Cancer Cures and More: Three of The Most Ridiculous Things People Believe about Health

Sometimes, I miss being a bench chemist.  The work was mentally rewarding.  But, even better, my lab insulated me from the myriad of characters who rant and rave online in an attempt to push the same crap: Something for nothing.

If they aren’t trying to scare the hell out of you with grim reports of the FDA stealing your vitamins, or insisting we’ll all perish from a vitamin D deficiency, Internet hucksters are constantly promising 1-minute cancer cures, superhuman powers with The Four Hour Body, or better athletic performance with “barefoot running.”

The One-Minute Cure claims eradication of cancer, fast, like sixty-seconds fast. Let’s be real.  The only thing you can accomplish in one minute is slapping someone who makes this claim, and you’d still have about 59 seconds to explain that it’s wrong and cowardly to make vapid promises behind a computer screen to “Aunt Helga,” who could be facing a serious life or death situation.

Then there’s The Four Hour Body, written by Tim Ferriss.  It was an instant hit, promising superhuman powers by dedicating only four hours per week to training.  It sold a gazillion copies, in record time. Truth isn’t measured by mass appeal. The book should’ve been titled, The Four Hour Masturbation since readers are forced to go through a handful of corny motions, without getting any real results.

And finally, everyone’s walking around the gym with these newfangled toe-shoes, touting the benefits of running barefoot.  Is anyone seeing the irony here?  Shoes for running barefoot.  Maybe it’s just me…

Once the “barefoot people” sport the shoes, they seem to compensate for the hobbit look with a Holier-Than-Thou attitude, as if they represent the pinnacle of athletic footwear.  It’s ridiculous ‘cause whether I’m wearing boots, toe shoes or going barefoot, I’d still be damn lucky to run a 10-minute mile. No shoe or lack there-of will save me from my pathetic running skills.

What if these same shoemakers start making swimwear? Will the camel-toe no longer be gross and offensive, and instead, become an athletic advantage?

Ridiculous health claims detract from real discoveries. And they usually waste time and money. That’s why they’re so annoying. Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) proves it. It won’t increase the number of push-ups you can do, but it sure as hell can ensure you do them late into life by warding off cancer…You’ve never heard of it as a cancer buster, ‘cause there’s no money in it to motivate ranting and raving.

Eli Lilly studied Periwinkle decades ago while surveying natural products and made an unexpected discovery: It can be effective at treating Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and leukemia, as well as a variety of other cancers such as skin and breast. Published results in The Journal of Neurosurgery showed that select patients “achieved complete remission.” Cancer Research wrote that, “The periwinkle alkaloids are well established anti cancer agents.”

In my Secret Health Files Fact Sheet, I show how I learned of Periwinkles anti-cancer properties as a young chemist working for Eli Lily. Their studies concluded that it was a ”spindle poison.” This simply means that the active compounds attack the mechanism responsible for cell division among cancerous cells. Technically, they cause the breakdown of protein microtubules which make up the mitotic spindle in dividing cancer cells. This effectively stops them from dividing and leads to remission.

Anyone can use Periwinkle tea as a first line of defense. Simply steep a heaping teaspoon with about 12 ounces of hot water, for 10 to 15 minutes. Drink daily. For more aggressive use, consume three to four times per day. To avoid a potential upset stomach, take with food. The best source of periwinkle is http://www.mountainroseherbs.com

More than using natural cancer busters, winning the war on cancer depends on learning the many causes of it and avoiding them. Understanding medicine is daunting, but getting past the hype gets you one step closer to mastering it so you can live young.