Total Health Newsletter

from Keith Scott-Mumby MD, MB ChB, PhD

"Letter From Serendipity" revived

Hi Everybody,

I’m working towards the idea of a new general health newsletter to share what’s important with you. It’s a bit of a throwback to “Letter From Serendipity”, which I wrote years ago from the beautiful Asian island of Sri Lanka (right now in the news, torn apart by a war that has festered for over 20 years). Serendipity was a word they gave us; the old name for Sri Lanka island was Serendib!

I used to include articles on mind, body, spirit, philosophy and logic. Every issue there was a “Guess Who?” quote. I’ll keep the quotes but won’t expect you to guess. Just be inspired.

Let’s try it again. I’ll even keep up the name, I think.

The articles will also appear on the blog (www.alternative-doctor.com/blog), so that the rest of the world can access them direct, via Google.

The point is that I want to write about a lot of things, not just what to eat and how much to take of what vitamins, like some websites. Total health is a function of mind and spirit, as well as body. Good finances are good health; a good vocabulary is good health; a loving attitude is good health; get it? I'm sure you are with me.

In any case, let me know how you feel about this.

First issue: CONTENTS

Below are hyperlinks. Just click them. The back button will return you to this menu.

1. What is a problem?
2. Beware those bathroom scales (they lie!)
3. Corruption in Cancer Research
4. What Are Bacteria Exactly?
5. What’s In A Word?
6. Wonderful Quote

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What is a Problem?

Is there such a thing as the anatomy of a problem—the generic case that will help us understand and solve all problems?

Sure!

A problem has two parts, a desire or aim and something opposing that desire. There has to be two parts, otherwise it is not a problem. Cancer is not a problem if you want cancer, see?

Remember the T-shirt print joke: “I don’t have a drink problem. I drink. I fall over drunk. No problem.” If that’s what you really want, there really is no problem. Excess drinking is only a problem if you want to stop and can’t.

Then there are two parts to the situation: the genuine desire to stop and the overwhelming urge to drink.

Of course we want only good things for ourselves; things that bring happiness and success. So if we have a bad circumstance that’s always a problem, because we want better for ourselves and our loved ones.

This leads to the unfortunate common belief that a “problem” is just one thing—the unwanted half.

That’s not true. It’s a 2-part thing.

Is that important?

Sure, it’s VERY important. Because if we focus on only one thing, we are only including half the input data in our solution.

Not only that, but focusing on the bad half is not the way to go. This is very surprising to people when I coach them. But it’s nevertheless true. We are taught to focus on the “problem” and look for “solutions”

You have a disease—let’s take the cancer example. If you focus only on the tumor, you are probably going to lose! As I said this is a 2-part circumstance. So there’s health on one side and cancer on the other.

Now if you focus on the health side, you can win. Better nutrition, detoxing, emotional clean-up, strengthening the immune system in every which-way are all valid means of re-enforcing what you do want, rather than getting bogged down in what you don’t want.

I’ll come back to this theme of focusing only on what you want again in more detail later. It’s the most powerful way to blow apart problems I know.

In the meantime, just see the basic anatomy of a problem as a composite of an intention (desire, purpose, want) and the conflicting element that blocks it. Both parts have to be present, otherwise there is literally NO PROBLEM!

Take a look at this sketch:

This is the anatomy of a problem, in schematic. It shows the familiar “stuckness” (can’t think what to do, can’t decide which way to jump, feeling of frustration). Oftentimes we think to ourselves “If only I knew what to do, I would do it and get rid of the problem”.

We try to think of actions that will get us round the barrier. That is what we mean by a so-called solution.

But it may not be as simple as that. In fact, if we just look for solutions, we could be digging ourselves deeper into difficulties.

The Solution is another problem.

Something else that is not taught a great deal: most “problems” are actually solutions to things. Somebody wants the problem, surprising though that may seem.

If the “problem” is helpful, it’s going to be next to impossible to “solve” it—because that would create another problem, do you see?

I met a woman once who openly argued that she wanted to be overweight and unattractive, to avoid men pestering her. Problem? No—THIS WAS THE SOLUTION! The problem turned out to be abuse and molestation as a child.

If a woman in a wheelchair controls all those around her, getting sympathy, extra attention and power to dictate her demands, I think a physician or healer is going to have a very hard time looking for ways to solve this woman’s disability. A miraculous new cure that works on many other people may not work on her. Her “problem” is a solution to something that most people cannot manage in their lives—getting their own way all the time.

Let’s not get gender biased and let’s suggest the same idea for a man. Males are notoriously bad at communicating their feelings. Sometimes they are in a great deal of emotional pain but cannot talk about it. So a man turns to drink. His drunken rages and violence are not a problem to him, that’s only a problem to the wife and family. His problem is inner torment and the desire to be rid of it. So he drinks as the solution; drink is not the problem (for him).

That’s why trying to help a drinker can be very unrewarding.

You’re trying to take away his solution, not the actual problem!

So beware in your interpretations.

Brilliant psychologist Virginia Satyr understood this in a powerful way when she developed her specialty of Conjoint Family Therapy. After years of wise intervention in family quarrels and ills, she began to understand that a sick person in a family may be (perceived as) necessary for that family. It was a solution (to something). So when she helped a schizophrenic recover, the gain was often neutralized by the fact that someone else in the family would develop the same affliction.

Exactly as if it was something the whole family needed or wanted. Somehow the “problem” was the solution they needed!

That’s why she decided treating people alone was not really viable. To “cure” someone was often just to make someone else suffer. So she worked on ways to get the whole family to change their dynamic; thus there could be conjoint healing.

Comparison are odious

I encountered this as a keynote philosophy when I was at med school and a passionate investigator of all things Zen! I joined the university judo team and wrote Japanese, zen-style poems (I actually won International 1st prize, an all-expenses paid trip round the world in 1967).

This isn’t the place to go into the whole subject but just the act of flinging out the desire to compare things (and so create dissatisfaction) was a miracle transformation for me.

If you don’t compare and so create wants and deficiencies, you create fewer problems for yourself. If you are broke, it’s not a problem! Not at all!

UNLESS—you want to be richer. Then this meets the anatomy of a problem; there is a want or intention (be wealthy) and a counter-intention or conflict, which is being broke.

If you can accept most things, you’ll have fewer problems. So be tolerant!By the way, this does not mean don’t strive for improvement. It means don’t be discontented with what you’ve got. Just work on it and fix it…

More next issue…

Beware Those Bathroom Scales. They lie!

A recent trip to a doctor to have my ears syringed resulted in a routine weighing on a balance scale—you know, the kind where you are balanced against weights slid along a beam. These are accurate to within 0.5% or less.

This is very different to the spring loaded bathroom scales. As metal springs age they go stiffer. What does that mean? They stretch more reluctantly and won’t let the needle on the dial get right around to your true weight. In other words they lie and tell you that you are lighter than you really are. I found with a shock I was 12 lbs heavier than I thought (hastily instigated more time in the gym and changed my evening diet routine).

So, let me warn you of this. You probably weigh more than you think you do. Get a proper weight on a balance scale (make sure the doctor’s office has the right scales—the nurse will probably do it for you for no cost). Check this against your bathroom scales on the same day and if the difference is more than 5- 6 lbs, junk them.

Junk them anyway after about 2 years max.

Simple spring-loaded bathroom scales are fine for following change of weight, such as when you are determinedly dieting. But you must still check your true weight from time to time.

In any case, know that your weight is NOT the most critical health measure. Muscle weighs more than fat so you can go heavier as you exercize and replace fat with muscle.

What’s the most important measure for health? Waist to hip ratio. Measure yourself round the widest part of your abdomen (let it out, no cheating!) Then do the same round your hips. Men should be 1:1 maximum (waist same as hips). Women should be 0.85 (waist at least 1- 2 inches LESS than the hips).

This supercedes the old discredited measure of body mass ratio.

And gals, waist to hip is what attracts guys the most!

Corruption In Cancer Research

Conflict of interest blocks out real scientific integrity in cancer research.

A study to be published June 15th 2009 in the journal Cancer has highlighted what is essentially corruption in the science of cancer research. It’s called “conflict of interest”: but you and I would call it corruption, bribery or malicious threats. Not nice words for a not nice phenomenon, which I’ve known about for years.

Well, at least the industry is beginning to talk about it.

What it amounts to is that cancer researchers are likely to “find” (or invent) favorable outcomes for research which is paid for by the major drug cartels. Many doctors engaged in research are on stipends from the very company which produces the product they are supposedly “testing”.

Some take secret bribes, of course, but then so do Congressmen!

Some investigators at major hospitals and medical schools have their salary paid, indirectly, via drug company funding to their hospital or laboratory post. Who has the guts to rock the boat when it pays the mortgage? Ridiculous idea, you say; responsible drug companies would never threaten the jobs of honest researchers. Well, if you are naïve enough to think that, wise up. Not only do drug companies threaten to get uncooperative (ie. honest and objective) scientists removed from their post—they actually do it.

This new up-to-date study puts some figures to the extent to which drug cartels bias what they laughingly call “research”. As I am fond of saying, it’s not research, but marketing strategies disguised as research.

The analysis, to be published in the June 15 issue of Cancer and headed by the University of Michigan, looked at more than 1,500 supposedly-scientific cancer studies published in eight authoritative journals, including Cancer, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. Here’s what they found:

• Randomized clinical trials that assessed patient survival were more likely to link a survival advantage to the medical treatment being studied when a conflict of interest was present.
• Apparent conflicts of interest (such as industry funding, consulting fees to authors and co-authorship by industry employees) found simply by reviewing the authorship credits were noted in 29% of studies, while 17% actually declared industry funding.
• Industry-funded studies focused on treatment in 62% of cases, whereas only 36% of studies done without industry funding focused on treatment.

• While almost half (47%) of studies done without industry funding looked at epidemiology, prevention, risk factors, screening or diagnostic methods, only one fifth of industry-funded studies looked at these areas.

What Are Bacteria, Exactly?

Bacteria are single-celled organisms. They come in a variety of shapes: round spheres (called a coccus, plural cocci), rod-shaped (called a bacillus, plural bacilli), spiral- shaped (called a spirochete, plural spirochetes) and a few odd-balls (no plural!)Bacteria are the oldest living organisms on planet Earth. Since they don’t produce “babies” (offspring), but reproduce by just splitting in two, you could say that bacteria represent an original founding organism which is now billions of years old!

Respect! Yes.

Estimates of how many cells make up a human being vary—between 1 trillion and 100 trillion. I’ve seen both.But what is clear is that there are 10 TIMES more bacteria in you and on you than the actual number of cells that go to make up YOU!

Respect? Yes.

Bacteria have only one single strand of DNA that encodes their nature. We humans have about 25,000- 30,000 genes that make up our humanness.

But there are over 100 more bacterial genes, on you and in you, which all matter. That’s 3 million genes, set against your measly 1%. What happens to your bacteria, happens to you. Trust me.

We need lots of respect for those single-cell organisms that are all-but part of us.

In fact bacteria keep us alive. The friendly ones act like body armour and prevent pathogenic invaders from destroying us. They keep the outer environment under control, so we stay healthy. They digest our food. They make certain vitamins for us.

Remember, the vast majority of bacteria are friendly or at least harmless. There are just a few troublemakers that create disease and death.

However, there is a real mystery. How do they do anything at all? I mean, there is no brain or nervous system. They don’t have any obvious means of communicating or interacting. How do bacteria get organized to make somebody sick or healthy? They are so tiny and inconsequential, it seems unreasonable they could affect us at all, while acting individually.

It’s a paradox. Or was!

According to Professor Bonnie Bassler at Princeton there has been a breakthrough discovery. Bacteria, it seems, have a secret chemical conversation system. It’s called “quorum sensing.” As it turns out, every type of bacteria makes and secretes small molecules (a bit like hormones). When a bacterium is alone, these molecules have no effect (no receptors).

But when there’s a large enough group of bacteria, these secreted molecules reach a critical level and suddenly all the bacteria begin to act as a synchronized group, based on the characteristic behavior programmed into the genes.

This was first discovered by Bassler, observing a marine bacterium called Vibrio fischeri. This little organism emits light. But when a suspension of bacteria is so dilute they are, in effect, isolated, nothing happens. Only when the bacterial concentration—and hence the level of quorum sensing signals—reaches a certain level, then all the bacteria “switch on” at once and begin to glow in the dark.

It seems remarkable that tiny organelles, without any apparent sense organs, can suddenly tell who is in the neighborhood and how many neighbors there are!

Incidentally, they can talk inter-species too. A second quorum sensing mechanism, possessed of all bacteria and working interspecies, is what Bassler calls a “bacterial Esperanto”.

Neat huh? But not good if you are the victim.

However this remarkable discovery by Bassler has two important consequences, both with enormous medical implications.

1. A whole new type of antibiotics can be looked for, which will effectively block the quorum sensing molecules (like jamming the enemy radar)
2. Health can be built, helping to block out bad bacteria, by supporting and provoking the chemical sensing of the good, friendly bacteria that support us!

Watch out, this is the way it’s going to go.

Meantime, we have to worry about protecting ourselves.

What’s In A Word?

I’d like to share a few words with you over the coming issues, in the hope that I can excite you to study them more and build yourself a bigger vocabulary. Just a paragraph or two each time.

Let’s take the word lugubrious. It’s delicious to pronounce. It means sad and melancholy, so it’s an emotionally charged word. Coupled with “tryst (a meeting) we have lugubrious tryst. In usage we say keeping a tryst. Walter De La Mare used it in a poem Who?

Walter De La Mare is known best for his poem “The Listeners”, itself somewhat lugubrious. I found a clever animation of De La Mare, made from a photograph, to accompany this poem. You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWrivHU0qwk

Finally, The Quote!

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”       

Howard Thurman

That's all for this week!

Be well,

Prof.

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Disclaimer

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