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Sunday, June 7, 2015

PaleoJays Smoothie Cafe #105 Would you buy a colonoscopy from a used car salesman?

pjsc 105  Would you get a colonoscopy from a used car salesman?

Here we go, another inflammatory podcast by PaleoJay!  Well, actually I don’t think it really is, it’s just contradicting another piece of “common medical wisdom and advice” that actually is quite dangerous, expensive, and health damaging.

It’s this last that really bugs me, since medical care should above all obey the dictum to first do no harm.  The inevitable harm caused by doing a full colonoscopy is the complete devastation of the gut biome, in other words all the little microbes that live in our guts and do things like control our body weight, mood, and the countless other vital processes we have not come close to mapping out yet.

Just like statin drug prescriptions, the colonoscopy seems to have become all about the money... at 5-10,000 dollars per scan, this is a huge moneymaker for medical clinics- why would they eliminate that cash cow for a little blood or stool test that costs a few hundred at most?

Well, the main reason would be because the blood or stool test is just as or MORE effective at detecting cancer, and there is no destruction of our precious gut biome, and no risk of perforation of the colon by the procedure, which is a very real danger!  Why would you go into the hospital perfectly healthy, just to put yourself in extreme danger of being damaged, and with a certainty of making your health immediately worse, and your immune system compromised?  It just doesn’t make sense.  Just going anesthesia is a real danger to you as well!

And, it costs a lot of money too!

You can get a FOBT, a fecal occult blood test, a fecal immunochemical test, and the newest is called Cologuard.  Cologuard costs $599, which is a far cry from a colonoscopy.

This is the kind of thing that really gets me doubting the motivations of our medical clinics, doctors, and system- they recommend things like colonoscopies that are expensive and dangerous with very little upside, and things like statin drugs for high cholesterol when there is no evidence that the symptom of high cholesterol really even causes heart disease, and they recommend multiple servings of grains per day to diabetes patients, and then sell them lots of insulin to mask the problems caused by the grains...

I could go on and on- but the obvious point is this:

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!
IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH-
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!

If you can be sick, and they sell you things to just treat the symptoms of that disease forever, wow- that’s the best business model for them ever!  There is absolutely no incentive to cure you of the disease, or of your many diseases.

Buyer beware.  Don’t ever go to the doctor and just do whatever he or she says! Would you go to buy a new car and just buy whatever the salesman told you to?  No, you’d do your research, look up the cars that interested you on the internet, compare prices and reviews, and then make your best decision based on knowledge.

Do the same thing with your health, but put in MORE time and research, because this is your HEALTH you are researching here.  And it hurts me to say this, but try to imagine your doctor as a kind of seedy used car salesman, because that is what the profession has been tending towards in recent years.  You don’t have to say it, but keep it in the back of your mind.

And, if he tells you no, you can’t screen for colon cancer with a blood test, tell him he’s fired, and go to another doctor or clinic.  You’re the boss!