Raw food session followed by exposure

Andrey Ukrainsky, Mednovosti
(see the links in the original article)

Raw food is the name of various practices associated with the use of unprocessed plant foods. For its adherents, it is not just a nutrition system, they are convinced that a raw diet can treat any diseases. The most active of them are starting to engage in alternative medicine. On account of this "teaching" a number of criminal cases and tortured patients.

What do they want?

The founders of raw food appealed to the fact that for a very, very long time a person could not eat fried and boiled food. Accordingly, only raw food can be healthy and natural for people. Raw foodists claim that raw food in the stomach digests itself with its enzymes (when cooking, they are destroyed, and this "natural" process is disrupted), and in addition, cooking destroys or hinders the assimilation of nutrients. These views deserve scientific criticism, we will do this another time. In addition, it is impossible to write an article with a comprehensive criticism of raw food, since its adherents do not have a common opinion about what and how to eat. "Although all the speakers promote raw food, there is no unity between them regarding what it means by itself. One says that the best food is fruits, the other says that fruits nourish the mold that lives inside us. One promotes dietary supplements, the other, on the contrary, declares that they are unacceptable. One recommends fasting on water, the other claims that it is dangerous, and instead advises drinking juices," writes the modern raw food author Frederick Patenod in his book "Secrets of raw food". Since there is no consensus, gurus continue to multiply.

The number of raw foodists is difficult to estimate, but the interest in the topic is clearly great. Their groups on social networks gather more than 100 thousand people. Popular topics for discussion: how to preserve hair and teeth, how not to break from the "natural diet". Cancer treatment also occupies an important place. One of the main raw food sites of the Runet lovesurfing.ru leads amazing stories of healing from this disease. We would like to pay attention to them.

Lieutenant Schmidt's children from raw food

Janet Murray-Wakelin is one of the heroines of the movement. On almost all vegan-raw food resources, she appears as a person who refused chemotherapy and overcame stage III breast cancer with the help of raw food. Janet is a celebrity in Australia, the media write about her in connection with her marathon races, she ran 366 marathons in 2013, one a day (the year was not a leap year, but against the background of the rest of the raw food nonsense, this is such a trifle – VM). However, the major media that reported on her running activity, for some reason, do not write anything about the miracle cure, only thematic raw food sites are engaged in this.

Visitors of a large forum Breastcancer.Org they unearthed a message that Janet was still operated on, and not just cured cancer with banana smoothies. From the note, however, it is still unclear how she cured the lymph nodes. At the same time, Janet is the author of the book "Raw food can cure cancer" ("Raw can cure cancer"), that is, she bears responsibility for the possible refusal of people from existing scientifically based treatment. Well, for false hope, too, on the same breast cancer forum, Murray-Wakelin most often occurs in the context of the search for a miracle in the last stages of the disease.

An even more revealing figure in alternative cancer treatment today is Chris Work, who claims that he was cured of colon cancer with the help of raw food. He does not hide the fact that he was operated on, but refused chemotherapy, although many resources write about it somewhat veiled. Now Chris charges $100 for an hour and $175 for a two-hour telephone consultation on cancer treatment.

Chris Wark's case was analyzed by oncologist David Gorsky, editor of the ScienceBasedMedicine portal. The doctor notes that one of the most powerful tools of medical quackery are the stories of real patients who used some kind of "panacea" and survived. Sometimes patients who believe that alternative medicine has somehow cured them devote their lives to selling their history and "healing methods". This includes Work, who founded the website Krispobezhdaetrak (ChrisBeatCancer). Gorski notes that our hero makes a common mistake in his stories: he confuses adjuvant chemotherapy, which is used as an adjunct to surgery, and chemotherapy used for the main treatment (for example, for blood cancer). The oncologist even raises the question of whether to give this phenomenon its own name, for example, "adjuvant gambit". The same technique is used by the above-mentioned Janet.

The main type of treatment for solid cancer is surgery, the critic of alternative medicine points out. Chemotherapy is needed to kill cancer cells that have managed to spread through the body and can become a source of metastases. Anyway, adjuvant or additional therapy is not primary, it only reduces the chances of cancer recurrence.

In colon cancer, the main treatment is intestinal resection with the removal of part of the peritoneum with affected lymph nodes, which was performed by Chris Wark. Gorski analyzes his chances of survival after such an operation using the Adjuvant resource! Online. This site allows you to estimate the five-year survival rate (the most important indicator of oncology) based on the type of tumor and the age of the patient. In the case of stage III (descriptions on the Internet give reason to think about it), the chances of Wark to live five years without chemotherapy were 64%, which is very good for such a stage of cancer. "Chemistry" would increase this figure by only 12-16%. At stage IIIC, his chances were lower – 30%, which is still not so bad. Note that in the case of colon cancer, the disease rarely returns after a five-year period.

Thus, Chris Work had a good chance of survival, which gives reason to talk about his cure by official medicine. Not having a solid understanding of oncology, he declares that cancer cannot be cured surgically, the disease will surely return. According to his sermons, if the body is given the necessary nutrients (in raw form), it will recover and be cleansed of toxins that are the cause of all diseases.

Of course, there are also a considerable number of healers and the healed in our latitudes. The case of Linar Gainanov, who learned wisdom from a certain raw Raisin eater and was cured of Hodgkin's lymphoma, has spread widely on the web. It is striking that Linar underwent 8 (!) courses of chemotherapy before this. The details of the diagnosis and treatment regimen are unknown, raw foodists force the fact that the patient refused a course of radiotherapy. But it's no secret that many modern chemotherapy regimens give a great chance of long-term remission.

Read the Criminal Code

In the past, people who are considered authorities on raw food often had problems with the law. For example, Herbert Shelton, whose writings inspired many to eat raw, was arrested many times and paid fines for practicing medicine without a license. In 1942, he was accused of negligent homicide: by starvation, he allegedly drove a man to death, but nothing could be proved. In 1978, after another patient's death, the network of his "schools" was closed. The good-looking grandmother Ann Wigmore, the author of treatises on raw food, also worked as a cancer cure. Later, she was involved for alternative treatment of diabetes and statements about the need for vaccination. In 1988, she was put on trial for false promises of a cure for AIDS. They stated that this disease comes from the fact that the body cannot cope with the food consumed. She sold lessons on cooking "energy enzyme soup" to solve the problem for $ 300 – $500.

And there is only one solution: there are no miracles. The benefits of eating many raw foods do not raise questions, there is no doubt about the importance of a healthy diet. Unlike all kinds of gurus and fanatical sects: these do not bring any benefit, only harm.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  02.02.2017