We all dream of the day when we revisit special places we have known, revived times that were happy and carefree, put our feet firmly back in a special, indeed sacred, place that, for us, was quite pivotal in our lives.

Well, take care! It rarely works, for one thing. And it can be quite heartbreaking for another. After all the word nostalgia means “painful homecoming” (algos is Latin for pain, hence an-algesia for painkillers!)

The word was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. It’s a medical condition! [Wikipedia]

Nostalgia is associated with a longing for the past, its personalities, possibilities, and events, usually described as the “good old days” or the “glory days”. There is a predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, for people to view the past more positively and the future more negatively. When applied to one’s beliefs about a society or institution, this is called declinism, which has been described as “a trick of the mind” and as “an emotional strategy, something comforting to snuggle up to when the present day seems intolerably bleak”.¹

So yes, this is a health issue. It can be very disturbing, even hurtful, to try to go back in time and suppose that everything will be hunky-dory, just as it once was. You could end up disillusioned and the good times you were anchoring your present in might disappear forever.

It happened to me just recently. Vivien and I took a short break; I wanted to show her my old haunts in Andalucía in southern Spain, where I had lived for several years. Included was an intended visit to the Mezquite (mosque) in the city of Cordoba. I rate it as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, even though the Christians had trashed it by building a cathedral right in the middle of it.

What remained was still glorious when I last saw it, nearly 30 years ago.

The Mezquita or mosque in Cordoba.

Anyway, let’s go back some. I washed up in Spain with a broken heart, after my first marriage ended. I moved abroad and that was the first time in my life I lived outside the UK. I licked my wounds and gradually recovered. I even dreamed we may one day be reconciled.

By a quirk of Fate I was living in a property that had once belonged to a famous movie director and Marilyn Monro had stayed there! It had been unoccupied and dilapidated for over 30 years and I tried to buy it but failed (I was skint after the first marriage broke up). I mention it only because there was wild mountain thyme growing all over the property and I LOVE the song Wild Mountain Thyme (aka. Will Ye Go Lassie, Go?”). There is one line in the song that literally saved my soul: “If my true love should leave me, I will surely find another…”

It’s a lovely song. And I did find another; my lovely Vivien! See, even heartache has a purpose. It’s to get you through to the next glorious bit of your life!

If you want to hear the song it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uCDw30wCe0 It’s a man’s song, not a woman’s, but Ella sings it beautifully and not like a funeral dirge, which is way it’s often sung!

So I was there for some three years and met a beautiful young Belgian girl half my age nicknamed Telly. Her really name was Machtelt (Matilda) and she was surely an angel in disguise. She restored all my belief in humanity, music, magic, spirit and—I’m so grateful—in myself.

We toured all over Andalucia, from Seville and Tarifa in the west, Granada in the east, and as I mentioned, Cordoba where we saw the exquisitely beautiful Mesquite (mosque).

Telly spoke five languages (she was in Spain to brush up her Spanish). She loved politics and was very ambitious. She used to tease me with the prospect I might have bedded the first woman President of Europe!

I begged her beware of politics. “It will break your heart,” I told her. But she was young, delighted in life and wanted to wake up the whole world to good things.

So… back to nostalgia. It was with some trepidation that I finally returned to Spain; the first time since I had left some twenty seven years earlier. We flew from Bordeaux to Madrid, picked up a car and drove off into the Andalucian sunset!

The first big disappointment was that we could not get to see the Alhambra in Granada. It was necessary to buy tickets months in advance and we did not know that. The world today is suffering from a condition called “over-tourism”, or “tourist saturation”, where there are massive queues and inordinate numbers to see the classic tourist sites.

Never mind, we had a nice tapas supper and wine, that was authentic for Viv!

Next day we drove on to Fuengirola, a nice 4-star hotel called the Leonardo. This was the town near where I’d lived for most of my time in Spain.

But it was changed… and not for the better. I tried to show Viv where I’d been walking with a tall beautiful blonde and somebody shouted “Hiya Sean!” It took me half a minute to realize I was being mistaken for Sean Connery. He lived nearby and I was often mistaken for him at that time (no, really!)

What do you do? It was a lot of trouble to walk over to the admirer and explain I was not the famous film star. So I gave him my best wave and walked on. Well, no lies told, and it probably made his day, to have James Bond wave to him!

But I couldn’t find the street! It was totally built up around about with concrete high rises. In fact it was trouble enough to even find the place where I had once lived. That property and all the mountain thyme too, presumably, had been built over with houses and apartments.

And that was the story for the rest of the trip, sadly. Concrete EVERYWHERE. 

Here’s the “before and after:

Fuengirola old and new

By this stage I was a bit mopey. Not sad for myself but sad for Viv’s experience. I wasn’t able to share my old haunts with her, which was the whole reason for the trip. There was nothing left. It was indeed the pain of homecoming!

Never mind, I thought. I’ll take her to see a feria; that’s an Andalucian horse fair. It’s great to see ladies dressed in traditional costume, all flounces and frills, and the men (caballeros) so elegant on their beautiful horses.

Feria. It’s a festival on horseback, in effect.

The only timely feria was in Jerez (where sherry comes from). We drove 2½ hours and we saw NOTHING! It poured and poured with rain, the feria stadium was MUD and in any case the feria did not start till the evening on day one, the day we were there. Tourism websites just slightly omitted to mention that. We had to leave before evening, for the long wet drive back.

Never mind, there was always going to be the Mezquite. But no… We did get tickets but, talk about “overtourism”! There were queues and queues and queues and there was no chance to sink into what I remember as the deep tranquil silence. Boohoo!

Next day we had to start back towards Madrid. Are you getting this; that the trip was a disaster!

So don’t say I didn’t warn you about nostalgia. It can be a real pain! But analgesics won’t help.

Haha!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Alternative Doctor

Reference:

1. Lewis, Jemima (January 16, 2016). “Why we yearn for the good old days”. The Telegraph. Retrieved 20 December 2016

The idea originates with the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1745  – 1853, who after decades of clinical observation became troubled by a recurring phenomenon: patients improved beautifully under carefully selected remedies, only to relapse months or years later, often into entirely different forms of illness. It seemed as if some deeper layer beneath the visible symptoms remained untouched.

This led Hahnemann into one of the boldest conceptual leaps in medical history. He proposed that beneath chronic disease lay fundamental constitutional taints or inherited energetic dysregulations—miasms—which shaped how disease expressed itself.

I think of these as disease “shadows” that color the patient’s life, bringing darkness from the past, carrying it forward through families and generations.

In his great work, The Chronic Diseases (1828), Hahnemann proposed three primary miasms: psora, sycosis, and syphilis. Later generations of homeopaths added others, particularly the tuberculosis (I agree there) and cancerinic (carcinominum) patterns. I’m not quite so sure about that one.

Candida and sugar miasm I have also heard suggested, which borders on silly!

Psora was regarded by Hahnemann as the primordial disturbance, the mother of chronic disease. Not simply “itch” in the literal dermatological sense, though he traced it historically through suppressed skin eruptions, psora represented insufficiency, striving, hypersensitivity, insecurity, lack, and chronic vulnerability. The psoric individual often feels incomplete, anxious about survival, fearful of failure, or driven by perpetual striving. Physically, psora manifests through functional disturbances more than destructive pathology: allergies, itching conditions, digestive irregularities, fatigue, nervousness, hypersensitivity, and fluctuating symptoms.

Many great homeopaths came to view psora almost philosophically—as humanity’s estrangement from natural harmony.

The great American homeopath James Tyler Kent described psora as “the beginning of all sickness,” linking it not merely to skin conditions but to disturbed vitality itself.

Then comes sycosis, classically associated with suppression and excess. Historically linked to gonorrheal infection and its suppression, the sycotic miasm is characterised by overgrowth, concealment, accumulation, and rigidity. Warts, cysts, fibroids, polyps, thickened tissues, oedema, obesity, rheumatism, and secretiveness all fit within the sycotic sphere.

Sycosis miasm is often conflated with medorrhinum, a remedy derived from gonorrhea.

Psychologically, sycosis often expresses itself through hidden shame, guardedness, fixed ideas, compulsions, or the sense of carrying a secret burden. The sycotic patient may compensate excessively—becoming flamboyant, exaggerated, overbuilt, or defensive.

One of the great insights of miasmatic thinking is that symptoms are symbolic as well as physical. The body speaks in metaphor. The sycotic organism “covers,” “thickens,” “stores,” and “conceals.”

The syphilitic miasm is different again. Here we enter the realm of destruction, degeneration, breakdown, nihilism, and collapse. Associated historically with syphilis, but extending far beyond the infection itself, the syphilitic current expresses as ulceration, deformity, tissue destruction, violence, congenital malformation, suicidal despair, psychosis, and self-annihilation.

Where psora struggles and sycosis defends, syphilis destroys.

In emotional terms, syphilitic states may manifest as hopelessness, obsession with death, profound self-loathing, or destructive impulses turned inward or outward. Physically one sees degeneration: aneurysms, ulceration, bone destruction, severe neurological pathology, and congenital defects.

Yet homeopaths never viewed these as merely “bad” categories. They are patterns of imbalance, yes—but also maps of human struggle.

Later practitioners elaborated these themes enormously. J. H. Allen expanded the miasmatic concept in The Chronic Miasms, exploring inherited tendencies across generations. John Henry Clarke linked miasms with constitutional prescribing and chronic susceptibility.

Then came the tubercular miasm, perhaps one of the most poetically tragic of all. Tuberculosis haunted the nineteenth century like a ghostly fire. Homeopaths perceived in tubercular patients a profound restlessness: longing for change, dissatisfaction with confinement, romantic idealism, burning vitality alternating with exhaustion.

The tubercular type wants freedom above all.

There is intensity, creativity, travel hunger, sensitivity to beauty, rapid burnout, and continual dissatisfaction with limitation. Physically this pattern may include recurrent respiratory infections, allergies, fine-boned physiques, night sweats, fluctuating energy, and rapid metabolism.

It is almost the miasm of the wandering soul.

Then there is the possible cancerinic miasm, articulated most fully in the twentieth century. This pattern often develops in individuals exposed to extreme pressure, domination, perfectionism, emotional suppression, or impossible expectations. Cancerinic constitutions frequently appear conscientious, refined, overly responsible, dutiful, self-controlled, and eager to please.

The keynote is control.

Everything must be held together. Chaos is intolerable. Emotion is restrained. The individual may live under immense internal pressure for years before collapse occurs.

Physically, cancerinic patterns are linked not only with malignancy but with chronic fatigue, insomnia, hormonal disorders, autoimmune tendencies, eating disorders, and nervous exhaustion.

Some modern homeopaths have proposed additional miasms linked with newer disease states—malarial, ringworm, leprosy, AIDS-related patterns, and more. Rajan Sankaran notably developed an expanded miasmatic framework integrating mental and behavioural themes with remedy states. His work helped bring miasmatic understanding into a more contemporary psychological language.

What makes miasmatic theory so enduring is that it attempts to explain why people react differently to the same circumstances. Why does one individual develop eczema while another develops arthritis? Why does grief destroy one person physically yet deepen another spiritually? Why do certain family lines repeat the same illnesses, fears, addictions, or emotional dramas generation after generation?

Miasms propose that beneath the visible disease lies a terrain of susceptibility.

In this sense, the theory parallels ancient ideas from many cultures. Ayurveda speaks of constitutional imbalance through doshas. Traditional Chinese medicine describes inherited weakness through organ systems and jing essence. Even modern epigenetics, though operating in entirely different language, acknowledges that trauma, stress, toxins, and environment may influence inherited biological expression across generations; an effect we call epigenetics.

Homeopathy approaches this terrain symbolically, energetically, and constitutionally.

Importantly, miasms are not viewed as fixed mandates. They are tendencies. Patterns. Like weather systems within consciousness and biology. A skilled constitutional prescription seeks not merely to palliate symptoms but to untangle these deep inherited knots.

Clinically, many experienced homeopaths report that true cure often involves layers of miasmatic unfolding. A patient may move from destructive pathology toward superficial skin eruptions; from despair toward anxiety; from rigidity toward emotional fluidity. Old symptoms may briefly reappear in reverse order before resolving. Hahnemann himself considered this movement outward—from deeper organs toward the skin and periphery—as a sign of genuine healing.

Miasmatic analysis also transformed remedy understanding. Remedies themselves came to be associated with dominant miasmatic tendencies. For example:

Psoric remedies: Sulphur, Psorinum, Lycopodium
Sycotic remedies: Thuja, Medorrhinum, Natrum sulphuricum
Syphilitic remedies: Mercurius, Syphilinum, Aurum metallicum
Tubercular remedies: Tuberculinum, Phosphorus, Calcarea phos.

Yet great practitioners of homeopathy caution against simplistic categorization. Human beings are rarely pure expressions of one miasm. Most people contain blended currents, shifting throughout life according to stress, trauma, relationships, nutrition, environment, and spiritual development.

Generalizations are always a bit dangerous but it can be suggested in outline that someone with 4 or 5 full-on miasms will likely die by the age of twenty. With just 3, he or she will pass in their thirties or forties. With just 2, he or she should make it to the 50s and 60s and with just one miasm, good chance of breaking the eighty years barrier!

Generalizations are tricky but the essential notion was that the greater the miasmatic complexity or layering within an individual, the shorter and more burdened the lifespan was likely to be. In other words, the organism could only compensate for so many deep chronic taints before vitality collapsed.

Older homeopaths often spoke of “mixed miasms” with a kind of grave respect. A person carrying strong psoric instability combined with destructive syphilitic tendencies, sycotic overgrowth, tubercular dissipation, and later perhaps cancerinic suppression, was thought to possess a profoundly conflicted vital force.

Interestingly, some contemporary longevity science ends up circling similar territory from another direction. Multiple overlapping systems in chronic dysregulation—immune, mitochondrial, inflammatory, neurological—do indeed correlate with earlier morbidity and mortality. The old homeopaths expressed this symbolically through miasms rather than biomarkers.

There was also a deeper philosophical idea underneath it all: that vitality is finite unless renewed. The more fragmented the vital force becomes, the harder it is for the organism to maintain coherent order.

Seen this way, miasms become more than medical categories. They become lenses through which to understand culture, psychology, and collective evolution.

Sources and classic texts worth revisiting:

George Vithoulkas. The Science of Homeopathy. New York: Grove Press; 1980.
Ortega PS. Notes on the Miasms. Mexico City: Homeopathic Medical Publishing.

And there is a great section on miasms in my own masterpiece Medicine Beyond.

Truly, miasms are one of those strange crossroads where medicine, mythology, inheritance, psychology, and spiritual pattern-recognition all sit around the same fire drinking strong coffee and arguing about destiny!

Go learn more…

To your good health,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Alternative Doctor

Sometimes they are punished for offering dietary advice. As long ago as 35 years, a colleague of mine was hauled before a medical tribunal. Why? His prescribing costs were very very low. He clearly wasn’t practising “proper” medicine, so he was attacked. The fact that ALL his patients were happy with his care and mostly got well didn’t protect him.

He was doing what I was doing: eliminating bandit foods, cleaning up their chemical environment, turning people to whole foods, adding nutritional supplements and counseling (in his case it was prayer). No place for God in modern medicine. Food is irrelevant. $$$ is the watchword.

Of course there is a whole segment of modern medicine that doesn’t WANT cheap and effective health care. They want bigger and bigger bills, more costs, more money, more profits. And the majority of those, it has to be said, are not doctors and not even qualified to hand out payments for effective treatment. In other words the insurance bandits.

They are simple parasites on the body of society. 

But all this may be about to change.

Tuft University Leads The Way

Diet should be considered an important part of a patient’s treatment along with medication, surgery, and other options, several experts said Wednesday at a “Food Is Medicine” meeting sponsored by Tufts University.

“I would want to see, in 2030, food as a vital sign,” said Sean Hashmi, MD, a nephrologist at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in Woodland Hills. “And if we could do that, if we could make it so simple as … eat more of this, eat less of this — it’s very basic at its core. And if we as physicians were able to prescribe food as we prescribe an ACE inhibitor, how powerful would that be?”

Pretty heretical stuff. And like medieval heretics, it could get you burned. Big Pharma would be after your hide, with their army of shills to testify you are not practicing proper medicine; you are dangerous; your incompetence will kill people.

But as Hashmi said during the “Food is Medicine in the Era of GLP-1s” panel discussion, although improving diet can be an important component in treating various diseases, it doesn’t need to be done in isolation.

“Sometimes, when we start to talk about things like food as medicine, people automatically assume that you are anti-medications, and it couldn’t be further than the truth,” he noted. Instead, “we are carpenters. We use the most effective tool when it’s needed.”

For patients with congestive heart failure, for instance, “we’ve found by teaching them how to eat better, it’s making their medications far more effective. We find their ejection fraction [how much blood the heart pumps per contraction] improving because their weight is going down. We use GLP-1s all the time in that population, but the combination makes a difference.”

A great and informative story was shared by Alka Gupta, MD, a Washington internist and board member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. A 65-year-old patient had walked into her clinic 5 years ago.

“He had just gotten on Medicare, and he came in saying he had no medical problems,” she said. “Unfortunately, when he had his first set of blood work done, it revealed a hemoglobin A1c of 11.5%, consistent with floridly uncontrolled type 2 diabetes. This was a devastating diagnosis for him.”

“I could tell in that conversation that he was not open to starting insulin,” Gupta continued. “He was not open to starting three different medications to bring his blood sugars down. But, together, we decided on a combination approach: intensive lifestyle modification right away, plus, perhaps, medication. We sent him home with a Bluetooth-connected glucometer to check his glucose, and a weight scale, so when he checked his sugar or stepped on the scale, our team was able to see it, and we were able to be a bit reassured.”

Apparently this patient took it all on board and moved immediately towards a whole-food, plant-forward diet. Plus he walked an hour per day. Three months later, his hemoglobin A1c was 6.7% and it continued to decrease thereafter. And now — this is 5 years later — his diabetes has been in remission for almost the entire time.”

He had quit his medications within the first 3 months, and has continued without them since. Not only that but his chronic low back pain resolved itself, and he now leads a community walking group and shares his story widely.

Patient power, yay!

“If you think about that from the quality-of-life perspective, first and foremost, the rest of his life will likely look very different than had he taken a different path,” said Gupta. “And if you look at it from a systemic perspective, I think in the last 5 years, it’s very likely that he has avoided at least one, possibly multiple, hospitalizations for high blood sugar. He’s sidestepped the potential of side effects or low blood sugars from diabetes or other medications.”

Food Is Medicine

This is a trope I hope you’ll be hearing more of.

Efforts to implement a food-is-medicine approach are being aided by some efforts in Congress and at outside organizations, said Colin Schwartz, MPP, senior advocacy advisor for the American Heart Association’s Health Care by Food initiative.

[I didn’t even know the AMA had a “healthcare by food” initiative! It keeps very quiet normally].

Irrespective of the current government shutdown, “in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill … we had a lot of food-is-medicine wins in it,” he said on a separate panel. “It was nice to see, for instance, there was funding for the ‘[food] prescription’ pilots at the Indian Health Service. There’s funding for HHS to continue its food-is-medicine collaborative, and language supporting or encouraging establishment of centers of excellence at NIH for food is medicine.”

In addition, the NIH Office of Nutrition Research was flat-funded, “and that actually is a win in my book, in this [political] climate,” said Schwartz.

In other congressional developments, a bipartisan bill was recently reintroduced that would authorize a demonstration project to provide medically tailored home-delivered meals to Medicare patients in an effort to reduce rehospitalizations, he said. On the regulatory side, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is asking for the public to provide comments on coding and billing for medically tailored meals, “and the House MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] Caucus just sent a letter to CMS asking that Medicare Advantage do more on food-is-medicine. So a lot of progress has been made.”

Billing for services related to food-is-medicine — and defining those services well — are definitely big issues, said Katie Garfield, director of Whole Person Care at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School in Boston.

“We don’t have billing codes for a lot of these interventions right now, and there has been an incredible effort by the Coding4Food project to create those billing codes,” she said. “As part of that process, you’re fundamentally also creating a more consistent definition of what these interventions are. And so I’m continuing to think about how we expand that work of definitions and standards that can really make sure that all services are sort of consistent in quality across the country.”

It would be great to see Uber Eats, Deliveroo and JustEat bikes zooming around town delivering healthy food to those who can’t really afford it! In the UK, we have “Meals on Wheels”, which is a charity but maybe they could be subsidized to do this work too!

Now that the stupid food pyramid has been turned on its head and started to work healthily, why not?

SOURCE: 

Reporting by Kristen Monaco, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today

https://www.medpagetoday.com/people/km1521/kristen-monaco

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/nkf/121214

We are creatures of earth, sunlight, wind, water, movement, and seasons. Every cell in the body was shaped under open skies. Human physiology evolved not in sealed rooms under artificial light, but outdoors—walking uneven ground, breathing living air, rising with dawn, resting with darkness, touched daily by sunlight, weather, plants, soil, and the countless subtle biological exchanges that happen between body and environment. The modern world has brought extraordinary convenience, but convenience often comes with invisible biological costs.

Many people now wake indoors, work indoors, travel enclosed in vehicles, exercise indoors, shop indoors, and spend evening hours bathed in blue light from screens before sleeping in air-conditioned rooms cut off from the rhythms of the natural world. The body, ancient in design though modern in setting, quietly pays attention to all of this. It registers light, darkness, temperature, movement, microbial exposure, air quality, and environmental texture in ways both conscious and unconscious. When these inputs become artificial, limited, or absent, health can begin to drift.

Sunlight is perhaps one of the clearest examples of “nature deficiency”. It has emerged as an important, if not THE most important nourishment. Natural sunlight helps regulate circadian rhythms—the internal biological clock that governs sleep, hormones, metabolism, immune function, and mood. Morning light exposure helps anchor healthy cortisol release, supports melatonin production later in the day, and improves sleep quality at night. Sunlight also stimulates vitamin D production, which influences bone health, immune resilience, inflammation control, muscle function, and even mental wellbeing. 

Yet modern life has turned many people into near-permanent indoor dwellers, living under electric light while becoming starved of one of biology’s oldest medicines.

Fresh air is another forgotten nutrient. Outdoor air, especially in natural environments, often contains compounds released by trees and plants, beneficial airborne microbes, richer oxygen dynamics, and far fewer indoor pollutants than many homes and offices. 

Research on forest exposure—sometimes called forest bathing (Japanese shinrin-yoku) —has shown reductions in stress hormones, improvements in mood, enhanced immune activity, and measurable calming effects on the nervous system. Time among trees appears to do more than relax the mind; it nourishes physiology itself.

Then there is movement—not exercise in the narrow modern sense of gym sessions and fitness routines, burpees and the like, but natural movement woven throughout daily life. Walking, stretching, bending, carrying, climbing, balancing, and simply being physically engaged with the world are profoundly regulating to metabolism, circulation, joints, muscles, lymphatic flow, and brain health. Human bodies were built for regular, varied movement, not prolonged sitting interrupted by brief bursts of exercise. Sedentary indoor life creates stagnation that the body interprets as dysfunction.

You may have heard the phrase: sitting is the new smoking.

Contact with nature also shapes the immune system in remarkable ways. Soil microbes, plant compounds, diverse environmental bacteria, and exposure to biodiverse outdoor ecosystems help educate and regulate immune responses. Some researchers believe the explosion in allergies, autoimmune disorders, and inflammatory illness may partly reflect immune systems raised in overly sanitized, biologically narrow environments. We have reduced our contact with the microbial richness that helped shape healthy immunity across human history. [The so-called Hygiene Hypothesis, which I utterly believe in).

Our bodies are an entire ecosystem and our obsession with sanitizing it leads to a collapse of a healthy system. I’m not advocating you turn up to the table with dirty hands and fingernails… well, maybe! (depends what you’ve been handling). But I remember as a kid on the farm; we’d wipe the cow shit off our hands just by rubbing them against our pants and ate our sandwiches with greenish fingers! (much to mother’s dismay) But I was never sick, except for the usual (measles, chicken pox, etc.)

Nature also heals something less measurable but equally important—the mind’s burden. The modern nervous system is overstimulated by noise, screens, speed, social pressure, information overload, and relentless artificial input. Nature offers something radically different: complexity without demand. A forest, coastline, meadow, or garden engages the senses gently rather than aggressively. The nervous system softens. Attention broadens. Thought slows. The body receives cues of safety. Blood pressure drops. Muscles unclench. Breathing deepens. The mind remembers another pace of being.

This is not romantic nostalgia. Actually it is biology.

What Can You Do?

The remedy does not require abandoning modern life or moving to a mountain cabin—though a cabin by a lake has undeniable charm. Healing can begin with small, deliberate acts of rewilding daily life. Step outside early and let morning light touch your eyes. Walk among trees. Open windows. Grow plants indoors and outdoors. Put bare feet on grass or sand if you enjoy it. 

My advice? Eat food that comes from living soil rather than industrial chemistry. Spend time where birdsong replaces traffic noise. Let your skin feel weather. Watch a sunrise. Sit beneath a tree with no agenda. Allow yourself moments not optimized for productivity.

These are not luxuries. They are forms of nourishment. We really are suffering from a “nature deficiency.”

Modern health conversations often revolve around supplements, medications, lab tests, and complex interventions. Some are valuable. But alongside them sits a simpler truth: many people are deficient not only in nutrients, but in sunlight, fresh air, natural movement, microbial diversity, quiet, beauty, and contact with the living world.

Perhaps one of the great health frontiers of our time is not discovering something entirely new but remembering something very old—that human beings are not separate from nature. We are expressions of it. 

And when we return, even briefly, to the rhythms and textures that shaped us, the body often responds with a quiet sigh of recognition, as if saying, Yes… this is what I remember.

What can I do during the workday to offset sitting all day? 

Andrew Dorsey, MS, an Exercise Physiologist at The Mount Sinai Physiolab and  Clinical Research Coordinator at Mount Sinai’s Department of Environmental Medicine, recommends to have about 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week.¹ That may seem like a lot, but it is manageable when you break it down. If you took three, five-minute breaks during a workday, five days a week, that’s 75 minutes. That’s already half of what you’re aiming for. 

You can incorporate movement in short, simple ways:  

• Get up from your desk, walk around, stretch, even walk in place. Just standing while you read something or take a phone call can help. It adds up over time. 

• Hold a conversation or meeting standing up!

• Make the conscious decision to take the stairs, rather than the elevator, can make a difference. If you take the stairs once a week, that is a meaningful change. You don’t have to do it daily to see benefits. 

Live better. Live longer!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

References:

1. https://health.mountsinai.org/blog/why-sitting-is-the-new-smoking-how-to-combat-the-health-effects-of-sitting-all-day/

I stand by my position. But there have been interesting developments and orthodoxy is getting interested in the issue. Maybe it’s the microbiome? There are some genetic traits (they always trot those out, as if it’s some kind of magic rite) but not enough to explain all cases. But certainly there are environmental factors too.

I agree with that!

But what interest is this to us Boomers and Oldies? Actually more than you think. Yes there has been a surge in younger kids (under 50). But we are all vulnerable to this particular grotesque tumor.

Colorectal cancer (to give it its full title) is the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and the fourth leading cause in women, but it’s the second most common cause of cancer deaths when numbers for men and women are combined. It’s expected to cause about 55,230 deaths during 2026.¹

From 2013 to 2022, incidence rates dropped by about 1% each year. But this downward trend is mostly in we older adults. In people younger than 50 years of age, rates have increased by a staggering 2.9% per year from 2013 to 2022 (as I said earlier, starting long before COVID on the mRNA vaccines which conspiracy theorists like to blame). In adults aged 50-64, the rate has increased by 0.4% per year during this time.

So it’s a real worry. And you should pay attention.

Prof. Note: Look, there are 4 main causes of disease: environmental, degeneration, genetics and malnutrition. “Faulty nutrition” would be a better term than malnutrition, since most people in the West overeat but are still malnourished. Microbes, parasites, viruses and other infections, don’t forget, are environmental in origin, meaning “in the environment, coming from outside”.

Thing is, the smart scientists are now looking at the microbiome as a real danger zone. Ironically, that is an environmental issue, since the gut is really, technically, “outside” our bodies (you could pass a string from the mouth to the opposite end, so we are really a donut!)

So is food an environmental factor. Our ultra-processed diets, plus the wrong—possibly toxic—microbes living within constitute a major environmental threat. Throw in the toxic chemical burdens, especially those which contaminate our food, and we have a problem. A BIG problem.

No question: the term “turbo-cancers” fits well with what is happening in our colons; just that the assumed cause is wrong and environmental factors are more likely to blame (yes, yes, a vaccine would technically be an “environmental” insult. But let’s not get tricky here).

Ohio State University oncologist Ning Jin has declared herself alarmed by the number of patients in their 30s and 40s with late-stage cancer in their lower digestive tract. It’s not just that these patients are decades younger than what had been typical for colorectal cancer; Jin says the tumors themselves are also more stubborn to treat.

“Even though we treat young patients with more aggressive chemo — more chemo or more surgery — patients’ outcomes are not necessarily better,” Jin says. And the disease has become the top cancer killer among people under 50 — even as death rates decline in older age groups, as I said.

It is highly unusual to see dramatic changes in disease patterns within a single generation. But that’s precisely what veteran oncologist Dr. John Marshall, head of clinical research at the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University, has observed.

“Thirty-plus years ago, when I first started, no one — no one; zero number of patients — were in my clinic under the age of 50 with colon cancer,” he says. “And now it is almost half of the patients that I see.”

That’s a staggering shift in demographics. Marshall says there are other changes in disease pattern, too: Earlier onset tumors tend to show up differently — more tumors are found near the rectum, lower in the tract.

Doctors claim that advances in science in recent years have made many cancers more treatable and survivable — but not colorectal cancer, which has become more lethal, striking people at younger ages. And it’s occurring more often too.

Increasingly, doctors suspect that the gut’s microbiome is a key factor behind these forms of cancer in particular.

Genetics plays some role in colorectal cancers. Dr. Jin says as many as a fifth of patients have hereditary markers — like a genetic mutation for Lynch syndrome — that increase the risk of getting colorectal cancer, among others. But genetics do not explain what drives the vast majority of cases — about 80% of colorectal cancers.

So Jin and others have concluded: “There must be some environmental factors or changes.”

“The way I think of it is, it’s our soil; it’s a very important part of our interface with the world,” Dr. Marshall says, because digestive organs’ primary role is to help incorporate the things we eat into our bodies.

“What I think is that we have somehow altered the soil in some way so that it’s now causing this phenomenon of colon cancer,” he says. “It may be causing other diseases, too. But the most striking one is colon cancer.”

Smart thinkers suspect several factors may be leading to these more frequent, virulent cancers: One is our greater reliance on ultra-processed foods, as well as plastics and chemicals that can leach into water and our bodies. Plus, there are other notable lifestyle changes: As a population, we are not as active as we used to be.

Let’s list those:

• Ultra-processed foods

• Plastics from the environment

• Chemical pollution

• Not so active

All of those factors act on our gut and can trigger widespread changes in the microbiome (the bacteria and myriad microorganisms living there). And a disturbed microbiome may contribute to colorectal cancer. 

Escherichia coli or E. coli is a part of family of bacteria that are commonly found in the human gut. Scientists found that a toxin the bacteria release is linked to some cases of colorectal cancer. Colibactin, from certain strains of E. coli and other bacteria, causes DNA damage, which could well be a precursor of cancerous changes.

Trouble is, it’s incredibly difficult to study the microbiome and it effects; it’s so VAST in scope. There are trillions of organisms down there, all sharing their own genes. It amounts to just one thing: you need to take care of your microbiome; I mean, seriously!

What Can We Do?

To keep the human microbiome thriving, the broad aim is simple: feed the beneficial organisms, avoid carpet-bombing them, and maintain the body’s natural rhythms.

1. Eat a wide diversity of plant foods—aim for 30+ different vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains each week. Diversity feeds diversity.

2 Prioritize fibre-rich foods: oats, beans, lentils, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, artichokes, flaxseed, chia, apples, berries. Jerusalem artichokes are stars!

3. Include fermented foods regularly: Yogurt, Kefir, Sauerkraut, Kimchi, miso, tempeh, kombucha (if tolerated).

4. Eat polyphenol-rich (brightly colored) foods—these are microbial fertiliser: blueberries, pomegranate, cocoa, green tea, olives, extra virgin olive oil, colourful veggies, spices.

5. Spend time in nature— soil microbes, plants, forests, and even gardening increase exposure, especially to a very valuable microbe called Mycobacterium vaccae. It has become famous because research suggests it may help regulate immunity and positively influence mood and stress resilience.2 Get your hands dirty!

6. Avoid unnecessary antibiotics; as you know, they can dramatically reduce microbial diversity for months or longer.

7. Limit ultra-processed foods—emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and low-fiber processed diets may disrupt gut ecology. Yuck. Who would eat this crap anyway?

8. Get enough omega-3 fats: walnuts, flax, chia, oily fish.

9. Correct low vitamin D if present; it influences gut immunity and microbiome balance.

10. Stay hydrated; microbes like a well-hydrated intestinal environment.

11. Chew food thoroughly; digestion begins in the mouth, and the oral microbiome matters too.

12. Reduce smoking and heavy alcohol use—they strongly disturb microbial balance. Better still STOP!

13. Don’t forget good sleep and adequate exercise. They too play a vital role.

And remember: the microbiome is less like a machine and more like a rainforest: richness, variety, and steady care make it flourish.

To your good health!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor.

References:

1. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html
2. Holbrook EM, Zambrano CA, Wright CTO, et al. Mycobacterium vaccaeNCTC 11659, a Soil-Derived Bacterium with Stress Resilience Properties, Modulates the Proinflammatory Effects of LPS in Macrophages. Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(6):5176. Published 2023 Mar 8. doi:10.3390/ijms24065176

But I think a major often-overlooked reason is the correction of vitamin A deficiency in the population, so let’s look at that first. 

You will know that I personally choose vit A as the “antibiotic vitamin”, not D as some try to maintain. In the 40s and 50s kids in the Western world were widely dosed with cod-liver oil, which contains lots of vitamins A and D.

That helped… a LOT! (the D also cleared up rickets!)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines Vitamin A as the name of a group of fat-soluble retinoids, primarily retinol and retinyl esters. This vitamin is involved in immune function, supports cell growth, and plays a critical role in the normal functioning of the heart, eyes, lungs, and other organs.

Add to that the fact that vitamin A is a far better protective against the ill effects of measles than any vaccine ever was (vitamin A is the recommended treatment for acute measles, even on the CDC website, did you know?) and you’ll realize this enhancement of vitamin A status was crucial.

[The CDC website has recently carefully manicured its recommendations: it now says: “Consistent with guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, vitamin A may be administered to infants and children in the United States with measles under the supervision of a healthcare provider as part of supportive management. Children with severe measles, such as those who are hospitalized, should be managed with vitamin A!] That’s as near as they get to suggesting supplements are a good thing!

The CDC suggests doses as follows:

If vitamin A is recommended, it should be administered immediately upon diagnosis and repeated the next day for a total of 2 doses under the supervision of a healthcare provider. The recommended age-specific daily doses are:

• 50,000 IU for infants younger than 6 months of age

• 100,000 IU for infants 6–11 months of age

• 200,000 IU for children 12 months of age and older

These are very substantial doses. I have never taken more than 50,000 IU as an adult!

Be aware that you can have too much vitamin A, as well as too little. Hypervitaminosis A, as it’s called, can cause symptoms like nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, and long-term issues like liver damage and bone problems. The Tolerable Upper Intake Level for adults is 3,000 mcg RAE per day. RAE = retinol activity equivalent. That comes out at 10,000 IU daily max.

In pregnant women, high doses of vitamin A have been linked to severe birth defects.

So set the obvious and powerful benefits of correcting widespread vitamin A deficiency among kids against the claims for vaccination and you will see obvious hysteria on show. They now claim that measles deaths dropped by over 99% following the introduction of the vaccine in 1968. [Oxford University] 

That’s just sheer massaging of facts (lying). In the United States the mortality rate for measles decreased by more than 98% before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963 (Figure 1). 

In England, we see the same thing—a dramatic decrease in deaths before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968 (Figure 2). The percent decline from peak was 99.6% down at the time that the measles vaccine was introduced. Measles deaths were gone!

And that’s a fact: in some New England states, in 1963, when the measles vaccine was introduced, there no deaths at all from measles. 

The same can be said incidentally for other infectious diseases such as whooping cough—massive declines in death before the introduction of any vaccine. Scarlet fever, which was during the 1800s a bigger killer than whooping cough or measles, went to near zero without the use of a vaccine.

[https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/07/31/measles-the-new-red-scare/]

The Hysteria and Fear Game

But the criminal shills for the pharma industry never stop, for shame. I just came across the fact that Stanford University researchers modeled what could happen over a quarter-century if Americans no longer took vaccines: 290,000 measles deaths (they claimed); 23,000 cases of polio paralysis (they claimed); 41,000 babies born with congenital rubella syndrome (they claimed); and possibly more than a million deaths from diphtheria (they claimed). 

What a scam! As I said, by the time that measles vaccine was introduced there were VERY FEW deaths anywhere. All that can be honestly predicted is that it would go back to the status quo, ie. not a problem. For example there were only 5 measles deaths in all of New England before vaccines. Washington state had a measles death rate of 0.3 per 100,000. 

The Pharma Scammers Have Scant Regard For Mere Truth

There was no possibility of using the truth to spin their webs. So they make up lies or, as they call it, modelling

First notice the word “modeled”. They did a made up scenario and then pretended it was fact. Actually, what they did was took a range of their own guesswork figures, averaged them, and then supposed that would give a fair, unbiased estimate of what would happen. [They call this “science”]

Their second sly trick was to suppose matters would go back to how they were in Victorian times: poverty, open sewers, widespread malnutrition and so forth. That’s just not true. By the time vaccinations came along, the death had all-but vanished (actually was ZERO in several states by that time). So logic decrees that we would just go back to that era. Except…

Third, and the most hidden and nasty, is that they fail to mention the terrain has now been altered to an unsustainable degree by vaccination itself (see below). 

Here’s Where It Gets Really Worrying:

A controversial study done on chickens shows that vaccinated birds caused the viruses to mutate to a more deadly form. Of course some scientists say it has little relevance for human vaccination! Well haha! Chickens are very relevant when it suits them. How often have you seen “bird flu” traipsed through the media as a deadly threat to humans?

But when it threatens their status, they deny it works that way round.

Evolutionary science suggests that many pathogens aren’t deadly, or not even very virulent, because if they kill their host too quickly they can’t spread to other victims. Now enter vaccination. Some vaccines don’t prevent infection, but they do reduce how sick patients become. By keeping their hosts alive, such “imperfect” or “leaky” vaccines could give deadlier pathogens an edge, allowing them to spread when they would normally burn out quickly.

Now a 2015 study proves it can happen with Marek’s disease, a viral infection in chickens. Over the past few decades, Marek’s disease has become much more virulent—which some researchers believe is the result of vaccination.

When the birds weren’t vaccinated, infection with highly virulent strains killed them so fast that they shed very little virus—orders of magnitude less than when they were infected with less virulent strains. But in vaccinated birds, the opposite was true: Those infected with the most virulent strains shed more virus than birds infected with the least virulent strain.

Thus, “vaccination enabled the onward transmission of viruses otherwise too lethal to transmit, putting unvaccinated individuals at great risk of severe disease and death,” the authors wrote in PLOS Biology. It made matters worse!

[https://www.science.org/content/article/could-some-vaccines-make-diseases-more-deadly]

What if this should happen to the new Ebola vaccine? That’s a sensible question asked by study author Andrew Read, a biologist at Pennsylvania State University, University Park. To which industry-fan Adrian Hill, a vaccine researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, retorts “He [Read] should stop scaremongering.” The whole distinction between leaky and nonleaky vaccines is flawed… Every vaccine is leaky, in that some people don’t get protected by it, some people are partially protected, some people have prevention of disease, and others prevention of infection.” Millions of people around the world receive shots every month, and there is no evidence that that has ever led to any disease becoming deadlier, Hill says.

But Hill is disingenuous at best, possibly a pharma shill. We now have new and nasty microbes CAUSED BY VACCINATION. The official term is vaccine-derived viruses (and bacteria). We now have “wild” measles (an atypical form) caused by the vaccines; an altered polio viruses pool; immunity-adapted hep B; antigen loss strains of pertussis (which thus escape the vaccines antibody response); evolved pneumococcus serotypes, which evade the vaccine; and more are being documented. 

Of course we get only official denials. “It’s not a problem, keep taking your shots.” As for the media, they just spew out what they are told to. But there are lots of honest doctors and scientists around the globe, finding awkward facts that contradict the official narrative. You’ll just never get to hear of their work.

Meanwhile they go on ranting and railing about the naughty people who won’t “follow the science”. Well, I follow the science; there isn’t any sometimes!

Just to finish:

Cod liver oil is recognized by the National Library of Medicine as a source of Vitamin A and can be obtained from eating fresh cod liver or by taking supplements.  Fortune Business Insights notes that the “global cod liver oil market is projected to grow from $88.75 million (2022) to $162.86 million by 2029.”

Get some!

To Your Good Health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

There is a tendency to think that lead pathology has been dealt with, as in largely eliminated. Unfortunately that’s far from the case. While it is true that lead levels in the environment are less than, say, 50 years ago, it is sill incredibly persistent and is carried in human tissues almost permanently. We do not shake off lead so easily and IT’S DEADLY!

You may had read the theory that lead poisoning is probably what sank the Roman empire. They had lead in their plumbing, lead in their baths, lead cookware, even wine sweetened with lead acetate (sapa), and obviously large amounts of the metal has been found in their bodies: over 70 times higher than pre-Roman populations. They were once a brilliant and advanced civilization but maybe they died of being somewhat weakened, relatively infertile and perhaps deranged!¹

CHRIS73/CREATIVE COMMONS

Geochemist Clair Patterson (1922 – 1995) published that in our time we are born with 1000 times more lead in our bones than was found among our ancestors centuries ago! Patterson was a strong advocate for the removal of toxic lead from our environment. He also used a uranium-lead isotope to determine that the earth was 4.5 billions years old and he received the Nobel Prize for his great contribution to human knowledge… Oh, no, wait a minute. No he didn’t. Actually he was IGNORED by the Nobel committee, who awarded it instead to two independent workers on the chemistry of organometallic “sandwich” compounds!²

(Yawn)

Here’s something critical you may not know: lead levels in your bones (bone lead) is a perfect monitor for your risk of dying from all causes. 

This startling fact is from The Harvard bone-lead mortality study (?2007–2009).³

You have unsafe levels of lead in your bones even if you have had 100 IV EDTA infusions (aka. IV chelation), slow with sodium EDTA or rapidly with Calcium EDTA.  Rapid Calcium EDTA infusion is proven to take out more lead than the slow but slow infusion is better for those few patients where the primary issue is pathologic calcification, as in vascular calcification or high calcium coronary score.

Remember: hair, blood and urine levels tell you almost nothing about your bone lead score!

From “Safe” to None at All 

There was a time—not very long ago—when a child could carry a measurable burden of lead in their blood and still be considered “fine.” Not healthy, not thriving—just not yet alarming enough to trigger concern. That illusion has been steadily dismantled over the past half century, piece by piece, study by study, until today the conclusion is stark:

There is no safe level of lead exposure in children.

That statement, now widely accepted, represents one of the most profound reversals in environmental health science.

The CDC’s Turning Point (2012)

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formally lowered its reference level for blood lead in children from 10 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) to 5 µg/dL, effectively doubling the number of children considered at risk.

This decision, reported by John Gever in MedPage Today, was more than a numerical adjustment—it was a philosophical shift. The CDC also abandoned the term “level of concern,” acknowledging that it falsely implied safety below a threshold.

The agency stated plainly:

“No level of lead in the blood is safe.”

This position was based on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention, which emphasized that even low-level exposure is associated with measurable harm. The new 5 µg/dL benchmark was not a safety cutoff, but a statistical marker—the 97.5th percentile of U.S. children’s blood lead levels at the time.

The implication was unsettling: what had once been considered “acceptable” exposure was now recognized as biologically active and potentially damaging.

To understand how dramatic this shift was, we have to rewind.

In the mid-20th century, lead poisoning was recognized primarily as an acute condition. Children with very high blood lead levels—often above 60 µg/dL—presented with seizures, coma, or death. These were unmistakable cases.

Chronic lead poisoning, I learned at med school, was characterized as “The dangles and dry colic”, meaning abdominal pains and peripheral nerve damage, leading to weak wrists and difficulty walking.

Lower levels were largely ignored.

This paradigm began to crack in the 1970s, largely due to the work of Herbert Needleman, a pediatrician and psychiatrist who asked a radical question:

What if lead harms children even when it doesn’t cause obvious poisoning?

In a landmark 1979 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Needleman and colleagues measured lead levels in children’s shed baby teeth and compared them with cognitive and behavioral outcomes.

Herbert Needleman. The kid’s hero!

They found that children with higher lead burdens—even at levels far below those causing acute poisoning—had:

• Lower IQ scores

• Reduced attention span

• Increased behavioral problems

This study was explosive. It suggested that lead was not just a poison—it was a neurodevelopmental disruptor at levels previously considered harmless.⁴

By the 1990s and early 2000s, a new generation of studies confirmed and extended Needleman’s findings.

One of the most influential came from Bruce Lanphear and colleagues:

They found something deeply counter-intuitive: the largest drop in IQ occurred at the lowest levels of exposure! Children whose blood lead rose from 1 to 10 µg/dL experienced a greater IQ decline per unit increase than those at higher levels.

In other words, the dose-response curve was steepest at the low end—exactly where previous standards had assumed safety.⁵

This pooled analysis of multiple international cohorts revealed something deeply counterintuitive:

Why Are Children So Particularly Vulnerable?

Lead interferes with multiple biological systems central to brain development:

• Synapse formation (disrupting neural connections)

• Calcium signaling (essential for neuron communication)

• Neurotransmitter release

• Gene expression and epigenetic regulation

So much so that a major review by the National Research Council concluded:

Lead exposure during early childhood can cause permanent alterations in brain structure and function, with effects that persist into adulthood.⁶

Behavioral and Social Effects

• The impact is not limited to IQ.

• Longitudinal studies have linked childhood lead exposure to:

• Increased impulsivity and aggression

• Reduced academic achievement

• Higher rates of delinquency and criminal behavior

Reyes demonstrated that reductions in environmental lead—particularly after the phase-out of leaded gasoline—were strongly associated with declines in violent crime decades later.⁷

From Treatment to Prevention

By the time of the CDC’s 2012 decision, the scientific consensus had shifted decisively:

• There is no threshold below which lead is harmless

• Effects occur at levels once considered negligible

• Damage is often irreversible

The Advisory Committee emphasized that policies should move away from reacting to elevated blood levels and toward primary prevention—eliminating exposure before it occurs.

The Quiet Reality

The most unsettling aspect of this story is not that lead is toxic—that has been known for centuries.

It is that for decades, “acceptable exposure” was defined not by biology, but by what was economically and politically convenient.

Each time the threshold was lowered—from 60 µg/dL, to 30, to 10, to 5—it wasn’t because lead became more dangerous.

It was because we became more honest about what it was doing all along.

What You Can Do

My old pal the late Garry Gordon was a big activist with lead: he said we older ones should undertake daily chelation for the rest of our lives. He was thinking of oral or rectal chelation with EDTA (which tires after a while, let’s be honest!)

He also used zeolite and found some benefits from daily ingestion of high dose vitamin C, 10 grams or more, plenty of fiber, and other natural chelators (such as pectin and parsley). Garry’s point being that there is new lead coming in daily from water, food and air and from lead released by bone turnover.  

Calcium is the simplest, most underrated intervention. Lead and calcium compete for the same biological pathways. So…

• Low calcium ? more lead absorption

• Adequate calcium ? less absorption + less bone release

Calcium doesn’t exactly “chelate” lead—it prevents it from getting in and coming out of bone.⁸

Iron status matters more than people realize. Iron deficiency dramatically increases lead uptake. Children with low iron absorb significantly more lead.⁹

So eat red meat, liver (if you’re open to it), or iron supplementation if deficient. But do NOT take iron supplements without first getting your doctor to measure your serum ferritin levels. Overdosing with iron can be dangerous. No kidding.

OK, that’s it for this week! Not too “heavy” a topic, I hope (joke).

To your good health,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby 
The Alternative Doctor

References:

1. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/londinium-romans-blood-lead-levels-so-high-they-may-have-lowered-birth-rates/4010808.article
2. Patterson, Clair C. Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man. Archives of Environmental Health, 11(3), 344–360 (1965)
3. Circulation. Volume 120, Number 12: https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.108.827121
4. Needleman, Herbert L., et al. Deficits in psychologic and classroom performance of children with elevated dentine lead levels. New England Journal of Medicine, 300(13), 689–695 (1979)
5. Lanphear, Bruce P., et al. Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(7), 894–899 (2005)
6. National Research Council. Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other Sensitive Populations. National Academies Press, 1993
7. Reyes, Jessica Wolpaw. Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 7(1), 2007
8. Gulson, Brian L., et al. “Dietary calcium supplementation reduces mobilization of lead from bone in lactating women.”Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(3), 2004
9. Wright, Robert O., et al. “Association between iron deficiency and low-level lead poisoning in an urban primary care clinic.”American Journal of Public Health, 89(7), 1999

But as usual, the truth is 180 degrees around: if you want to feel miserable, die young and really be a loser, don’t show respect and kindness to others. Researchers are now finding that it can prolong our lives as well.

A new study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has recently found that kindness may help slow the effects of aging.¹ While this study is not conclusive, it makes sense. If negative emotions affect us negatively, positive emotions should affect us positively. 

In this study, 150 middle aged volunteers were separated into three groups. One group did mindfulness meditation training, the second group learned about loving kindness meditation, and the third group served as the control group. The researchers measured each volunteers’ telomeres (caps on the end of your chromosomes that protect your DNA) at the beginning and end of the study. As we grow older, our telomeres get shorter. The shorter they get the shorter your life expectancy is, so they are a good marker for longevity. 

At the end of the experiment all three groups had shorter telomeres, but the group that had practiced loving kindness had less shortening than the other two groups.  The control group’s telomeres were the shortest. The researchers concluded that practicing kindness for just a few weeks slowed aging slightly, prompting hopefulness that we can slow our own aging process by doing the same thing in our daily lives. 

This is good.

Who remembers Ann Herbert’s glorious phrase Random Acts Of Kindness And Senseless Acts Of Beauty (1982)?

Written on a restaurant placemat by author Anne Herbert in 1982 as a direct counter-phrase to “random acts of violence and senseless acts of cruelty”, which we used to hear a lot. What a subversive idea, to be kind, especially in such a hostile world. It became a movement, which flourished for a time. I’m sorry to say it’s not so much in public consciousness right now. Everyone is so nervous about their own safety and the world’s future, there doesn’t seem to be time to worry about others.

It’s the wrong approach. If you look after and care for others, they will look after you. You need to be in a community that is bonded by shared humanitarian views.

Ann Herbert’s movement was FUN – playful – and encourages creating positive, unexpected moments without expecting anything in return, fostering a world focused on care, impish playfulness and joy rather than selfish gain. 

Random Acts of Kindness were small, unselfish, unexpected, and often anonymous acts of help or goodwill.

Examples: Buying coffee for a stranger, leaving a kind note, helping someone with a task, smiling at a stranger, or donating to charity.

Senseless Acts of Beauty: Creating or appreciating beautiful things that serve no practical or rational purpose, emphasizing the value of wonder, nature, and joy over utility.

Examples: Placing flowers in a neglected spot, creating public art, or creating artful surprises that serve no functional purpose.

But while you are busy doing good, don’t forget BEING KIND TO YOURSELF. This is a version of Tal Ben-Shahar’s “platinum rule”: treat yourself as you would want others to treat you! (a step beyond the “Golden Rule”: treat others as you would want them to treat you).²

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy and self-healing where you learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with your inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that really do not prevent you from moving forward in your life. Only your attitude about these tricky emotions is what sticks you in place.

With this understanding, you can begin to accept your hardships and commit to making necessary changes in your behavior, regardless of what is going on in your life and how you feel about it.

ACT was developed in the 1980s by psychologist Steven C. Hayes, a professor at the University of Nevada.³ The ideas that coalesced into ACT emerged from Hayes’s own experience, particularly his history of panic attacks. Eventually, he vowed that he would no longer run from himself—he would accept himself and his experiences.

His words are very telling:

“We as a culture seem to be dedicated to the idea that ‘negative’ human emotions need to be fixed, managed, or changed—not experienced as part of a whole life. We are treating our own lives as problems to be solved as if we can sort through our experiences for the ones we like and throw out the rest.” 

That’s just a kind of denial that never really works well. In other words a HOAX.

Truth is, practicing kindness to SELF and OTHERS can be rewarding in many scientifically determined ways:

• Kindness releases endorphins in our brain which help alleviate pain.

• People who practice kindness age slower and have less stress than average.

• Kindness improves mood and helps with depression and anxiety. It stimulates the production of serotonin, which heals, calms and increases happiness.⁴

• Kindness also releases oxytocin, which aides in the release of nitric oxide which dilates blood vessels to reduce blood pressure.

• Kindness stimulates dopamine in the brain causing your pleasure centers to light up.

• Practicing kindness improves our self-esteem.

• Being kind to others helps people bond.

Thing is, kindness is a version of love. It’s tolerance. It’s harmony. It calms and relaxes. There is abundant science showing that loving and being loved is healing, soothing and prolongs life.

It’s good for us!

This week I challenge you to willfully practice kindness. Make a point of being kind to others and being kind to yourself.  Not only will you slow the aging process, you’ll feel great about yourself while making others feel good too.  If you need a hand getting into the proper mindset for being kind to others, multi-media sensory stimulation, MMSS as I call it, can help.  Listening to a positive, motivating creative visualization audio session will help you release stress, sleep better enabling you to be kinder to yourself and others.  

Here’s the link: alternative-doctor.com/electronic-meditation

There is a lovely book which speaks admirably to this theme: The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life by Piero Ferrucci.

Ferucci argues that kindness is a fundamental key to personal happiness and a thriving world, not a mere luxury. The book, written by a transpersonal psychologist (he was a pupil of Roberto Assagioli), explores various facets of kindness like honesty, forgiveness, and empathy, presenting them as essential virtues that lead to a more fulfilling life, counteracting the coldness of modern society. It combines philosophical depth with practical advice, using stories and exercises to show how small acts of decency can transform individuals and the world.

Ferucci is a staffer at the Psychosynthesis Institute in Florence, Italy.

Be kinder and more loving!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

References:

1. Loving-kindness meditation slows biological aging in novices: Evidence from a 12-week randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 108, 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.05.020
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_C._Hayes
3. https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/the-art-of-kindness

Now we live here, of course, we have a better perspective. There are some WONDERFUL Americans: sincere, caring, jovial and of outstanding integrity and spirituality and it is to these people Vivien and I entrust our future.

Since we’ve arrived, the HORRIBLE political polarization we have found very disturbing. Take the last couple of years: Democrats seem to consider it their duty to bring down Trump, even though he was elected by a sweeping majority. The Dems. are actively working against democracy, despite their very name. The governor of California, Gavin Newsome, publicly announced he was stealing $50 million of Californian taxpayers money to bring down Trump (he didn’t call it stealing, of course, he’s too self-righteous). But since it’s to be used to oppose the will of the majority of Americans at the vote, it is surely not legal.

Don’t think I’m Republican either. The way they fight women’s rights over their  bodies with such fury is chilling to behold. It’s as if they think they OWN yet-unborn babies. And large numbers of Rep. senators are heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry, so they oppose natural healing in principle. We all know about the corrupt lobbying in Congress (read bribes). But enough: as I said, Americans are the problem, not this lovely country.

And, I repeat, not all Americans.

We are lucky to live out West, in the desert. Apart from the good weather, within a few hours drive we have such spectacles of natural beauty as Yosemite, the Sierras, Zion Canyon (surely the most beautiful of all?), Bryce, Grand Canyon, Lakes Meade and Powell, Sedona and the California coastal drive (Highway 1). Vivien and I love whale watching from the clifftops in California. Blues are very common!

It’s like living in Heaven!

Yosemite National Park (yo-semmity for those of you who have never been)

As for Las Vegas, we love boasting! I remember an event one time years ago when we were up in the hills above Lake Como, Italy. It was late and we still hadn’t secured a bed for the night. We called on one hotel, which still had the lights on late. The moment they learned we lived in Las Vegas, they couldn’t do enough for us! They had been the previous year and LOVED it! Unfortunately, they had no beds left but called every other hotel in town, till they found a vacancy for us!

Spoiler Alert: we don’t like the Strip and very rarely go there! We live in a leafy suburb, up the north-west mountain slopes!

Seemingly little things: I am back writing my epic novel on whales and whaling. And it makes me proud that the USA, of all the nations on earth, forced the whaling moratorium in 1982, using her economic power and immense clout to force other nations to comply. It still holds today, though the Icelanders, Norwegians and Japanese have never honored it and continue their senseless slaughter out of sheer arrogance and stupidity.

It’s a fact that US farmers are, collectively, raping the land for greed and profit. But it has been a delight to learn of the many small family concerns that are trying to oppose Big Ag(riculture). The slow food movement and the farm-to-fork campaign relies on them, as does the future of the land. They have it tough because, far from helping them, the Washington bureaucrats seem determined to make it unprofitable for small farms. But we have first-hand knowledge of courage and tenacity and occasional spectacular successes of very bright individuals, who are more of credit to the nation than the numerous jumped-up political nobodies who are harassing them.

And as for courage of the ordinary soul; do not doubt it. Almost weekly we see reports of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters, where people are rendered homeless and struggling. But the neighbors come forward, often showing great courage, putting themselves in danger to effect rescues. And helping each other rebuild too, without recompense, simply because that’s the right thing to do!

Decency you might think is a rarity these days. But in fact it is not so. The media love to report tales of death, loss and misery and will often do so while deliberately omitting any instances of goodness and compassion. Ugh!

We find the average American to be caring, sincere and honest. It’s just the few who tarnish the image of the many (Hollywood is pretty good at tarnishing the average American too!)

Healthy? No! Americans eat very badly on the whole. It’s virtually forced on them by greedy commerce which wants to sell you far more than you need. Supersize everything! They can sell you 20% extra for virtually no extra cost, so guess what? They push and push till it’s very annoying to keep refusing. Here taking home a doggy bag of left-overs is virtually the norm!

A note about our firemen: we love them! They are so dedicated and courageous. Their job is exacting and very dangerous; wild fires, when they get going here, can wipe out whole hillsides and acres of communities, sometimes in a matter of minutes. In fact 60 – 100 US firemen die every year, protecting people and properties. Because of their calling, it is not uncommon to have the customers in a café burst into spontaneous applause when a fire crew walks in to get themselves a morning coffee!

Not so the police. They do themselves no credit, with unnecessary killings and deadly beatings, often racially motivated. Many black people know that if they are pulled over, they are immediately in danger of their lives. The officer will often have a serious attitude problem and try to provoke trouble. The apparent police approach is shoot first and ask questions later (or just skip the questions…)

All this started at coffee this morning, when Viv suggested that it would be nice to make everyone aware of just what is good about the USA. For instance the magic of Monterey marine aquarium. We only learned via a British TV program (Blue Ocean, I think it was called) about the marvelous conservation and recovery program that was being conducted offshore there. The blue whales are back! There are now several THOUSAND blue whales at large off the California coast.

And on a similar tack, have you heard of the marine 100% “no take” zones? It was an idea first launched by marine biologist Bill Ballantine in New Zealand. But the idea has caught on and now the USA has the largest marine fully-protected zone in the world. It’s off the Hawai’ian chain. The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument covers roughly 583,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean; actually larger than all U.S. national parks combined, as of its 2016 expansion!

These zones are to be totally 100% free from human interference. That means no  trawling. No line fishing. No spearfishing. No hooking a lobster out of its lair. No prying off a clump of rock oysters… 

The great thing is it’s working and within an astonishingly short space of time marine animals are back in sufficient numbers to spill out into the nearby ocean and thus benefit local fishing noticeably.

I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know there has been a call to make 30% of the world’s oceans “no take” by 2030!

Gotta love it! Thank you Vivi!

Prof.

If you ever get a genuine dose, you’ll know it. You won’t need a lab test to tell you it was the real deal!

But here’s the shocking truth: these days “flu” so-called is just a tool, used to manipulate the public and stampede them into getting loaded with flu shots. Plenty of lies and flim flam go into the pot, just in case there is hesitancy. That wouldn’t do. We need those nationwide vaccination campaigns; it’s part of the annual Big Pharma budget!

There are, in fact, over 200 viruses (and even some bacteria) that cause influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI), all producing the same or similar symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell real flu from ILI. Both last for days and only rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only Influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses.

Unfortunately, flu shots are just about worthless. Oh sure, they can trot out reams of spun figures to show how crucial it is to get your annual shot. But does it really do any good? And is it really as safe as they claim; that even children and babies should get “harmless” flu shots?

I’ll start by addressing the second question first:

“… the swine-flu vaccination program was one of its (CDC) greatest blunders…It all began in 1976 when CDC scientists saw that a virus involved in a flu attack outbreak at Fort Dix, N.J., was similar to the swine-flu virus that killed 500,000 Americans in 1918. Health officials immediately launched a 100-million dollar program to immunize every American. But the expected epidemic never materialized, and the vaccine led to partial paralysis in 532 people. There were 32 deaths.”¹ So much for the continuous chant that vaccines are “safe”. So what about “effective”? 

The provisional results are in for last season’s flu vaccine effectiveness (winter 2025-2026). It was RUBBISH! Though of course that’s not what they told us.

Based on U.S. surveillance network data from September 2025 to February 2026, estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) rates against influenza A- and influenza B-related outpatient visits for adults ranged from 22% to 34%, which is absolutely dismal, and 30% to 41% for those ages 65 and older. That’s the group they claim that the vaccine is most needed for and does the most good! 30 – 40% effective? Nah. I don’t think so.

Among children and adolescents ages 6 months to 17 years, VE rates against outpatient visits ranged from 38% to 41%, hardly impressive. “These findings support CDC’s recommendation for annual influenza vaccination,” they concluded.²

No they absolutely do NOT! 22-30% protection? That’s not effective in my book.

Did you know that science says that it takes 71 people to be vaccinated against flu, to prevent even one case and 29 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing an ILI? No, I suppose not, since the medical industry doesn’t WANT you to know!

Add this…

In adults ages 65 and older, with standard-dose inactivated influenza vaccines, the effectiveness was just 16%. And that’s the age group they claim it does the most good!

The whole thing remains a sham because they make no attempt to differentiate influenza infection and other viruses and bacteria that cause an influenza-like illness. The truth when you get right down to it is that rates of influenza are not measured, just claimed.

Most famously, in the 2009 outbreak of H1N1 flu, journalist Sharyl Attkison discovered that the CDC was exaggerating and then finally faking their results. The CDC stopped recommending lab tests for H1N1 in the summer of 2009, advising doctors to count any “flu-like” illness as swine flu, which led to ridiculously high inaccurate counts. 

Attkisson quoted experts like Dr. Bernadine Healy, who noted the pandemic was “among the mildest, rated a category 1, similar in ferocity to ordinary seasonal flu,” rather than the high-mortality pandemic originally projected.

It is widely held that stopping actual lab testing for flu was because the results were coming back largely negative, thus contradicting the official (government and Big Pharma) narrative of a massive and dangerous H1N1 flu pandemic.

So who do you trust? Follow the science, they say. But where’s the science?

Try this: a recent study showed that getting a flu shot likely increased your chances of getting a flu-like illness. I’ll write that again:

GETTING A FLU SHOT INCREASED YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING A FLU-LIKE ILLNESS.

This was pre-published in a 2025 Cleveland Clinic report on a cohort of 53,402 employees. Researchers found vaccinated workers had a statistically significant 27% higher risk of contracting influenza! You won’t find that being read out by the news anchors on CNN or CNBC!³

This had already been shown in an earlier study among Canadian workers, in which receiving a flu shot in 2009 INCREASED your chances of getting the H1N1 flu!⁴

The Bottom Line

The truth is that science does NOT support mass flu vaccination. The Cochrane database, which is the fundamental tool of scientific statistical analysis, does not contain EVEN ONE well-run, industry standard research paper showing unequivocally that the flu shot works well.

On the contrary, digging into these reviews exposes a conspicuous absence of conclusive evidence as to the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in either children under 2, healthy adults, the elderly, or healthcare workers who care for the elderly. 

For example, here is the conclusion of the review titled, “Vaccines for preventing seasonal influenza and its complications in people aged 65 or older.” 

“The available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older. To resolve the uncertainty, an adequately powered publicly-funded randomized, placebo-controlled trial run over several seasons should be undertaken.”

Your science is lousy and the product doesn’t work? No problem, hold a national media fest!!

Not what you hear from the media, is it? Such a trial has never been carried out! Well, of course it’s easier and cheaper to scare people with stories than run an expensive scientific study (especially if you know in advance your treatment doesn’t really work!)

Your science is lousy and the product doesn’t work? No problem, hold a national media fest!!

Notably in the Cochrane database, there was only one study of safety and effectiveness in children under two, which showed the efficacy of inactivated vaccine was similar to placebo. In terms of safety an analysis of safety outcome data was not feasible, the writers said. “Extensive evidence of reporting bias of safety outcomes from trials of live attenuated vaccines impeded meaningful analysis.” 

Despite that, the industry still calls for children to be vaccinated from the age of 6 months.⁵

Ker-ching!

This is deliberate misinformation on a vast scale, perpetrated by the government lackeys in cahoots with Big Pharma.

I’m not anti-vax, as my readers know, but I am anti-B*S*, especially when it’s official spinning. Snake oil merchants lie to sell their wares. We all know that. But the government should never be in the position of helping them to do so.

Was that a sniff? Yes, a sniff of disdain, not the start of a flu!!

To Your Good Health,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

References:

1. U.S. News and World Report, Joseph Carey, October 14, 1985, p. 70, “How Medical Sleuths Track Killer Diseases.”
2. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/75/wr/mm7509a2.htm
3. Shrestha, Nabin K., et al. “Effectiveness of the Influenza Vaccine During the 2024–2025 Respiratory Viral Season.” Preprint, Cleveland Clinic, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.20.25324343
4. PLoS Med. 2010;7(4):e1000258. Epub 2010 Apr 6. PMID: 20386731
5. Altern Ther Health Med. 2009 Sep-Oct;15(5):44-6. PMID: 18425905