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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> Dr. Terry Wahls, "Minding Your Mitochondria":

She needs some reputation management, because at the moment there's a bunch of flags that make her sound less than reputable.

1) "Mitochondra" - unless this is a peer reviewed respected journal most people using htis word are cranks.

2) TEDx - Sadly, now tainted as home of cranks.

3) Cured MS through diet - ridiculous claim

etc etc.

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I would appreciate it you'd elaborate on your first point about mitochondria here. I'm intrigued to find out why this term is highly suspicious. Are there other organelles that are less crank-like to you?

Maybe he was thinking of midi-chlorians? Those are totally legit when they show up in a peer-reviewed journal.

Cellular organs are a pretty untouchable class of things for anything humans are going to do on a macro-scale. If you're proposing to achieve a big effect from say, a diet, then focusing on more then 1 bodily component is suspicious because there's a huge range of barriers you need to get through to get to it (without damaging, generally).

There are lots of drugs, for example, which are useless because although they target the right protein and have the desired effect they can't actually get to it via normal metabolism and the like.

The word mitochondria is just a personal flag, a smell, that I use as part of a warning.

Mitochondria raise flags because of people like the UK Dr Ruth Myhill. She claims to be a researcher on chronic fatigue syndrome. CFS is real, but sadly is an area rife with cranks. Myhill appears to have a lot of crank-like beliefs. Her "research" is hopeless, and amounts to unlicensed unethical experimentation on desperate people.

I guess, although I have no supporting evidence, that the word mitochondria is used more often by cranks than other organelles.

Mitochondria are pretty important (as is most of the junk in our cells for that matter). I'd be less wary of the use of mitochondria in popular science - it's shorthand for talking about the energy metabolism pathway, and doesn't indicate one way or another whether we're looking in the right spot for the causes for particular diseases / syndromes.

On a tangential note, I haven't read it, but http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21792218 might be an interesting review on CFS. Also, I assume you are referring to Sarah Myhill rather than her daughter.

Why is 3 a ridiculous claim? I agree that there should be evidence presented that the demyelination of MS has been reversed, but why do the words "Cured MS through diet" alone constitute a "ridiculous claim"?

There is no cure for MS, so if the video does make that claim, it's pretty ridiculous.

It's the equivalent of saying you could cure cancer with diet.

You can cure cancer with diet, along with generally healthy living. "Cure" perhaps isn't the best word though, because bad diet (combined with other things like stress, lack of exercise, etc.) is frequently the cause of cancer in the first place.

EDIT: I didn't mean to say that changing to a healthy diet/lifestyle after being diagnosed will magically cure you (if that's why I'm being downvoted) but I believe it certainly can in some cases. If it's for lack of references, well, when it comes to cancer, you can find a study to support just about any view you want.

No, you can't. This is quack science.

Dangerous quack science. Convincing people of it has the very real potential to kill people.

Well, I could link you to a bunch of studies that say otherwise, but then you would tell me all the reasons that those studies are bogus, and then show me a bunch of studies that show there is no connection (probably sponsored by those peddling chemotherapy et al.), so I guess we'll just avoid the rathole and stay convinced of our own opinions :)

Link the (peer-reviewed) articles, rather than guessing peoples responses to the hypothetical articles.

Don't worry, I've got your back; I'll do it for you, dougk16.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=turmeric+cancer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=piperlongumine+canc...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=bromelain+cancer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=frankincense+cancer

Link me to some peer-reviewed studies that show that cancer can be cured with only dietary changes.

"peddling chemotherapy"

This is the most stupid and obnoxious thing I've ever seen on HN. Chemotherapy saves lives every day. You can believe that good diets are healthy and helpful for sick people without insulting people that sell nasty but powerful medicine that is proven to work.

Agreed. Posting those two comments was a mistake.

Steve Jobs observed very strict diets which he believed would keep him super healthy. Result: dead at 56 despite essentially unlimited resources.

It didn't work out that well for Ashton Kutcher either:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ashton+kutcher+fruitarian+di...

His cancer was caused by his diet? Or are you saying that choosing diet over medicine killed him earlier than could otherwise have been the case.

His diet probably wasn't the cause for his illness, but as far as I understand, he refused ordinary medical procedures (surgery) that had a good track record against his particular type of cancer, in favour of observing a special diet. The diet didn't help and the cancer progressed to the point where surgery was no longer an efficient treatment.

From the article stratoscope (one comment tree down) links to: "My pancreas levels were completely out of whack, which was really terrifying … considering everything.” (Jobs died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in October 2011) Food for thought..

Because MS, like most autoimmune diseases, is known to go into spontaneous remission even in people without a special diet.

You're right. The phrase "Cured MS through diet" alone could be a true statement. But to be a true statement it needs to be tested by science. And this doctor isn't doing any real science.

In general when someone says "I cured this chronic, uncurable, disease through diet" I need to read what they say very carefully. At best it's an overblown claim and they actually mean "this food has a strong evidence base to help you manage your illness and reduce relapse". At worst it's evil people cynically cashing in by selling nonsense to desperate dying people.

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