Rene's advice to Robert was really superb, something which can not
be improved upon. Buried in it was the quote below, and I just want
to clear up any worries rawsters might have about skin cancer:
>"4. get plenty of good Sun. When your body is reasonably
>detoxified and you get into the sun on a regular basis, starting
> GRADUALLY, you can then WALK in the midday sun without
> any chemical stuff on your skin and get a nice tan, and NO risk
> of skin cancer!! I'm doing it here and it feels great (I
don't lie in the sun, but walk in the sun -on the beaches here-,
>there is a great difference!!)"
The following is stuff I have previously posted to other lists, &
although some of what is included below refers to fights we have had
on other lists, most is of interest here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For those not aware of the reputations of some of the
people mentioned below, here are a few comments:
1) Stefansson was a distinguished anthropologist at Harvard (I
believe) & a famous artic explorer during the first part of this
century, an age when artic exploration was front-page news.
(Pauling, in his "How to Live Longer & Feel Better," relates some
interesting stuff about Stefansson's long-term experiments with
living on a meat-only diet in the artic.)
2) Dubos, who wrote the forward to Stefansson's book excerpted
below, was considered the world's leading microbiologist, as well as
being a friend of Pauling. He would not have lent his name to
anything other than a substantive work. (For those interested in
exploring the distinct failings of the germ theory of disease,
Dubos' "Mirage of Health" is an excellent introduction. This gets
to the heart of the discussion about intrinsic vs. extrinsic
etiologies for diseases.)
3)Schweitzer, who along with Pauling was of course a Nobel peace
prize recipient, had extensive experience with primitive peoples in
his medical practice, and knew first-hand the anti-carcinogenic
effects of the diet consumed by many of these people.
I would add that not only cancer, but a long list of age-related
diseases can be said to be diseases of civilization, almost unknown
among primitive peoples prior to the introduction of dietary & other
changes in their lifestyles.
******************************************************************
Excerpts from "Cancer: Disease of Civilization?" by V. Stefansson;
forward by Rene Dubos; 1960:
"In 1915 The Prudential Insurance Co. of NY startled practically
nobody by saying that uncivilized people...have little or no cancer.
But in 1956 'The Canadian Med. Soc. J.' of Toronto startled
practically everybody by saying the like about uncivilized Canadian
Eskimos [among who Stefansson had much experience, & was the 1st
European many had seen]... Why was the medical world so ready to
accept [this] in 1915, so unready in 1956?"
He notes that in 'The Mortality from Cancer Throughout the World,' a
826-page volume issued in 1915 by Dr. F. Hoffman, head of
Prudential's statistical dept., that "it runs through Hoffman's work
that uncivilized people seldom if ever have cancer." He adds that
this was the orthodox belief of that era. Stefansson blows away
[statistically] the myth that people in former eras lived much
shorter lives, insufficient in length to allow cancer to develop
[pages 140-1]. He also trashes the myth that Eskimos never lived
past 50, showing that on their original diet they probably lived a
full 3 score & 10, if not quite a bit more.
Stefansson quotes from A. Berglas' [Pasteur Institute] 1957 'Cancer:
Its Nature, Cause & Cure' [one of the 4 prefaces was by Schweitzer,
a man who had a lot of experience up close with primitive peoples]:
"...the more civilization has advanced, the farther we have come
away from a natural diet...Our present diet consists to a large
extent of adulterated and denatured [READ 'COOKED'] foods, from
which the most essential factors have been removed... When we speak
of diseases of civilization we are talking about diseases which, in
many instances, could be corrected by proper diet. Attempts have
been made to correct defects in nutrition by means of artificial
compounds, such as synthetically produced vitamins. But it will
never be possible to reconstruct a normal diet in this manner (a
folly Dr. Berglas thinks the US both one of the chief perpetrators &
one of the chief victims)...."
Stefansson continues: "That Dr. Berglas thinks overcooked meats
provocative to malignant disease is reminiscent of a like opinion
expressed by some of the best witnesses to the former absence of
cancer among the Eskimos. ...Dr. Hudson comments: 'In this
connection [absence of cancer] it may be noted that ... most of the
food is eaten raw..."
Stefansson goes on to discuss cancer-free societies, including
Schweitzer's observation in 1913 that in the Gabon region of Africa
the disease was rare, but in later decades became endemic.
Stefansson: "Dr. Berglas mentions that 'Dr. E. Payne, who examined
60,000 individuals during a 1/4 century in certain parts of Brazil &
Ecuador, found no evidence of cancers.'"
Hoffman [Prudential's statistician] in 1923 quoted A. Hrdlicka [the
renowned Smithsonian anthropologist] on primitive natives of the
Americas: " Malignant diseases, if they exist at all-that they do
would be difficult to doubt-must be extremely rare."
Hoffman: "The foregoing observations have been emphaized by personal
investigations among the Indians of Bolivia, among whom I was unable
to trace a single authentic case of malignant disease. All of the
physicians whom I interviewed on the subject were emphatically of
the opinion that cancer of the breast among Indian women was never
met with...Hence the conclusion, supported by a large amount of
additional evidence from primitive people throughout the world, that
malignant diseases among native races are of extremely rare
occurrence."
Briefly, Stefansson then goes on to study the health & longevity of
the Hunza, and notes that as with the Eskimos of which he was so
familiar, their lacto-vegetarian diet (in contrast to the primarily
carnivorous Eskimos) consisted of raw "milk products as well as
predominately RAW fruits & vegetables. Wrench says: 'Looking
through the diet, it will be seen that there is nothing strange to
the westerner in the Hunza foods... The difference lies in the WAY
they are eaten & the WAY they are cultivated.... vegetables they eat
raw when they can... They are fond of raw green corn, young leaves,
carrots, turnips; and, as it were to exaggerate their veneration for
freshness, they sprout their pulses [grains] & eat them at their
first green.'"
Stefansson: "I have said about the Eskimos, of the period before
1930, that only in some districts were they wholly carnivorous; in
most districts they ate some vegetables, then nearly always RAW...
Of the Hunzas, Dr. Wrench says [with disapproval]: '...heating, &
particularly boiling, is the chief human sophistication of food....
The Hunza are great fruit eaters, especially of apricots &
mulberries both in fresh & dry state.... they do not cook their
fruit."
He summarized at the end of the book that at least 80% of the diet
should be RAW. We of course know much better today, and with our
advanced knowledge are able to concoct diets in the laboratory which
can provide us and the animals we use in our longevity experiments
ENTIRELY ADEQUATE NUTRITION. The only thing I can't understand is
so many of us & our lab animals & pets are stricken with cancer.
*******************************************************************
The 3 quotes below are from "Prevention and Therapy of Cancer and
Other Common Diseases: Alternative and Traditional Approaches;" by
Charles L. Sanders (available from his WWW page at
http://www.owt.com/infomedix/ [the ref. #s refer to his #s]
1) "A case control study of stomach cancer in Italy showed a
significant reduction of stomach cancer associated with consumption
of raw fruits and vegetables and citrus fruits, but not with
consumption of cooked vegetables or preserved and dried fruits 674."
2) "Vegetarians experience significantly less cancer, heart disease,
gallstones, diabetes and osteoporosis than omnivores
149-150,792-794,1211,1213,1578,1632-1633,1639,1987,2328,3407,
4149,6989,10860,10863-10865. Cancer risk for male vegetarians was
about 50% less and 25% less for female vegetarians compared to meat
eaters."
3) "A strong protective effect against esophageal carcinoma was seen
with consumption of citrus fruits and green leafy vegetables. Those
who ate citrus fruit daily had a risk more than ten-fold lower than
those who ate it less than once a year 1595."
******************************************************************
Since cancer incidence & aging rates closely track each other, the
above leads me to believe that a raw vegetarian diet is a powerful
means of squaring the aging curve. One of the few cancer therapies
which has proven to consistently produce good results is the Gerson
therapy ( see: http://www.gerson.com ), which has the consumption
of raw juices at its core. (Pauling spoke approvingly of this
treatment.)
--Doug Schwartz
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