Danny ChaiFaith and science aren’t opposites, as people commonly seem to believe. Lots of aspects of science aren’t absolutely philosophically justified and require, if not a leap of faith, at least a philosophically unsound assumption. For example, all of medicine is predicated on the assumption that humans are fundamentally the same, so that what works on most people in the past will work on most people in the future. It’s practically useful, but not philosophically sound, if that makes any sense. I think it’s David Hume that gave the example of the chicken. Every morning, the chicken was fed, so it believed that it was justified in thinking that it would always be fed every morning. It was a justified belief up until the morning where, instead of being fed, the farmer chopped off its head and cooked it up. Just because something always was doesn’t prove that’s how it always will be. We assume medically that what works for people will work for people in the future, but that’s not philosophically sound.
All this to say, there are lots of things rational people believe that aren’t completely justified, and I’m no different. Here are three, possibly crockpot medical theories that I ascribe to that may not be fully justified but I believe them anyway.
The sun is more good for you than bad for you. This is the one I feel most confident about. But you know, everyone is big on limiting your sun exposure, being super vigilant about using sunscreen, etc. I can’t remember where I first read it, but a few years back I came across a theory that a host of modern ailments, including a variety of cancers, are more adversely affected by vitamin D deficiency than anything else. And vitamin D is naturally produced by the body when skin is exposed to sunlight. Therefore, we would be more healthy and have less disease if we got more sun.
Again, this isn’t my own theory, it’s something that’s out there, and I’m not saying we should bake for 4 hours in direct sunlight. Just that perhaps it’s a bigger problem that we’re not getting enough sun than we’re getting too much, and that 15-30 minutes of sun a day would do a lot of good. And it seems like ever since I heard it, every month or so I read another article confirming the same thing. Like this one, which claims that vitamin D causes a 60% reduction(!) in the incidence of cancer.
But it also makes sense to me because it explains some weird statistical phenomenon I have heard about (which I have no references for and may be completely false). But supposedly, cancer rates are higher in cold weather areas of the country (where they get less sun) than in warm weather areas. The sun / vitamin D thing would explain that – people in warm weather areas get more sun and produce more vitamin D. Also, they say the rates of cancer in blacks in this country are higher than for whites. It’s attributed to various things, like differences in the quality of health care each group receives. I’m sure that matters. But maybe also it’s the fact that darker-skinned people need more sunlight to produce vitamin D. Blacks in cold weather areas would be most susceptible to vitamin D deficiency. If both groups were exposed to the same amount of sunlight, the theory would suggest that, since blacks produce less vitamin D with the same amount of sunlight, they should have higher rates of cancer.
And it’s not just cancer, the theory maintains that vitamin D has a big effect on general health. As you know, people get sick more often during cold months than during warm months. As you also know, cold itself doesn’t cause sickness. Viruses do. So the common explanation is that in cold months, people spend more time indoors, and thus are more likely to pass viruses to each other. But does this really make sense? The number of people I mingle with is about the same, or even less, in the winter than in summer. They’re just sicker more often in the winter. And maybe that’s because we don’t get as much sun in the winter, and consequently have less vitamin D, and our immune systems are weaker or something like that.
Crockpot? Possibly. Based on facts that aren’t actually true? Also possible. And I’m firmly convinced about it. So I try to get a good amount of sun when I can. Sandra and other dermatologists would be appalled.
Modern cattle-raising techniques cause Alzheimer’s disease. I think I may have written about this before. But it’s another odd theory I’ve come across. Read the medical literature 70 years ago about the common characteristics of old age. Dementia and senility are rarely mentioned. Somehow that changed, and now dementia is common among geriatrics, and the rate of Alzheimer’s has steadily increased.
Interestingly, the pattern mirrors the use of modern cattle raising techniques, in particular the practice of feeding cattle the remains of other cattle. As you may know, this is now recognized as the method by which mad-cow disease spreads. And Alzheimer’s shares many similarities with mad-cow – they both affect the brain, are both slow to exhibit symptoms, aren’t transmissible like viruses or bacteria, and both form tangles/plaques in the brain. Perhaps they both have a similar cause, some sort of prion or prion-like thing that’s spread by modern cattle-raising techniques.
The main problem with this theory is the lack of a smoking gun. The prion involved in mad-cow is recognized. Nothing has been identified for Alzheimer’s, where the brain plaques I think are mostly aluminum.
Still, like the vitamin D theory, it explains a lot. Like, how in many countries you look at, the timing and extent of the rise in the incidence of Alzheimer’s follows when modern cattle-raising techniques were introduced. In countries that still don’t do it, or where few people eat meat (like India), the rate of Alzheimer’s is correspondingly low.
Might be another crockpot theory based on untrue data. But I’ve yet to hear any better theory for Alzheimer’s. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to eat meat where the cows haven’t been fed the remains of other cows.
TV watching causes autism. Gregg Easterbrook (my favorite football writer) hypothesized this in Slate last September. It was pure speculation based on the statistical correlation in the rise of cable TV / VCR and incidence of autism, and the fact that every other suspected cause had effectively been discounted. Amazingly, the very next month, he reported that a Cornell study observed the same thing, a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The rates of autism increased more in counties that had TV than not. The more time they spent in front of the TV, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism. And they teased out other possible contributing factors. They also note that among the Amish, who don’t watch any TV, autism is very rare.
Might be another crockpot theory, and many people dismiss it. But I don’t know of any better theories. And it’s definitely intriguing. In any case, I buy it for the same reason Cher likes doing makeovers in Clueless – it gives me a sense of control in an increasingly chaotic world. As you may or may not know, I’m obsessed with autism. The fact that no one knows why it happens is what scares me most. This theory gives me something I can control. And I doubt it will hurt my kids if they don’t watch TV until the youngest is 3.