wow Robyn ! a mind blowingly comprehensive report on the Ornish trial. This will be standard reading for all my clients and new clients. Enormous thanks for this magnificent effort .
Thanks for making sure I read it in a timely fashion! Hopefully my summary will encourage people to read the original paper which is really quite accessible to the lay reader.
Amazing! As someone who has recently experienced cognitive improvement as a result of comprehensive lifestyle measures, I can really relate to what the woman in the first video was saying - about feeling like your identity is coming back.
I love this statement: "If you want to recover from a chronic illness and restore vibrant health, you have to remove all the drivers of disease (or, at least, as many as you possibly can) and provide all the prerequisites for health".
You are living testimony to the fact that these lifestyle measures work at any age. And like you, I think most people undertake diet and lifestyle change 'for their health', not realising the full extent of the benefits they will receive.
I rarely make time to read your articles, Robyn, but am blown away by the information you have come up with every time I do read one or hear you speak. Thank you for all your are doing to spread the word about how true health is obtained.
Thank you Elizabeth, that is high praise coming from you, considering how steeped you are in Natural Health philosophy and practice! It's somewhat ironic that scientists and researchers spend all this time and money to come up with proof of what the Natural Health/Natural Hygiene pioneers already knew to be true, based on simple observation of what works in practice.
I have not seen any coverage of this study in MSM. Though today there are articles about some new drug or two that are coming out for Alzheimer's. Hmmmn! I wonder why that is! ; )
I’m trying to figure out which part of this is most interesting. I guess I was initially shocked by dementia/Alzheimers being number 2 cause of death in Australia. Then, seeing Covid at 3 confounds things as the average age at death for Covid was 85.8, while all cause age was 82.2. So, people with Covid lived longer than they otherwise would have. I’m being facetious since no one actually died from Covid.
Australia accounts for cause of death differently than US, separating various cancers such as colon and lung, whereas US stats lump all cancer together.
Here’s what the US list looks like:
Heart disease: 702,880
Cancer: 608,371
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 227,039
COVID-19: 186,552
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 165,393
Altzheimer’s is down in 7th
This is our CDCs list which doesn’t include iatrogenic deaths which would come in behind cancer.
I think the big takeaway from this is that the changes in diet and exercise not only improve dementia but would improve other diseases as well. So everyone eat real food.
"I think the big takeaway from this is that the changes in diet and exercise not only improve dementia but would improve other diseases as well. So everyone eat real food."
Yes, you nailed it. There is not one program for preventing/reversing dementia, and a separate one for preventing/reversing heart disease, and a separate one again for preventing/reversing diabetes, or obesity, or any other chronic health problem. Eat, move and live like a human being is adapted to do, and you will enjoy good health.
Wonderful article! I will be sharing many times over. You have hit the nail on the head…there is no magic bullet to health, it’s an arsenal of weapons that keeps our mind, body and spirit free of disease! I thank God for amazing people like you who are bringing truth to the world of medicine. So many blinded by the pill factories that are our hospitals and medical offices.
NO MAGIC BULLET. NO MAGIC BULLET. NO MAGIC BULLET. I wish I could do to students of all medical and health disciplines what the Roman commander does to Brian in The Life of Brian, and make them write this 100 times. Perhaps that would start a revolution that's a bit more successful than the one Brian inadvertently kicks off LOL.
I think that Multi-intervention RCTs are valuable as long as the full set of interventions is practical in a clinical or general lifestyle sense. For instance, if the set includes a bunch of changes which mainstream medicine does not generally recommend.
However, this RCT ran for only 20 weeks, while neurodegeneration occurs over many years, to several decades.
The interventions are generally plausible and practical, but the 7.83 Hz (7.83 cycles per second) flashing light might trigger seizures in susceptible individuals, and implies spending some amount of time pretty much dedicated to "treatment". A Google search for this specific frequency leads to lots of Woo, such as: https://www.chiangmaiholistic.com/7.83hz.php which asserts that there are health benefits in sound or light at the precise frequency at which radio waves travel around the Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances.
Diet cannot replace the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation. Sufficient UV-B light is not available naturally to most people all year round and always damages DNA, so raising the risk of skin cancer.
Vitamin D3 supplementation was missing from the intervention list and the researchers did not test for circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D ("vitamin D" blood test). The "multivitamin" was Solgar VM-75 https://www.solgar.com/products/formula-vm-75-tablets/. This includes only 10 micrograms (0.01 milligrams, 400 IU) vitamin D3. This would have only marginally boosted 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in the long term, with a rise time of several months.
For anyone who reads even a fraction of the pertinent research, such as that cited and discussed at my long page: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/ it is obvious that proper vitamin D3 supplementation, in quantities well above the minuscule quantities in government recommendations (such as 600 IU), is needed to attain at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D the immune system needs to function properly.
The amount to supplement depends on body weight and obesity status: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/how-much-vitamin-d3-to-take. These are the recommendations of New Jersey based Professor of Medicine, Sunil Wimalawansa. For average weight adults, 0.125 mg 125 micrograms (5000 IU) a day, on average, is a good amount.
This section https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 concerns research on 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (made in the liver, over several days, from ingested or UV-B produced vitamin D3) and dementia / neurodegeneration.
There is limited evidence of being able to reverse Parkinson's disease with unnaturally high 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, with the Coimbra protocol, as I mention in this section and at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/06-adv/ .
I recently found limited indications that helminthic therapy can reverse Parkinson's disease. This involves introducing a relatively benign intestinal worm infestation so that they exude compounds which reduce the body's excessively strong inflammatory response. "Inflammatory" in this context means indiscriminate cell destruction such as by eosinophils, the suicide bomber cells of the immune system. Our ancestors were ubiquitously infested with helminths until about a century ago, and they exude these compounds to protect themselves against these inflammatory responses, which target them specifically. (Antibodies and macrophages are not much use against a multicellular parasite with a thick, protective, skin.) Over tens of millions of years, human (and whatever species our ancestors were before this) immune systems evolved much stronger than would be healthy inflammatory responses in order to counter the general weakening of these caused by these down-modulatory compounds. Now we are all dewormed, in general, humans (and our companion and agricultural animals) have excessive inflammatory responses - and some people will have it worse than others due to genetic variation.
I agree that attention to vitamin D levels would probably have enhanced outcomes. I favour rational sunlight exposure whenever possible, over supplements, because vitamin D (not a vitamin, but a steroid hormone) is but one of many photoproducts generated when human skin and eyes are exposed to sunlight and skylight.
And yes of course neurodegeneration occurs over decades, but as I wrote in the article, the fact that any improvement at all was documented over the course of 20 weeks is quite extraordinary. There's a specific reason the trial ran that long, which is given in the paper: that's as long as the control group can be persuaded to avoid adopting the program, which would muddy the waters in terms of between-group differences.
Parkinson's also seems to respond to the amino acid therapy devised by Marty Hinz. Like Alzheimer's, it's a multifactorial condition. There are no magic bullets, whether vitamin D supplementation, helminth therapy, amino acid therapy or any other stand-alone treatment, that can reverse a multifactorial condition.
wow Robyn ! a mind blowingly comprehensive report on the Ornish trial. This will be standard reading for all my clients and new clients. Enormous thanks for this magnificent effort .
Thanks for making sure I read it in a timely fashion! Hopefully my summary will encourage people to read the original paper which is really quite accessible to the lay reader.
Amazing! As someone who has recently experienced cognitive improvement as a result of comprehensive lifestyle measures, I can really relate to what the woman in the first video was saying - about feeling like your identity is coming back.
I love this statement: "If you want to recover from a chronic illness and restore vibrant health, you have to remove all the drivers of disease (or, at least, as many as you possibly can) and provide all the prerequisites for health".
You are living testimony to the fact that these lifestyle measures work at any age. And like you, I think most people undertake diet and lifestyle change 'for their health', not realising the full extent of the benefits they will receive.
I shared this on fb. Then one of my friends shared it too! She's a dentist!
Great stuff! Every awakening health professional is another win for Team Humanity.
Absolutely!
I rarely make time to read your articles, Robyn, but am blown away by the information you have come up with every time I do read one or hear you speak. Thank you for all your are doing to spread the word about how true health is obtained.
Thank you Elizabeth, that is high praise coming from you, considering how steeped you are in Natural Health philosophy and practice! It's somewhat ironic that scientists and researchers spend all this time and money to come up with proof of what the Natural Health/Natural Hygiene pioneers already knew to be true, based on simple observation of what works in practice.
I have not seen any coverage of this study in MSM. Though today there are articles about some new drug or two that are coming out for Alzheimer's. Hmmmn! I wonder why that is! ; )
Yes, I wonder 🤔.
I’m trying to figure out which part of this is most interesting. I guess I was initially shocked by dementia/Alzheimers being number 2 cause of death in Australia. Then, seeing Covid at 3 confounds things as the average age at death for Covid was 85.8, while all cause age was 82.2. So, people with Covid lived longer than they otherwise would have. I’m being facetious since no one actually died from Covid.
Australia accounts for cause of death differently than US, separating various cancers such as colon and lung, whereas US stats lump all cancer together.
Here’s what the US list looks like:
Heart disease: 702,880
Cancer: 608,371
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 227,039
COVID-19: 186,552
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 165,393
Altzheimer’s is down in 7th
This is our CDCs list which doesn’t include iatrogenic deaths which would come in behind cancer.
I think the big takeaway from this is that the changes in diet and exercise not only improve dementia but would improve other diseases as well. So everyone eat real food.
"I think the big takeaway from this is that the changes in diet and exercise not only improve dementia but would improve other diseases as well. So everyone eat real food."
Yes, you nailed it. There is not one program for preventing/reversing dementia, and a separate one for preventing/reversing heart disease, and a separate one again for preventing/reversing diabetes, or obesity, or any other chronic health problem. Eat, move and live like a human being is adapted to do, and you will enjoy good health.
Wonderful article! I will be sharing many times over. You have hit the nail on the head…there is no magic bullet to health, it’s an arsenal of weapons that keeps our mind, body and spirit free of disease! I thank God for amazing people like you who are bringing truth to the world of medicine. So many blinded by the pill factories that are our hospitals and medical offices.
NO MAGIC BULLET. NO MAGIC BULLET. NO MAGIC BULLET. I wish I could do to students of all medical and health disciplines what the Roman commander does to Brian in The Life of Brian, and make them write this 100 times. Perhaps that would start a revolution that's a bit more successful than the one Brian inadvertently kicks off LOL.
I think that Multi-intervention RCTs are valuable as long as the full set of interventions is practical in a clinical or general lifestyle sense. For instance, if the set includes a bunch of changes which mainstream medicine does not generally recommend.
However, this RCT ran for only 20 weeks, while neurodegeneration occurs over many years, to several decades.
The interventions are generally plausible and practical, but the 7.83 Hz (7.83 cycles per second) flashing light might trigger seizures in susceptible individuals, and implies spending some amount of time pretty much dedicated to "treatment". A Google search for this specific frequency leads to lots of Woo, such as: https://www.chiangmaiholistic.com/7.83hz.php which asserts that there are health benefits in sound or light at the precise frequency at which radio waves travel around the Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances.
Diet cannot replace the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation. Sufficient UV-B light is not available naturally to most people all year round and always damages DNA, so raising the risk of skin cancer.
Vitamin D3 supplementation was missing from the intervention list and the researchers did not test for circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D ("vitamin D" blood test). The "multivitamin" was Solgar VM-75 https://www.solgar.com/products/formula-vm-75-tablets/. This includes only 10 micrograms (0.01 milligrams, 400 IU) vitamin D3. This would have only marginally boosted 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in the long term, with a rise time of several months.
For anyone who reads even a fraction of the pertinent research, such as that cited and discussed at my long page: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/ it is obvious that proper vitamin D3 supplementation, in quantities well above the minuscule quantities in government recommendations (such as 600 IU), is needed to attain at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D the immune system needs to function properly.
The amount to supplement depends on body weight and obesity status: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/how-much-vitamin-d3-to-take. These are the recommendations of New Jersey based Professor of Medicine, Sunil Wimalawansa. For average weight adults, 0.125 mg 125 micrograms (5000 IU) a day, on average, is a good amount.
This section https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 concerns research on 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (made in the liver, over several days, from ingested or UV-B produced vitamin D3) and dementia / neurodegeneration.
There is limited evidence of being able to reverse Parkinson's disease with unnaturally high 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, with the Coimbra protocol, as I mention in this section and at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/06-adv/ .
I recently found limited indications that helminthic therapy can reverse Parkinson's disease. This involves introducing a relatively benign intestinal worm infestation so that they exude compounds which reduce the body's excessively strong inflammatory response. "Inflammatory" in this context means indiscriminate cell destruction such as by eosinophils, the suicide bomber cells of the immune system. Our ancestors were ubiquitously infested with helminths until about a century ago, and they exude these compounds to protect themselves against these inflammatory responses, which target them specifically. (Antibodies and macrophages are not much use against a multicellular parasite with a thick, protective, skin.) Over tens of millions of years, human (and whatever species our ancestors were before this) immune systems evolved much stronger than would be healthy inflammatory responses in order to counter the general weakening of these caused by these down-modulatory compounds. Now we are all dewormed, in general, humans (and our companion and agricultural animals) have excessive inflammatory responses - and some people will have it worse than others due to genetic variation.
I haven't written all this up on my web pages. Please see my comments at: https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/a-conversation-about-sunlight-with/comment/58646448, in which I refer to https://www.helminthictherapywiki.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy_and_Parkinson%27s_disease.
I agree that attention to vitamin D levels would probably have enhanced outcomes. I favour rational sunlight exposure whenever possible, over supplements, because vitamin D (not a vitamin, but a steroid hormone) is but one of many photoproducts generated when human skin and eyes are exposed to sunlight and skylight.
And yes of course neurodegeneration occurs over decades, but as I wrote in the article, the fact that any improvement at all was documented over the course of 20 weeks is quite extraordinary. There's a specific reason the trial ran that long, which is given in the paper: that's as long as the control group can be persuaded to avoid adopting the program, which would muddy the waters in terms of between-group differences.
Parkinson's also seems to respond to the amino acid therapy devised by Marty Hinz. Like Alzheimer's, it's a multifactorial condition. There are no magic bullets, whether vitamin D supplementation, helminth therapy, amino acid therapy or any other stand-alone treatment, that can reverse a multifactorial condition.