I’m rather fond of Dr. Mercola’s posts on nutrition and health. Here are two serious ones:
And here’s a humorous one, on what will happen when McDonalds reaches Africa.
Finally, there are shirts for nutrition nerds in in my shop.
This past week was the first Jewish Blogger’s Conference in Jerusalem. If you want to hear more about it, I suggest you read: Baila, Mother in Israel, Carl in Jerusalem, Jameel at Muqata, Joe Settler, Batya, WestbankMama and FrumSatire who were actually there, and then finish up with SuperRaizy who was in New York but blogged as if she were there.
I want to highlight one blogger in particular:
RivkA at Coffee and Chemo.
RivkA had the guts to ask the panel questions at the conference; I believe the question was about increasing blog traffic. But in general RivkA has a lot of guts. She writes about living with cancer. And she really lives. Her post about walking around the walls of Jerusalem on Tisha B’Av was particularly memorable. She talks about her support group, and how half the group doesn’t show up because they don’t feel well enough to come. But she clearly gets a lot out of the support. So, as I probably get different traffic to my blog than she gets to hers, I’m wondering if I can send you on over to Jerusalem and her blog to read a couple of posts on cancer survival. And about living.
I’m trying to find a post on her blog where she explains the capital A, as in RivkA, but I can’t.
Update: see Mother in Israel’s comment below, where she explains the accent is on the second syllable.
If you are over the age of thirty, it’s time to at least educate yourself on this important procedure. Ask your favorite health care professional for a recommendation on when you should schedule a colonoscopy.
Oh, before you read those links, check out the newest Kosher Cooking Carnival. If you read all about a colonoscopy first, you might not feel up to reading about food.
Let’s cheer on Carl in Jerusalem for taking care of himself yesterday and inspiring me to (finally) write a post on the importance of colonoscopies. Another blogger wrote about hers recently (she knows who she is).
My mother died of colon cancer. The week before my most recent colonoscopy my father mentioned that one of the only early symptoms of her illness was she only had a bowel movement every few days. When I changed my own diet(I eat a lot of brown rice, vegetables and fruit in addition to some protein foods) soon after my mother got sick, I noticed my own bowel movements came more easily. When I eat too much of my delicious homemade challah, I get a bit constipated again. So also know your own body.
A while back I wrote about a young woman’s battle with cancer:
I met her once at an art class. We shared a table. She cheerfully told me about how she does art in between chemo sessions. If there is a gene for optimism, she had it.
Here is her obituary, which will appear in today’s Star Ledger:
Kiersten E. Hickman-Perfetti, 22, of Highland Park died at home with her parents after an almost 4-year battle with cancer on April 23.
Kiersten was born in New Brunswick New Jersey on July 5, 1985. She attended public school in Highland Park. Kiersten played varsity basketball, threw the shot put, discus and javelin, and managed the football and baseball teams at Highland Park High School. She swam at the YM/YWHA and the University Swim Club from ages 5 to 14. Kiersten was an avid music lover. She played the clarinet was in the high school band.
Kiersten attended Goucher College in Towson, Maryland for her freshman year in college 2003-2004. Kier played basketball at Goucher College her freshman year, and she was awarded an honorary degree by Goucher in 2007. She was an avid Rutgers Women’s basketball fan and friend to the team, and a member of the Rutgers Cager’s Club. The RU women’s bball team dedicated their 2007-08 season to Kier. Kier enjoyed scrapbooking, reading, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, music, and movies. She took art lessons. Kiersten loved children and became an important person in the lives of many children in Highland Park and at the Children’s Hospital of Philly.
During her illness Kiersten developed a list of things to accomplish. She went to The Daily Show four times and met Jon Stewart, who was very kind to her. We thank Jon Stewart and Teri Abrams. She went to the Ellen DeGeneres Show, several Fab Faux concerts, Saturday Night Live, The Lion King, Rent, the WNBA 2007 All-Star game, and the NCAA 2007 Final Four women’s BB game. Kier also started a foundation, Kier’s Kidz, to raise money for research into the treatment and cure of pediatric cancer.
Kiersten is survived by her mother, Mimi Hickman-Perfetti, her father, Larry Perfetti, her brother, Keith Hickman-Perfetti, and her grandmother, Betty Perfetti of Maple Shade, NJ. Her other grandparents, Al Perfetti, and George and Nancy Hickman, predeceased her. She has numerous other relatives and friends.
Viewings will be held on Sunday, April 27, from 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm at Jacqui-Kuhn Funeral Home, 17 S. Adelaide Ave., Highland Park, NJ. Full memorial services will held on Sunday, May 4, at 2pm, at Kirkpatrick Chapel, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
In lieu of flowers, Kier would appreciate your making a contribution to: Kier’s Kidz Lemonade Stand, c/o Alex’s Lemonade Stand, 333 E. Lancaster Avenue, #414, Wynnewood, PA 19096.
This book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, is way overdue at the library. So I am staying up late to write a blog post about the book. This book is a hefty 505 pages. Much fatter than the Eat Food Mostly Plants book of the pithy phrase writer, Michael Pollan.
Devra Davis lost both her parents to cancer. And she’s the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. And a professor at the Department of Epidemiology at the Graduate School of Health.
A summary of the book from the New York Times article (see link at bottom):
The result of twenty years of research, Davis’s book tracks the history of cancer studies from before World War II through the early 1990s and doesn’t hesitate to indict major corporations and politicians (as well as her former colleagues), claiming they routinely manipulated and fudged data about cancer-causing agents like benzene and tobacco. Her essential argument is that far too many people get cancer than is necessary and that far too much of the “war on cancer” is devoted to treatment rather than prevention.
Snippets that I found interesting:
We can’t be sure why so many more physicians and researchers are coming down with cancer…One colleague [said:] “I used to mix my own chemotherapy cocktails for patients two decades ago. You know that stuff is really foul. I did this with no hoods. No masks. No nothing, just sloshing around with all those nice, nasty killer compounds that we would prepare to inject into our patients.”
On her mother’s cancer:
My mother always loved a good kosher hotdog. I knew that the stomach cancer that she had could come about after years of eating lots of preservatives that are used to make hotdogs–nitrates in meat get transformed by stomach acids to nitrosamines, a well-established potent cause of cancer. At this point, one hotdog more or less after a lifetime of salami, smoked salmon, pastrami, corned beef, and those other deli foods, coupled with all that coal smoke she had swallowed, probably wouldn’t make much of a difference.
On herbal remedies and controlled studies:
A woman who had been chief nutritionist at Sloan-Kettering had left for a year earlier with advanced breast cancer. Because the cancer had spread through her body, Gaynor never expected to see her again. Six months later, she walked into his office. The tumors were gone. Gaynor was stunned and asked her what she had done.
She explained that “a guy named Ralph in Wyoming had come up with this recipe for purple herbs. I had nothing to lose. You had all written me off. So I tried them.”
Gaynor managed to get the purple remedy delivered to him at Cornell and gave it to patients who had been sent home to die. His results so far were amazing. Others were trying to figure out what exactly was in this mixture.
I phoned Chalmers right away, “Tom, I’ve found something you have to check out!” I began to explain what Gaynor was doing.
“Are you mad!?” Chalmers asked. “You must think I’m crazy! I could never take herbs that nobody has ever studied. I’ve spent my life studying medicine scientifically. I refuse to even think about such a thing.”
“But Tom, ” I pleaded. “You’re going to die. Why not try this?”
“Of course, I’m going to die. I know that. If there was a randomized trial, I would consider it. But unless this remedy is being studied under controlled conditions, it’s out of the question.”Within a few months, Chalmers was dead.
Finally, some links for more exploration:
New York Times: Is there a Secret History of the War on Cancer?
This link has a section for comments and questions. Many comments have been posted.
Washington Post: Author’s Book on Cancer Fuels Flames Again
In particular, this article quotes Elizabeth M. Whelan, president and founder of the American Council on Science and Health, a New York group of doctors and scientists who question the reliability of the science government uses to regulate. She calls Davis’s book “fringe.”
The real health risks, Whelan said, are tobacco, exposure to sunlight, obesity, and for women, sexual habits, childlessness and drinking too much.
A few months ago I coined the expression Nutrition Nerd. I discussed it a bit with Jill; we both read a lot about nutrition, but we don’t always know what to do with all this information (this is my basic definition). I was considering the term Nutrition Nag, but that seems too self-deprecating. Jill thought Nerd was also self-deprecating, but I used to work at MIT, and being a Nerd there is a badge of pride, so I picked Nutrition Nerd. Jill told me that she is also a Nutrition Nerd. My father is one, too, so it’s hereditary (my brother got my mother’s genes of “I prefer white rice, thank you very much”).
Turns out there is also a term Food Nazi. I did not coin this term. I read it in The Secret History of the War on Cancer, by Devra Davis. Urban Dictionary defines Food Nazi here.
When I was visiting my friend in Newton this weekend, we spent a fair amount of time discussing food and nutrition. She is on a special diet (no grains, no chickpeas, no potatoes, no sugar, no kale, no spaghetti, no chocolate). This is because she had terrible ulcerative colitis, and the diet has basically saved her life. Soon after she got on this diet, about three years ago, she decided she would have just one bowl of spaghetti, previously one of her favorite foods. Well, she told me, she was sick for a day and half after that. So she hasn’t gone off it since. It is a bit like eating a Passover diet all year round, except without the matza. She eats a lot of nuts, fruits and vegetables, and animal proteins (chicken, eggs, fish, cheese, meat). Incidentally, she related to me that she has a friend with a similar ailment who decided to try this diet. Unfortunately, that friend ended up in the hospital after the attempt. It will not work for everyone with colitis or other digestive ailments. At some point it has been recommended to her that she slowly introduce some foods back into her diet, as by now her colon may have healed; she said she would love to eat chocolate again, but being sensible, she will probably try some whole grains.
Like me, she had a parent who died of colon cancer. Unlike my mother, however, who was basically healthy all her life until her diagnosis, her father suffered from ulcerative colitis most of his adult life. His doctor put him on a diet which she feels is the exact opposite of her current diet. The desire to go back and redo how one’s loved one was treated is strong and powerful.
Getting back to the term Food Nazi: I was talking to my friend and her mother shortly before I left. Her mother was complimenting how healthfully I eat, and I remarked about the term food nazi and how I don’t consider myself to be one. My friend and her mother were both a bit shocked by the very term; I suppose if I had said food fascist, it would mean the same thing, but without the strong effect. I don’t want to force everyone to stop eating any food with margarine, for example, but I would like everyone to know that if you want to spend time with your grandchildren, unless you have the genes of George Burns, you might want to cut out the margarine. Also, I ate three delicious oatmeal cookies at the bar-mitzvah (not all at once). If I were a food fascist, I probably wouldn’t do that. Well, at least, I wouldn’t tell you that in a blog post. We are all human; we all struggle in our own ways.
Finally, did you know that cold cuts have sugar? I know they have nitrates and other preservatives that have been implicated in stomach cancer, but I wasn’t aware of the sugar content.
