Tribute to Jack LaLanne

My Tribute to Jack LaLanne

Jack LaLanne, ‘the founder of the modern fitness movement,’ died at the age of 96. He was a showman and a salesman. He was passionate in his message, and his message was spot on correct. It was a message of health.

In 1936 Jack LaLanne “opened the prototype for the fitness spas to come — a gym, juice bar and health food store — in an old office building in Oakland. The Jack LaLanne Show made its debut in 1951 as a local program in the San Francisco area, and then went nationwide on daytime television in 1959.”

Had Americans heeded his advice back then, and ignored the advice of their doctors and the AMA, we would have been a much healthier nation and tens of millions of lives would have been spared the devastation and death of the chronic lifestyle degenerative diseases of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and more.

According to Jack LaLanne, “the doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.” Oops. What an amazing, glaring, costly (in terms of disease, death and money) and self-serving ignorance of health that turned out to be a financial bonanza for the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industrial complex.

And this was far from the first, or last, time they have been so wrong. In fact, I refer to it as ‘creating the next generation of users’ (of medical/pharmaceutical care and insurance).

“Back in the 1930’s, the AMA played a role in establishing cigarettes as a popular product. The AMA helped develop, and then accepted in its journal, advertisements that made cigarettes appear to be a physician endorsed product.” In fact, in the 1940’s, cigarette makers regularly used ‘science’ and physicians in their ads to sell cigarettes. “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,” "cool and soothing to the back of the throat"…fueling the rise of lung disease and death from emphysema and cancer. Oops.

The 1950’s brought the cholesterol scare. The combination of food industry and medical science and doctors began to scare people away from eating natural animal fats in favor of the synthetic trans fats vastly contributing to the rise of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and death over the subsequent decades. Oops.

And now, doctors are scaring people out of the sun in favor of the full-body application of chemical sunscreens for life, creating a pandemic of vitamin D deficiency. “Individuals with low levels of vitamin D appear to have a higher risk of death from all causes, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.” Oops.

Why is none of this surprising? What would you expect from an industry that focuses on, and profits from, disease and disease care; generating $2.6 trillion dollars in 2006 ($86,000/second), projected to be $4.3 trillion ($136,000/second) by 2017?

Jack LaLanne was a chiropractor. His message was/is the message of chiropractic health; that health is the innate set-point and possible throughout our lives if we safeguard and nurture it with proper exercise and nutrition…a simple, elegant, and irrefutable message. Why is it so hard for people to believe?

Worth watching. As they say, it harks back to a more innocent time.

Lies & Illusions

One of my missions in my practice is to help patients reclaim and improve their lives by understanding and reclaiming their health.

My other mission is to respond to all fraudulent, irresponsible and misleading stories about health in the media that distort the truth and perpetuate medical mythology.

The following is another letter to the editor about an AP article that appeared in my local papers.

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“Statistics are most often used as a drunk uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination.” So it is with your story “Alternative Meds Can Harm Children,” supporting the false notion that natural and alternative therapies are dangerous and medical procedures and drugs are safe. This article is misleading in that it lacks perspective.

An article in JAMA: Vol 284, No 4, 07/26/2000 by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, of Johns Hopkins, shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.

“There are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 killer. More than two million American hospitalized patients suffered a serious adverse drug reaction (ADR) within the 12-month period of the study and, of these, over 100,000 died as a result. Over 75 per cent of these ADRs were dose-dependent, which suggests they were due to the inherent toxicity of the drugs rather than to allergic reactions. The data did not include fatal reactions caused by accidental overdoses or errors in administration of the drugs. If these had been included, it is estimated that another 100,000 deaths would be added to the total every year.”

Shockingly, all medical adverse events are reported voluntarily; estimated at only 1 to 10% of the real problem. So, the actual number of doctor-induced deaths is a multiple of that reported. And, there is no way to know how many of those who die are children.

Anything can harm children, and many things do. It is wrong to scare people away from natural treatments. In many, if not most, cases they are superior to, and less dangerous than, medical approaches in that they rely on the body’s innate capacity for healing. On the other hand, good parenting acknowledges the important role of medical care in emergencies and life-threatening illness.

My Year (2010) in Quotes

As I speak with patients, sometimes I am surprised what comes out of my mouth. The following are what I believe to be original quotes:

Life is an Education: So Live and Learn, and Learn to Live

To become the person you want to be, you first have to know the person you are.

The fountain of youth is health.

If you don’t put your health first, at some point everything else will be second.

Your life is a work in progress. If you are willing to do the work, you will see the progress.

Health is a lifetime, lifestyle commitment.

If you are not in control of your health, someone else is.

Intuition is hardwired.

How can we expect to have a healthy planet, when we don’t understand how to create health within ourselves?

How can we expect responsible corporations and government, when we ourselves are irresponsible?

How can we expect honesty from others, when we are dishonest with ourselves?

How can we have respect for a higher power, when we so disrespect the miraculous gifts we have been given in our health, our life, and our world?

The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

My Platinum Rule: Take personal responsibility in all aspects of your life.