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6130. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:19:06 PM "epidemic" does not imply contagion. It's accurate to apply it to a health- or lifestyle-related problem. 6131. Ulgine Barrows - 6/17/2004 5:37:38 PM I had to wait in several restrooms, in the time I spent in the Navaho Nation. The way those women washed their hands? Conservationists.
They need water.
Diabetes. Give water. 6132. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:43:19 PM With respect to whether AIDS is caused by a virus, there is no doubt or ambiguity whatsoever. (excepting people who believe the earth is flat, or who do not "believe in" evolution, for example.)
There is however a huge ambiguity, in epidemiological terms, with respect to diagnosis in poor countries. The symptoms of AIDS are many, varied and often non-specific; testing for it is complicated and very expensive. As a result, there is a tendency to categorise any undiagnosed illness as AIDS, therefore undoubtedly to overstate the numbers of HIV-positive people in Africa, simply because there is no way of accurately knowing. However, the fact that there is an AIDS epidemic in Africa, and that there are millions of Africans infected with the HIV virus, is undeniable.
To use the ambiguity about numbers, as some seem to do, to attack public health measures aimed at getting treatment to the millions of Africans who will die without it, strikes me as being most likely ideologically motivated. It reminds me somewhat of those "historians" who quibble about whether the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was nearer to five or six million, in order to deny finally that the Holocaust ever happened. 6133. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:44:06 PM Diabetes. Give water.
Bullshit. Diabetes. Stop eating shit food. 6134. Ulgine Barrows - 6/17/2004 6:05:35 PM Baby, did you ever live with someone who had diabetes?
What's your defintion of shit food. 6135. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 6:11:04 PM An epidemic of diabetes among a specific population (as opposed to a particular individual, where the causes might be quite specific and not necessarily diet related) is diet related. I'm willing to bet that the Navajo population in question used to eat better than they do now. Possibly, for example, they are losing their traditional eating habits and foods; possibly they have entered the cash economy and can afford stuff they couldn't before; many reasons are possible, but the direct cause is going to be diet. 6136. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 6:14:09 PM I actually shared a house for a couple of years with a woman whose parents and sister were obese, and diabetics. She was solidly built to start with; she ate lots of refined foods, absurd amounts of sugar in her tea, etc. and became obese before my eyes. She was lucid about it, and aware that she would become diabetic, partly because of her heredity, partly because of her behaviour.
It made me very sad. I lost contact with her, but I have no doubt that she's a diabetic now. Unless she had a psychoanalysis or something, instead. 6137. judithathome - 6/17/2004 9:40:18 PM What's your defintion of shit food.
White flour, refined sugar, Twinkies and things of that ilk, Coke, Kool-aid, Wonder bread, KrispieKremes, candy bars, fatty burgers, french fries....just for a start.
6138. thoughtful - 6/17/2004 9:52:12 PM Processed foods full of salt, sugar and other sweeteners, and trans fats. Generally foods our ancestors wouldn't recognize like cheeze wiz and cheetos. Generally foods in the central aisles of the grocery. Food in the outer aisles tend to be healthier.
Nutrition action letter recently reviewed a bunch of the popular diets and concluded that the south beach diet was one of the healthier diets out there...controlled carbs, balance of fats, whole grains.
I'm still doing schwarzbein and doing very well on it. 6139. arkymalarky - 6/18/2004 1:40:41 AM My blood sugar always tended toward low, but I badly need to lose the weight I gained this past couple of years, so I've been working on diet and exercise--which at the moment is housecleaning, but it's been a lot of physical work.
My big battle is Pixy Stix. I'm on my last bag now. I think. 6140. KuligintheHooligan - 6/18/2004 4:04:58 AM alistair, re: your post 6132
Please give this article a read and let me know what you think.
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/epafrica.htm 6141. arkymalarky - 6/18/2004 12:56:40 PM I read a good short article from Time in the doctor's office (first allergy shot, no reaction) on that very thing. Clinton was asked about South Africa and Mbeki and said that he'd been concerned about the tuberculosis vaccine program which had resulted in development of tougher strains and about two American articles he'd read on HIV/AIDS connection. He wanted to know that his countrypeople would get the same quality of medicine Americans were getting and Clinton said he assured him they would. I didn't notice the date on the magazine (it was a doctor's office, so no telling), but you might be able to find it in the archives at the CNN site or directly in the Time site. 6142. KuligintheHooligan - 6/18/2004 2:43:36 PM Mbeki is fairly well known for saying roughly four years ago that it was not conclusive that HIV causes AIDS. His critics considered it a politically motivated opinion based on nothing more than Mbeki didn't want to shell out the tax dollars to pay for antiretroviral drugs for infected South Africans. However, it isn't a stretch to think that he was motivated (also) by reading articles or comments which claimed such things. 6143. arkymalarky - 6/18/2004 2:56:56 PM Well, that's what he said to Clinton, so his comments may have been affected by that. The article is not terribly old, btw. Probably a few weeks. 6144. PelleNilsson - 6/18/2004 4:22:28 PM The article Kuligin referred to is ten years old. I looked around the site and found this log of additions. As you can see there was a lot activity in 1997-98. Then it tapered off and has ceased altogether since July last year. I guess this is a sign that the non-virus hypothesis has lost its credibility in the scientific community (if it ever had one). 6145. judithathome - 6/18/2004 11:31:49 PM I wonder how many cases of AIDS have been found that the patient doesn't have HIV, also. And how many cases of HIV don't develop into AIDS...I guess Magic Johnson is one.
I know people can be HIV positive without AIDS but can the reverse happen.
I read the articles Kuligin linked to, by the way. 6146. KuligintheHooligan - 6/19/2004 2:20:42 AM If HIV does not cause AIDS, then I'm left with the obvious question, "What does it do then?" And so far I haven't found any of the proponents of the HIV does not cause AIDS theory even attempt to address that question.
However, at least some of what they say has the ring of truth, particularly as it relates to Africa. Tons of people die of AIDS-like symptoms, but they are just assumed to have HIV. The argument that is used by the "non-HIV" camp (I can't think of a better shorthand to refer to them) is that people have been dying in Africa from these exact same symptoms long before AIDS was discovered. Put another way, they are dying of other things, not AIDS, but it is sloppily categorized as AIDS. Their argument is that unclean health conditions, as well as the preponderous of infectious diseases already on the continent, is the reason that people are dying, and not of a sexually transmitted disease we call AIDS, which in turn is spread by the virus known as HIV. 6147. Macnas - 6/20/2004 5:56:38 PM It might be good to remember that there are 2 types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2.
Type 1, or juvenile diabetes as it is sometimes called, is where the body’s insulin production for some as of yet unknown reason stops. Injections of insulin are then needed on a daily basis.
It does not depend on whether or not you eat "shit food".
Type 2 however, does have a lot to do with the food you eat. The cells in the pancreas get worn out from having to produce so much insulin to handle the sugars in your diet.
It usually affects adults, and can be controlled with diet and some oral medication.
Diabetes, though only relatively recently properly diagnosed and treated, has been around for as long as man has. There is evidence that people suffered from it in ancient Egypt, where the symptoms and effects were recorded.
For some reason, Hispanic and native Americans are very susceptible to diabetes, and again, nobody is exactly sure why.
What is worrying, are the figures which indicate a huge increase in the onset of type 2 diabetes in young children/teenagers, which can be directly attributed to poor diet and lack of exercise.
6148. alistairConnor - 6/20/2004 7:03:46 PM Kuligin :
As Judith and Pelle have pointed out, the dates of the "myth" articles are telling.
In 1994 or 1996, there may well have been a valid base for scientific scepticism about the link between the HIV virus and AIDS, and about the effectiveness of the treatments that were available at that time (AZT was a pretty horrible treatment, and not a very effective one).
However, by about 2000, with the development of tri-therapy protocols, people were routinely being brought back from death's door. People who were dying of AIDS, and who (coincidentally!) had extremely high HIV virus counts, which (coincidentally!) diminished as the symptoms receded. Today, very few people who have access to the latest treatments actually die from AIDS; there is no cure, but they live with it.
Science-based scepticism is good; it should not be rubbished, but examined on its merits. It turns out that the sceptics were wrong in this matter.
The problem is that people with an axe to grind will continue to feed their obsession with outdated articles.
In particular, that article about the alleged prevalence of immune deficiencies in Africa was written in 1996; the soaring AIDS death rate would make such an article unthinkable today, and even Mbekei has changed his mind. 6149. alistairConnor - 6/20/2004 7:09:01 PM Note that the sceptics were citing the lack of data for their scepticism. The data is now abundant and conclusive; which explains why we are no longer hearing from (knowledgeable) sceptics.
I may have more to say on epidemiology and large-scale treatment in Africa. I have no more than vague general knowledge myself, but as it happens I have a sister who is an epidemiologist, and has recently addressed a major WHO conference on the question. (and I have faith in her!)
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