Doctors Opposed to Food for Health

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Not all physicians are opposed to using food instead of drugs--even for prevention of illness. True, it is easier to write a prescription after a sales presentation by a gift-bearing salesperson. However, it requires real effort to read scientific journals that refer to discoveries about the use of foods. It's easier to place them in his waiting room to impress patients who do not know he never reads them.

Recently a major report by Dr. Malcolm Pike of the U. of So. Cal. Cancer Ctr., Los Angeles, Cal., was given to a cancer conference. Worse, it was featured in a physician-directed news service, medscape.com.

First item mentioned: "Dr. Pike discussed an unexpected role of oral contraceptives in helping to prevent ovarian cancer." This is very old news but worse, he did not mention foods that may do the same thing.
Second: He noted that tamoxifen is good, while for cigarette smokers, beta-carotene is not. Nothing new there.

Third: He stated that Finasteride is useful against prostate cancer. However, he did not mention soy beans or their ingredient isoflavones which have similar effects. Nor did he mention lycopene in tomatoes.

Fourth: He boasted that in breast cancer research, his professional approach was "way ahead" of basic science research. In some ways, he was right. The fact that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) increased the risk of breast cancer was not widely accepted is real. However, noting that ovarian cancer rates were lower among Japanese women, it did not occur to him that it could be the higher intake of soy and soy products among them.

Ah, so it is. We don't mean to jab at Dr. Pike particularly, but rather as a representation of the blindfold that many physicians wear about healthful eating. Actually, he is an epidemiologist.

The sad thing is that so many diseases can be prevented, and some cured, by using the scientific findings revealed only in obscurity. Meanwhile, the con men, the promoters and their media fools rule on.

That's why we're here.

Doctors Opposed to Food for Health Bibliography:

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