Comment by aviv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aviv | Hacker News Reader

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Sure, most physicians nowadays will mention to the patient that diet and exercise are beneficial, but at the same time will outright dismiss the critical role that diet specifically plays in curing the disease.

Yes, the alternative is a 10 to 30 day water fast for both of those. I know several people that successfully cured both. Especially Crohn's, the amount of misinformation given by physicians is stunning and borderline criminal. $200K a year Remicade treatments GONE after 2 weeks of water fasting. Why would Big Pharma have any incentive to get this message out there?

High blood pressure for example can be reversed entirely after 5 days of water fasting. Completely gone. I don't know how else to say it. I have first hand knowledge of many successful water fasts, but the medical world has brainwashed everyone to the point that I get shut down immediately in any social setting by even mentioning this. But that's okay. Not forcing anyone to do anything they don't believe in. All I can do is share my knowledge and point people in the right direction when they're ready.

Prove it. In a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded trial.

There are plenty of quality and health savings organizations that would fund such a trial if there were any hint of benefit. But there isn't.

I'm glad to hear that pseudo-science still gets shut down in social circumstances.

It is slowly trickling in.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/fasting-for-th...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684131/

I personally know multiple people that did listen to me and others who told them about the healing powers of a water fast, and cured their illnesses by doing it. There's really no downside. You are not "starving" yourself. That is such an insane myth.

I myself did too - got rid of a bad arthritis in the knee that I've suffered from for years - just 20 days into a fast (this was 6 years ago, no inflammation of any kind since).

So, no studies linked, just a quote collection and an interview?

I am not aware of any study (that has been made public, remember they always have that option at the end) by a pharmaceutical company or university that was set out to test whether water fasting for 5+ days is beneficial in treating or curing disease.

Several reasons:

1. They conducted one, but didn't like the results.

2. "Don't ask what you don't want to know the answer to" applies here - there is ZERO benefit in discovering that water fasting indeed reverses diseases to which these entities have vested interest in keeping their symptoms a lifelong struggle to patients. Nothing good would come out of it for them. The entire modern medical business model would collapse.

Tin foil hat? Sure, label me that. All I can do is drop tidbits that may be helpful to someone now or in the future. I already know that I've helped a couple dozen people personally in the last few years, myself included.

Those people would still be in a very bad shape if they waited for government or pharma company to endorse what has already been proven to be used successfully for hundreds of years as a primary healing treatment.

Sorry for being so dismissive, but with so much noise out there, it feels like a waste of everyone's time when such a claim is made without the science to back it up.

For sure, there are seemingly endless possibilities that are not being thoroughly explored by the many scientific bodies, but I can understand why that is.

Thanks for taking the time to reply with more information/research.

Here some more links for you to dismiss:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1934590914...

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413115...

I think there's a lot to be said for sleep, diet, and exercise for combating many what are often termed lifestyle illnesses. That said, I think there's a lot of use for tech (which is really just applied science) in monitoring, diagnosing, and researching illnesses and treatments, as well. And not all maladies can be treated by sleep, diet, and exercise alone.

I can easily imagine anecdotal evidence like that you mention while dismissing the rest of the medical establishment (with loaded phrases like Big Pharma) is likely to get you dismissed as well. Perhaps that's not how you intend to come across, so perhaps you might look at tempering your arguments to make them more palatable to those you believe are brainwashed.

The way I comment here is not really how I relay this information to people IRL, especially because I'm very aware and sensitive to their health situation at the time. Here I know I'm going to get downvoted instantly, so I don't bother as much. Mostly threads like this frustrate me, because I know so many people can be helped but online communities shut down these types of discussions and people barely scroll all the way to the bottom to read the truth.

So anyway, I hear your feedback and agree with it. Offline I'm much more patient and I do make it a point to take my time and only slowly break the news to them that traditional medicine has been lying to them for so many years, coupled with real evidence and pointers as to the direction they should be looking at in evaluating what I just shared with them.

> "The way I comment here is not really how I relay this information to people IRL"

> "Offline I'm much more patient"

I encourage you to behave more like you do in real life here on HN. Much of what has unfortunately become accepted as discourse on many forums does serious damage to actual meaningful discussion. If that's not what you're interested in, please just refrain from commenting. Many on HN, for all it's faults, are trying for something better than average, even if we don't always succeed. People are still people, regardless of where you're encountering them.

Well, IRL people would give some verbal feedback before they dismiss my suggestion. In HN, they just downvote and walk away.

And I have, so far I answered every comment, including the physician who wanted links to "proof", whatever that may be. After all, who really benefits from finding proof that water fast cures illnesses that otherwise require a lifelong regimen of medication and doctor visits?

Perhaps there's some chicken/egg going on here? On HN, members will downvote based on tone as well as message because many do value civil discourse and recognize that regardless of the value of the substance, the manner in which a member communicates that substance can drag HN down. And deciding not to couch your comments as constructively as possible is much more likely to result in downvotes, if that's what you're concerned about. You've gotten plenty of feedback in this thread.

If you have a message you want to convey, it's in your best interested to also convey it in a manner that has the best possible chance of being accepted. If you've already decided that's not worth the effort, it's probably not worth the effort to comment at all.

I agree, I may come off as a troll. I get your point. It's too bad if I do though, my intention is to point people in a direction that will help them and one that they've likely never come across before because no one in the traditional medical world will ever suggest this as a viable option.

I will make it a point to phrase my comments differently in the next health-related thread.

> "I will make it a point to phrase my comments differently in the next health-related thread."

Why wait? Why not start now?

Unfortunately water fasting is not effective in treating chronic procrastination.

I've worked in healthcare tech before and one thing we didn't need was more people claiming you could solve every problem with some random FOTM untested medical method that doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny. No need to make yourself out to be some sort of scientific martyr. If you can't do people here the justice of backing up your comments, don't comment and then complain about getting down voted

I did back it up. Again, remember, there is not much "science" to back it up - because universities and pharmas have such little incentive to studying what may prove to render the medical world useless. Think about it. Why would they study it? If it doesn't work - anyway no one believed it. If it does - all their patented work becomes unncessary for many diseases.

So you are left with real life people who have seen success. And there are plenty once you open your eyes.

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