5 ms·

this is obvious to literally anyone who is in tune with their bodies, it doesn't take science to say so. Chronic inflammation is a great place to start. Because

this is obvious to literally anyone who is in tune with their bodies, it doesn't take science to say so. Chronic inflammation is a great place to start. Because even if you don't have cancer, it's likely you're trending towards diabetes or some other major illness. inflammation is one of the number one markers for "SOMETHING IS AFOOT". most people are so divorced from being in sync with their physicality, and are so far removed from understanding what normal should feel like, and are often so blunted by prescription medications and other compensatory mechanisms, that it makes "something doesn't feel right" highly impractical sadly. even now, people here will scoff at this notion while willfully turning a blind eye to their own personal pains/afflictions/signals, even though rates of cancer and other diseases are skyrocketing. And this is because it's all wrapped up and embroiled in a scary cognitive dissonance that most people actively work to maintain, because it sucks and it's kind of scary to put a spotlight on your own mortality.

jf22 3y ago
This is not obvious to literally anyone. You've never met or heard about a perfectly fit person in the prime of their life getting a stage 4 diagnosis of something or other?
- Solvency 3y ago
  sure have. my cousin is a personal trainer who ran a gym studio from his garage. Was in great external physical shape. And his house reeked of mold. Absolutely insanely smelly. My wife warned him for years because she's sensitive to the odor, and he just completely refused to accept that there was mold in the house or that it was a problem or that there was any smell at all. he was later found to have stage2 cancer. just because he looked good, was he ACTUALLY good? no. sleep apnea. aching joints. a random bout of shingles at the age of 39. the list of "things" goes on, and most people have lists like this that they refuse to examine or consider as building blocks of a potentially encroaching larger issue. again, because of fear.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    The problem is you're treating these like signs of cancer when they aren't. People with mold in their house don't necessarily have cancer, people who get shingles don't necessarily have cancer, aching joints is less than useless as a measure for cancer. You're working backwards, now anything that's incorrect with someone is proof if they ever develop cancer while ignoring everyone who doesn't.
  - gr8r 3y ago
    Somewhat tangential question, can someone briefly say how mold is related to cancer? Also isn't mold somewhat common in American homes?
  - gosub100 3y ago
    You could blame it on anything you want because you're not using science. You could say it was radio waves, vaccines, processed foods, or micro plastics. You would never be wrong because the ones who haven't gotten cancer just didn't get enough exposure yet.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Well, I think what the parent comment is trying to say is that we’ve made it socially acceptable to live in an unhealthy way and many of the “obvious” conditions that are precursors to serious disease like obesity, over medication, chronic inflammation, etc are just accepted. However, we should be making it clear that unhealthy lifestyles result in bad outcomes. This was all very obvious before we started to muddy the waters with our blank check acceptance of bad choices (fat acceptance, etc).
  - jf22 3y ago
    I don't disagree with the premise we've issued blank checks for unhealthy lifestyles, but I disagree that's what the parent comment was saying. Asking people to self diagnose inflammation is a lot different than understanding that being overweight is unhealthy.
tcdent 3y ago
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is 100% correct.
- y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
  It's an ambiguous rant, that's why it's getting down-voted. No specific message. No sources. No data. Just an empty lecture on "listen to your body!", but no substance to explain how, why, what to do etc.
  - sdwr 3y ago
    The core steps to paying attention to yourself: - notice - fill in the picture - use it to inform your decisions For example, my oral health fluctuates based on what I eat. Too much sugar or sweet carbs, and my gums start feeling itchy and sore. Having that self-awareness helps, because when it starts becoming a problem, I can take corrective action, and fix my mouth before I get a cavity or lose gum tissue. Now, this is exactly what a dentist would say - brush and avoid sugar. What self-awareness helps with is knowing how much is too much! I'm not flying blind, I know what "good mouth" and "bad mouth" feel like.
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      Which works fine for something simple like "if I eat too much sugar I get a tummy ache". It's harder to do with something that is hard to detect, like pancreatic cancer, or a symptom that could be caused by a huge number of things, like feeling tired. The first problem is the one that's trying to be solved by the solution in the article.
      - sdwr 3y ago
        Yeah, that's a simple example. Pancreatic cancer would be at the other end of the scale: - it's internal - nobody really knows what their pancreas is supposed to do anyway Plus the normal problems with self-analysis: - distinguishing signal from noise - going around looking for a problem means overpowering whatever signal there was with conscious attention Still, I think someone with a stable routine, who has practice teasing out subtle signals, could pick up on something like that. Once you have enough experience with how your body "should" work, any deviation is noticeable.
4b11b4 3y ago
although down voted, controversial, not generally provable, and possibly condescending this perspective shouldn't be discounted
sdwr 3y ago
Yeah, very true. Obviously you can't do everything yourself, but a lot of people have gone the other way, and given away responsibility for their health to the professionals and the numbers. The numbers don't tell the whole story, and the professionals are looking out for themselves as well as taking care of you (at minimum!)
glenstein 3y ago
I absolutely agree that people should try to "know their bodies" and develop their intuitions as far as possible. It can make all the difference in terms of spotting a critical illness in time (not always, but sometimes). However, health/medicine is a field rife with misinformation, rife with questionable ideas about what "intuition" can really tell you, and the dividing line between the true and the confidently incorrect can be hard to pin down. And what really sets off alarm bells, to me at least, is proposing that it should substitute these intuitions for professional expertise, or should be understood as being at cross-purposes with it. I think the best case for valuing our intutions would come from a place of treating them as complementary to professional expertise.
nix0n 3y ago
> it makes "something doesn't feel right" highly impractical sadly. What kind of doctor would a person go to for something like that?
ProjectArcturis 3y ago
It would be obvious to you if your esophageal cells started producing TTF3? What would that feel like?

jf22 3y ago

This is not obvious to literally anyone. You've never met or heard about a perfectly fit person in the prime of their life getting a stage 4 diagnosis of something or other?

Solvency 3y ago
sure have. my cousin is a personal trainer who ran a gym studio from his garage. Was in great external physical shape. And his house reeked of mold. Absolutely insanely smelly. My wife warned him for years because she's sensitive to the odor, and he just completely refused to accept that there was mold in the house or that it was a problem or that there was any smell at all. he was later found to have stage2 cancer. just because he looked good, was he ACTUALLY good? no. sleep apnea. aching joints. a random bout of shingles at the age of 39. the list of "things" goes on, and most people have lists like this that they refuse to examine or consider as building blocks of a potentially encroaching larger issue. again, because of fear.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  The problem is you're treating these like signs of cancer when they aren't. People with mold in their house don't necessarily have cancer, people who get shingles don't necessarily have cancer, aching joints is less than useless as a measure for cancer. You're working backwards, now anything that's incorrect with someone is proof if they ever develop cancer while ignoring everyone who doesn't.
- gr8r 3y ago
  Somewhat tangential question, can someone briefly say how mold is related to cancer? Also isn't mold somewhat common in American homes?
- gosub100 3y ago
  You could blame it on anything you want because you're not using science. You could say it was radio waves, vaccines, processed foods, or micro plastics. You would never be wrong because the ones who haven't gotten cancer just didn't get enough exposure yet.
bequanna 3y ago
Well, I think what the parent comment is trying to say is that we’ve made it socially acceptable to live in an unhealthy way and many of the “obvious” conditions that are precursors to serious disease like obesity, over medication, chronic inflammation, etc are just accepted. However, we should be making it clear that unhealthy lifestyles result in bad outcomes. This was all very obvious before we started to muddy the waters with our blank check acceptance of bad choices (fat acceptance, etc).
- jf22 3y ago
  I don't disagree with the premise we've issued blank checks for unhealthy lifestyles, but I disagree that's what the parent comment was saying. Asking people to self diagnose inflammation is a lot different than understanding that being overweight is unhealthy.

tcdent 3y ago

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is 100% correct.

y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
It's an ambiguous rant, that's why it's getting down-voted. No specific message. No sources. No data. Just an empty lecture on "listen to your body!", but no substance to explain how, why, what to do etc.
- sdwr 3y ago
  The core steps to paying attention to yourself: - notice - fill in the picture - use it to inform your decisions For example, my oral health fluctuates based on what I eat. Too much sugar or sweet carbs, and my gums start feeling itchy and sore. Having that self-awareness helps, because when it starts becoming a problem, I can take corrective action, and fix my mouth before I get a cavity or lose gum tissue. Now, this is exactly what a dentist would say - brush and avoid sugar. What self-awareness helps with is knowing how much is too much! I'm not flying blind, I know what "good mouth" and "bad mouth" feel like.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    Which works fine for something simple like "if I eat too much sugar I get a tummy ache". It's harder to do with something that is hard to detect, like pancreatic cancer, or a symptom that could be caused by a huge number of things, like feeling tired. The first problem is the one that's trying to be solved by the solution in the article.
    - sdwr 3y ago
      Yeah, that's a simple example. Pancreatic cancer would be at the other end of the scale: - it's internal - nobody really knows what their pancreas is supposed to do anyway Plus the normal problems with self-analysis: - distinguishing signal from noise - going around looking for a problem means overpowering whatever signal there was with conscious attention Still, I think someone with a stable routine, who has practice teasing out subtle signals, could pick up on something like that. Once you have enough experience with how your body "should" work, any deviation is noticeable.

4b11b4 3y ago

although down voted, controversial, not generally provable, and possibly condescending this perspective shouldn't be discounted

sdwr 3y ago

Yeah, very true. Obviously you can't do everything yourself, but a lot of people have gone the other way, and given away responsibility for their health to the professionals and the numbers. The numbers don't tell the whole story, and the professionals are looking out for themselves as well as taking care of you (at minimum!)

glenstein 3y ago

I absolutely agree that people should try to "know their bodies" and develop their intuitions as far as possible. It can make all the difference in terms of spotting a critical illness in time (not always, but sometimes). However, health/medicine is a field rife with misinformation, rife with questionable ideas about what "intuition" can really tell you, and the dividing line between the true and the confidently incorrect can be hard to pin down. And what really sets off alarm bells, to me at least, is proposing that it should substitute these intuitions for professional expertise, or should be understood as being at cross-purposes with it. I think the best case for valuing our intutions would come from a place of treating them as complementary to professional expertise.

nix0n 3y ago

> it makes "something doesn't feel right" highly impractical sadly. What kind of doctor would a person go to for something like that?

ProjectArcturis 3y ago

It would be obvious to you if your esophageal cells started producing TTF3? What would that feel like?