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A nice piece which stands in stark contrast to the alarmist and shallow FUD that so often accompanies this topic. It's amazing how little we know about nutriti

• pyre 14y ago
  | breast feeding is good I'm often amazing that there are people out there that are so extremely against breast-feeding. I'm not even talking about breast-feeding in public, either. For example, I met someone from France whose friend had to argue with the nurses in the hospital about whether or not she would be 'allowed' to breast feed her child. [According to this acquaintance there is a lot of breast-feeding == BAD sentiment in France.] | tonsil-removing Is tonsil-removing something in over-abundance? So far as I understand it, it's possible for your tonsils to be really infected (I've heard of holes in your tonsils that excrete puss), which would seem like a removal is a good thing.
  • dmishe 14y ago
    I thinkg that tonsils is one of first line defenses against bacteria/infections, so removing them would be suboptimal, although necessary
    • rdtsc 14y ago
      The idea is that at some point they (being the first line) succumb to infection and can be come the site of a persistent infection that in turns causes more sore throats and re-infections. At least that was my experience. I was advised to take them out in my mid 20's. It does seem that there is correlation, now that they are out I get less colds and sore throats.
      • dmishe 14y ago
        Were you advised because of some condition where it was clear tonsils was the problem, or just a routine operation?
        • rdtsc 14y ago
          Switched to a different doctor and went for a consultation. Complained about by frequent sore throats. He looked in and said, we should take these out. (This wasn't in US but in Europe)
  • jkat 14y ago
    Let's just say I wouldn't have wanted to be a tonsil in the 80s living in Canada. I assume it wasn't Canada-specific though, anyone confirm?
    • Evbn 14y ago
      US too. I imagine better drugs have diminished the need for tonsilectomies.
    • rogerbinns 14y ago
      I lived in the third world (Africa) and mine were taken out in 1975. Amusingly several years later a doctor looked down my throat and asked if they had been taken out. When I said yes, he said they left some behind!
  • sopooneo 14y ago
    There are times when removing tonsils makes sense, but they used to removed almost as a matter of course from children.
  • angstrom 14y ago
    Had my tonsillectomy when I was 4 due to a severe tonsillitis infection. Never gave it much thought. It sucked and I got to have a lot of popsicles.
  • rz2k 14y ago
    My mother, as an assisting nurse in the late 60s, said she could probably do a tonsilectomy in her sleep (though of course she never did one conscious either). My dad did hundreds, or thousands, of appendectomies over a career as a surgeon, but they took a lot of effort. There's little evidence of a useful role for an appendix, and most theories involve supposition about some past role. Whether something is easy or not should not play a role. It's like looking for your lost keys under a street lamp, because it is lighter there. Terribly harmful food-born diseases were contained by giving the animals that became food antibiotics themselves. Yet, that meant the meat ends up giving a dose to the people who eat it, and there have been fewer studies about how those antibiotics affect our symbiotic partners (the bacteria that by count make up most of our bodies). Once you take something that might have a small effect, but spread it across hundreds of millions or even billions of people, then there should be increased sensitivity with regard to even the most outlandish effects, and they should be studied carefully.
    • beagle3 14y ago
      > There's little evidence of a useful role for an appendix, and most theories involve supposition about some past role. Oh, the hubris of modern medicine. There is a very useful role for the appendix, but our modern (as in, last 2000 years) lifestyle has rendered it mostly ineffective. http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/10/08/30907.aspx http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/10/08/30907.aspx While verified discoveries about the role of the appendix are quite recent (2007 or so), I've read about similar theories back in 1996, and they were old (as in, 40 years old) at the time.
      • rz2k 14y ago
        I was overly subtle, because that was my point. As a data-disposed person, my first response to practicing physician's regular resistance to "evidence-based" medicine has often been one of astonishment. Those on the ground with patients are very careful, and also figure out how to manage incomplete information pretty well. You may especially have missed my points that tonsils are rarely, if ever, removed anymore, and appendices are removed less often, too. I don't know if anyone knows why we need these organs, yet currently practicing physicians just choose to assume that we shouldn't remove stuff without a very grave reason.
  • beagle3 14y ago
    See, e.g. http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/tonsillectomy-confidential-do.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/tonsillectomy-confidential-... There's been some back and forth on Seth's piece - you can google if you are interested. Personally, I find Seth's arguments much more compelling.
  • rdtsc 14y ago
    > she would be 'allowed' to breast feed her child. It seems that was also the thought in the 70s to mid 80s in in US. My mother in law for example (as a retired nurse even!) thinks breastfeed is "disgusting" and how "it can kill babies because they can get smothered". I was just floored when I heard that from her telling it to my wife. Now we didn't listen of course to such crazy talk. But I wonder where it came from. One suspicion is lobbying and re-education campaigns of formula manufacturers. What better way to make a pretty penny than convince women to stop feeding their children like they have since the dawn of time and instill in them the belief that it is "disgusting" and "animalistic". It would take an enormous drive and a sustained campaign to do that. But I don't really have any other explanation for it.
  • yannk 14y ago
    France scores pretty poorly in terms of breast-friendliness. I have the feeling it comes a lot from formula-making companies capitalizing on feminist movements back then. The marketing terms are way more pervasive in France than in the US (Where I have most of my experience). This is biased, of course, but most often I heard about "Formula" here, but in France I heard: "Lait de croissance (growing up milk)", "Lait Maternise (`maternalized` milk)", "lait infantile (infantile milk)", etc...
• deleted 14y ago
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• Evbn 14y ago
  Microbes cause ulcers, stomach cancers, etc, also, so common sense isn't so simple.