Slashdot Mirror

What a great post.

To keep thing going well, I hope you and your family are also getting the right amount of vitamin D and eating lots of vegetables, fruits, and beans (and some nuts, seeds, whole grains, and omega-3s and a multi-vitamin with iodine).
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/disease/ChildrensHealth.aspx

Our indoor-oriented junk-food-promoting society is not that family friendly in those ways.

As Paul Graham writes:
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
"Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."

Also related:
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Other resources:
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
"As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."

All the best in navigating through our family-unfriendly and child-unfriendly society. At least there are now tons of helpful resource on the internet, but it can take a lot of trouble to wade through them.

What a great post.

To keep thing going well, I hope you and your family are also getting the right amount of vitamin D and eating lots of vegetables, fruits, and beans (and some nuts, seeds, whole grains, and omega-3s and a multi-vitamin with iodine).
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/disease/ChildrensHealth.aspx

Our indoor-oriented junk-food-promoting society is not that family friendly in those ways.

As Paul Graham writes:
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
"Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."

Also related:
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Other resources:
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
"As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."

All the best in navigating through our family-unfriendly and child-unfriendly society. At least there are now tons of helpful resource on the internet, but it can take a lot of trouble to wade through them.

What a great post.

To keep thing going well, I hope you and your family are also getting the right amount of vitamin D and eating lots of vegetables, fruits, and beans (and some nuts, seeds, whole grains, and omega-3s and a multi-vitamin with iodine).
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/disease/ChildrensHealth.aspx

Our indoor-oriented junk-food-promoting society is not that family friendly in those ways.

As Paul Graham writes:
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
"Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."

Also related:
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Other resources:
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
"As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."

All the best in navigating through our family-unfriendly and child-unfriendly society. At least there are now tons of helpful resource on the internet, but it can take a lot of trouble to wade through them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/

And on escaping from a "pleasure trap":
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And on walking while using the computer:
http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/

And on escaping from a "pleasure trap":
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And on walking while using the computer:
http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/

And on escaping from a "pleasure trap":
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And on walking while using the computer:
http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

... so, be careful what you let it amplify.

On addiction and technology and overcoming it:
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

(Technology can also be used to broadly suppress things, too, as a variation on amplification...)

Steve Jobs has lived with cancer for a long time. Suzanne Somers also has lived with cancer for a long time. It would seem like these are people with ideas worth exploring (even if neither may have all of the story).

See also my other comment here which has supporting links:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2424522&cid=37382624
"Actually, vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin), Iodine, and eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans are a better bet to prevent (or in some cases cure) cancer."

Another item is the work done by the author of the Rave Diet:
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html

I agree with you Google is awesome for health issues -- eventually.
http://www.ginside.com/2007/830/comics-dilbert-to-provide-google-health-plan/

And you are right to suggest people be active (or even pro-active) about understanding their own health issues. Much of our medical care system, as far as chronic disease, is broken.

It took me years of searching (and reading several books) and several false starts to find out my own health issues (including joint pain) and family health issues were caused mainly by vitamin D deficiency and vegetable deficiency disease (plus food additives etc.).

I'd suggest you keep Googling. Cancer has causes. What are the causes?
A. Challenges to your body (food additives like from processed meat but also other sources, acrylamides from typically burned or browned meat, other stuff in your environment).
B. You body's immune system's inability to cope with cancer cells that are continually popping up (as a result of challenges or randomness); that inability comes from an immune system weakened by nutritional problems like vitamin D deficiency or iodine deficiency or phytonutrient deficiency, bad stress, or other factors including lack of exercise (exercise increases lymph circulation). People are always getting cancer cells -- the issue is, does the body dispose of them?

Cancer risk can be reduced by reducing challenges (A) as well as boosting your immune system (B).

Once you have cancer, resolving it is more problematical and iffy by nutritional means, but see Dr. Fuhrman for some insights on that (he writes of successes and failures by brave people).
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
"The most recent scientific advancement in the anti-cancer research is the identification of specific foods and food elements that offer powerful protection against cancer. These foods are essential for both prevention of cancer and also increased odds of survival after diagnosis. Harmful foods and supplements have also been identified, and avoiding or minimizing these is equally as important.
Though most people would prefer to take a pill and continue their eating habits, this will not provide the desired protection. Unrefined plant foods, with their plentiful anti-cancer compounds, must be eaten in abundance to flood the body's tissues with protective substances. Vegetables and fruits protect against all types of cancers if consumed in large enough quantities. Hundreds of scientific studies document this. The most prevalent cancers in our societies are plant-food-deficiency diseases. The benefits of lifestyle changes are proportional to the changes made. As we add more vegetable servings, we increase our phytochemical intake and leave less room in our diets for harmful foods, enhancing cancer protection even further. Let's review some of these research findings and then review what a powerful, anti-cancer diet will look like. "

That is based on science.

Of course, science itself has problems as it has been corrupted by financial interests:

It's maybe more like this?
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X
http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html

Actually, vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin), Iodine, and eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans are a better bet to prevent (or in some cases cure) cancer.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
http://breastcancerchoices.org/iodine.html

Avoiding food additives and avoiding burned food (acrylamide) will help, too.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Study_finds_burning_your_food_could_cause_some_cancers

And no doubt avoiding some other toxins etc.

Exercise is a mixed bag because it tends to increase appetite (although it is good for your health for other reasons).

If you want to understand weight gain and loss, see Dr. Joel Fuhrman's writings to eat more vegetables, fruits, and beans, which, along with adequate vitamin D and some earlier fasting, have helped me lose and keep off 50 excess pounds over the last year and a half:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

How to make our communities more health-friendly
    http://www.bluezones.com/

Exercise is a mixed bag because it tends to increase appetite (although it is good for your health for other reasons).

If you want to understand weight gain and loss, see Dr. Joel Fuhrman's writings to eat more vegetables, fruits, and beans, which, along with adequate vitamin D and some earlier fasting, have helped me lose and keep off 50 excess pounds over the last year and a half:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

How to make our communities more health-friendly
    http://www.bluezones.com/

Exercise is a mixed bag because it tends to increase appetite (although it is good for your health for other reasons).

If you want to understand weight gain and loss, see Dr. Joel Fuhrman's writings to eat more vegetables, fruits, and beans, which, along with adequate vitamin D and some earlier fasting, have helped me lose and keep off 50 excess pounds over the last year and a half:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

How to make our communities more health-friendly
    http://www.bluezones.com/

It's an occupational hazard of indoor manager/coder types.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/

Vegetable deficiency disease (in part from stress) is a killer too.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

Fixing both of those issues in my own life has led to more energy and mental clarity for learning new things.

Otherwise, code monkeys are at big risk of more than bad management from eating chips, drinking soda, and working indoors, which curtails the time for learning on this plane of existence:
    "Code Monkey"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA

Exercise, good sleep, and other lifestyle issues can also contribute to having more energy and more mental capacity.
http://www.bluezones.com/

Also, there is a lot to be done for improving software projects beside code, so you might be able to push your project management skills in new directions, like discussed by David Eaves here for FOSS projects:
http://www.slideshare.net/david_a_eaves/community-management-presentation/

It's an occupational hazard of indoor manager/coder types.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/

Vegetable deficiency disease (in part from stress) is a killer too.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

Fixing both of those issues in my own life has led to more energy and mental clarity for learning new things.

Otherwise, code monkeys are at big risk of more than bad management from eating chips, drinking soda, and working indoors, which curtails the time for learning on this plane of existence:
    "Code Monkey"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA

Exercise, good sleep, and other lifestyle issues can also contribute to having more energy and more mental capacity.
http://www.bluezones.com/

Also, there is a lot to be done for improving software projects beside code, so you might be able to push your project management skills in new directions, like discussed by David Eaves here for FOSS projects:
http://www.slideshare.net/david_a_eaves/community-management-presentation/

It's an occupational hazard of indoor manager/coder types.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/

Vegetable deficiency disease (in part from stress) is a killer too.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

Fixing both of those issues in my own life has led to more energy and mental clarity for learning new things.

Otherwise, code monkeys are at big risk of more than bad management from eating chips, drinking soda, and working indoors, which curtails the time for learning on this plane of existence:
    "Code Monkey"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA

Exercise, good sleep, and other lifestyle issues can also contribute to having more energy and more mental capacity.
http://www.bluezones.com/

Also, there is a lot to be done for improving software projects beside code, so you might be able to push your project management skills in new directions, like discussed by David Eaves here for FOSS projects:
http://www.slideshare.net/david_a_eaves/community-management-presentation/

How do we decide in our society who gets to do one of the most important jobs, be a parent?

As for professional schools, see what happened 100 years ago, based on your reasoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
"One of the consequences of Flexner's advocacy of university-based medical education was that medical education became much more expensive, putting such education out of reach of all but upper-class white males. The small "proprietary" schools Flexner condemned, which were contended to be have been based in generations-old folk traditions rather than relatively recent western science, did admit African-Americans, women, and students of limited financial means. These students usually could not afford six to eight years of university education, and were often simply denied admission to medical schools affiliated with universities. While many such doctors continued to practice, they did so under proscribed circumstances and for less pay. It also made it more difficult for people of color, residents of rural areas, and for those of limited means generally to obtain medical care in any form."

That was the kind of "folk medicine" that was destroyed 100 years ago by an emphasis on bureaucratizing medicine and focusing on profit-maximizing interventions that treats and palliates instead of holistic thinking that prevents and cures.

Thanks, but no thanks.

People need feedback, but they don't need formal bureaucratic grades, which are more about social control than honest concerned feedback.

Alternatives are things like "unschooling".

Besides, much of modern medicine is quackery:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, nearly all cardiovascular surgery, and many suppliers of the biotechnology. In many cases, interventional cardiology is the major income generator to hospitals. The ending of this ill-conceived, out-dated and ineffective technology would dramatically downsize hospitals in the United States and free up over $100 billion annually in medical care costs. Besides being ineffective, interventional cardiology places the responsibility in the hands of the doctor and not the patients. When patients finally realize they must take control of their heart problems with aggressive dietary modifications (and when needed medications for temporary periods) we will essentially solve the health crisis in America.
The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions.
Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart

"I thought that if I could just bring free or very low cost t'ai chi classes to less affluent communities, it would help with some of those readily treatable diseases that were going for the most part untreated because of the expense of drugs and lack of access to health care."

Wow, that all sounds wonderful. My wife (who likes Taoism) and I tried some Tai Chi classes a long time ago and my wife liked them especially (they were a little hard for us to get to though at the time). I used to do Aikido and first had a Tai Chi class at a university, like you say. There is one local Tai Chi class not too far from where we live now, but they meet are too early in the morning for her unfortunately. She does Yoga instead though.

On health, while exercise is great for improving health overall, it has mixed results for weight loss, as active exercise tends to make people hungry. But I could imagine Tai Chi is different because it is getting you more in touch with your body, and that is one key to health and eating well.

I lost about fifty pounds (and 20+ BP points) over the last year and a half through a combination of advice similar to what Dr. Joel Fuhrman suggests (eat more vegetables fruits, and beans mainly), plus 5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily. I also much earlier did some fasting (both juice and water fasts) which Dr. Fuhrman also wrote about. But fasting really involves changing your diet to be useful, although it can be useful for resensitizing taste buds (one reasons successful major religions tend to have regular periods of fasting perhaps). I also used a treadmill workstation more in front of the computer (the treadmill sadly shorted out recently though).

Here are related links about stuff that helped me:

"How to escape The Pleasure Trap"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

"Dr. Fuhrman's Nutritarian Pyramid"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

"About vitamin D"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html

While almost everyone agrees most people in the USA need more vitamin D, there is some disagreement about optimal blood levels, and whether that would differ based on ethnicity -- it's a field that needs more research. The three vitamin D links above go from high to low recommendations (all are higher than the new US RDA for adults though).

Iodine has helped my health too (eating more seaweed especially), and supplemental omega-3s, and making green smoothies, and a good multivitamin.

Unfortunately, it can be a bit more expensive to eat this way with fruits and vegetables year round (especially organic ones, but organic is not essential even if good compared to the health benefits of vegetables over refined foods). I talked with one person working at a grocery store who was about to go in for a second heart operation about eating more vegetables, but he said they were too expensive. But insurance pays big bucks for the heart operations. It's a crazy system.

Related:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/treating-the-cause-not-the-illness/
"In 1965, in an impoverished rural county in the Mississippi Delta, the pioneering physician Jack Geiger helped found one of the nationâ(TM)s first community health centers. Many of the children Geiger treated were seriously malnourished, so he began writing âoeprescriptionsâ for food â

"I thought that if I could just bring free or very low cost t'ai chi classes to less affluent communities, it would help with some of those readily treatable diseases that were going for the most part untreated because of the expense of drugs and lack of access to health care."

Wow, that all sounds wonderful. My wife (who likes Taoism) and I tried some Tai Chi classes a long time ago and my wife liked them especially (they were a little hard for us to get to though at the time). I used to do Aikido and first had a Tai Chi class at a university, like you say. There is one local Tai Chi class not too far from where we live now, but they meet are too early in the morning for her unfortunately. She does Yoga instead though.

On health, while exercise is great for improving health overall, it has mixed results for weight loss, as active exercise tends to make people hungry. But I could imagine Tai Chi is different because it is getting you more in touch with your body, and that is one key to health and eating well.

I lost about fifty pounds (and 20+ BP points) over the last year and a half through a combination of advice similar to what Dr. Joel Fuhrman suggests (eat more vegetables fruits, and beans mainly), plus 5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily. I also much earlier did some fasting (both juice and water fasts) which Dr. Fuhrman also wrote about. But fasting really involves changing your diet to be useful, although it can be useful for resensitizing taste buds (one reasons successful major religions tend to have regular periods of fasting perhaps). I also used a treadmill workstation more in front of the computer (the treadmill sadly shorted out recently though).

Here are related links about stuff that helped me:

"How to escape The Pleasure Trap"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

"Dr. Fuhrman's Nutritarian Pyramid"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

"About vitamin D"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html

While almost everyone agrees most people in the USA need more vitamin D, there is some disagreement about optimal blood levels, and whether that would differ based on ethnicity -- it's a field that needs more research. The three vitamin D links above go from high to low recommendations (all are higher than the new US RDA for adults though).

Iodine has helped my health too (eating more seaweed especially), and supplemental omega-3s, and making green smoothies, and a good multivitamin.

Unfortunately, it can be a bit more expensive to eat this way with fruits and vegetables year round (especially organic ones, but organic is not essential even if good compared to the health benefits of vegetables over refined foods). I talked with one person working at a grocery store who was about to go in for a second heart operation about eating more vegetables, but he said they were too expensive. But insurance pays big bucks for the heart operations. It's a crazy system.

Related:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/treating-the-cause-not-the-illness/
"In 1965, in an impoverished rural county in the Mississippi Delta, the pioneering physician Jack Geiger helped found one of the nationâ(TM)s first community health centers. Many of the children Geiger treated were seriously malnourished, so he began writing âoeprescriptionsâ for food â

http://drfuhrman.com/ http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/

Fasting can help some too.

Lots of deep breathing of clean air won't hurt either.

"The problem is that government spends more than it takes it."

Due to borrow and spend conservatives launching war rackets of choice?
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Instead of tax and spend liberals who at least pay more as they go?

"Smaller government is not a bad thing."

Unless government is too small to account for externalities through taxes, subsidies, and regulation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

And so we pay in our health bills and tax bills (and even inability to eat wild-caught mercurly laden fish) on the back-end the costs we should be paying up-front at the gas pumps and electrical outlets and supermarkets, in which case renewables would have been cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s and we would not be having such a health care crisis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Or getting scammed by heart surgeons?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

And scammed by dermatologists who are causing by some estimates 30 cancers for every melanoma they prevent?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/

Due in part to lack of adequate investment in public health research?

Do US Republican generally wanting to privatize gains and socialize costs make them the worst sort of socialists?

"Also, Obama has no plan, he just criticizes other."

I agree that Obama has been a terrible president so far. He blew his chance to make big changes in the first few days by trying to negotiate with idealogues who would rather destroy the USA than lose an election. He could have just declared medicare covers anyone of any age his first day in office (as in, not enforcing age limits), and then moved on from there to ensuring everyone had a basic income (social security for all, withotu age limits) even if there are no more jobs, and moved on from there to bringing our troops home and shifting the US defense budget to the space program. :-)

Related:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
"This is no surprise, as [propertarian] libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then [propertarian] libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. ... The most fundamental problem with [propertarian] libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon's wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments. [Along with health and community.]"

And:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation"

"The problem is that government spends more than it takes it."

Due to borrow and spend conservatives launching war rackets of choice?
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Instead of tax and spend liberals who at least pay more as they go?

"Smaller government is not a bad thing."

Unless government is too small to account for externalities through taxes, subsidies, and regulation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

And so we pay in our health bills and tax bills (and even inability to eat wild-caught mercurly laden fish) on the back-end the costs we should be paying up-front at the gas pumps and electrical outlets and supermarkets, in which case renewables would have been cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s and we would not be having such a health care crisis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Or getting scammed by heart surgeons?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx

And scammed by dermatologists who are causing by some estimates 30 cancers for every melanoma they prevent?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/

Due in part to lack of adequate investment in public health research?

Do US Republican generally wanting to privatize gains and socialize costs make them the worst sort of socialists?

"Also, Obama has no plan, he just criticizes other."

I agree that Obama has been a terrible president so far. He blew his chance to make big changes in the first few days by trying to negotiate with idealogues who would rather destroy the USA than lose an election. He could have just declared medicare covers anyone of any age his first day in office (as in, not enforcing age limits), and then moved on from there to ensuring everyone had a basic income (social security for all, withotu age limits) even if there are no more jobs, and moved on from there to bringing our troops home and shifting the US defense budget to the space program. :-)

Related:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
"This is no surprise, as [propertarian] libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then [propertarian] libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. ... The most fundamental problem with [propertarian] libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon's wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments. [Along with health and community.]"

And:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation"

http://drfuhrman.com/ http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/

Fasting can help some too.

Thanks for sharing.

See also: http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
"In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation -- he calls it nature-deficit -- to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Last Child in the Woods is the first book to bring together a new and growing body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. More than just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions and simple ways to heal the broken bondâ"and many are right in our own backyard."

We have lived in the NY Adirondack Park for several years, and I can say it has had some of the same effects you describe (but not as intensely living in a house, obviously).

Being outside a lot is also a bit of a cure for vitamin D deficiency that unknowingly afflicts so many "nerds", so that might have had beneficial health effects, as might have eating more simply. See:
    "How to escape The Pleasure Trap"
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

I'd be curious how you got stranded anywhere like that these days.

Some books related to your excellent points:

"In defense of childhood: protecting kids' inner wildness"
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
"As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."

"Last Child in the Woods"
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
"In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation--he calls it nature-deficit--to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression."

"Underground History of American Education"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"A huge price had to be paid for business and government efficiency, a price we still pay in the quality of our existence. Part of what kids gave up was the prospect of being able to read very well, a historic part of the American genius. Instead, school had to train them for their role in the new overarching social system. But spare yourself the agony of thinking of this as a conspiracy. It was and is a fully rational transaction, the very epitome of rationalization engendered by a group of honorable men, all honorable men -- but with decisive help from ordinary citizens, from almost all of us as we gradually lost touch with the fact that being followers instead of leaders, becoming consumers in place of producers, rendered us incompletely human. It was a naturally occurring conspiracy, one which required no criminal genius. The real conspirators were ourselves. When we sold our liberty for the promise of automatic security, we became like children in a conspiracy against growing up, sad children who conspire against their own children, consigning them over and over to the denaturing vats of compulsory state factory schooling."

And a TED Talk:
"Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do"
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

We've taught our kid early on to use a sharp knife to cut up vegetables and fruits, in part because US emergency medicine to deal with knife injuries is far better than US medicine to deal with chronic health problems that come from not eating enough vegetables and fruits. Related:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffJAePZFg90

Unfortunately, we listened to advice from doctors to "protect" our kid (and ourselves) from the sun and ended up with vitamin D deficiency and related health issues.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions//kids_fall_short_on_vitamin_D.aspx

We're slowly learning. There is a l

While what you say is true in general, vitamin D specifically is a much bigger deal than that. One example of recent research:
"Vitamin D 'triggers and arms' the immune system: Vitamin D is crucial to the fending off of infections, claims new research."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html

That is about infection, but related processes may be at work related to dealing with cancer. Humans are just not adapted to spending all day in a cave and then moving from cave to cave in enclosed boxes. But that is pretty much how most people now live in the 21st century in industrialized countries most of the time. Other things like autism may be related to vitamin D deficiency (in part), too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

Humans are also just not adapted to eating so few vegetables.

See also, for how to retune your taste buds:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap! By Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C., Authors of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Huge nutritional and psychological breakthroughs are happening, but it seems people don't want to pay attention because of lifestyle issues related to fears about dietary changes. Last year I tried to give a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat for Health" to a couple, but they refused it saying they had a lot of "cookbooks" already. Recently, one of them had a painful medical procedure (angioplasty/stenting) costing at great expense (presumably covered by insurance) but avoidable with aggressive nutritional intervention (which would have been free and mostly painless after a taste adjustment period of a few weeks).

See:
"Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty and Stent Placement is Essentially Worthless"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918.
Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, ne

While what you say is true in general, vitamin D specifically is a much bigger deal than that. One example of recent research:
"Vitamin D 'triggers and arms' the immune system: Vitamin D is crucial to the fending off of infections, claims new research."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html

That is about infection, but related processes may be at work related to dealing with cancer. Humans are just not adapted to spending all day in a cave and then moving from cave to cave in enclosed boxes. But that is pretty much how most people now live in the 21st century in industrialized countries most of the time. Other things like autism may be related to vitamin D deficiency (in part), too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

Humans are also just not adapted to eating so few vegetables.

See also, for how to retune your taste buds:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap! By Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C., Authors of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Huge nutritional and psychological breakthroughs are happening, but it seems people don't want to pay attention because of lifestyle issues related to fears about dietary changes. Last year I tried to give a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat for Health" to a couple, but they refused it saying they had a lot of "cookbooks" already. Recently, one of them had a painful medical procedure (angioplasty/stenting) costing at great expense (presumably covered by insurance) but avoidable with aggressive nutritional intervention (which would have been free and mostly painless after a taste adjustment period of a few weeks).

See:
"Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty and Stent Placement is Essentially Worthless"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918.
Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, ne

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
"According to the CDC, only one-third of U.S. adults eat two or more servings of fruit per day, and only one-quarter of adults eat three or more servings of vegetables per day. These minimal amounts cannot be expected to provide disease protection. I recommend a far more substantial intake of fruits and vegetables with 90 percent of calories coming from nutrient rich plant material, lots of it raw and green. I recommend about two pounds of vegetables and at least 4 fresh fruits per day. Most importantly, attention should be paid to the highly cancer-protective plant foods, greens, onion, berries, beans and seeds. ... The most recent scientific advancement in the anti-cancer research is the identification of specific foods and food elements that offer powerful protection against cancer. These foods are essential for both prevention of cancer and also increased odds of survival after diagnosis. Harmful foods and supplements have also been identified, and avoiding or minimizing these is equally as important. ... All vegetables are not equally protective. Epidemiological studies suggest that cruciferous vegetables, onions, and mushrooms are far more protective against cancer than vegetables overall - inverse relationships between cruciferous vegetable intake and breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers have been found. For example, in one prospective study, one or more servings per week of cabbage reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 38% This was only one serving a week, which demonstrates that dramatic protection is available and real when a diet is ideally designed. The regular consumption of mushrooms has been demonstrated to decrease risk of breast cancer by over 60 percent. Onions, berries, seeds and beans also have dramatic beneficial effects. Beans in general, not just soy, are beneficial for protecting against reproductive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/study-vitamin-d-kills-cancer-cells/story?id=9904415
"Doctors have known that low levels of vitamin D are linked to certain kinds of cancers as well as to diabetes and asthma, but new research also shows that the vitamin can kill human cancer cells. The results fall short of an immediate cancer cure, but they are encouraging, medical professionals say. JoEllen Welsh, a researcher with the State University of New York at Albany, has studied the effects of vitamin D for 25 years. Part of her research involves taking human breast cancer cells and treating them with a potent form of vitamin D. Within a few days, half the cancer cells shriveled up and died. Welsh said the vitamin has the same effect as a drug used for breast cancer treatment. "What happens is that vitamin D enters the cells and triggers the cell death process," she told "Good Morning America." "It's similar to what we see when we treat cells with Tamoxifen," a drug used to treat breast cancer. "

You can either get your chemotherapy every day from the phytonutrients in vegetables, fruits, and beans, and also vitamin D, or you can pay some oncologist a lot of money when you are older for iffy results.

First off, you are not clear about what percentage of petroleum becomes plastics and lubricants, and what is burned. I'd suggest the part used for products is relatively small. One example:
    http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/770859.html
"The manufacture of all plastics consumed approximately three percent of the total petroleum used in the US in 1997, and PS production comprised approximately .002 percent of that amount. Comparatively, 71 percent of total petroleum used in the US is used for gasoline, jet, and diesel fuel, and 26 percent for the production of asphalt, oils and lubricants."

Most drugs are essentially a scam anyway, compared to eating better:
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Also, plastics and many other products including lubricants can be derived from other sources, such as plants, and things can be redesigned with magnetic bearings to reduce lubrication needs. Example:
    http://www.maglevwindturbine.com/

Asphalt can be replaced at possibly less cost by solar roadways:
    http://www.solarroadways.com/

I've worked a bit over the years towards systems that would help people figure out how to do that:
    http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

So, we have lots of options. We don't have to pollute or otherwise destroy our world for the reasons you suggest. We have plenty of alternatives.

That said, I'm not going to disagree that you make a good point about integrated systems. But your tone suggests you have not really looked into alternatives. Why is that?

http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
"When it comes to combating heart disease, most information sources promote drugs and surgery as the only viable lines of defense. As a result, the demand for high-tech, expensive and largely ineffective medical care is overwhelming, causing medical costs and insurance rates to skyrocket. This chase for 'cures' is both financially devastating and futile. Morbidity and premature mortality from heart disease continue to rise with no sign of abating. Interventional cardiology offers only partial benefits, since these procedures do not remove the causes of the problem. Attempts to intervene with invasive procedures or surgery after the damage already has been done have not been shown to offer a significant reduction in cardiac deaths.

We need to keep in mind that angioplasty and bypass surgery have some significant adverse outcomes, including heart attacks, stroke and death. These invasive procedures only attempt to treat a small segment of the diseased heart, usually with only temporary benefit. Patients treated with angioplasty and bypass surgery continue to experience progressive disability, and most still die prematurely as a result of their heart disease.

The average person is not aware that there are safer, more effective options available. Unfortunately, government agencies are often slow to respond to new scientific information and continue to advocate outdated recommendations. Economic and political forces also make it difficult for Americans to be clearly informed that heart disease is self-induced and totally avoidable by eating a diet of nutritional excellence.

Making significant dietary changes allows people who suffer with coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, overweight or obesity and/or high blood pressure to reduce and to eliminate their dependence on medications, avoiding major surgeries such as heart bypass and angioplasty.

You cannot expect our government or national health organizations to give effective guidance. They must offer a standard approach designed for political acceptance. For example, six of the eleven members, including the chairman of the USDA's Dietary Guidelines Committee in the year 2000, had financial ties to the meat, dairy and egg industries. Not surprisingly, the foods these industries produce figures prominently in government dietary recommendations in spite of their documented links to increased health risks. Similar problems exist in recommendations by non-profit health organizations. Sadly, even the American Heart Association (AHA) advocates a diet that actually has been shown to increase heart disease.1"
====
I wish I had know this cheap and effective advice years ago before my father had an angioplasty for a clog and then had a heart attack a few months later as it clogged bakc up again... He might still be here today. Instead, some cardiologists got to make a lot of money off of his suffering.

Thanks for your reply.

Another complexity:
http://newhope360.com/food/stressed-plants-could-create-next-gen-functional-foods-say-usda-experts
"Compounds extracted from plants exposed to stressful conditions could be used to create a powerful new generation of functional foods, according to scientists.
Advertisement
A research team from the US Department of Agriculture said that these substances â" known as phytoalexins â" were naturally induced in plants as a defence mechanism against stress or fungal attack. They could also be prompted to appear using elicitor treatment and other stress inducing techniques.
In a paper published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the scientists said that although phytoalexins had been investigated for their possible role in plant defence, until recently they had gone unexplored as nutritional components in human foods."

It's been argued by organic farmers that somewhat chewed on plants are going to be healthier for humans to eat if we are adapted to make use of these compounds. This is a potential problem with plants grown under optimal conditions in greenhouses, too.

It comes down to budget. If the plant has been bred or genetically engineered (and much of this is just conventional breeding) to put its resources into starch and sugar then it is going to be a weaker and less generally nutritious plant. I could believe what you say, that genetic engineers are not "intentionally" crippling plants, at least not any more so than conventional breeding. But the fact remains that we are still left with breeds, conventional or GMO, that are in many ways less healthy to eat. In general, nature has already created fairly optimal plants (it seems). Messing with that can push around things like risk, but you end up making tradeoffs. That may not be completely true, because look at the wonderful crops we have now from 1000s of years of breeding, but in general, it seems there may be no way to make everything better in a plant while not losing some other essential quality we may not even appreciate yet. How many phytonutrients do we really understand yet, as Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
"Nutritional science in the last twenty years has demonstrated that colorful plant foods contain a huge assortment of protective compounds, mostly of which still remain unnamed. Only by eating an assortment of nutrient-rich natural foods can we access these protective compounds and prevent the common diseases that afflict Americans. Our modern, low-nutrient eating style has led to an overweight population, the majority of whom develop diseases of nutritional ignorance, causing our medical costs to spiral out of control. "

Monoculture agriculture (whether GMO or conventional) may produce other problems in practice, though sometimes complicated by GMO initiatives:
http://www.biotech-info.net/blind_rice.html
"The genetic engineering of Vitamin A rice deepens the genetic reductionism of the Green Revolution. Instead of millions of farmers breeding and growing thousands of crop varieties to adapt to diverse ecosystems and diverse food systems, the Green Revolution reduced agriculture to a few varieties of a few crops (mainly rice, wheat and maize) bred in one centralised research centre (IRRI for rice and CIMMYT for wheat and maize). The Green Revolution led to massive genetic erosion in farmers fields and knowledge, erosion among farming communities, besides leading to large scale environmental pollution due to use of toxic agrichemicals and wasteful use of water. "

Sometimes GMOs are taking the heat for a larger frustration with monoculture farming....

Humans have been co-evolv

As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says, overally coffee is bad for you because of the caffeine (and also maybe how it is produced if it is decaffinated and also based on what it may be mixed with, like milk products that can themselves contribute to cancer). The reason people are seeing these benefits is that most people in the Western world are suffering from vegetable deficiency disease, because humans are adapted to get the bulk of our calories from leafy greens, and we use the phytochemicals from living plants in all sorts of ways to defend against cancer and inflammation and repair broken cells and so on. So, the reason we see these positive results from coffee drinking tend to be because people otherwise don't eat enough beans of other sorts, as well as leafy greens and so on.

See also:
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And:
    "Should I drink coffee?"
    http://drfuhrman.com/faq/question.aspx?sid=16&qindex=0
"Although one cup of coffee per day is not likely to cause any significant health problems, it is clear that excessive consumption of caffeinated beverages is dangerous. Coffee is known to contribute to heart disease by raising blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, and homocysteine.(1,2) Caffeine addicts with excessive consumption are also at higher risk of cardiac arrhythmias that could cause sudden death.(3)"

As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says, overally coffee is bad for you because of the caffeine (and also maybe how it is produced if it is decaffinated and also based on what it may be mixed with, like milk products that can themselves contribute to cancer). The reason people are seeing these benefits is that most people in the Western world are suffering from vegetable deficiency disease, because humans are adapted to get the bulk of our calories from leafy greens, and we use the phytochemicals from living plants in all sorts of ways to defend against cancer and inflammation and repair broken cells and so on. So, the reason we see these positive results from coffee drinking tend to be because people otherwise don't eat enough beans of other sorts, as well as leafy greens and so on.

See also:
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And:
    "Should I drink coffee?"
    http://drfuhrman.com/faq/question.aspx?sid=16&qindex=0
"Although one cup of coffee per day is not likely to cause any significant health problems, it is clear that excessive consumption of caffeinated beverages is dangerous. Coffee is known to contribute to heart disease by raising blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, and homocysteine.(1,2) Caffeine addicts with excessive consumption are also at higher risk of cardiac arrhythmias that could cause sudden death.(3)"

And get probably 75% of medical issues diagnosed and cured, as they are mostly nutritional deficiencies... :-)
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
    http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

Sure, Omega-3s and Iodine are important too:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
    http://www.iodine4health.com/
    http://www.bluezones.com/

As is a good night's sleep, friends, family, a connection to that which is beyond us, meaningful work, daily exercise walking and such, and that kind of stuff. And obviously avoid smoking, excessive alcohol, and obvious environmental toxins at work and play.

The focus on magic bullets is unfortunate. As is a focus on diagnosing things like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes that are mainly signs of vegetable deficiency disease and lack of vitamin D (and to a lesser extent those other issues). Most health rests on the basics. It's true that there are exotic genetic diseases and so on, but what causes the most chronic misery and early death in the industrialized words is these basic nutritional (and sunlight) problems.

Still, for cheap testing, this may be the future through using a paper-with-chemicals test and a cell phone, and such tests could help detect nutritional deficiencies:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_a_lab_the_size_of_a_postage_stamp.html

Of course, there is not much profit in actually preventing or curing disease, so most of the money pours into diagnosing and treating what are really symptoms of nutritional and lifestyle disorders... It's been that way in part since the misguided Flexner Report:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

But yes, this is still a great initiative -- even if it misses the obvious. But there is so little that is obvious (as is said in the Skills of Xanadu): :-)
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

And of course, in our widely dysfunctional and dying culture, where people mostly eat either long dead carrion (aged factory farmed meat) or ground up long-dead plants (flour and sugar), and much of our entire cultural socio-economic infrastructure is geared around getting everyone to embrace this death-eater cult, it is no metaphorical surprise that the result of being a death eater is that you die early... Related:
    http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
    http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html

Do you really need a "tricorder" to diagnose death-eater disease?

And get probably 75% of medical issues diagnosed and cured, as they are mostly nutritional deficiencies... :-)
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
    http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

Sure, Omega-3s and Iodine are important too:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
    http://www.iodine4health.com/
    http://www.bluezones.com/

As is a good night's sleep, friends, family, a connection to that which is beyond us, meaningful work, daily exercise walking and such, and that kind of stuff. And obviously avoid smoking, excessive alcohol, and obvious environmental toxins at work and play.

The focus on magic bullets is unfortunate. As is a focus on diagnosing things like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes that are mainly signs of vegetable deficiency disease and lack of vitamin D (and to a lesser extent those other issues). Most health rests on the basics. It's true that there are exotic genetic diseases and so on, but what causes the most chronic misery and early death in the industrialized words is these basic nutritional (and sunlight) problems.

Still, for cheap testing, this may be the future through using a paper-with-chemicals test and a cell phone, and such tests could help detect nutritional deficiencies:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_a_lab_the_size_of_a_postage_stamp.html

Of course, there is not much profit in actually preventing or curing disease, so most of the money pours into diagnosing and treating what are really symptoms of nutritional and lifestyle disorders... It's been that way in part since the misguided Flexner Report:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

But yes, this is still a great initiative -- even if it misses the obvious. But there is so little that is obvious (as is said in the Skills of Xanadu): :-)
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

And of course, in our widely dysfunctional and dying culture, where people mostly eat either long dead carrion (aged factory farmed meat) or ground up long-dead plants (flour and sugar), and much of our entire cultural socio-economic infrastructure is geared around getting everyone to embrace this death-eater cult, it is no metaphorical surprise that the result of being a death eater is that you die early... Related:
    http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
    http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html

Do you really need a "tricorder" to diagnose death-eater disease?

The "back to sleep" campaign for infants aims to prevent a terrible tragedy of two in a thousand infants dying suddenly in their sleep for reasons as not yet full understood (and this practice supposedly cuts that rate of sudden infant death syndrome - SIDS -- in about half).
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/

Basically, the entire process involves making infants uncomfortable -- put them on their backs instead of their stomachs, don't cover them, keep the room cold, don't co-sleep with them, and other things. But it is accepted that this distorts the backs of children's heads to be flatter, and also delays crawling development by a month or two in many children. If this was side-effects from a drug prescribed, we might question it more.

To be clear, I think it is worth to think about preventing SIDS, but one needs to ask about the costs in flattened heads and delayed developmental milestones to the other 998 out of 1000 babies. As someone else told us, the road to genius starts on the belly. We followed this back to sleep advice for our child and I regret it, especially as our child had trouble sleeping a lot in the first place, and following this well-meant advice probably just made that all worse.

Other bad advice from the medical establishment has been to avoid the sun, which has led to widespread vitamin D deficiency probably leading to increased autism rates and other health issues.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201104/autism-and-vitamin-d/

Again, we made the mistake of following well-meant advice by medical practicioners to avoid the sun and had serious health consequences from that.

Ironically, the lack of sunlight seems also to have increased melanoma rates, since vitamin D helps in the immune system destroying cancer. Ways to avoid that:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

The four food groups was another scam that has lead to a lot of bad health. Better advice:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But these sorts of bad advice by the medical establishment have been great boons to mattress manufactures, the processed foods and animal products industries, and the medical industry.

Iodine may be another similar issue:
http://www.lmreview.com/articles/view/iodine-the-next-vitamin-d-part-I/

Remember, doctors used to recommend smoking and push infant formula, too. Example:
http://www.old-time.com/commercials/1940's/More%20Doctors%20Smoke%20Camels.html

And they helped cretae institutions that persecuted those who suggested otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/shelton.bio.bidwell.htm

Vaccinations are another problematical area where it is not always clear the risk is worth the rewards for specific vaccines, or that with all the conflicts of interest involved one can know who to really believe on all that. The story on the influenza vaccine's value keeps changing, for example. As I quote here:

The "back to sleep" campaign for infants aims to prevent a terrible tragedy of two in a thousand infants dying suddenly in their sleep for reasons as not yet full understood (and this practice supposedly cuts that rate of sudden infant death syndrome - SIDS -- in about half).
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/

Basically, the entire process involves making infants uncomfortable -- put them on their backs instead of their stomachs, don't cover them, keep the room cold, don't co-sleep with them, and other things. But it is accepted that this distorts the backs of children's heads to be flatter, and also delays crawling development by a month or two in many children. If this was side-effects from a drug prescribed, we might question it more.

To be clear, I think it is worth to think about preventing SIDS, but one needs to ask about the costs in flattened heads and delayed developmental milestones to the other 998 out of 1000 babies. As someone else told us, the road to genius starts on the belly. We followed this back to sleep advice for our child and I regret it, especially as our child had trouble sleeping a lot in the first place, and following this well-meant advice probably just made that all worse.

Other bad advice from the medical establishment has been to avoid the sun, which has led to widespread vitamin D deficiency probably leading to increased autism rates and other health issues.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201104/autism-and-vitamin-d/

Again, we made the mistake of following well-meant advice by medical practicioners to avoid the sun and had serious health consequences from that.

Ironically, the lack of sunlight seems also to have increased melanoma rates, since vitamin D helps in the immune system destroying cancer. Ways to avoid that:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

The four food groups was another scam that has lead to a lot of bad health. Better advice:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But these sorts of bad advice by the medical establishment have been great boons to mattress manufactures, the processed foods and animal products industries, and the medical industry.

Iodine may be another similar issue:
http://www.lmreview.com/articles/view/iodine-the-next-vitamin-d-part-I/

Remember, doctors used to recommend smoking and push infant formula, too. Example:
http://www.old-time.com/commercials/1940's/More%20Doctors%20Smoke%20Camels.html

And they helped cretae institutions that persecuted those who suggested otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/shelton.bio.bidwell.htm

Vaccinations are another problematical area where it is not always clear the risk is worth the rewards for specific vaccines, or that with all the conflicts of interest involved one can know who to really believe on all that. The story on the influenza vaccine's value keeps changing, for example. As I quote here:

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/IMT_EndoPAT.aspx
"Traditional testing such as angiography and stress tests only measure blockages in the arteries and will miss non-obstructing vulnerable plaques which are the cause of the majority of heart attacks and strokes. ...
    Intima-media thickness (IMT) scanning uses ultrasound technology and is a simple procedure that is noninvasive, painless, and free of radiation. It can predict risk of heart attack or stroke better than an angiogram. IMT is measured by taking pictures of your carotid artery using an ultrasound probe on your neck. This measurement predicts your risk of a future heart attack or stroke.
    Assessing endothelial dysfunction with an EndoPAT machine is also very helpful in that it will pick up the earliest stages of cardiovascular disease. It also is simple, noninvasive, and involves no radiation. Sensors are placed on your fingers which measure the dilation of the blood vessels in your fingers while a blood pressure cuff on your arm inflates and deflates.
    By using the results of these tests in combination with a medical history, physical exam and blood work physicians are able to more accurately assess risk without the risks of traditional testing methods."

See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=143
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-cardiovascular-disease.html

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/IMT_EndoPAT.aspx
"Traditional testing such as angiography and stress tests only measure blockages in the arteries and will miss non-obstructing vulnerable plaques which are the cause of the majority of heart attacks and strokes. ...
    Intima-media thickness (IMT) scanning uses ultrasound technology and is a simple procedure that is noninvasive, painless, and free of radiation. It can predict risk of heart attack or stroke better than an angiogram. IMT is measured by taking pictures of your carotid artery using an ultrasound probe on your neck. This measurement predicts your risk of a future heart attack or stroke.
    Assessing endothelial dysfunction with an EndoPAT machine is also very helpful in that it will pick up the earliest stages of cardiovascular disease. It also is simple, noninvasive, and involves no radiation. Sensors are placed on your fingers which measure the dilation of the blood vessels in your fingers while a blood pressure cuff on your arm inflates and deflates.
    By using the results of these tests in combination with a medical history, physical exam and blood work physicians are able to more accurately assess risk without the risks of traditional testing methods."

See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=143
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-cardiovascular-disease.html

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/IMT_EndoPAT.aspx
"Traditional testing such as angiography and stress tests only measure blockages in the arteries and will miss non-obstructing vulnerable plaques which are the cause of the majority of heart attacks and strokes. ...
    Intima-media thickness (IMT) scanning uses ultrasound technology and is a simple procedure that is noninvasive, painless, and free of radiation. It can predict risk of heart attack or stroke better than an angiogram. IMT is measured by taking pictures of your carotid artery using an ultrasound probe on your neck. This measurement predicts your risk of a future heart attack or stroke.
    Assessing endothelial dysfunction with an EndoPAT machine is also very helpful in that it will pick up the earliest stages of cardiovascular disease. It also is simple, noninvasive, and involves no radiation. Sensors are placed on your fingers which measure the dilation of the blood vessels in your fingers while a blood pressure cuff on your arm inflates and deflates.
    By using the results of these tests in combination with a medical history, physical exam and blood work physicians are able to more accurately assess risk without the risks of traditional testing methods."

See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=143
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-cardiovascular-disease.html

http://www.textfiles.com/news/hackpape.hac
"As much as an essay, this is a story. It is a true story of people paying $9,000 a year to lose elements of their humanity. It is a story of the breaking of wills and of people. It is a story of addictions, and of misplaced values. In a large part, it is my own story. ... In the middle of Stanford University there is a large concrete- and-glass building filled with computer terminals. When one enters this building through the glass doors, one steps into a different culture. Fifty people stare at terminal screens. Fifty faces connected to 50 bodies, connected to 50 sets of fingers that pound on 50 keyboards ultimately linked to a computer. If you go further inside, you can discover the true addicts: the members of the Establishment. These are the people who spend their lives with computers and fellow "hackers". These are the members of a subculture so foreign to most outsiders that it not only walls itself off but is walled off, in turn, by those who cannot understand it. The wall is built from both sides at once. ... Even if we ignore the costs to society as a whole, we have to look at the costs to the people involved. The computer is a modifier of personalities. It is highly addictive. People who gain this addiction for a period of several months tend never to give it up. And the symptoms are very sad. ..."

That was from 1980, when I first read it in high school (on a timeshared computer terminal. :-) It was a good warning, even as it ignores that certain types of people (especially introverts) may be more attracted to certain forms of activity, whether as a bookworm or a hacker. Too bad it did not mention vitamin D deficiency disease and vegetable deficiency disease and the need for treadmill workstations (among other good things it does say. :-)

See also:
    "Supernormal stimuli: how primal urges overran their evolutionary purpose"
    http://books.google.com/books?id=HQlg3rQquUoC

And:
    "How to escape The Pleasure Trap !"
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

And:
    "Rat Park: A study on the role of stress as the cause of addictive-seeming behavior"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Thanks for the reply. Putting in VItamin D and CVID into Google gets me this as a top result:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18451650
"Patients with CVID may present asymptomatic vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D and VDRs play an important role in the innate immune system and modulate Toll-like receptor-related responses. Delay in diagnosis may predispose these patients not only to irreparable bone loss but also to infections, and autoimmune and malignant disorders, thus emphasizing the importance of prompt intervention."

As a start, be sure to get your Vitamin D level checked, and get the actual number, and compare it against these two suggestions (the 40-60 ng/mL range):
    http://www.grassrootshealth.net/
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
    http://www.heartscanblog.org/2009/01/why-rda-for-vitamin-d.html

A slightly lower target:
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx

Basically, your immune system needs vitamin D to "trigger and arm" the immune system:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html

But, it also needs vitamin D to shut down an excessive immune response too (thus it can be involved in both too little and too much immune response). More on that:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/h1n1-flu-and-vitamin-d.shtml

And of course you need the basic phytonutrients from plants (many as yet undiscovered) for your body to be at its best.

Anyway, your health may well involve other issues. Still, what people often call "genetic" is really an issue of how genes interact with an environment (including what we eat and how much sunlight we get) and if we can change the environment, sometimes we can keep our weak links from ever being exposed (Dr. Fuhrman says that in his book "Eat to Live").

If I said anything helpful to you, I'm glad, and you can pay me back by helping someone else with such information or something else someday. :-)

For both of you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ALS+vitamin+d
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/general-discussion-about-als-mnd/9472-vitamin-d.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/als-aka-lou-gehrigs-disease/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

And good fats like Algal-based Omega-3s (also avocado, and nuts and seeds if not allergic):
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5979.html

Good luck.

For both of you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ALS+vitamin+d
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/general-discussion-about-als-mnd/9472-vitamin-d.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/als-aka-lou-gehrigs-disease/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

And good fats like Algal-based Omega-3s (also avocado, and nuts and seeds if not allergic):
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5979.html

Good luck.

For both of you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ALS+vitamin+d
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/general-discussion-about-als-mnd/9472-vitamin-d.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/als-aka-lou-gehrigs-disease/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

And good fats like Algal-based Omega-3s (also avocado, and nuts and seeds if not allergic):
http://www.alsforums.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5979.html

Good luck.

Well said!

See also:

Plans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Cars:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Agriculture:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But, with all that said, the same sorts of reasons solar energy is getting better (better materials, better designs, better discussions, better insights into physics) is the same reason small scale nuclear is getting better (even as I would agree solar is safer and more decentralized than conventional nuclear). And example of small nuclear:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Related case for nuclear power:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/

Let's say, in a moderate worse case in Japan that 100,000 people die from some nuclear radiation accident and the clean up cost a couple trillion dollars. Nuclear power still might have been cheaper in Japan, all things considered, than coal which causes a lot of pollution and related illness.

Would it have been cheaper in that sense than solar and wind? Probably not...

Still, given this is the worst quake to have hit Japan in a century, and the nuclear plants are not being talked about as having total meltdowns, this event itself might prove how safe they can be in some situations.

Of course, dealing with direct terrorism intended to cause them to malfunction may be a different issue, but many major industrial facilities, like at Bhopal, have that risk. And ideas like Hyperion help reduce that risk. Ultimately, if we try harder to make our global economy work for everyone, we might have less fears that people will commit terrorism because the hate us because we support their oppressors for various reasons...

On economic transformation, see:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

BTW, an example of perhaps cold fusion (still needs more confirmation):
http://pesn.com/2011/03/07/9501782_Cold_Fusion_Steams_Ahead_at_Worlds_Oldest_University/

Personally, I want to be able to print solar panels in a solar-powered 3D printer. :-)

Well said!

See also:

Plans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Cars:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Agriculture:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But, with all that said, the same sorts of reasons solar energy is getting better (better materials, better designs, better discussions, better insights into physics) is the same reason small scale nuclear is getting better (even as I would agree solar is safer and more decentralized than conventional nuclear). And example of small nuclear:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Related case for nuclear power:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/

Let's say, in a moderate worse case in Japan that 100,000 people die from some nuclear radiation accident and the clean up cost a couple trillion dollars. Nuclear power still might have been cheaper in Japan, all things considered, than coal which causes a lot of pollution and related illness.

Would it have been cheaper in that sense than solar and wind? Probably not...

Still, given this is the worst quake to have hit Japan in a century, and the nuclear plants are not being talked about as having total meltdowns, this event itself might prove how safe they can be in some situations.

Of course, dealing with direct terrorism intended to cause them to malfunction may be a different issue, but many major industrial facilities, like at Bhopal, have that risk. And ideas like Hyperion help reduce that risk. Ultimately, if we try harder to make our global economy work for everyone, we might have less fears that people will commit terrorism because the hate us because we support their oppressors for various reasons...

On economic transformation, see:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

BTW, an example of perhaps cold fusion (still needs more confirmation):
http://pesn.com/2011/03/07/9501782_Cold_Fusion_Steams_Ahead_at_Worlds_Oldest_University/

Personally, I want to be able to print solar panels in a solar-powered 3D printer. :-)

http://remineralize.org/

And such fertilizer produces healthier plants that need less pesticides.

"Biodegradable plastic made from plants, not oil, is emerging"
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/2008-12-25-biodegradable-plastic_N.htm

"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

"More energy goes into making gasoline from electricity and natural gas than it would take to make electric cars go the same distance"
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

Other approaches to all renewables:
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

Given the exponetial growth of renewable energy, and how PV solar panels are about to reach grid parity and the prices will continue to drop, I think we will be all renewables by about 2030 from market forces alone at this point. (Unless cold fusion pans out, or if small scale nuclear like Hyperion gets popular.)

Three quarters of US agricultural production also just goes to produce livestock, and the health consequences of too much animal products are harming people's health, too, so we really don't need most of the fertilizer we produce.
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html

How to deal with the economic consequences of all this increased efficiency:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360&cpage=6#comment-20270
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/more-on-the-future-implications-ibm-watson-technology/#comment-534

I'm sorry, but there is a link between nutrition and many chronic diseases. And it's not just about "boosting" the immune system, but also about having a "smarter" immune system that knows better when to turn itself on and off in different situations.

  Other sources on curing type-2 diabetes with diet in a matter of days in most cases:
    http://www.rawfor30days.com/index4.html
    http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
If you study the science, you will see why. The combination of removal of refined carbohydrates, plus significant eventual weight loss, puts the body back into a range where it can produce enough insulin on its own (with less insulin resistance due to less fat) that the body can manage itself again (in most cases of type-2).

Dr. Fuhrman is not a "questionable source". He is a board certified family practice doctor, author of numerous books, has a published study to show his successes, and has been on numerous media shows, and so on. His work is probably the best scientifically footnoted recommendation of anyone in the field of health and nutrition.

His advice is easier to follow when you also read this:
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

As for Lupus or Herpes, I can only point to what he says:
    http://drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
"As long as you are still breathing, it is still possible to improve your health with improvements in lifestyle and nutrition. It is typical for people to see a variety of great changes when they adopt the high, nutrient diet-style which I recommend. Besides reaching an ideal weight and lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, other problems are resolved too. For example, it is common for those with attacks of recurrent herpes to stop experiencing attacks. Those with indigestion and reflux don’t need their acid-suppression therapy anymore. People stop getting hemmorhoids. Their body odor improves. They have better stamina and think more clearly, and their skin tone and color improves."

If you don't want to explore that, well, that's certainly your choice. There is a lot of misinformation and conflict of interest out there and it is hard to wade through it. And no one can guarantee results.

But the logic is there -- immune system health is effected by things like vitamin D status and vegetable and fruit consumption (and probiotics and good sleep and humor and so on). That fact is undeniable based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, even with most scientific money going in to prove magic bullet drugs and ignoring basic nutrition.

Nutrition matters. Other things matter as well, of course.

If you do even the tiniest bit of research yourself, you will see the connection.
http://www.google.com/search?q=immune+system+nutrition

As I've said before, unfortunately, a focus on magic bullets often distracts us from the basics. And the meat, dairy, processed corn, and big pharma companies are in no hurry to tell us any different (even though each can sometimes be part of a healthy life etc.).

I'm sorry, but there is a link between nutrition and many chronic diseases. And it's not just about "boosting" the immune system, but also about having a "smarter" immune system that knows better when to turn itself on and off in different situations.

  Other sources on curing type-2 diabetes with diet in a matter of days in most cases:
    http://www.rawfor30days.com/index4.html
    http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
If you study the science, you will see why. The combination of removal of refined carbohydrates, plus significant eventual weight loss, puts the body back into a range where it can produce enough insulin on its own (with less insulin resistance due to less fat) that the body can manage itself again (in most cases of type-2).

Dr. Fuhrman is not a "questionable source". He is a board certified family practice doctor, author of numerous books, has a published study to show his successes, and has been on numerous media shows, and so on. His work is probably the best scientifically footnoted recommendation of anyone in the field of health and nutrition.

His advice is easier to follow when you also read this:
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

As for Lupus or Herpes, I can only point to what he says:
    http://drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
"As long as you are still breathing, it is still possible to improve your health with improvements in lifestyle and nutrition. It is typical for people to see a variety of great changes when they adopt the high, nutrient diet-style which I recommend. Besides reaching an ideal weight and lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, other problems are resolved too. For example, it is common for those with attacks of recurrent herpes to stop experiencing attacks. Those with indigestion and reflux don’t need their acid-suppression therapy anymore. People stop getting hemmorhoids. Their body odor improves. They have better stamina and think more clearly, and their skin tone and color improves."

If you don't want to explore that, well, that's certainly your choice. There is a lot of misinformation and conflict of interest out there and it is hard to wade through it. And no one can guarantee results.

But the logic is there -- immune system health is effected by things like vitamin D status and vegetable and fruit consumption (and probiotics and good sleep and humor and so on). That fact is undeniable based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, even with most scientific money going in to prove magic bullet drugs and ignoring basic nutrition.

Nutrition matters. Other things matter as well, of course.

If you do even the tiniest bit of research yourself, you will see the connection.
http://www.google.com/search?q=immune+system+nutrition

As I've said before, unfortunately, a focus on magic bullets often distracts us from the basics. And the meat, dairy, processed corn, and big pharma companies are in no hurry to tell us any different (even though each can sometimes be part of a healthy life etc.).