On the Nature of Reality
Many ask to be tortured when doctors tell them it’s over. Medicine is a closed loop system where patients and doctors reinforce the system that hurts.
Quote Dave Chase: Community-owned health plan catalyst @chasedave Nov 25, 2019
As a beloved family physician told me... "what most people want at the end of life is to be warm, dry, pain-free and with loved ones." Instead, too many hospitals overtreat & profiteer. "What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist." https://saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/03/how-doctors-die/
5:34 AM · Nov 26, 2019
Even when patients are told treatment is futile, they suspect some miracle treatments are withheld from them and insist on being treated.
5:36 AM · Nov 26, 2019
A doctor gave me false hope about my dad’s cancer survival. It made his death much more devastating. - The Washington Post https://washingtonpost.com/health/a-doctor-gave-me-false-hope-about-my-dads-cancer-survival-it-made-his-death-much-more-devastating/2019/11/22/ee1a50ae-eeb9-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html
5:40 AM · Nov 26, 2019
When you put it in your mouth, it’s your choice thus you suffer consequences.
4:33 PM · Nov 26, 2019
The system cannot rise to the challenge it was not designed to deal with. Many things have to be dealt with on a societal, communal, and personal level.
Quote Brianne @bennessb Nov 24, 2019
I feel like I need a # NotAllDoctors disclaimer on all of my work. I don't have it out for doctors, I have it out for an entire medical system that is ill equipped for chronic issues and blames patients instead of rising to the challenge.
8:57 PM · Nov 26, 2019
Mistake number one was to forsake generational knowledge of grandmothers and put your trust in experts. Mistake number 2 was to listen to people who start sentences with EAT rather than learn, select, cook. Experts are not any less misguided today than any time before.
7:16 AM · Nov 27, 2019
Cook every meal you eat from scratch. Don’t eat industrially prepared garbage. As you cook you will start figuring things out. It will evolve. As you eat what you cook, pay attention to how you feel.
7:18 AM · Nov 27, 2019
I know those families too. In case of small children, a woman leaving a child behind forsakes a breastfeeding relationship between the two. For some it’s heartbreaking to the point they cry at work every day until it’s not worth it.
7:20 AM · Nov 27, 2019
Social isolation of mothers and separation of home-work spheres have been described as nauseam. It doesn’t have to be this way. The numbers of those who hate nursing has been largely exaggerated. There are those who hate sex. There’s always a group that hates something pleasurable.
9:45 AM · Nov 27, 2019
Later on your “provider” will treat you via text, phone, or telemedicine. You won’t even see them in person. Maybe a minute or two if you are lucky. Many will treat your computer profile without ever seeing you or asking those who see you. The brave new world of medicine
Quote Mario Amaro @MarioATX_MD Nov 24, 2019
To all those who discredit non-MDs/DOs online curriculum probably don't know what med school is actually like nowadays. Everything is online. Questions, books, lectures, and more questions. This is how we all learn. Even NPs. x.com/keepingitrenal…
12:54 PM · Nov 27, 2019
The term “healthy eating” should be banned as it gives the impression that food is optional and eating garbage is the norm. #HealthyEating #HealthyFood
12:59 PM · Nov 27, 2019
Only 11? Perhaps only 11% were necessary.
4:18 PM · Nov 27, 2019
You forgot to add eat metformin with statins and aspirin.
4:37 PM · Nov 27, 2019
It’s increasingly harder to find somebody intelligent to discuss your concerns.
9:12 AM · Nov 28, 2019
Medicine as patriarchal religion has been discussed in academic literature a while back.
9:13 AM · Nov 28, 2019
Nobody has seen protein but we all know meat is tasty, we crave it when it’s cold, if you eat it you can forgo eating for much longer than if you eat leaves, may cause tongue coating or feeling inside the stomach based in individual ability to digest it. Goes with red wine.
Quote Joanna Blythman @JoannaBlythman Nov 28, 2019
“Meat has massive social benefits. It’s an important source of dietary protein, energy, highly bioavailable micronutrients, even small amounts of animal-sourced food have a really important effect on the development of children” https://telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/11/27/meat-crucial-feeding-planet-going-vegan-not-green-say-scientists/
9:19 AM · Nov 28, 2019
Did we also imagine them white?
9:21 AM · Nov 28, 2019
Why were you treating test numbers?
11:35 PM · Nov 28, 2019
Also knees often give out carrying the weight they are not equipped to support.
1:39 AM · Nov 29, 2019
I think the problem there is not obesity per se but what people eat. However I do see a fair share of very thin people eating same garbage.
1:41 AM · Nov 29, 2019
The issue of McDonald’s is that technically it’s not even food thus nobody should eat it ever at all unless you are in a concentration camp and it’s the only option. It’s below dignity of a human to eat garbage.
1:43 AM · Nov 29, 2019
What a person looks like is not necessary indicative of what they eat and how they feel. Many ripped bodies subsist on unidentifiable powders and pills.
1:48 AM · Nov 29, 2019
I don’t know what metabolically unhealthy means. I do know they have constipation or are sluggish. No mental clarity. Catch diseases often. Eventually may have strokes and heart attacks. I prefer to concentrate on the observable.
7:52 AM · Nov 29, 2019
People who do not practice food selection and cooking (doctors and scientists in general) on a regular daily basis should not recommend eating guidelines. People who don’t cook shouldn’t design kitchens.
8:02 AM · Nov 29, 2019
- Why do I have a yeast infection?
- I’m not sure but most likely because you eat a lot of sugar.
- I don’t eat sugar (sipping on the n-th can of coke). I only drink sweet tea.
8:32 AM · Nov 29, 2019
This will may kill you faster than if you eat less meat. Not that it matters if you want to eat meat all the time. Three meals a day become hard as well as you won’t be hungry that often if you eat meat at that rate. Three meals a day is also an industrial era invention
8:46 AM · Nov 29, 2019
Nothing. NOTHING beats personal experience. No amount of education can make up for living through something.
Quote David Juurlink @DavidJuurlink Nov 29, 2019
This neurologist’s account of his own stroke is fascinating https://cwhib9vv.r.us-east-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fwww.thelancet.com%2Fjournals%2Flancet%2Farticle%2FPIIS0140-6736(19)32642-X%2Ffulltext%3Fdgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email/1/0100016eb6cc5a0d-a9c49985-6688-4771-9b6c-be5e8cba2fc7-000000/MXx39L-v6JSiQIs4QxNjtnbV8P8=138
What do they eat once a day?
3:34 PM · Nov 29, 2019
Black mothers don’t need more treatments. Why are they getting depressed? Address the cause.
5:00 PM · Nov 29, 2019
Patiently waiting for another twenty years for new scientific discoveries that will “reveal” the harm of restrictive diets of only vegetables or only meat.
6:25 AM · Nov 30, 2019
Not only normal babies are alert but they also don’t cry all the time if ever.
6:27 AM · Nov 30, 2019
I used to support medically assisted suicide until I saw how healthcare works. Now I’m opposed to it. From all standpoints it’s murder of those who believed in medicine. Too much room for abuse of power withholding or doing it too much. Death should remain a citizen affair.
Quote David Juurlink @DavidJuurlink Nov 30, 2019
Remembering this lovely patient who died one year ago today. x.com/DavidJuurlink/…11:08 AM · Nov 30, 2019
It’s a shame they removed your article. Censorship is getting worse by the second. We need more opinions like yours. Do not despair and continue your work. Thank you for writing and speaking up!
6:39 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Dangerous censorship by medical power pressure on the press. A disgrace.
Quote ⓘ This user is disputed @usergenic Dec 1, 2019
Replying to @eVRy1listen @writingblock and 2 others
If @DrJenGunter had integrity she'd have written a response, not demanded a takedown. @sciam have demonstrated their cowardice and where they stand on the issue at hand. They certainly don't stand for science. 6:41 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Don’t read it. Your censorship is patronizing and unwelcome.
6:41 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Doctors aren’t gods. A brilliant analysis of the underlying politics of information control regarding women by @writingblock that was censored by @sciam
#OurBodiesOurselves https://thearkivist.net/images/files/doctorsarenotgods-jenblock11-26-19.pdf
6:50 AM · Dec 1, 2019
It was a social analysis of MD use of social media. You clearly missed the point. But you are a man thus may not relate.
6:52 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Stand your ground. It is a brilliant piece!
6:54 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Any underdog group that gets to power and the feeding trough often becomes abusive and condescending. Women doctors can be worse than men.
6:56 AM · Dec 1, 2019
The article was just about that. Doctors do not possess any knowledge or expertise of individual bodies. Yet each woman does have her unique knowledge and expertise about herself.
6:57 AM · Dec 1, 2019
If it works for you, it’s enough evidence even if all the peer reviewed “evidence” of “science” disagrees. #science
7:09 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Why do you need a doctor to tell you you are not dirty? Medicine is a very patriarchal occupation with myths about the evilness of women firmly imprinted and not going away. Especially in obstetrics and gynecology. Read For Her Own Good and explore references further
7:23 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Something disturbing in calling murder in the hospital a great death. Why treat patients to the point they ask to be murdered? There’s no luck in begging to be killed. https://x.com/DrNancyGlass1//DrNancyGlass1/status/1200799705065820160
7:56 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Nobody has ever seen vitamin A or hormone D (mistakingly called vitamin). But we all understand basking in the sun and eating beef liver ever so often.
9:27 AM · Dec 1, 2019
An example how not to eat. Gluttony in new incarnation.
Quote Ken D Berry MD @KenDBerryMD Nov 30, 2019
I thing the 2 pounds of ground beef + 1/2 pound of beef liver I ate this evening corrected my saturated fat, heme iron, TMAO, Neu5Gc deficiencies!
9:32 AM · Dec 1, 2019
If you eat like this once a year, it may be ok. Nowhere will you have access to this much meat without access to a grocery store and refrigeration. At a homestead you’d make it last and eat it seasonally. Hopefully your appetite will also shut down and crave something else
10:35 AM · Dec 1, 2019
For broader perspective of @writingblock For Her Own Good Barbara Ehrenreich for two centuries of experts advice to women.
Quote Medical Nemesis @Medical_Nemesis Dec 1, 2019
Doctors aren’t gods. A brilliant analysis of the underlying politics of information control regarding women by @writingblock that was censored by @sciam #OurBodiesOurselves https://thearkivist.net/images/files/doctorsarenotgods-jenblock11-26-19.pdf
11:17 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Physicians sorely lack education in history, sociology, and anthropology of their sorcery.
11:19 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Your facts change ALL the time
11:58 AM · Dec 1, 2019
Another book in support of @writingblock argument Women’s Ways of Knowing book Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberg, Tarule
Quote Medical Nemesis @Medical_Nemesis Dec 1, 2019
Doctors aren’t gods. A brilliant analysis of the underlying politics of information control regarding women by @writingblock that was censored by @sciam #OurBodiesOurselves https://thearkivist.net/images/files/doctorsarenotgods-jenblock11-26-19.pdf
2:17 PM · Dec 1, 2019
All knowledge of society and sickness is socially determined. Medical facts are predetermined by the processes through which they are conventionally produced in clinics and research settings. Critically examine social conditions of knowledge production. Allan Young #science
2:41 PM · Dec 1, 2019
Amazing how many missed the whole point of your article. Reading comprehension in those with advanced degrees is still at 3-5 grade level. Their awareness of social context of knowledge construction is non-existent.
3:24 PM · Dec 1, 2019
Yet whole countries survived on potatoes as their main daily staple. Bummer.
Quote Ken D Berry MD @KenDBerryMD Nov 30, 2019
Potatoes are devoid of meaningful human nutrition x.com/USNewsHealth/s…
4:53 AM · Dec 2, 2019
Anybody who gets onto any special diet knows nothing about cooking or eating. Unless you are sick and in need of restrictive diet short term, all diets fail to address selection-cooking-eating as a complex system.
4:58 AM · Dec 2, 2019
Reductionism in understanding food always fails. Potatoes are potatoes. They go with certain other foods. You eat them in certain climates. You eat them more certain times of year. Most importantly potatoes are food that one can recognize. Have you ever seen a carbohydrate?
5:01 AM · Dec 2, 2019
Even if it’s blatantly high risk, just like many high risk medical treatments, you can do what you please. It’s up to you to decide how much you even want to know. Most people agree to medical procedures of dubious value without proper knowledge of what they entail.
12:22 PM · Dec 2, 2019
Let’s begin that they are inedibles of unknown origin. The rest becomes insignificant.
2:33 PM · Dec 2, 2019
Partner is either of a pair engaged in the same activity. Patients and doctors are engaged in vastly different activities thus can’t be partners. Even shared decision making is misplaced because of the inherent inequality of knowledge, experience, and priorities.
4:19 PM · Dec 2, 2019
What a doctor thinks is best vs what a patient thinks is best are two different stories.
4:21 PM · Dec 2, 2019
Extreme diets are a knee jerk reaction. Leads to sickness. Social isolation is going on. Eating funny can be isolating.
5:34 AM · Dec 3, 2019
When you don’t have time for #science to catch up with reality on the ground, you look and find your own sciencia (Latin for knowledge).
5:38 AM · Dec 3, 2019
You don’t have to be an expert to know.
5:42 AM · Dec 3, 2019
“SciAm had heard from many people who had complained that the piece was “anti-science” and was too critical of medical authority—which was a problem.” My, my. Attack on faith and persecution worthy of witch hunts of yesteryear! #medicineasreligion
Quote Jennifer Block @writingblock Dec 3, 2019
“Scientific American was wrong to unpublish the piece—it should have corrected it, in public... I actually do think everyone was trying to act in good faith. I think Block and Gunter have a few important things in common” https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/jen-gunter-jennifer-block-scientific-american.html
4:51 AM · Dec 4, 2019
Even when something saves lives... even if it’s 100% safe, effective, miraculous... you can still say no and refuse to use it.
8:28 AM · Dec 4, 2019
You sound like a believer
8:28 AM · Dec 4, 2019
Why is there a need to label? Pejorative labeling as an act leads to pigeonholing, stereotyping, and ultimately lack of understanding. You can refuse safe and effective drugs. You can refuse to apply medicine to the healthy.
8:48 AM · Dec 4, 2019
There are no superfoods. Each food is important. Proportion of a food in your eating patterns will depend upon time of year, age, tolerance, availability, environment, your cravings, what you know about food, and common sense. https://x.com/RDValerie/stat/RDValerie/status/1202051860644929536
I recall milk being touted as superfood.
8:59 AM · Dec 4, 2019
You should seriously consider taking a sabbatical from doctoring. Anybody is free to ask any questions about any medical procedure or drug. It’s a sign of intelligence and interest in own health to not follow blindly any random doctor’s order.
9:03 AM · Dec 4, 2019
Application of medicine to the healthy is the first question you should consider.
9:03 AM · Dec 4, 2019
Women that eat garbage get sick. Abstaining from eating garbage may get your health to some individual baseline. It’s wrong to say food cured you since eating food is default.
2:12 PM · Dec 4, 2019
They will tell you “survivor bias”
4:45 PM · Dec 4, 2019
It’s not true. Household appliances raised expectations and standards. Lots of research published on the never decreasing housework hours for women.
8:20 AM · Dec 7, 2019
Two things to do this holiday season:
1. Throw away weight scale
2. Prepare simple Spartan meals during holiday season.
10:48 AM · Dec 9, 2019
There is nothing absolute about any vaccine. Saving lives is also mantra that most doctors cannot explain. Stupid repetition till it makes no sense.
11:32 PM · Dec 9, 2019
It’s common because every child in America has malformed nasooral cavity due to forces exerted by sucking on bottles instead of breasts.
11:34 PM · Dec 9, 2019
Now watch yourself bloat and get sick like all who eat there.
1:40 AM · Dec 10, 2019
You have to be a major idiot to take birth control pills or try to get rid of periods.
1:53 PM · Dec 11, 2019
What do you call a cereal? Most western countries call unidentifiable garbage cereal.
9:54 AM · Dec 12, 2019
Suggesting skipping breakfast for people who don’t have access to food for prolonged periods of time when they leave home is a recipe for disaster.
9:55 AM · Dec 12, 2019
Eat more garbage. Sleep less. Take more drugs. Oh and go to the doctor more! That will just about do it. https://x.com/LotusOak2/stat/LotusOak2/status/1204871747830534151
This Post is from a suspended account.
The ground reality of vaccinating the sick in hospitals - many don’t get vaccinated because staff is reluctant to order or administer, especially if patients are immunocompromised or have cancer. The media propaganda you see doesn’t match caution on the ground. #vaccine
8:48 AM · Dec 14, 2019
Adults should not drink their food. Smoothies and shakes all fall into garbage category not for human consumption.
4:04 PM · Dec 17, 2019
Why do so many doctors and nurses look so obviously unwell and sick? You would think given their education and assumed roles of health gurus they would be models of health.
12:42 PM · Dec 19, 2019
Ivan Illich wrote about this in 1970’s. It took THIS long for the establishment to catch on. People in the ground ALWAYS detect problems faster than clunky institutions. Grassroot peer-to-peer networks are very effective in helping people remain well or deal with problems. https://x.com/PGtzsche1/stat/PGtzsche1/status/1207966128930250753
America will wind up with unprecedented in history medical fascism where every citizen will be coerced into medical treatment.
Quote Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders Dec 21, 2019
We will pass Medicare for All.
We will eliminate co-pays, premiums and deductibles.
We will make health care a right to all.
We will end the disgrace of a profit-driven system.
6:58 PM · Dec 21, 2019
If you are resilient to abnormal conditions, most likely you are a psycho.
Quote Javier Benítez, MD / Pr(Dz | Data) ≠ Pr(Data | Dz) @jvrbntz Dec 24, 2019
“So it’s not that people are experiencing burnout because they’re weak, or don’t know how to cope with life, or have mental problems. They are dealing with a social environment, in their workplace, that is creating certain kinds of stressors and constraints.”—Maslach x.com/KP_MD2018/stat…
1:43 PM · Dec 24, 2019
Thank you Rockefeller Foundation for laying the foundation for such a wonderful business enterprise model!
12:08 PM · Dec 27, 2019
Many of people who are into diets focus too much on the invisible and intangible - calories, some unpronounceable micronutrients and such. The end goal is another intangible - weight. Hardly anybody focuses on feeling good and enjoying good food for what it is.
5:50 PM · Dec 27, 2019
Wow! You are LEAGUES behind recent research and most importantly knowledge on the ground. What a case of government incompetence.
11:21 AM · Dec 28, 2019
Informed consent is a misnomer. It implies agreement. Informed decision preserves the possibility of yes or no.
12:49 PM · Dec 28, 2019
Magic bullet mentality permeates mainstream and alternative medicine alike.
10:21 AM · Dec 30, 2019
Amazing. My whole day was spent on this topic. I had been writing an article for my column on America Out Loud, and then i attended a global conversation with a group out of Pakistan on healing and the issue of death and dying came up, and now this article again. Wonderful, thank you.