Posts Tagged ‘body’

Macrobiotic cookbooks

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Macrobiotic cooking provides a deeply spiritual approach to food, stressing harmonious balancing of yin and yang as well as mindful attention to ingredients and their preparation. Vivian Eggers, who lives on Maui, began her studies at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and continued them at the Kushi Institute in Boston. She often cooks for religious retreats.

Macrobiotic Cookbooks

Macrobiotic cooking

Kimberley: What’s the theory behind macrobiotic cooking?
Vivian Eggers: Basically, it’s the understanding of the principles of yin and yang and its application to food and the condition of the body. Yin is basically expansive energy and yang is contractive energy, and there are many different words to describe the qualities of expansion and contraction: lightness and darkness, male and female. One of the most basic points for understanding this is through the seasons and the transformation of the seasons. Summer is hot, everything is lush and green, the birds are out singing every day. It’s an expansive time. Then this changes and shifts and goes all the way around to its opposite in the winter when the leaves are gone, it’s barren and cold, the land is frozen. We stay inside trying to keep warm and retain heat. Yin and yang are very real, very manifest in daily life. So when you start thinking in terms of yin and yang it’s like being given new tools for seeing.
Within that energy system, there are many correlations with the body, each organ corresponds to each of the five elements–fire, earth, water, air, and metal. And each element has a particular energy. That’s what one studies in acupuncture or shiatsu as well as macrobiotic cooking so that you understand the sensitivity of the organs to a particular time of year, to a particular time of day, to a particular color, to a particular emotion, to a particular food. In macrobiotic cooking, you study the whole body, not just how to cut up carrots.
K: You just spoke of metal energy. What is it?
V: We’re sitting here now in a country setting where there’s a lot of earth energy, but in the background, we hear a truck on the highway. That’s metal energy. It moves very quickly, it cuts through air energy, through earth energy. Look at these scissors, they’re made of energy, strong, solid, cutting. They’re good example of metal energy.
K: What food has metal energy?
V: Brown rice, for instance. It’s strong, and supports metal energy in the human body.
K: Let’s take one day in the life of a macrobiotic cook. How would you approach cooking for a family?
V: First, an assessment of my own condition, by checking in with myself in the morning to see how I feel. What color is my skin? What’s going on with my eyes? How’s my tongue? Are my fingers or toes cold? All those little things. If there’s a complaint–a headache, menstrual cramps–your body will let you know immediately. So this influences what I’m going to ingest throughout the day. If I’m cooking for children, then I go and be with them: Hello, how are you? How did you sleep last night? What’s going on with your body?
K: You have to be conscious of not only what’s being prepared and how it’s presented, but also who is going to eat it and how it effects them on an internal level?
V: Absolutely. Initially, it sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not. It’s as easy as riding a bicycle. When you first teach a child how to ride a bicycle, you tell her that she needs to sit on the seat, to balance, to pedal, to hold onto the handle bars and steer, go at a certain speed, so on and so forth. But doing it is really easy. And of course, the more you do it, the more you learn. This is a study I’ve been involved with for maybe fourteen years now and every time I cook for a group of people or go through a process with my own health, I’m still learning. It’s an expansion process, like being handed a flower that gradually unfolds over a period of years.
K: What all is involved?
V: In addition to nutrition, macrobiotics deals with the energetics of food, the energy of the cook and how important that is. Being aware that you’re not putting anger in the food, and so forth. Plus the style of cutting and how that influences not only the taste of the dish, but it’s energy.
If you’re cutting carrots, for instance, the way you cut creates a particular energetic quality. If I take the carrot and make big diagonal cuts by turning the carrot every inch, I end up with large triangular pieces, suitable for a stew. If I take the carrot and make quick short cuts on the diagonal, say an eighth of an inch, then turn these pieces over and cut them very finely, I end up with long fine match-stick shaped carrots. Now if I put them both into a large stew pot and cook them for an hour, the large pieces will be tender, the skin of the carrot will have lightly separated from it. However, the match-stick carrots will be completely exhausted. On the other hand, if I saute both of them in a skillet, the match-sticks will be done in a matter of minutes, where the others will be somewhat warmed and seared on the outside, but completely raw on the inside. So one of the fundamentals of macrobiotic cooking is knowing how to use a knife to chop vegetables so there is a uniform cut and consistency to them. Also, when you cut, you put your own ki [energy] into them as opposed to using a Cuisinart where you get a consistent cut, but no ki energy. If you want to give someone your ki, then the stronger food is the one you’ve cut by hand and put your energy into.
Food preparation becomes a form of meditation because of your focus and awareness and intention to sustain those you feed, not just to get the meal out of the way. When I’m cooking for retreats, it becomes part of my practice. I try to go into the kitchen and remain centered and aware, creating the most peaceful food that I can, even if it’s for a hundred and fifty or more people.
K: So instead of planning the menu a week in advance, you have to be constantly mindful what you need, of what your body needs, what other people need.
V: Absolutely. You develop that, and it’s quite easy. It just comes. I couldn’t go back to the other way of cooking. Now I always consider who am I cooking for and what is the intention. It has become second nature. When I cook I’m always in a place of joy and pleasure internally.
K: How do you know if food is yin or yang? Does it change depending on how it is prepared?
V: Yin and yang are relative to each other. In the Taoist symbol, one area is predominately black, with a little dot of white, and vice versa. This perfectly depicts yin and yang in that they’re connected to each other and even though a particular thing may have a predominantly yang quality, it still has a little bit of yin. Certain substances are very yang–salt and beef, for instance. But when you want to get into a fine comparison, you have to look at one food in relation to another.
The recommendation in macrobiotics is a grain-based diet. The main food you eat are grains, for they are our most gentle, peaceful, nurturing food, the ones with the most to give to sustain and develop human life. Within grains, brown rice is the focal point, the centering food. The rest branches out and develops around it.
K: Was all this developed before the theories about eating low on the food chain?
V: Long before, but it meshes beautifully with it. A cow is a large animal with its own digestive system, with a heart of its own, a circulatory system, a nervous system and so on. Before you can ingest it, you have to take its life in one way or another, then take the meat from its body in a good clean way and prepare it in a certain way, otherwise it becomes poisonous. Look at the activity that’s involved in all of that. Of course in this modern day and age, we just go to the supermarket and run the cart down the meat aisle and choose a shrink wrapped package. It’s not like it was several generations ago when people were involved in a personal way in taking the lives of the animal they would then eat. The modern meat industry has separated us from that process altogether. It’s yet another way in which we are divorced from our bodies.
K: And perhaps from the sacred. Many native traditions honor the deer for giving its life so that the two-leggeds might eat. And from the way you talk about macrobiotic cooking, even vegetables seem filled with an almost animistic energy.
V: Absolutely, the mundane world becomes very precious. Macrobiotic cooking requires constant mindfulness. The meals that I would feed a troupe of exotic dancers from Armenia wouldn’t be the same food that I would feed to group of nuns on retreat. There would be adjustments of the food, of the preparation, and the cooking technique.
Take grain, for instance. Most people take their grain in the form of bread. Even in whole grained-bread, the grain is crushed, ground into flour. Then it usually sits around a very long time until it is baked. By the time you get it, the grain has gone through quite a process. Where’s the chi energy in it? As opposed to going to the store and buying brown rice, cooking it in your pressure cooker, then eating it by crushing the grain in your own mouth.
Digestion begins in the mouth, so macrobiotics recommends that each mouthful be chewed 25 to 50 times to bring out the sweetness of the grain. Also to really taste the grain. Many people completely miss the experience of truly tasting food. There is a textural change that occurs as well in long chewing so that digestion is much easier since the food liquifies. If you take time to just sit and eat slowly, you’ll find that the food you are eating can be better utilized and that you’ll eat less. You can eat smaller portions of food and be satisfied.
Macrobiotics is about having a rich, full, deep, healthy, independent life. Part of the reason for eating this way is to remove yourself from the dependency of drugstores and doctors or even holistic practitioners. In studying macrobiotics, you are removing yourself from all of this for you are studying your body and its relationship to this earth, to the elements. In choosing your foods with such awareness, many deep and profound changes occur within the body.
K: I think that most people’s idea of macrobiotic food is that it is a very boring diet of brown rice.
V: Yes. Everywhere I travel people will say, “Oh, I did that macrobiotic diet.” When I ask them what they ate, they say they cooked brown rice and miso soup. That’s all I hear. Maybe they add aduki beans. That is pretty boring. But that isn’t what macrobiotics is about and it’s a great misunderstanding. Initially, Michio Kushi, who helped to popularize macrobiotics, promoted a basic macrobiotic diet consisting of a certain proportion of brown rice to beans to a sea vegetable to a root vegetable to a pickle accompanied by miso soup. That’s what I call the training wheel diet. So this is a guideline. The foundation is brown rice and miso soup, but true macrobiotic cooking spins out from there very, very quickly. To prepare a macrobiotic meal is a real spontaneous dance.
K: How would someone learn to cook macrobiotically?
V: They could start by seeking out a macrobiotic cook or center. There are people all over the United States. Also books are an excellent starting place. They provide information, bring up questions. The basic recipe book, Introducing Macrobiotic Cooking by Wendy Esko, is a primer that is very easy to understand; it teaches all the dishes in a straightforward way.
K: When I worked as a chef, I’d find myself having long, non-verbal conversations with food. Do you talk to food? Does it talk to you?
V: Absolutely.
Macrobiotic advocates teach that eating in harmony with your environment creates a balance and peace in your life that can be extended to your family, community, and eventually the world. Keep this in mind the next time you sit down at a table for a meal.
Anyone who has ever been on a strict diet is familiar with the following eating meditation:
Take a small handful of raisins or nuts. Eat them one at a time, paying strict attention to taste, smell, texture. Don’t let your mind wander, but concentrate on each little morsel of food as it enters your mouth, as you chew and swallow, savoring the taste. Let the taste sensation completely disappear before you place another bite in your mouth. Compare this with the way you normally eat a handful of raisins or nuts. Try to eat an entire meal with this type of careful attention to what you are eating, chewing, swallowing.

To learn more about the macrobiotic community contact The International Macrobiotic Directory, 1050 40th Street, Oakland, CA 94608.

Michio and Avaline Kushi, who run the Kushi Institute in Boston, have a number of cookbooks out, including Michio Kushi’s Standard Macrobiotic Diet, 1992, and The Macrobiotic Way, 1985.

Other Macrobiotic Cookbooks:

Kushis Macrobi Ck
by Aveline Kushi (Author) (Paperback )

The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health : A Complete Guide to Preventing and Relieving More Than 200 Chronic Conditionsand Disorders Naturally
by Alex Jack (Author), Michio Kushi (Author) (Hardcover )

Cooking the Whole Foods Way: Your Complete, Everyday Guide to Healthy, Delicious Eating With 500 Recipes, Menus, Techniques, Meal Planning, Buying Tips, Wit & Wisdom
by Christina Pirello (Illustrator), Bill Tara (Paperback - March 1997)

Changing Seasons Macrobiotic Cookbook: Cooking in Harmony With Nature
by Aveline Kushi, Wendy Esko (Paperback - July 2003)

Macrobiotic Diet
by Michio Kushi, et al (Paperback - August 1993)

The Quick and Natural Macrobiotic Cookbook
by Aveline Kushi, et al (Paperback )
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See also Aveline Kushi’s Complete Guide To Macrobiotic Cooking and Lessons of Night and Day. She and Wendy Esko co-authored The Changing Seasons Cookbook and The Macrobiotic Cancer Prevention Cookbook. Cornelia Aihara, who–with her husband Herman–run the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation and Vega Study Center in Oroville, CA, is the author of The Do of Cooking, Macrobiotic Kitchen, The Calendar Cookbook, and Macrobiotic Childcare. Andrea Bliss Lerman’s The Macrobiotic Community Cookbook features recipes and short sketches of the chefs involved.

For a book from a completely different perspective about the kinds of energy that can be put in food, read Like Water for Chocolate by Lauro Esquirel. Also be sure to see the wonderful film Babette’s Feast which is based on an Isak Dinesen short story.

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Cancer

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

CANCER
The word “cancer” comes from the Greek term karkinos, which means crab. Hippocrates, who first applied it to medicine, evidently likened tumors to the crablike properties or spread of the disease. He taught a dietary approach to cancer, and through the ages there have been many reported recoveries using natural means.
In the modern era, health reformers have linked cancer with diet since the early 1800s. Modern medicine, however, generally ignored this relationship until the 1970s. One of the 20th century pioneers in nutritional research was Dr. Albert Tannebaum, director of the department of cancer research at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. In an address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science on August 4, 1944, he stated: “At the present time there is widespread interest in the relationship of nutrition to tumors . . . It is likely that a natural diet contains a more adequate quality, quantity, and balance of essential components than our present day synthetic diets. Nutritionists are beginning to believe that synthetic diets may give effects quite different from natural diets. Fundamentally, it is the natural diet that is of interest in human nutrition and disease.”
See Brain Tumors, Breast Cancer, Colon Cancer, Leukemia, Lung Cancer, Lymphoma, Pancreatic Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Stomach Cancer.
See American Cancer Society, Carotenoids, Carrots, Chewing, Ginger, Green Tea, Hiziki, Immune Function, Japanese Diet, Lentils, Macrobiotics, Microwave, Millet, Miso, Natto, Phytochemicals, Phytoestrogens, Rice, Sea Vegetables, Shiitake, Soy Foods, Sugar, Tempeh, Vegetables, Vegetarians, War-Restricted Diet, Water, Whole Grains, World Health Organization.

• Protective Mechanisms of Plant-Quality Foods - In a review of the epidemiological data, including both cohort and case-control studies, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle reported that plant-quality foods have preventive potential at all cancer sites and that consumption of the following groups and types of vegetables and fruits is lower in those who subsequently develop cancer: raw and fresh vegetables, leafy green vegetables, Cruciferous vegetables, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and raw and fresh fruit, including citrus fruit and tomatoes.
Foods high in phytoestrogens, particularly soybean foods (high in isoflavones) or grains and fibrous vegetables high in precursor compounds that can be metabolized by bacteria in the intestines into active agents are associated with a lower risk of sex-hormone-related cancers.
Biologically, plant foods may slow or prevent the appearance of cancer because of anticarcinogenic substances including: carotenoids, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, dietary fiber (and its components), dithiolthiones, isothiocyanates, indoles, phenols, protease inhibitors, allium compounds, plant sterols, and limonene.
“At almost every one of the stages of the cancer process, identified phytochemicals are known to be able to alter the likelihood of carcinogenesis,” the researchers concluded. “For example, glucosinolates and indoles, thiocyanates and isothiocyanates, phenols, and coumarins can induce a multiplicity of phase II (solubilizing and usually inactivating) enzymes; ascorbate and phenols block the formation of carcinogens such as nitrosamines; flavonoids and carotenoids act as antioxidants, essentially disabling the carcin-ogenic potential of specific compounds; lipid-soluble compounds such as carotenoids and sterols may alter membrane structure or integrity; some sulphur-containing compounds suppress DNA and protein synthesis; carotenoids can suppress DNA synthesis and enhance differentiation; and phytoestrogens compete with estradiol for estrogen receptors in a way that is generally antiproliferative.”
“Consumption of diets low in plant foods results in a reduced intake of a wide variety of those substances that can plausibly lower cancer risk,” the researchers concluded. “In the presence of a diet and lifestyle high in potential carcinogens (whether derived from fungal contamination, cooking, or tobacco) or high in promoters (such as salt and alcohol), overall risk of cancer at many epithelial sites is elevated. Plant foods appear to exert a general risk-lowering effect; the patterns of exposure to cancer initiators and promoters and of genetic susceptibility may determine the variations in the site-specific risks of cancer seen across populations.”
Source: J. D. Potter et al., “Vegetables, Fruit, and Phytoestrogens as Preventive Agents,” IARC Science Publications 139:61-90, 1996.

• The Cancer Prevention Diet - In The Cancer-Prevention Diet, Michio Kushi introduces the macrobiotic approach to cancer, including complete dietary and way of life guidelines for 25 major types of malignancies. The book includes summaries of hundreds of nutritionally oriented medical studies, including many dietary observations from the Renaissance through the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as contemporary recovery stories.
“From the macrobiotic view, cancer is the final stage in a sequence of events in an illness through which individuals in the modern world tend to pass because they fail to appreciate the beneficial nature of disease symptoms. A healthy organism can deal with a limited amount of excess nutrients or toxic materials taken in the form of daily food. This imbalance can be naturally eliminated through daily activity, sweating, urination, bowel movement, or other means. However, if the person continues to overconsume, the body begins to fall back upon abnormal measures for elimination including colds, fever, coughing, skin disease, and other symptoms. From the macrobiotic perspective, such sickness is a natural adjustment, the result of the wisdom of the body trying to keep us in natural balance.
“However, in modern society these symptoms are generally suppressed or controlled with drugs, surgery, and other methods which separate people from the natural workings of their own bodies. If minor ailments are treated in this symptomatic way with no adjustment in what we eat, the excess held in the body eventually begins to accumulate in the form of fatty-acid deposits and chronically troublesome mucus, and manifests in vaginal discharges, breast or ovarian cysts, kidney stones, or other worrisome conditions. In this state, the body is still able to localize the excess and toxins consumed. By gathering the unwanted material in local areas, the rest of the body is maintained in a relatively clean and smooth functioning condition. From the macrobiotic view, the process of localization is part of our natural healing power, saving us from complete break-down. In contrast, the modern view looks on those localizations as invasive enemies that have to be destroyed and removed.
“As long as excess continues to accumulate and exceeds the body’s normal or abnormal discharge ability, it must be stored somewhere. These storage depots gradually grow and become tumors, and when they are filled they spread and overflow into new areas, or what are called metastases.
“As long as we continue to take in excessive nutrients, chemicals, and other factors that serve no purpose in the body, they must continue to accumulate somewhere in order to continue our normal living functions. If we don’t allow them to accumulate in limited areas and form tumors, they will spread throughout the body, resulting in a total collapse of our vital functions and death by toxemia. Cancer is only the terminal stage of a long process. Cancer is the body’s healthy attempt to isolate toxins ingested and accumulated through years of eating the modern unnatural diet and living in an artificial environment. Cancer is the body’s last drastic effort to prolong life, even a few more months or years.”
Source: Michio Kushi with Alex Jack, The Cancer-Prevention Diet, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

• Diet Linked to 30% of Cancers - In a report on diet, lifestyle, and cancer, a Harvard School of Public Health study attributed 30 percent of cancer deaths to diet and obesity, 30 percent to smoking, and 5 percent to lack of exercise. Carcinogens in the workplace, family history of cancer, and viruses were responsible for 5 percent of cancer deaths, while alcohol, socioeconomic status, and reproductive factors each were associated with 3 percent. The report recommended eating more vegetables and fruits to reduce the risk of cancer of the lungs, esophagus, and larynx; eating more beans and grains to reduce cancer of the stomach and pancreas; eating less red meat to prevent colorectal cancers; eating less animal fat which is associated with prostate cancer; exercising daily and avoiding ultraviolet light from the sun.
Source: “Harvard Report on Cancer Prevention, “ Cancer Causes & Control 7 Supplement 1:S7-9, 1996.

• Diet vs. Conventional Treatment - The National Cancer Institute reported that radiation therapy and chemotherapy were ineffective and in some cases produced toxic side-effects as follow-ups to surgery in the treatment of cancer. “Except possibly in selected patients with cancer of the stomach, there has been no demonstrated improvement in the survival of patients with the ten most common cancers when radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or both have been added to surgical resection.” In an autopsy study, researchers reported that 44 percent of 250 cancers examined had been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and 57 percent of the people with the missed diagnoses died as a result of the malignancy or its complications.
Source: Steven A. Rosenberg, “Combined-Modality Therapy of Cancer,” New England Journal of Medicine 312:1512-14; Elizabeth C. Burton, M.D., et al, “Autopsy Diagnoses of Malignant Neoplasms,” Journal of the American Medical Association 280:1245-48, 1998.

• Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Reduces Cancer Risk - In a review of 200 studies that examined the relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and cancer at selected sites, researchers found that consumption of these foods offered a significantly protective effect in 128 of 156 dietary studies in which results were expressed in terms of relative risk. For lung cancer, these foods were protective in 24 of 25 studies after control for smoking in most instances. Fruit was protective for tumors of the esophagus, oral cavity, and larynx in 28 of 29 studies. Vegetables and fruit were protective in 26 of 30 studies for the pancreas and stomach, as well as in colorectal and bladder cancers (23 of 38 studies). For malignancies of the cervix, ovary, and endometrium, a significant protective effect was shown in 11 of 13 studies. In breast cancer, a protective effect was found to be strong and consistent in meta analysis. Overall, the relative risk of cancer was about twice as high for those eating few fruits and vegetables compared to those who ate plenty of these foods. “In 1854, John Snow stopped a cholera epidemic simply by taking the handle off the pump. The research presented above suggests that consumption of fruits and vegetables may be a handle that, if manipulated by public policy, clinical advice, and public education, could have a substantial impact on a wide range of cancers,” the researchers concluded.
Source: Gladys Block et al., “Fruits, Vegetables, and Cancer Prevention: A Review of the Epidemiological Evidence,” Nutrition and Cancer 18:1-29, 1992.

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Big Pharma, Bad Karma

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Big Pharma, Bad Karma

“One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.”
- William Osler, The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892)

“We have a system that nobody but Big Pharma is happy with.”
- former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber, now with the Foundation for Medical Excellence

A progressive hospital administrator is currently touring the country, speaking out on the virtues of disease prevention. He begins his presentation with the observation that the modern medical system is not really focused on prevention or health promotion at all. As he puts it, “We don’t have a health care system in this country. What we have is a disease treatment system.”

This bold statement is highly effective in getting audiences on board with the idea that the priorities in modern medicine are seriously out of whack. But the situation is actually far worse than our administrator makes it out to be. The problem is not so much that we have a “disease treatment system.” Rather, the problem is that we have a “disease promotion system.”

Big Pharma wants your body

“How can this be?” you might ask. Surely the health care industry is inefficient, over-priced and frustrating to both patients and providers. But isn’t the whole point to help people get better?

Not anymore it’s not. If you’ve been paying attention to trends in media and marketing, you know that the pharmaceutical industry has seized control. Big Pharma has been let out of its cage and is now tyrannizing the medical marketplace. Not content to simply promote products for existing diseases, Big Pharma now promotes a wide range of human afflictions and expands the definitions of disease; their goal is to manufacture new, more profitable disorders.

Pharm facts

To get a sense of how warped the system has become, consider these facts:

Big Pharma now spends more than $5.5 billion to promote drugs to doctors–more than what all U.S. medical schools spend to educate medical students. (New England Journal of Medicine, June 23, 2005 “The Lessons of Vioxx”)

Major drug companies employ about 90,000 sales representatives – one for every 4.7 doctors in the United States. (American Medical Association)

The total pharmaceutical marketing budget is $25 billion. (Forbes magazine “Just Say NO!” by Robert Langreth Nov. 29, 2004)

Drug firms have spent $800 million since 1998 buying influence, including $675 million on direct lobbying of Congress. No other interest group has spent more money to sway public policy. (Center for Public Integrity)

Selling Sickness

Big Pharma has had a free ride for a long time, but finally, some people are starting to sit up and take notice. For example, consider Selling Sickness: How The World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels. The story on the front flap summarizes the whole sordid mess:

“Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsen, the head of Merck, one of the world’s largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley’s. It had long been his dream, he said, to make drugs for healthy people–so that Merck could “sell drugs to everyone.” Three decades on , the late Henry Gadsen’s dream has come true.”

Moynihan and Cassels lay out their case in methodical detail, telling us about Big Pharma’s efforts to expand the patient pool and create new diseases. Their conclusion: “there’s a lot of money to be made telling healthy people they’re sick.”

Disease by definition

To understand Big Pharma’s power over our health, it’s important to understand how disease is managed in large populations. Most medical conditions are defined by a set of numbers. If we broaden the range of those numbers, even slightly, and apply it to a population of millions of people, the consequences can be profound.

For example, think about the numbers that are attached to your blood pressure. If it’s above X, you’re officially “diseased” and a candidate for medication. If it’s below X, you’re “healthy.” But X is determined, not by some perfect medical formula, but by consensus within the medical community. Exact cut-off points are debatable and relative.

This is where Big Pharma steps in. If they can expand the statistical definition of a disease, even by a small margin, they can cash in. One or two percentage points, spread across America or better yet, the world, adds up to millions of newly created patients. Thus it comes as no surprise to hear that Big Pharma has become an active participant in the process of defining disease. By pouring money and influence into experts, conferences and journals, Big Pharma stretches the definitions and expands the patient pool.

The power of suggestion

It would be one thing if human disease was a matter of absolutes, but it’s not. Social and cultural forces play an immensely powerful role in determining how we interpret our physical experience. Is obesity a disease? Workaholism? Weak sexual desire? Social anxiety? It’s easy to imagine situations in which any physical sensation or experience of the human body might be labeled as health or disease, depending on the context.

Our health is the product, not simply of genetics and biochemistry, but also of human influence. As intensely social animals, we pay close attention to the physical well-being of our families and friends. If people in the tribe speak of getting one disease or another, we naturally begin to wonder if such afflictions are part of our experience as well. If everyone around us is complaining about headaches or low back pain, we may very well decide to join the gang.

Have you ever noticed how trendy diseases can be? One month it’s eating disorders, the next month it’s carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome. None of these conditions even existed 100 years ago, but now they’re “epidemic.” Similarly, medical students frequently observe how closely their physical sensations parallel the conditions that they’re studying. “Med student’s disease” is legendary.

Big Pharma is well aware that disease is creatable; they know full well that their customers are vulnerable to suggestion. By manipulating images, ideas and narratives, they shape the way people think about their bodies and in turn, their health.

The greatest therapy is the least advertised

It’s important to be aware of Big Pharma’s relentless disease promotion, but we should also take note of what’s gone missing along the way. That is, whatever happened to exercise?

Technically, Big Pharma’s direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns are “commercial speech” but they also become a form of education. People learn about their bodies from all kinds of sources and in this sense, Big Pharma’s pitch has become part of a larger health-education curriculum.

In the process, exercise is being squeezed out of the picture. Health professionals know that exercise is an immensely powerful therapy with effects that are both broad and deep. And yet, its powers are completely obscured by mega-profit therapies. Tragically, the most powerful therapeutic tool in our collection is also the one that is the least often promoted.

In fact, when we do hear about exercise in commercial media, it’s usually presented in the negative. When Big Pharma promotes drugs for conditions in which exercise is highly effective, they make sure to emphasize the failure of fitness. “If you’ve tried exercise and diet and your cholesterol is still high, ask your doctor about our miracle pill.” The sub-text to such promotions is that exercise is likely to fail and that you’ll probably have to “ask your doctor” anyway, so there’s no point in even trying. Over time, consumers are conditioned to bypass movement entirely and go directly for the pills.

A particularly egregious example of this approach is brought to us on behalf of Avandia, a blood sugar drug by GlaxoSmithKline. The advertisement pictures a frustrated middle-aged male, slumped on a bench in a stark, depressing fitness facility. The defeated expression on his face tells us that he’s had his fill of exercise. “If diet and exercise won’t get your blood sugar number down, adding Avandia can help” the ad tells us. The meta-message is obvious; exercise is a drag, so you may as well go directly to the pharmacy.

UneedUs: the axis of disempowerment

Like true drug dealers, Big Pharma makes it a point to promote dependency in its customers. The mission is simple: get people thinking about drugs as a first-line solution to physical problems. “You can’t manage your health on your own: you need us. You need us to design the drugs and test them in clinical trials. You need us to monitor your symptoms and adjust your dosage. You can’t possibly know your body on your own. You are powerless.” Ultimately, this systematic disempowerment produces the precise opposite of health; a weak, dependent and passive population. Hippocrates would be appalled.

Fueled by fear

Not surprisingly, fear plays a big role in Big Pharma’s marketing style. Lurking behind the smiling faces of happy drug consumers is the implicit threat of physical disaster. If you don’t “ask your doctor” your body will fall into an inevitable sink hole of disease and your loved ones will be dragged along with you.

We see this threat in many ads, but one particularly vivid example has recently appeared on health-related websites. Users are greeted with a big question mark and the ominous message, “What you don’t know could kill you.” Follow the link and you’ll discover that “You may be at triple the risk of developing the condition again in the future.” What’s this?” you wonder as you click through. “Talk to your doctor and click here for your online risk assessment. It’s a visit that could save your life or the life of a loved one.” This fearvertisement turns out to be a pitch for deep-vein thrombosis, an occasionally serious condition that is currently being hyped into a compelling medical emergency.

Universal disease: the dreams of medical marketers

While romantics dream of universal health, Big Pharma dreams of the inverse, a world in which the entire population is afflicted by chronic, incurable syndromes that require frequent diagnostic tests, expensive specialists and pharmaceuticals. The ideal Big Pharma customer is afflicted with disease throughout his lifespan. He is literate enough to read medical advertising, yet docile enough to follow directions “Ask your doctor about the green pill.” He doesn’t know what the green pill is, but he asks his doctor anyway, just to be sure.

A particularly chilling manifestation of this vision comes, not from Big Pharma itself, but from one of its pusher clients, Target. An advertisement in popular news magazines showcases its newly designed medication bottles with personalized, color-coded rings “to clearly identify the medication for each family member.” The advert shows three smiling children and their father, each with his own personalized bottle of drugs. The assumption is clear: if you’re a human being, you are supposed to be on something.

Turning disease into the default

Big Pharma’s direct-to-consumer strategy is not mere advertising. It is an audacious attempt to rework the default status of the human body. As Moynihan and Cassels put it in Selling Sickness, the goal of Big Pharma is “putting disease at the center of human life”

For the vast majority of human history, vigorous, robust health has been the default. Yes, there were plenty of infectious diseases, suffering and early death in the mix, but if you managed to avoid the pathogens and the predators, your body would be strong and resilient. The norm, as it is for all animals, is health.

Big Pharma wants to change all that. From this point forward, you are assumed to be diseased. You may be asymptomatic at the moment, but that’s a temporary state. By redefining what’s normal, we can make you sick merely by moving a few data points on a graph. Given the right kind of management, you will soon become a patient/customer. Once you are absorbed into the body of Big Medicine, you will become dependent for life.

Call to action

Obviously, we need is an antidote to Big Pharma. (Hmm…Maybe there’s a pill for that…”Taken once a day, this convenient new medication will decrease your anxiety about pharmaceutical marketing and help you live free again. Ask you doctor about Pharmaway.”)

Satire aside, we can begin by taking matters of health into our own hands. We start by taking care of our bodies with a movement-based lifestyle and a food-based diet. Craft a lifestyle that promotes health and independence and don’t deal with Big Pharma unless it’s absolutely necessary. (Avoid Big Pharma like the plague!) Don’t believe what you see in a Big Pharma advertisement and don’t allow your relationship with your body to be defined or distorted by fear marketing.

Use pharmaceuticals only as a last resort. Give your body a chance to seek out homeostasis on its own. Let your natural regulatory mechanisms do their thing. Make your body stronger with robust physical movement, stress relief and joy. It’s really the best approach; just ask your doctor.

References

Selling Sickness: How The World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients
Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
Nation Books 2005

The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
Marcia Angell

Peddling Paranoia
Alan Cassels

Suddenly Sick: The Hidden Big Business Behind Your Doctor’s Diagnosis
Seattle Times, June 26 - June 30, 2005

No Free Lunch: an alliance of health care providers who believe that
pharmaceutical promotion should not guide clinical practice

This article is a copy from http://goanimal.com/newsletters/2005/big_pharma/big_pharma.html

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