

Ø 1935-2005 cancer rates went up every single year for 70yrs

Ø Since 1980 the obesity AND cancer rates have DOUBLED

Ø Cancer kills 22 Kiwis EVERY DAY

Ø Bowel cancer kills 1,200 Kiwis annually – 1,164 preventable

Ø NZ women have the world’s highest bowel cancer rates

Ø Meat intake is up 500% in the last 100 years

Ø Cancer cells require 10-50 times more sugar (sugar kills liver cells)

Ø Over 30% of NZ teenagers are now at high risk of cancers

Ø Cancer now causes 25% of all deaths in the Western world.


NB: Stats for America are actually fairly similar, as New Zealand, Australia and America are nearly always in the top 3 for illness, diseases and death rates.


I do realise that natural medicine is also a money making sector of the health industry, although personally I feel that overall the intentions of the companies producing these products are probably more honest, ethical etc. I can't quite think of the right word to use there I completely think there is a need for them, simply due to the products on the market being regulated; while I like the ideology of people growing their own herbs or collecting plants from a forest, obviously there are little to no safety measure in place with that. It's a shame that doctors and medical herbalists, dieticians etc can't work closer together as I believe serious ground could be covered if disease was looked at from a prevention perspective rather than waiting until we have to treat an actual problem.

Precisely

It's important to separate mortality rate, prevalence, and incidence. For the past 20 years, they've all generally been dropping, with some spikes in prevalence and incidence. Mortality has been falling consistently. Also, don't forget that incidence and prevalence are bound to increase along with lifespan. http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html

I think we can agree on the vegans/vegetarians.


Some natural medicines are great, sure. Red yeast rice is definitely an effective statin. However, as you noted, it was taken off the market for just that reason. High levels of statins can cause kidney failure. This is exactly why drugs need to go through FDA approval. I have nothing against natural remedies that hold up to research. I just don't like the dismissal of drugs that have survived rigorous testing in favor of untested "natural" drugs.


It sounds perfectly reasonable to me to be skeptical of any drug and to do that sort of personal research. Just apply the same degree of rigor to any medication, synthetic or natural. Also, it's true that many people die in trials, but that's the cost of saving many, many more lives in the future. Nobody can be forced to participate, and all participants must be advised of the dangers, including death.


This should immediately raise a red flag, because it's a combination of untrue and misleading. Diabetes was certainly less prevalent, but also well-known. Researchers were already working on it steadily. Heart disease was the #4 cause of death in the US and cancer was #8. As we developed better treatments for TB, pneumonia, and other infections -- and as average life span increased -- they quickly climbed in the rankings.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf



This is also not provable. Most of these claims have been based on the CDC's 400,000 claim back in the mid 2000s, which they then withdrew and adjusted way, way downward. The problem is in assigning a causal relationship between obesity and mortality. It's certainly a big factor, but making a claim like #1 is specious.


This sounds right, but is becoming meaningless. People need to die of something, and our hearts are one of our weakest points.


Again, at least in the US, the CDC lists cancer as causing 3.7% of deaths. And again, we would expect it to be more common with a greater life expectancy.

What I'm getting at is that these presentations have a clear agenda, and they're not above massaging (or falsifying) information to push it. Absolutely obesity is an issue, as are diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. And prevention is essential. But that has nothing to do with natural vs synthetic drugs.


I think I'm just less charitable towards the naturalists than you are. I agree that they should work together more, and I think any reasonable treatment should be researched and tested.

Thanks for the info there, and I will take some time this afternoon to have a look at all of the links that have been provided in this thread. I agree that regardless of natural/synthetic, both need to properly researched and clinical trials conducted where possible.

I've been of the belief for a number of years that a lof of todays 'preventable' diseases ultimately come down to diet and lifestyle.

I think we can totally agree on that. Even if we can't eliminate them, I'm sure incidence would go way down if we just took care of ourselves better.

ooooohhhh...I see I was the one who started this debate. Too bad I'm just now seeing it.

I'd like to state that the sleeping meds are an absolute last ditch resort - after trying a dozen natural remedies - to a life threatening situation. I am in a high risk suicide category and have been for a long time. 15 years of therapy has not brought improvement. (And please, I'm not asking for any helpful advice here.)
I am EXTREMELY opposed to animal tested medications. So much so that I do not want to take them even if it does keep me alive. Animals suffer and die for it. Ethically no different than eating meat.

Reality...prescribed drugs are much stronger in their ability to affect people. That's why they are prescribed and monitored by doctors and natural stuff tends not to be....its much less potent and not lethal if you overdose.

I think if everyone would read "the China study" that we'd all be on the same page as far as opinions fighting diseases. Death from cancer and heart disease have declined...but the rate of getting those diseases hasn't declined. The research was largely funded by cancer institutions. Its not funded by meat industry, not by animals rights groups, not by Broccoli farmers of America. So...its seems to be pretty unbiased and not after big money.

No Pharma Medicine is 'vegan', even syringes and medical equipment are batch tested using the blood of the horseshoe crab (at least in the western world, Chinese and Indian versions are likely to skip this expensive testing).
That said medical science, namely the human genome project is the crowning achievement of humankind, and diseases are being cured exponentially, particularly through gene therapy and viral engineering, SCID (Bubbleboy syndrome) is now a thing of the past if detected early. HIV was eliminated from the Berlin patient and we're heading toward a feasible cure and there are current, promising, gene therapy clinical trials in different stages for cancers, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinsons and countless others.
Still there are some eyebrow raising instances of natural treatments seemingly being buried, perhaps suppressed by big pharma, the other day while researching the safety of spirulina - sparked by another post here, I happened upon a 1996 Harvard Study that proved spirulina prevented replication of the AIDS virus, yet I don't think the medical community has adopted it as a treatment.
Also worth mentioning is that recreational abuse of natural drugs prevents them from being explored and applied for their medical applications. I was part of the only CanAid (THC/Marijuana in pill form) clinical study for treatment of a rare seizure disorder and it was the Pharma Company that spent millions lobbying to get it happening. Though it was less effective at treating my PKC than the anti-convulsion meds I now take, it has been very successful in treating similar conditions like Dystonia - yet CanAid is not available to be prescribed to patients here in Australia because of government fears it will be abused recreationally - which it would be. Same goes for with LSD for severe migraines etc.

Great post above, thank you.