dras knowledge

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Frugivores and Fruitatarians

An article in today's Chicago Tribune
>
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/
>chi-0522_health_fruit_rmay22,1,7423199.story
>
>tells of frugivores, or fruitatarians, like Joe Bernstein:
>
>"The reasons people turn to fruitarianism vary. For some, like
>Bernstein, the motivation centers on conservation. Fruits fall from
>trees or vines naturally, and it isn't necessary to kill the plant to
>make a meal.
>

[D-] Not killing the plant is good. But, oh my, he's eating the SEED!! Seeds are the progeny and purpose of the plants existence, and the potential for propagation of the species. And he is denying the plant that rite. How can he justify eating the plants children?!!!

>"Others, such as Dan McDonald, do it for the physical result, which
>he says manifests itself in a spiritual way. McDonald, who was a body-
>builder for 10 years before becoming a raw-food advocate, says that
>it's important to experiment to figure out what is best for the body."
>

[D-] So, after eating a whole bowl of raw cherries can I expect it is the the achievement of Nirvana that follows? I guess some have different ideas of what a spiritual manifestation is.

>...
>
>"According to Martha Muehe, who has been a raw foodist since 1999,
>her diet has alleviated most of her health problems, including her
>flawed eyesight.
>
>"'I no longer have symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress
>disorder, hypoglycemia, migraines, allergies, sinusitis, postnasal
>drip, bronchitis, etc.' Muehe said."
>

[D-] Ya, I had the same things happen when I converted to Country Music, or was it organic teas, or... well anyway, it was something.

Monday, May 14, 2007

The State of US Health Care: A Study

"Commonwealth Fund found that the United States, which has the most
expensive health system in the world, underperforms consistently relative to
other countries and differs most notably in the fact that Americans have no
universal health insurance coverage."

The "study." "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care" is here:

http://www.cmwf.org/usr_doc/Davis_mirrormirror_915.pdf

I skimmed through it while carrying all my personal bias I have against any argument for universal health coverage.

1. This is a SURVEY of how doctors and patients felt about the healthcare they know.
Would crossing cultures have an impact on how a person responds to questions?
Do different cultures among industrialized nations have different expectations, attitudes, knowledge base, and priorities when it comes to health, or when it comes to health care?

2. The study also focuses on outcome reports parameters.
Does the United States have a dissimilar system of reporting medical errors?
Are there equal pressures to comply completely, honestly, and consistently in reporting medical errors across cultures?

I will have other issues with the "domains" they use in their surveys. Overall, I question the value of the data in making the implications that the U.S. system is the worst.

The authors all but conclude the lack of universal coverage is the reason for US poor scores; however, they can not suggest based on their data that any kind of conversion to Universal Health Care will make anything any better.

Is this an editorial, or social or political commentary, or a study?

dras

Friday, May 04, 2007

FWD: More on "Therapism"

> Certain people within the mental health profession
> want to pathologize just
> about every part of what used to be considered just
> normal parts of the
> human condition.
>
> sounds to me like the equivalent of running to the
> doctor every time one
> gets a hangnail. The idea that people are acquiring
> mental health problems
> from politics looks to me like yet another absurdity
> from the culture of
> therapism. What will they think of next? --M P

I very much agree with you about the culture of
therapism absurdities and they exist on several
levels. A big part of it is socioeconomic. Inner city
schools are full of children who face threats that are
unique in history in both degree and type. Some of
them sorely need help and have no chance for it for
both cultural reasons and terrible failures of mental
health coverage parity.

At the same time, some therapists offices are full of
kids for which therapy is just another status activity
or indulgence. For every Virginia tech shooter who
slipped through the cracks, there's a line of kids at
the therapist's door because they don't like to do
homework or don't care for the teacher who nags them
about it or they are depressed because they don't have
a big enough computer monitor or their parents won't
let them pierce their tongue. If you're upset because
you didn't make the wrestling team, therapy. If you're
skinny or fat and someone called you a beanpole or a
tub, therapy. If peers don't like you because you
don't share or you're a poor sport, therapy.

For adults, the privilege element is not much
different. The same ones who keep the tummy tuck and
eye job surgeons hopping and have standing
appointments with chiropractors and personal trainers
just add psychotherapy to their list of entitlements.
Almost everybody can benefit a bit from talking about
themselves with someone wise and rational. In the old
days it used to be a grandmother or a big brother or
else you just did without until you got over it.
Nowadays people buy the service the way they buy a
massage.

As a result we have a generation of children with
little experience in working out problems, controlling
impulses of anger against forces they dislike, and
working through fears and anxiety about conditions
they can't control. Paradoxically, this may create an
adult population that really does have coping problems
that expand into real psychological dysfunction.

Ethical psychotherapists don't get involved in these
situations but it can be hard to read them initially.
Every time a Virginia Tech or Columbine occurs, it
reinforces the fear of missing a sleeper. Nobody wants
to be the one to tell a kid to go home and work it out
and later realize they're the one who dismissed a
shooter. So it's a bit of a vicious cycle.

There are also some real differences today that make
it hard to pretend it's the good old days where people
could learn to work things out without any
intervention. The disappearance of the extended
family, the high percentage of broken and single
parent homes, the malignant adult-izing of children by
competitive parents, the overwhelming influence of
uncontrolled media and the poor reality testing it
precipitates in young people, and a more threatening
world than ever in modern history all combine to
create a situation that isn't like earlier times.

In the same way, advances in medicine haven't made
people sicker but have made it more likely to consider
and diagnose illnesses that would previously have gone
unrealized. Some of those people would never have had
a problem and and some would have died with the reason
unknown. Psychotherapists have at their disposal
diagnostic instruments that can help to identify those
most at risk so they can deliver services to those who
need them most. These tools are underused and the
profession has a fair share of ethically challenged
practitioners who are happy to just fill the
appointment book with whoever comes along and asks to
be treated, the more benign the complaint the better
and easier to deal with. It would be nice if those
therapists would drop a couple of those patients and
dedicate those hours to pro bono service where it is
badly needed and not affordable or available. ---CT

Thursday, May 03, 2007

"Therapism" and Mental Health in Politics

Although I agree these topics (iraq war, GW,etc. is not related to
health fraud in any primary sense).However the worm can has now been
completely opened, dumped in the pot and stirred. I just had to ask
something, I have been curious about for sometime. I have several
good friends in the mental health profession that I have queried on
this topic and I'm wondering if there are any on this list that have
anything to add.

It seems to me that this is one of the most polarizing US
administrations in my lifetime. So much that I often hear people say
that the sight of GW or his minions on TV literally "makes them
sick", or so angry that it is affecting their moods and quality of
life overall. (i guess this may be also true of folks on the "great
liberal media conspiracy" side but I don't have many friends of that
persuasion) I asked my friends with a long history of patient
interactions whether they have patients/clients reporting now (more
so than in the past) that the current political situations are
affecting their emotional health and well being. They report that in
a very general way that among some individuals does seem to be a
greater sense of powerlessness and despair, as well as anger, and a
kind of obsession with political/war news to the extent that it
interferes with their day to day lives. To what this is attributed to
I don't know- I guess you could go down the usual list of suspects-
media, etc. without any provable conclusion.

So the question is-, is this real?, is this new? is this in any way
related to the debate about the relationship of physical and mental
health? Can politics make you sick? Seriously? --J E

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm not experienced in the mental health profession, but I can pass along a point of view, not necessarily my own.

Is there now an unprecedented polarization of politics today? I've read history books that can suggest otherwise. The political climate during McClellen's run for presidency against Abe Lincoln rings familiar (to some extent) to today. Is our mental health being challenged to an unprecedented extreme today? Perhaps, but some argue it could be merely a our evolved definition of what is mental illness.

Passion about political feelings make people sick the same way people can become ill when confronted with any antagonism against their beliefs. Be it about medical treatment, a sports figure, a moral or religious ideal, a business, or just about anything. For example, most will agree the whole world was a better place before the Lakers started missing the playoffs. Taking your analogy of friends becoming sick just at the sight of GW, I live in a community where the case was the same at the sight of Clinton back when he was prez. Polarization by the use of emotion is a sales tactic as much in politics as in medical quackery. Polarization simplifies our world into black and white, and our emotions help us ignore a critical thought process. A fallacy of logic is often successfully used to this end.

In the sense that greater efforts are being made by both political parties to thus "control the mob" this election that in recent past ones, an argument can be made that our collective mental health is under greater strain. The argument I've heard made; however, is that our current mental health culture of "therapism", wrongly convinces us to consider any dissonant feeling we have as a mental illness worthy of treatment. So, rather than considering that everyone is suffering a mental illness due to our political climate. Perhaps consider that human behavior is ages old, and bandwagoning is a part of it.

n--

"Neuromonics"

www.neuromonics.co

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Keeping up on the scientific published literature, there's not much evidence that retraining therapy is any better than placebo for tinnitus. BCBSA medical policy information republished On-line by individual plans that adopt the Association's policy (for example: http://www.empireblue.com/provider/noapplication/f2/s5/t9/pw_ad086527.pdf) provides some scientific discussion about tinnitus and considers most tinnitus treatment investigational. If your're looking for innovative treatments for tinnitus, try Googling with words that include Meniere's disease.

From neuromonics:
"...The device is programmed to alternate between two pleasant musical tracks which are identical except that one track includes the tinnitus sound and the other one does not. The person getting the treatment will listen to the Neuromonics device for several hours a day for about six months..."

Somehow I get horrible visions about the Disneyland ride "It's a small world." I think I'd rather have the ringing stuck in my head than that song. Not meaning to belittle a frequently disabling condition.


N-