Revealing Kris Jenkins interview; lauds Patriots training regimen

[Prefect]

Good stuff, I had 2 thoughts regarding studies of acupuncture and other drugs:

1) It's generally difficult to do an objective test of acupuncture v. placebo, how can a person not know that you're sticking needles in them?

There are two main ways acupuncture has been tested verses placebo:

1) Using sham needles which give a sensation of a prick but don't actually penetrate the skin.

2) Instead of poking people at specific acupuncture points, poking people at random locations on the body. Acupuncture isn't just about poking, it is poking specific locations which is supposed to have effects,

 

[Snake Eyes]

That has nothing to do with core strength, leg strength, muscle....whatever. That's attitude.

When it comes to dominating someone, the physical and mental aspects exist in a loop, one feeds the other.

 

[Captain Cliche]

I have a degree in Biology and currently work in a petroleum lab.

I have also worked in preventative and alternative medicine.

The doctor I worked under was a former emergency room physician with a degree from one of the finest colleges in the country...a brilliant man. Basically he said he grew tired of pumping drugs into people who did not get better.

Not to get too windy, but we did some amazing things. One woman had monthly outbreaks of facial herpes. We used the flu vaccine as an allergy extract in a serial dilution, found the proper concentration for this person, made her an oral vaccine, and she no longer had these embarrassing monthly outbreaks of blisters and sores. We tuned in her immune system to recognize the infection. This same technique can be used for genital herpes. This is the kind of thing we did on a daily basis.

The doctor also had to constantly battle conventional medicine and his colleagues said it was a shame he wasted such a promising career. He got around this by treating the governor of the state (among other well known people) and getting appointed to the state's medical board.

I always wondered why there was so much resistance.

The conspirasist (sp) in me looks at the drug manufactures as a legal drug cartel that makes billions. Alternative medicine sells no drugs.

I also view standard medicine almost as a religion and those that practice it are threatened by alternatives. I realize I am overstating my case and many MD's combine the two now.

Every drug commercial you watch on TV acknowledges the long list of potential symptoms. Drugs work at a cost. They can also work on the symptoms and not the underlying problem...sort of like cutting the wire to your oil light in your car. You're still low on oil, but you got rid of that annoying red light.

We had an acupuncturist on board. From Brazil, trained in Japan. It certainly does not work for everyone in every case. Neither does chiropractic (which, by the way, was also considered quackery until recently by the AMA). She said it was very helpful for people thrown out of balance by being an a car accident or some kind of trauma...sound like any occupation you can think of?

BTW, the doctor has since dedicated his career to battling cancer.

 

[Deus Irae]

...The doctor also had to constantly battle conventional medicine and his colleagues said it was a shame he wasted such a promising career. He got around this by treating the governor of the state (among other well known people) and getting appointed to the state's medical board.

I always wondered why there was so much resistance.

The conspirasist (sp) in me looks at the drug manufactures as a legal drug cartel that makes billions. Alternative medicine sells no drugs.

I hear you. The history of ulcer treatment is a good primer on why it's not a good idea to just blindly follow conventional western medical wisdom.

 

[Snake Eyes]

I have a degree in Biology and currently work in a petroleum lab.

I have also worked in preventative and alternative medicine.

The doctor I worked under was a former emergency room physician with a degree from one of the finest colleges in the country...a brilliant man. Basically he said he grew tired of pumping drugs into people who did not get better.

Not to get too windy, but we did some amazing things. One woman had monthly outbreaks of facial herpes. We used the flu vaccine as an allergy extract in a serial dilution, found the proper concentration for this person, made her an oral vaccine, and she no longer had these embarrassing monthly outbreaks of blisters and sores. We tuned in her immune system to recognize the infection. This same technique can be used for genital herpes. This is the kind of thing we did on a daily basis.

The doctor also had to constantly battle conventional medicine and his colleagues said it was a shame he wasted such a promising career. He got around this by treating the governor of the state (among other well known people) and getting appointed to the state's medical board.

I always wondered why there was so much resistance.

The conspirasist (sp) in me looks at the drug manufactures as a legal drug cartel that makes billions. Alternative medicine sells no drugs.

I also view standard medicine almost as a religion and those that practice it are threatened by alternatives. I realize I am overstating my case and many MD's combine the two now.

Every drug commercial you watch on TV acknowledges the long list of potential symptoms. Drugs work at a cost. They can also work on the symptoms and not the underlying problem...sort of like cutting the wire to your oil light in your car. You're still low on oil, but you got rid of that annoying red light.

We had an acupuncturist on board. From Brazil, trained in Japan. It certainly does not work for everyone in every case. Neither does chiropractic (which, by the way, was also considered quackery until recently by the AMA). She said it was very helpful for people thrown out of balance by being an a car accident or some kind of trauma...sound like any occupation you can think of?

BTW, the doctor has since dedicated his career to battling cancer.

What's you opinion on the Krebs and Burzynski theories of cancer?

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Rainforest Plants Used to Cure Disease | eHow.com

sorta throws a monkey wrench into the "nothing but FDA approved allowed" argument

Not in the least. The most common origin of FDA-approved drugs is mother nature herself. People isolate, study, and VERIFY the activity of the active ingredient(s), and sometimes improve on its duration of action or side effect profile.

Science is perfectly compatible with using natural cures. It just demands that they be studied with appropriate scientific scrutiny.

I am an MD/Ph.D specializing in oncology.

In my field I see lives lost due to quack therapies. Thankfully many patients can hear, depending on their tumor status and blood/DNA data, that they have perhaps an 80% chance of five-year tumor free survival. Sometimes even more, of course sometimes much less.

I dread the cases where the blood/DNA data comes back and the prognosis is poorer, and it is a crying shame when it is a normally well-treated tumor type but is now at the advanced stage of genetic mutation to be highly resistant to less toxic therapies such as antibodies and kinase inhibitors. These patients frequently let us know that they would have been here earlier (and probably been in the 80% bracket) except that for the past year or more they have been trying Aunt Petunia's vitamin regimen, or some quack homeopathic remedy, or some other nonsense that in many cases cost them a lot of money along with hampering their odds of recovery.

 

[TheComeback]

I would characterize that as an insult to Chinese medicine as well as the culture.

You can characterize it any way you want. It doesn't follow that because something's been practiced for thousands of years, it must work. It only follows that people believe it works. And acupuncture has definitely become associated with, or originated because of a number of spiritual beliefs, which helped its longevity whether it "works" or not.

Our culture has its fair share of beliefs that have survived for centuries, such as astrology. Astrology isn't real. It's a perfect example of placebo effect.

You're the one who was disparaging the use of leeches. I was merely pointing out that leeches are, in fact, used in modern medicine. Maggots are, too, for that matter.

I disparaged bloodletting, not anticoagulants in leech saliva.

Would you take antibiotics to treat knife wound? I wonder if that means they're useless.

I stand by the statement that it is not a legitimate procedure for treating everyday problems. It isn't a legitimate
treatment for the flu. It isn't a legitmate treatment for a fever. In the vast majority of cases, bloodletting is far more harmful than helpful.

It has only narrow applications in modern medicine. That is not how it was applied by our ancestors.

Could you please stop commenting on issues you clearly don't know enough about? That way you don't have worry about "personal attacks" and we don't have to worry about the mods over-reacting???

When did I personally attack anyone in this thread?

It's easy to dismiss people who disagree with you as being ignorant, but I don't think I'm ignorant when it comes to this topic. I'm no M.D., but neither are most of the people in this thread who are disagreeing with me.

I'm a firm believer that the mind is an extremely powerful tool for healing. Positive thinking been proven to lead to lower levels of pain and help healing.

If you think acupuncture works, then by all means use it. If you think it has a physical effect on your body (other than the needles), then by all means use acupuncture.

However, I don't believe that any of those arguments, or any pro-acupuncture anecdotes automatically mean acupuncture "works" in the sense that it has tangible physical effects on the ability to feel pain (other than the needles). For every anecdote where it worked, there's another where it didn't.

None of this means that I "blindly follow" Western medicine. I'm aware of how
manipulative the medicine industry is. I'm also aware of how manipulative the "alternative" medicine industry is.

2) How many drugs are tested against a nocebo?

Most drugs are tested against a placebo, especially psychiatric drugs.

As others have said, it's important to read more than one study, by more than one organization, and from more than one perspective. It's a for-profit industry, including the alternative medicine side (a fact which is conveniently ignored by its supporters).

I feel like I've done this when it comes to acupuncture. I'm sure others have as well, so why don't we just agree to disagree. Acupuncture certainly doesn't hurt anyone and I'm not going to argue against that.

 

[Deus Irae]

I disparaged bloodletting, not anticoagulants in leech saliva.

Bloodletting was used for 2,000 years. Are you going to ask for leeches next time you go to the doctor?

You took one and equated to the othert. And, for the record, bloodletting is still a medically accepted practice for a very limited number of situations, even in modern western medicine.

The reality is that many of the derided treatments from the past have been found to have valid medical uses. Acupuncture has not achieved any sort of "definitely helpful" status from western medicine, but it has studies showing a legitimate effectiveness. Here's one article noting it, from earlier this year:

“For people with chronic low back pain, this analysis shows that acupuncture is clearly effective in providing considerable pain relief,” says Eric Manheimer, study author and director of database and evaluation for the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine. “The research also showed that acupuncture provided true pain relief. The benefit was not just due to the placebo effect.”

Acupuncture Helps Back Pain

edit: Oh, yeah.... and there is research which seems to indicate that chicken soup may, in fact, help with colds.

 

[Joker]

Not in the least. The most common origin of FDA-approved drugs is mother nature herself. People isolate, study, and VERIFY the activity of the active ingredient(s), and sometimes improve on its duration of action or side effect profile.

Science is perfectly compatible with using natural cures. It just demands that they be studied with appropriate scientific scrutiny.

I am an MD/Ph.D specializing in oncology.

In my field I see lives lost due to quack therapies. Thankfully many patients can hear, depending on their tumor status and blood/DNA data, that they have perhaps an 80% chance of five-year tumor free survival. Sometimes even more, of course sometimes much less.

I dread the cases where the blood/DNA data comes back and the prognosis is poorer, and it is a crying shame when it is a normally well-treated tumor type but is now at the advanced stage of genetic mutation to be highly resistant to less toxic therapies such as antibodies and kinase inhibitors. These patients frequently let us know that they would have been here earlier (and probably been in the 80% bracket) except that for the past year or more they have been trying Aunt Petunia's vitamin regimen, or some quack homeopathic remedy, or some other nonsense that in many cases cost them a lot of money along with hampering their odds of recovery.

Look...I'm not going to argue semantics with you...I am a retired engineer...I AM a cancer survivor...15 years out due to the skill and knowledge of my oncologist. In my life I have traveled extensively in Central and South America, the Orient and Australia and I've seen personally and up close native therapies used for untold generations derived from the rain forests. The FDA is a bottleneck to developing these available naturally occurring agents, and if you are who you say you are,you KNOW IT.I would never invest my well being in quack vitamin therapies or Auntie Whatever's
anything...I can see huge breakthroughs just waiting to happen with in the field of gene therapy and I cannot understand the feet of cement that bogs down the extraction of these naturally occurring medicines except the unbelievable greed and paranoia of Big Pharm...this is a discussion for another thread on a different page here at Pats fans...so I'm bowing out now.

 

[ausbacker]

You took one and equated to the othert. And, for the record, bloodletting is still a medically accepted practice for a very limited number of situations, even in modern western medicine.

The reality is that many of the derided treatments from the past have been found to have valid medical uses. Acupuncture has not achieved any sort of "definitely helpful" status from western medicine, but it has studies showing a legitimate effectiveness. Here's one article noting it, from earlier this year:

Acupuncture Helps Back Pain

edit: Oh, yeah.... and there is research which seems to indicate that chicken soup may, in fact, help with colds.

In fairness to The Comeback he just made a direct comparison with acupuncture and astrology given application to societal values and practices. It's fair to say he holds a clear bias on the subject.

 

[Snake Eyes]

I disparaged bloodletting, not anticoagulants in leech saliva.

Perhaps you should learn more about bloodletting, I've had it done a bunch of times. Only a drop or two is let out via a pin-prick but it was black, is blood supposed to be black? Anyway, the difference in how I felt was incredible after those drops were removed, maybe you should learn more about something before talking smack about it.

I stand by the statement that it is not a legitimate procedure for treating everyday problems. It isn't a legitimate
treatment for the flu. It isn't a legitmate treatment for a fever. In the vast majority of cases, bloodletting is far more harmful than helpful.

It has only narrow applications in modern medicine. That is not how it was applied by our ancestors.

If it has ANY applicability then it IS legitimate. Sorry but you've painted yourself into a corner with this one.

However, I don't believe that any of those arguments, or any pro-acupuncture anecdotes automatically mean acupuncture "works" in the sense that it has tangible physical effects on the ability to feel pain (other than the needles). For every anecdote where it worked, there's another where it didn't.

Do you think that putting metal into a muscle, which fires via electrical impulses, could possibly have an effect? Did you ever consider that the problem isn't acupuncture but your paradigm? How many other things out there are valid but we simply don't understand them yet?

Most drugs are tested against a placebo, especially psychiatric drugs.

As others have said, it's important to read more than one study, by more than one organization, and from more than one perspective. It's a for-profit industry, including the alternative medicine side (a fact which is conveniently ignored by its supporters).

I didn't say placebo, I said Nocebo. With just a drug and also a placebo there's still the mind working positively, with doesn't give you a true indication of the drugs effectiveness, all 3 will.

 

[asfpnepRefugee]

Look...I'm not going to argue semantics with you...I am a retired engineer...I AM a cancer survivor...15 years out due to the skill and knowledge of my oncologist. In my life I have traveled extensively in Central and South America, the Orient and Australia and I've seen personally and up close native therapies used for untold generations derived from the rain forests. The FDA is a bottleneck to developing these available naturally occurring agents, and if you are who you say you are,you KNOW IT.I would never invest my well being in quack vitamin therapies or Auntie Whatever's
anything...I can see huge breakthroughs just waiting to happen with in the field of gene therapy and I cannot understand the feet of cement that bogs down the extraction of these naturally occurring medicines except the unbelievable greed and paranoia of Big Pharm...this is a discussion for another thread on a different page here at Pats fans...so I'm bowing out now.

The problem with *****ing that the FDA is the bottleneck is that you end up with situations like the Bevacizumab flap last week.

I realize you were specifically talking about natural agents but that's just not how it works, the mechanism within the natural agent needs to be isolated and turned into a real treatment. My credentials aren't as grand as the MD/PHD above, although I've been working in the field of cancer research (genomics specifically) for about a decade now - I'm sure the common perception of greed has some basis in truth but I've yet to meet a single person in my travels who would turn down any lead in coming up with a viable treatment.

The truth is that we're so far away from understanding how most cancer works that it seems like researchers are spinning their wheels, keeping all the good stuff away for financial reasons. This is far from true, it's just that most cancers are complicated beasts and we're just now starting to scratch the surface on how things really work via next gen gene sequencing and such.

As an aside and on a personal note, my HO is that too many researchers focus on the big name cancer disesases. They're flashy, get a lot of funding, there are lots of samples out there, and if you do something useful you make a big name for yourself. There's a ton of low hanging fruit out there which would be far simpler to cure, putting money in that direction could prove to save more lives per research dollar spent.

 

[asfpnepRefugee]

Pilates was invented as boxer training.

No it wasn't.

 

[Snake Eyes]

The problem with *****ing that the FDA is the bottleneck is that you end up with situations like the Bevacizumab flap last week.

I realize you were specifically talking about natural agents but that's just not how it works, the mechanism within the natural agent needs to be isolated and turned into a real treatment. My credentials aren't as grand as the MD/PHD above, although I've been working in the field of cancer research (genomics specifically) for about a decade now - I'm sure the common perception of greed has some basis in truth but I've yet to meet a single person in my travels who would turn down any lead in coming up with a viable treatment.

The truth is that we're so far away from understanding how most cancer works that it seems like researchers are spinning their wheels, keeping all the good stuff away for financial reasons. This is far from true, it's just that most cancers are complicated beasts and we're just now starting to scratch the surface on how things really work via next gen gene sequencing and such.

As an aside and on a personal note, my HO is that too many researchers focus on the big name cancer disesases. They're flashy, get a lot of funding, there are lots of samples out there, and if you do something useful you make a big name for yourself. There's a ton of low hanging fruit out there which would be far simpler to cure, putting money in that direction could prove to save more lives per research dollar spent.

Why can't natural agents be real treatment, I mean aside from the fact that natural agents can't be patented and drugs can be?

 

[asfpnepRefugee]

Why can't natural agents be real treatment, I mean aside from the fact that natural agents can't be patented and drugs can be?

Well, for one thing, why wouldn't one want to identify what it is about said natural agent and isolate it to be in a pure form? You have the potential for higher efficacy, fewer side effects, superior delivery mechanisms, etc.

And to loop back to the financial angle, that's not necessarily greed. You can't just say "tribesmen have been taking this for centuries!", you need to go through the same trials process as any other agent. That costs a boatload of money, and even then it very well might not work (there's the tale that aspirin wouldn't be approved today if it came out of thin air right now). You could say that the govt should be funding this, but IMO the govt should be funding basic research and not drug development. A company won't be funding this for the reasons people state - it'd be potentially criminal for a company to dump billions into something they can't make a cent off of. You'd need something like the Gates foundation to pay for it (which is possible)

 

[Snake Eyes]

Well, for one thing, why wouldn't one want to identify what it is about said natural agent and isolate it to be in a pure form? You have the potential for higher efficacy, fewer side effects, superior delivery mechanisms, etc.

And to loop back to the financial angle, that's not necessarily greed. You can't just say "tribesmen have been taking this for centuries!", you need to go through the same trials process as any other agent. That costs a boatload of money, and even then it very well might not work (there's the tale that aspirin wouldn't be approved today if it came out of thin air right now). You could say that the govt should be funding this, but IMO the govt should be funding basic research and not drug development. A company won't be funding this for the reasons people state - it'd be potentially criminal for a company to dump billions into something they can't make a cent off of. You'd need something like the Gates foundation to pay for it (which is possible)

The FDA trials are a big part of the problem.

Anyway, the government doesnt need to fund either one, I don't want them funding either one. If there's enough money to be made through isolating it then a company will spend the money to do the research, otherwise it can be sold as a generic like Ginseng is.

 

[asfpnepRefugee]

The FDA trials are a big part of the problem.

And then I point back to the bevacizumab news of last week. That's what happens when you relax the rules - can't have it both ways.

Anyway, the government doesnt need to fund either one, I don't want them funding either one

Blue sky science research is exactly the sort of thing that the government should be funding. Companies are obligated to their stockholders to maximize profits, and as a side effect they're good at applied science but not basic science - the latter has a much lower ROI in the near/mid term but is absolutely essential for the long term. Not many company boards are going to be able to sell the story to their investors that they're totally going to be getting paid back 30 years from now.

If there's enough money to be made through isolating it then a company will spend the money to do the research, otherwise it can be sold as a generic like Ginseng is.

It's not as if they're not trying to make money on this stuff.

Look, obviously pharma is a business and obviously they're trying to make money. I just get annoyed at the conspiracy theories that researchers are somehow holding back cures in the name of money.

 

[Snake Eyes]

And then I point back to the bevacizumab news of last week. That's what happens when you relax the rules - can't have it both ways.

What specifically are you referring to, the FDA yanking the approval?

Blue sky science research is exactly the sort of thing that the government should be funding. Companies are obligated to their stockholders to maximize profits, and as a side effect they're good at applied science but not basic science - the latter has a much lower ROI in the near/mid term but is absolutely essential for the long term. Not many company boards are going to be able to sell the story to their investors that they're totally going to be getting paid back 30 years from now.

You want the government funding that because they do such a good job in all the other things they're involved with?

Look, obviously pharma is a business and obviously they're trying to make money. I just get annoyed at the conspiracy theories that researchers are somehow holding back cures in the name of money.

The FDA certainly works on their behalf by blocking the importation of herbs used to treat the same ailments various pharmceuticals are intended to treat. I'm curious why Cancer/AIDs patients can't use marijuana burt they can but the pharmacautical equivilant at an exponentially higher price.

 

[asfpnepRefugee]

What specifically are you referring to, the FDA yanking the approval?

Not exactly. The way the whole thing was handled led to people undergoing unnecessary side effects with no beneficial effect. This was due to it being rushed through.

You want the government funding that because they do such a good job in all the other things they're involved with?

Politics plays into the problems they have, ie the fact that they're not science driven enough in their decision making. I said it before, modern companies are simply not very good at blue sky science research and someone has to fund it. An organization that doesn't require an immediate ROI would fit the bill, like the government. I'd certainly prefer to see my tax dollars go towards funding the future of scientific innovation than 95% of the other stupid stuff it spends money on (e.g. 7+ billion dollars to upgrade a fighter that doesn't work and has never been used in combat).

I'm curious why Cancer/AIDs patients can't use marijuana burt they can but the pharmacautical equivilant at an exponentially higher price.

I'd argue that specific example has more to do with political implications (see above) than anything else.