A long time ago I preceptored with a naturopath who was fond of having his handouts typeset by a local printer. He was an older style ‘nature-cure’ type healer, and his handouts contained some very far out stuff. When I asked him why he went to the great expense of having a printer typeset his advice, he replied that ‘when people see something in print, especially a format that they know is not homemade, they take it more seriously.’

Twenty years later we now would appear to know better. The easy availability of laser printers and desktop publishing software can make any would-be Hemingway look the part. Of course there is a price to pay for the ubiquity of it all. Nice-looking documents have become the very essence of banality and reader confidence further eroded by the inclusion of misspellings, bad punctuation and terrible font choices.

Many readers will remember that absolute reverence by which one beheld the evening news in our childhood. Walter Cronkite and The Huntley–Brinkley Report not only acted the part of impartial newscasters; they looked it as well.

Having just seen the most recent Democratic debate on ABC-TV, I am even more convinced that the end is near for what might be called ‘filtered broadcasting.’ Instead of any sort of important discussion about issues which are of paramount importance to this country (and indeed the world) we were treated to a long inquisition about whether wearing an porcelain American flag pin is a sign of patriotism in a two hour long Calvary of he-said, she-said.

In the arts we have recently seen the emergence of a new kind of artist. The conventional record labels, having seen their profits eroded by downloading and lack of consumer interest, can only play by the numbers and hope for another Britney Spears or similar mega-mediocrity. The industry crowns artless (but safe and cute) adolescents “American Idols” when in fact they have demonstrated no skills beyond what one would expect from a decent karaoke bar singer.

Composers and musicians who actually do have something to say have opted instead to release material direct to the public, often with a payment-optional policy. Although this would appear to be financial suicide, surprisingly, many of these ventures have been economically successful.

Three decades ago Steward Brand said ‘information wants to be free.’ Brand’s WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) was a precursor of the Internet, the greatest source of unfiltered information in human history.

When information is free, people get to choose what they want to hear and read about. When it is filtered, news organizations, corporations, professional societies and political parties choose it for them.

Years ago doctors would never think of explaining their premises and motives. To whom? The village blacksmith? What does he know of chemistry? Now consumers can harness the power of the Internet to research their health issues to any depth they desire. Yet most doctors still function in filter mode, thinking that the deck is still stacked in their favor.

It's not.

Doctors have to learn about everything. A patient has to just learn about what is wrong with himself. You would be surprised by the speed in which a motivated patient can become a virtual expert in their condition.

In my vision of the future we will all become our own ‘aggregators,’ selecting information sources from an abundance of highly specific and single purpose ‘channels.’ Once aggregated into our lives, all these channels will fuse into a Multiverse of realities shared between like-minded individuals.

For example, you’re currently on the ‘Peter D’Adamo Channel.’

This will not stop filtering. Evidence suggests that we all filter out information that we disagree with. In True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, Farhad Manjoo cites an experiment in which smokers and non-smokers could vary the amount of interference in static filled recordings of speeches. When smokers heard a speech about smoking and cancer risk, they did not try to improve the clarity of the recording. But they did push the button to get a clearer version of the recording when a speech was playing that said that there was no link between smoking and cancer. In non-smokers the exact opposite was true.

Maybe I’m just a libertarian (or just an aging hippy) but I would opt for choosing my own filters --versus having information filtered for me—- especially when the filtering is being done by individuals and organizations that I do not trust and for which I have no respect.

Dr. D'Adamo,

I am aware that you may not answer this question, but I will attempt because I am very confused. I understand the concept of eating for your blood type. But, as a cancer survivor and a Type A - I'm having trouble connecting the soy issue. I read an answer you wrote on your web site, but it was so medically scientific I couldn't understand.

Do you believe that soy is linked to cancer? If so, do you believe it is linked to Type A's? How do you justify putting someone on a high soy diet and not be concerned about cancer?

Thank you for your time.

M.

Soy is not linked to cancer. Some cancers are estrogen sensitive and the theory is that since soy contains a form of plant estrogen, these plant estrogens might work to stimulate cancer, just as the biological forms of estrogen do.

However, soy estrogens are very weak estrogens (tamoxifen, by the way, is also a weak estrogen) so in most situations they block the estrogen receptor, more than stimulate it. Soy also has two other functions which make it desirable in cancer patients, particularly those who are type A. It contains a protein, soy bean agglutinin, which can target cancer cells directly and help to kill them.

The flavones in soy, in particular genistein help keep genes methylated, which tends to suppress any cancer tendencies. Finally soy is rich in saponin molecules which has independent ant-cancer mechanisms of their own. A 2008 Japanese study was published on soy consumption and rates of breast cancer. This study looked at 24,226 Japanese women aged 40 to 69. Women who had the most consistently high levels of genistein had the lowest rates of breast cancer.Historically, breast cancer rates in the United States have been 4-7 times those in Asia, whereas isoflavone intake in the United States is less than 1% that in Asian populations.

You will hear and read a lot of garbage about soy on the internet. If you were to take the advice of some of these sites and authorities, you might as well give up most nuts, fruits and vegetables since they contribute more phytoestrogens into the average American diet than do soy products. Yet Americans have higher breast cancer rates than cultures where soy is a bigger part of the diet. Finally, many of the anti-soy crusaders point to a potential for soy to block mineral absorption, as it contains chemicals phytates. This might be true if soy were consumed in astronomical doses, but better evidence suggests that phytate containing foods also appear to block the development of colon cancer as well.

Bear in mind it is not a perfect food in everyone. However if you look at the dynamics of the type A immune system, it would appear to be a very useful food in these people.

A long time ago I preceptored with a naturopath who was fond of having his handouts typeset by a local printer. He was an older style ‘nature-cure’ type healer, and his handouts contained some very far out stuff. When I asked him why he went to the great expense of having a printer typeset his advice, he replied that ‘when people see something in print, especially a format that they know is not homemade, they take it more seriously.’

Twenty years later we now would appear to know better. The easy availability of laser printers and desktop publishing software can make any would-be Hemingway look the part. Of course there is a price to pay for the ubiquity of it all. Nice-looking documents have become the very essence of banality and reader confidence further eroded by the inclusion of misspellings, bad punctuation and terrible font choices.

Many readers will remember that absolute reverence by which one beheld the evening news in our childhood. Walter Cronkite and The Huntley–Brinkley Report not only acted the part of impartial newscasters; they looked it as well.

In the arts we have recently seen the emergence of a new kind of artist. The conventional record labels, having seen their profits eroded by downloading and lack of consumer interest, can only play by the numbers and hope for another Britney Spears or similar mega-mediocrity. The industry crowns artless (but safe and cute) adolescents “American Idols” when in fact they have demonstrated no skills beyond what one would expect from a decent karaoke bar singer.

Composers and musicians who actually do have something to say have opted instead to release material direct to the public, often with a payment-optional policy. Although this would appear to be financial suicide, surprisingly, many of these ventures have been economically successful.

Have been re-reading Vivian Perlis' great book Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral history. I’ve drawn much comfort from Ives over the years; certainly through his music, but also with many of the corollaries between his life and my own. Our homes are within ten miles of each other, and we both shared the benefits (and challenges) of being the sons of men who were themselves way ahead of their time.

Ives was a musical genius, anticipating the serialism of Schoenberg and many other elements of modern music, such as microtones, by many decades. Unfortunately, this placed him squarely in the path of the conventional musical minds of his time. What frustration he must have felt reading reviews of his work, where instead of seeing the horizon line of a new art, the reviewer merely saw an amateur composer who just wrote down the wrong notes!

Ives had no patience for these people. On top of one review, he simply scribbled the phrase ‘rot and worse.’ To Ives, these were just mediocre minds, steeped in the traditions of the past. Problem was, they taught in the conservatories, wrote the reviews and set the standards.

"Stop being such a God-damned sissy! Why can't you stand up before fine strong music like this and use your ears like a man?"

- At a 1931 concert when a man booed during one his friend Carl Ruggles's works

Three decades ago Steward Brand said ‘information wants to be free.’ Brand’s WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) was a precursor of the Internet, the greatest source of unfiltered information in human history.

When information is free, people get to choose what they want to hear and read about. When it is filtered, news organizations, corporations, professional societies and political parties choose it for them.

Years ago doctors would never think of explaining their premises and motives. To whom? The village blacksmith? What does he know of chemistry? Now consumers can harness the power of the Internet to research their health issues to any depth they desire. Yet most doctors still function in filter mode, thinking that the deck is still stacked in their favor.

It's not.

Doctors have to learn about everything. A patient has to just learn about what is wrong with himself. You would be surprised by the speed in which a motivated patient can become a virtual expert in their condition.

In my vision of the future we will all become our own ‘aggregators,’ selecting information sources from an abundance of highly specific and single purpose ‘channels.’ Once aggregated into our lives, all these channels will fuse into a Multiverse of realities shared between like-minded individuals.

For example, you’re currently on the ‘Peter D’Adamo Channel.’

This will not stop filtering. Evidence suggests that we all filter out information that we disagree with. In True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, Farhad Manjoo cites an experiment in which smokers and non-smokers could vary the amount of interference in static filled recordings of speeches. When smokers heard a speech about smoking and cancer risk, they did not try to improve the clarity of the recording. But they did push the button to get a clearer version of the recording when a speech was playing that said that there was no link between smoking and cancer. In non-smokers the exact opposite was true.

In Filters Against Folly Garrett Hardin writes about our so-called free enterprise system:

"What is the free enterprise system? Calling the system a 'profit system' is misleading, because it is truly a 'profit-and-loss system' as far as the competitors are concerned. The general public wins because competition ensures low prices. Unfortunately, the truth is not always so simple. A comprehensive history of great business fortunes would show a disconcertingly large number that were made in a quite different way: the enterpriser devised a silent way to commonize costs while continuing to privatize the profits -- but don't tell anyone. This has been a formula for success for centuries."

Truth be told, the last few years have been a painful, if eye-opening education in the reality of rent-seeking, the corruption (intellectual, spiritual and economic) that results when learning is wedded to bureaucratic authority and income. Competing with rent-seekers can be a wearying and scarifying experience and a note like Stephan's does a lot to reassure me, a least a wee bit, that I am not some type of evil lunatic.

'Many years have you have been snubbed and even mocked, your theories debased and reviled. People seem to offhandedly wave away the world of discovery you have achieved like an odd odor in the air. It would seem that tremendous psychological forces are interacting in peoples minds when it comes to change, specifically in terms of attaining concrete understanding of health. You scare people, they are not ready for the truth.

-Stephan (comment on one of my prior blogs)

Rent-seeking can take many forms. There was the time a major manufacturer of ephedra-driven diet pills, fronted by a now-deceased somnambulist reality TV star, advised me via FAX that they had been awarded the patent for developing supplements based on blood type and unless I 'played ball' with them, they would issue a cease and desist order. Investigating the patent quickly disclosed that the source material used in their application was in fact my first book. They were, in essence, using me again me. We rolled the patent back, but only at great expense. But what about people who can't afford to fight back against the well-heeled?

Maybe I’m just a libertarian (or just an aging hippy) but I would opt for choosing my own filters --versus having information filtered for me—- especially when the filtering is being done by individuals and organizations that I do not trust and for which I have no respect.

If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you've already got half the vote.'
-Aegyptophilus

There is something that the Japanese call 'Wabi-Sabi' and which they seem reluctant to define, particularly to 'outsiders' or Gaijin as foreigners are known over there. Wabi-Sabi is a kind of poetic quality, a nebulous feeling, sometimes melancholy, sometimes zen-like and blissful, that -they say- permeates the nature of things.

Wabi-sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional. 'Wabi' is seen in the lines of a face, the record of a lifetime of laughter or pain; the knarled trunk of a tree. 'Sabi' is literally a translation of the word patina; the polishing (or in some folks 'grinding') effect of time.I think computers can suck the Wabi-Sabi out of almost anything, since by their very nature they only allow entry to the 'expected' way, which is probably why we can't use them for very long periods of time without mental and physical health consequences.

Brian Eno once said that the problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them, and that a nerd is a human being without enough Africa in him or her.

Make sure that there is plenty of Africa and Wabi-Sabi in your life.

I'm going to try to develop the habit of posting about new and interesting research findings that I come across in the science literature. Where appropriate, I'll add some pithy commentary as well.

Research Bias Against Alternative Medicine

"Slowly they are beginning to report on the welcome trend of evidence based clinical trials for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including herbal remedies. Unfortunately, the media still rely for their sources on high quality medical journals, which are more likely to report negative results about CAM and positive results about pharmaceuticals, The clinical trials in the study showed no difference in quality between herbal remedy and pharmaceutical trials, but CAM was still reported on more skeptically".

Comments:

Finally someone has the courage to address the bias against plant medicines often seen in the major media and high-profile science journals. As I have said many times before, the risks of herbal medicine are often blown way out of proportion, while the corresponding high risks of certain pharmaceuticals always seem to be "acceptable in light of their potential benefits." Every medical intervention carries risk, but when viewed against the huge number of drug reactions per year (20,000+ people die every year from NSAIDs such as Advil or Tylenol) the small number of reactions to herbal medicines (mostly allergic type reactions) appear to be over-exaggerated as part campaign of deception. Thanks to my colleague Rick Kirschner for recently mentioning this article.

Take it from me: After more than a decade of similar treatment, I know one of these campaigns when I see one.

BMC MEDICINE

ABO Blood Group and the Risk of Pancreatic Cancer

In two large, independent populations, ABO blood type was statistically significantly associated with the risk of pancreatic cancer. Further studies are necessary to define the mechanisms by which ABO blood type or closely linked genetic variants may influence pancreatic cancer risk.

Comments:

This study was extensively publicized in the media, and while welcome as yet another link in the under-explored relationship between blood group antigens and cancer (see my 'Verisimilitude' lecture), these results have been reported in earlier studies (as well as similar results in bile duct cancer).

More interesting to me is the link between ABH secretor status and the predictability and reliability of the most common tumor marker test for pancreatic cancer. This tumor marker, called CA19-9, is variable based on ABH secretor status, yet this fact is virtually unknown in oncology.

PUBMED

Involvement of intestinal alkaline phosphatase with ABO and secretor blood group types

These results indicate that IAP is strongly involved in chylomicron formation and fatty acid metabolism might change among ABO blood type. In addition, ABO blood type classification in apoB-48 measurement would improve the diagnostic value in the evaluation of metabolic syndrome.

Comment:

Tom Greenfield wrote about this study a few years back, but I wanted to bring it back since, like most studies of this sort, it has gone completely unnoticed by the nutrition communinty at-large. IAP is an enzyme implicated in transcellular transport of chylomicrons, large molecules that transport dietary lipids from the intestines to other locations in the body. Since 1966 it has been known that this enzyme varies among ABO blood groups and secretor status, with type O secretors having the highest amount and A non-secretors the lowest. Since IAP is critical for breaking down dietary cholesterol and enhancing the assimilation of calcium.

This calls into question the so-called 'Bone Hypothesis,' a long-treasured argument of vegans and dietitians everywhere, that dietary protein (especially from animal sources rich in the sulfur amino acids) should increase acid production in the body, and that in response to the acid load induced by a high animal protein diet, bone may be called upon to act as a reservoir of alkali using bone calcium as a buffering source.

As the theory goes, the long-term consequence of this reliance on bone to buffer the endogenous acid would be increased rates of skeletal loss and a decrease in bone mineral density. The hypothesis would also predict that a long-term, high protein diet would increase fractures.

However, in a recent study it was found that:

Studies conducted over the past 8 years in our laboratory call the traditional high protein bone hypothesis to question. We have found that a high protein diet induces high levels of urine calcium primarily because it increases intestinal calcium absorption. Second, a low protein diet acutely reduces intestinal calcium absorption, resulting in an abrupt rise in serum parathyroid hormone.

PUBMED

No only is IAP induced at high levels in blood group O individuals by a protein diet, one can expect it to increase bone density in these people. Not only that, evidence exists which indicates that the physical expression of the blood type A antigen appears to turn off IAP in the intestinal tract.

We found that red cells of blood group A bind almost all intestinal alkaline phosphatase; erythrocytes of blood group B or O to a much lesser degree. This is in accordance with the fact that intestinal alkaline phosphatase is found more frequently in the serum of individuals of blood group O or B than in serum of persons of blood group A.

PUBMED

I challenge anyone who still clings to the idea that blood groups have no scientific role in dietary personalization to respond to these basic facts.

It comes down to this simple challenge: Either put up or shut up.