The dodgy Weston Price

[TylerDurden]

Here's a text I copied from the other rawpaleodiet (yahoo group) which points out the some of the flaws in Weston-Price:-

Here's a report re Incas and tuberculosis found pre-contact:-


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0205/feature5/index.html

Here's a study showing tuberculosis across pre-Contact America:-

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1580139

Here's a link re Inuit and disease in pre-Contact times:-

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/74885/abstract?


There are many other issues, of course, Weston-Price did a whirlwind tour

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html

around numerous native tribes and made wide-ranging assumptions that these
native tribes all had supposedly perfect diets, despite the fact that those
native tribes' diets varied very widely from each other. Then he made arbitrary
claims that all criminality was caused by diet and Pottenger even made some
dodgy claim re homosexuality being caused by poor diet(yet current studies show
homosexuality as being present in some species in the wild despite having great
diets). One of the worst and most fraudulent)claims that Price ever made though
was that he had temporarily improved the mental retardation of a Down's Syndrome
patient solely through surgery - which is ridiculous as Down's Syndrome's mental
impairment is due to genetic factors re faulty cell-division etc.:-

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/birthdefects/f/down_syn_causes.htm

So, anyway,the worst claim Weston Price made was the supposed perfect health of
native tribes in pre-Contact times. He claimed that they were decimated,
population-wise, by health problems after abandoning their traditional diets and
taking up Western-style diets. Yet, when one actually looks at the evidence, one
finds that native tribes actually died very quickly as a result of
settler-introduced diseases like smallpox , well before they ever adopted
Western-style diets by 19th/20th century times. Ironically, I even found that
Maori health/lifespan actually improved considerably only after they adopted a
western diet c.1900

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/events/ruralhealth/2005/papers/8nrhcfinalpaper00603.
pdf

http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/publications/publications-2006/maori_eco_develo
pment.pdf

I am not denying that Weston Price contributed a lot of positive information re
diet in many ways, but it is highly misleading for people to cite Weston Price
and claim that cooked foods are healthy as long as they are not too processed.
In fact, if one reads Weston-Price more carefully one finds that the healthiest
tribes he visited all incorporated a degree of raw animal food into their diets,
hardly an endorsement of cooking. Plus, there are other factors, it's been shown
that reducing the amounts of AGEs in the body can be done by adopting caloric
restriction(AGEs are short for "advanced glcyation end products", 1 of the types
of heat-created toxins produced by cooking food)- and it is well known that
native tribes did not have a constant food-supply and were routinely subject to
caloric restriction at times, thus helping them to ward off, to a partial
extent, the more serious negative effects of a cooked diet. An additional point
is that these native tribes did huge amounts of exercise each day, quite unlike
most Western contemporaries(except Olympic athletes), so were able to partially
protect themselves against cooked diets as a result. Here's a study of the Masai
which shows atherosclerotic tendencies in that tribe, somewhat mitigated via
exercise:-

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/26

Excerpt:- "The coronary arteries showed intimal thickening by atherosclerosis
which equaled that of old U.S. men. The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more
than compensate for this disease. It is speculated that the Masai are protected
from their atherosclerosis by physical fitness which causes their coronary
vessels to be capacious. "

Geoff

[goodsamaritan]

I think you are merely looking at Weston's Price work as if he pre-meditated "dodginess."
I did not see that in his book.

His true calling was that of teeth.  He was a dentist.
He took photographs of teeth.
He statistically proved that on their native diets these tribes had great teeth, very very low % of cavities, their facial structure well developed so their is no crowding of teeth.

Whatever diet those native tribes lived on, it gave them superior teeth.

[wodgina]

Did WAP claim these people had perfect health?

There is no doubt that primitive people had superior facial development/teeth than those that had adopted modern diets.

I look at old photos all the time and even though the people rarely smile they have a broad face with excellent mid facial development (These photo's included prisoners etc so no one can say these people were cherry picked) No droopy eyes, overbites, pinched noses unlike what I saw today around my city..

I still can't see why you can't improve a Down Syndromes persons condition through palate expansion surgery. It's not as if the kid magically became a fully functioning teenager! He showed some improvement then got worse...what's so hard to believe there?
That link  had nothing to do with palate surgery on Down Syndrome's and most people understand it's genetic condition that can only be treated not cured (basic surgery included)

[TylerDurden]

I think you are merely looking at Weston's Price work as if he pre-meditated "dodginess."
I did not see that in his book.

His true calling was that of teeth.  He was a dentist.
He took photographs of teeth.
He statistically proved that on their native diets these tribes had great teeth, very very low % of cavities, their facial structure well developed so their is no crowding of teeth.

Whatever diet those native tribes lived on, it gave them superior teeth.

That's just it, he made all sorts of arbitrary, fraudulent claims(mostly based on healthy-looking teeth) yet he was merely a dentist, not even a doctor. And it seems clear to me that he cherry-picked his clientele as even the Eskimoes described by Stefansson seem to have had very worn-out teeth.

[TylerDurden]

Did WAP claim these people had perfect health?

YES! All of the tribes he visited ,with high-meat-intake, that is!

I still can't see why you can't improve a Down Syndromes persons condition through palate expansion surgery. It's not as if the kid magically became a fully functioning teenager! He showed some improvement then got worse...what's so hard to believe there?

The point is that Down's Syndrome's mental retardation simply cannot be cured by simple surgery. Now, if that surgery had included incredibly advanced genetic manipulation as well, I might believe it, otherwise it's about  as believable as the Flat Earth Theory.








[/quote]

[William]

YES! All of the tribes he visited ,with high-meat-intake, that is!
The point is that Down's Syndrome's mental retardation simply cannot be cured by simple surgery. Now, if that surgery had included incredibly advanced genetic manipulation as well, I might believe it, otherwise it's about  as believable as the Flat Earth Theory.

There is some evidence for the flat earth theory that might be considered by those not too mentally petrified:
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/

[Raw Kyle]

The point is that Down's Syndrome's mental retardation simply cannot be cured by simple surgery. Now, if that surgery had included incredibly advanced genetic manipulation as well, I might believe it, otherwise it's about  as believable as the Flat Earth Theory.

Tyler, I dare say you don't understand everything about genetics, yes? Who does? Here's a possible scenario I'll throw out to you, trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) may very well exert it's influence in an improperly built skull. Fix the skull, and although the individual still has 3 copies of the 21st chromosome, the symptoms go away.

Is that how it is? I don't know. Do you know? No, you don't, but you're slamming Weston Price as if you know exactly the way trisomy 21 exerts it's symptomatic effects.

I think you're failing to understand that all genes do is code for proteins that go and do work in the body, build things, digest things, etc...If you can get the proteins you need for a reaction that you don't have the genes for somewhere else, diet or a drug or whatever, than the lack of the gene doesn't exert it's symptoms anymore. Case in point, in sickle cell anemia the blood cells are shaped wrong and can't transport oxygen very well. If you could give someone a drug that induces their blood cells to reshape to the proper oxygen carrying shape, although they would STILL have the genetic abnormality, they would be asymptomatic. Cured, if you will, although they could pass the mutation and it's symptoms onto a child if the mutation was in their germ cells. Then that child would need the drug in order to function properly, and so on.

[wodgina]

YES! All of the tribes he visited ,with high-meat-intake, that is!
The point is that Down's Syndrome's mental retardation simply cannot be cured by simple surgery. Now, if that surgery had included incredibly advanced genetic manipulation as well, I might believe it, otherwise it's about  as believable as the Flat Earth Theory.

This is crazy!  WAP never claimed to cure anyone of Down Syndrome, where do you get this I idea from?

First you claim it's outrageous that WAP claimed he could improve Downs Syndrome symptoms with simple surgery now your talking about cures with  simple surgery? Improve or cure?

[wodgina]

Does WAP use the term 'Perfect health'? anyway if he did I don't think he mean't 100% never ever got sick, ever had disease, a tooth fall out, TB, or a cold in all eternity. That would be a ridiculous notion that most people of intelligence would understand.

He just most likey used the term to show the wildly different levels of health in the two groups.

[William]

"Perfect health" to me refers to the reports of the absence of marks of disease on the bones of paleolithic man, compared to the numerous marks almost always seen on bones of neolithic (us) man. This is of course the reason why we try to copy paleolithic diet.

I don't know if Dr. Price was aware of that finding, but he was certainly aware of the state of the teeth and jaws of pre-contact primitives compared to those of the bread-and-jam eaters, which probably indicate something much the same as a paleolithic level of health.

The whole book is a demonstration of the truth of the old (and otherwise cryptic) saying "you are what you eat".  IMO



As to whether Down's Syndrome can be cured by a perfect (meaning raw paleo) diet, the only thing that I can imagine doing so is the human immune system, and I'm not aware of evidence of such a trial.

[TylerDurden]

Does WAP use the term 'Perfect health'? anyway if he did I don't think he mean't 100% never ever got sick, ever had disease, a tooth fall out, TB, or a cold in all eternity. That would be a ridiculous notion that most people of intelligence would understand.

The WAPF certainly makes this absurd claim re perfect health:- "Dr. Price's research demonstrated that humans achieve perfect physical form and perfect health generation after generation only when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats." taken from:- 
http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm

He just most likey used the term to show the wildly different levels of health in the two groups.

The fact is that Weston Price claimed the native tribes were completely free of disease etc. Yet such tribes were constantly affected by disease, as shown above.

[TylerDurden]

This is crazy!  WAP never claimed to cure anyone of Down Syndrome, where do you get this I idea from?

First you claim it's outrageous that WAP claimed he could improve Downs Syndrome symptoms with simple surgery now your talking about cures with  simple surgery? Improve or cure?

I got the idea from this and other sources:-
"Dr. Price paid particular attention to a sixteen year old boy who had Down's syndrome (or what they termed mongolism) and had been born to an older mother who was sickly at the time of his conception. Down's syndrome often occurs in children of mothers who are over 40 or to mothers experiencing reproductive exhaustion. Dr. Weston Price felt that perhaps the crowding of the pituitary gland caused by constrictive jaw structure, contributed to the underdeveloped sexual organs and mental capacities.
Through surgery Dr. Price widened the boy's maxillary arch, which resulted in improvement of the mongoloid features and a definite increase in mental abilities. The boy wore an appliance in his mouth to keep the bones in place but when it subsequently became dislodged, he reverted and many of his previous abnormal characteristics returned."

Now this "improvement" is physically impossible. To undo mental retardation one has to regenerate neurons in the brain or add extra brain-matter etc. Simple surgery cannot undo that kind of damage.

[TylerDurden]

Tyler, I dare say you don't understand everything about genetics, yes? Who does? Here's a possible scenario I'll throw out to you, trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) may very well exert it's influence in an improperly built skull. Fix the skull, and although the individual still has 3 copies of the 21st chromosome, the symptoms go away.

Is that how it is? I don't know. Do you know? No, you don't, but you're slamming Weston Price as if you know exactly the way trisomy 21 exerts it's symptomatic effects.

I think you're failing to understand that all genes do is code for proteins that go and do work in the body, build things, digest things, etc...If you can get the proteins you need for a reaction that you don't have the genes for somewhere else, diet or a drug or whatever, than the lack of the gene doesn't exert it's symptoms anymore. Case in point, in sickle cell anemia the blood cells are shaped wrong and can't transport oxygen very well. If you could give someone a drug that induces their blood cells to reshape to the proper oxygen carrying shape, although they would STILL have the genetic abnormality, they would be asymptomatic. Cured, if you will, although they could pass the mutation and it's symptoms onto a child if the mutation was in their germ cells. Then that child would need the drug in order to function properly, and so on.

Look, I concede that minor symptoms can be fixed by diet or surgery(eg:- diet healing digestive issues, surgery fixing flat feet or whatever), but the best that surgery could do, re improving intelligence, is perhaps improve blood-flow to the brain or relieve pressure on the brain. That's it. You can't build extra masses of brain-tissue via surgery and even a healthy diet won't help significantly increase the mental abilities of an adult  born with a mental age of 2, say. Yet Price makes outrageous claims re improving substantially a down's syndrome patient.

[pfw]

Did you actually read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration or are you attacking it second hand?

The WAPF is not the same as Weston Price. He did not claim that native people's were in perfect health, he claimed that their health was superior relative to their contemporaries living on a western diet. He then proceeded to document that with pictures and spent the rest of his life trying to explain it with vitamin theory. He quite clearly documented dental caries and illness in native diet populations, which is not something you do if you're trying to prove that they're in "perfect health". The main point about infectious disease he noted was that native dieters tended to survive  better and/or become infected less than western dieters (I'm thinking particularly of the Inuit and northern Indian chapters here). Obviously smallpox, being non-native and deadly, wiped out huge swaths of native populations, but that's not relevant to Price's observations.

Your fixation on Down's Syndrome would go away if you actually read the chapter about the "mongloid" child. There is no claim of a cure. There was simply the documented result of physical changes in the child after palate separation surgery, which reversed after the surgery was reversed. It's entirely possible, in fact probable, that the improvement obtained by the surgery had little to do with Down's syndrome at all. Price brought the result up as interesting but he didn't claim that surgery was a cure for Down's. It's not like the child suddenly became high functioning. He just went through measurable signs of puberty and had less mood issues until the surgery was reversed. This was important data to Price, given that he was a dentist who theorized that facial structure had measurable impact on mentality.

Again, you should actually read the source material if you want to attack it intelligently. Price was a product of his time and by no means a dietary messiah. He does make numerous claims that have since either been proven false or otherwise shown to be incorrect. But your attack here is little better than setting up a strawman. He wasn't a fraudster, he was a scientist. Science is the process of testing ideas by experiment, which means that you find a lot of ideas that are wrong along the way. A lot of Price's ideas were wrong. That doesn't invalidate his observations and it sure doesn't make him a fraud.

[TylerDurden]

Did you actually read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration or are you attacking it second hand?

I have his so-called "Bible" at home and have indeed read it, along with all the cherry-picked photos and other nonsense etc.

The WAPF is not the same as Weston Price. He did not claim that native people's were in perfect health, he claimed that their health was superior relative to their contemporaries living on a western diet. He then proceeded to document that with pictures and spent the rest of his life trying to explain it with vitamin theory. He quite clearly documented dental caries and illness in native diet populations, which is not something you do if you're trying to prove that they're in "perfect health". The main point about infectious disease he noted was that native dieters tended to survive  better and/or become infected less than western dieters (I'm thinking particularly of the Inuit and northern Indian chapters here).

The WAPF is indeed representative of WP's ideas and I note the multitude of links provided when I Google for claims re perfect health on WP diet. The simple fact is that WP deeply exaggerated claims re health among the natives. As for quibbling whether Price himself stated the word "perfect" or  his disciples, that's irrelevant given the exaggerations involved.

Obviously smallpox, being non-native and deadly, wiped out huge swaths of native populations, but that's not relevant to Price's observations.

 
Of course smallpox is very relevant indeed as Price claimed that the native populations died or suffered healthwise because of a switch to a western type of diet, whereas, as with smallpox and other issues, one can see that there were plenty of alternative explanations. When someone like Price carefully ignores such aspects, he is clearly being dishonest.

Your fixation on Down's Syndrome would go away if you actually read the chapter about the "mongloid" child. There is no claim of a cure. There was simply the documented result of physical changes in the child after palate separation surgery, which reversed after the surgery was reversed. It's entirely possible, in fact probable, that the improvement obtained by the surgery had little to do with Down's syndrome at all. Price brought the result up as interesting but he didn't claim that surgery was a cure for Down's. It's not like the child suddenly became high functioning. He just went through measurable signs of puberty and had less mood issues until the surgery was reversed. This was important data to Price, given that he was a dentist who theorized that facial structure had measurable impact on mentality.

Well, according to the above reference I cited before, Price did indeed make an outrageous claim re improving mental retardation:- "Through surgery Dr. Price widened the boy's maxillary arch, which resulted in improvement of the mongoloid features and a definite increase in mental abilities." I'll check WP's incredibly longwinded book when I get back but I doubt there'll be any degree of difference re accounts.

Again, you should actually read the source material if you want to attack it intelligently. Price was a product of his time and by no means a dietary messiah. He does make numerous claims that have since either been proven false or otherwise shown to be incorrect. But your attack here is little better than setting up a strawman. He wasn't a fraudster, he was a scientist. Science is the process of testing ideas by experiment, which means that you find a lot of ideas that are wrong along the way. A lot of Price's ideas were wrong. That doesn't invalidate his observations and it sure doesn't make him a fraud.

Well, then he was either an incompetent scientist(for the most part) and/or a fraud(for the most part). I'm not suggesting he was wholly wrong on everything, merely that his claims should be viewed with extreme scepticism given that so many of his views have been debunked by other anthropologists etc.

[pfw]

Of course smallpox is very relevant indeed as Price claimed that the native populations died or suffered healthwise because of a switch to a western type of diet, whereas, as with smallpox and other issues, one can see that there were plenty of alternative explanations. When someone like Price carefully ignores such aspects, he is clearly being dishonest.

They did suffer due to that switch. Nowhere did he claim that they suffered exclusively due to that switch. Unless you are claiming that smallpox causes tooth decay, the evidence Price collected is conclusive in that regard (especially considering the vast array of confirmation from other sources). You are inventing strawmen here.

Go ahead and read the chapter. Price claims that the child showed improvement after the surgery which was later reversed post surgery. There is not enough detail in the account to really say what was going on. To cry "fraud! dishonesty!" is completely unwarranted. For all you know, the child Price operated on happened to have an unknown other ailment which was alleviated by the surgery, creating a confounding result. You have no actual clinical experience in this area and so your absolute claim of fraud/dishonesty is worth even less than Price's writings on the subject; at least he was a dentist. He presented his hypothesis as to why the change occurred - not his claim for a cure.

I don't understand your tone and attitude towards Price. It's as if you have a personal vendetta against him. Science is testing and falsifiying ideas with experiment. Hurling abuse at a dead guy and his observations because he was wrong in how he interpreted them is neither scientific nor rational. No one is right all the time and all scientists are in fact wrong most of the time. This does not imply that they are wrong all of the time, and that we should seize on their failures to throw out everything they did.

I agree that Price's claims should be treated with skepticism. I think all claims should be treated with skepticism. However, that skepticism must be rational, open and demanding of testable hypothesis, not angry, adamant and dismissive.

[goodsamaritan]

I think Tyler is just having fun playing devil's advocate.   

[Raw Kyle]

Look, I concede that minor symptoms can be fixed by diet or surgery(eg:- diet healing digestive issues, surgery fixing flat feet or whatever), but the best that surgery could do, re improving intelligence, is perhaps improve blood-flow to the brain or relieve pressure on the brain. That's it. You can't build extra masses of brain-tissue via surgery and even a healthy diet won't help significantly increase the mental abilities of an adult  born with a mental age of 2, say. Yet Price makes outrageous claims re improving substantially a down's syndrome patient.

You are showing that you don't understand exactly what Down's Syndrome does to the brain or any part of the body. In order to make the argument that surgery could not treat the symptoms of Down's you would have to have some kind of information about exactly what having 3 copies of the 21st chromosome does. I'm not sure anyone has that, but we certainly don't. I think you're making a big mistake with your view of how genetics influences changes in the body, as if they are irreversible changes because the genetic problem itself is irreversible.

[pfw]

I just broke out my copy of NAPD to check out the Down Syndrome case TylerDurden references.

Here's a basic summary:

A "mongoloid defective" with significant facial deformity was given a dental appliance which widened his upper jaw. The result reported was that the boy exhibited marked physical and mental changes after the surgery, developing mentally and physically. When the appliance became broken, he regressed mentally back to a state of lethargy accompanied by nausea, which cleared up when the appliance was put back in place.

Price's hypothesis was that by forcing the facial structure of the boy into something approaching normalcy, the brain was allowed to develop. Specifically, by opening the skull, the pituitary gland was either stimulated or allowed to release normal growth signals. Price's idea, I think, was that facial development was some sort of trigger for other developmental changes, and so widening the boy's maximal arch caused further development to occur. The boy was not cured and Price does not appear to claim that he reached a "normal" state. He simply developed further than a typical case of "Mongoloid idiot" usually would, due to a correction of some of the problems associated with the condition that alleviated other symptoms.

Even assuming that Price's explanation of the results was wrong, there is no reason to cast extreme doubt on the observed result itself. To claim that Price simply doctored the accompanying photographs and invented the story is unwarranted, and not rational. There is no reason to believe that he is lying about the event. He might be wrong, even deluded, but without some reason to believe that he's lying, it's not justified to claim that he's acting fraudulently.

[TylerDurden]

Right, I've got the book in front of me and can cite the following sentences to back up my point beyond doubt:- (page 369 of my edition of NAPD)"With the movement of the maxillary bones laterally,  as shown progressively in Fig.126, there was a great change in his physical development and mentality."

Page 370:- He goes on to make absurd claims re sudden increased physical development(to teenaged phase) and then states unequivocally "His mental change was even more marked."

"In a few weeks time, he passed through stages that usually take several years."

Price then further down the page claims that the boy regressed when the surgical appliance in him became dislodged but that he returned rapidly to his improved condition once the surgical appliance was readapted. In other words, the cure was not described as "failed" , there was only a temporary setback described.

So, there is no question that Price was claiming a significant improvement in mental ability for a Down's Syndrome patient - an incredibly unlikely event given that no brain-tissue was built up or whatever(and the purported change described is absurdly rapid(12 weeks) that no serious scientists could possibly accept such rubbish.

[TylerDurden]

You are showing that you don't understand exactly what Down's Syndrome does to the brain or any part of the body. In order to make the argument that surgery could not treat the symptoms of Down's you would have to have some kind of information about exactly what having 3 copies of the 21st chromosome does. I'm not sure anyone has that, but we certainly don't. I think you're making a big mistake with your view of how genetics influences changes in the body, as if they are irreversible changes because the genetic problem itself is irreversible.

It all depends on the scale of the changes made in the womb via the genes. If , for example, someone is born with a cleft palate and a healthy brain(unusual as many cleft-palate babies also have severe mental retardation), then fixing the cleft-palate via surgery will indeed correct that genetic anomaly. But it's pointless to claim miraculous benefits for surgery for something as severe as severe permanent damage to the brain. I mean, raw foods have proven very beneficial but they have not had any success in reversing autism or any other genetic-related conditions. Now, it is vaguely possible that the chance for a  few genetic diseases could be removed in future generations if parents reverted to a healthy raw diet, but that is mere speculation.

[TylerDurden]

Another point:- Weston Price routinely ignored such factors as alcoholism which did in the native populations re ill-health to a far greater extent than diet. One only has to look at Australian Aborigines to see how alcohol destroys them more so than diet.

[pfw]

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, yet you claim absolute authority. Are you playing devil's advocate or are you serious?

Price did something and reported a result. You are leaping to conclusions left and right to support your notion that he's a fraud and a liar - there's a simple alternative explanation between "cured Down's" and "fraudulent quack", which is simply "corrected other problem". We have no idea if the child even actually had Down's syndrome or simply had some brain issue that generated similar symptoms. We have no idea if the improvement in brain function would be sustained or repeatable in other patients. We lack the data to evaluate Price's claim, which indeed should be treated with skepticism. However, to call it absurd, fraudulent or dishonest is totally unwarranted, irrational and unskeptical - it shows a prejudice being projected on the data rather than a cold, objective analysis.

You claim that no brain tissue was built up - how do you know? Why is that even relevant or necessary for the obtained result? You claim that it's absurd that changes can take place rapidly over three months - really? What clinical experience do you have to back that claim up? Let's review: you don't know what the problem with the child was, you have no training or schooling which would inform your opinion, you have no clinical experience treating patients with this type of surgery, yet you can state absolutely and without qualification that Price is lying. Apply your own standard of proof to your own claims and see what conclusion that leads you to.

Again. The man was wrong on many issues. That does not mean he is a fraud or that his observations should be thrown away as wrong.

You now make yet another sweeping general claim, that alcohol played a greater part in the ill health of populations than the switch to a western diet. Alcohol? Alcohol is part of the western diet. Leaving aside the obvious contradiction, I'm left wondering why it is you are grasping at such a straw. Of course alcoholism destroys people. Does it also rot their teeth, destroy their facial structure development and cause multiple vitamin deficiencies? Are you actually claiming that every single native populations' children were consuming enough alcohol to cause those issues? And you attack Price for absurd claims! Those problems were obviously caused by malnutrition, predominately as a result of switching to a bleached flour/sugar based diet. Alcohol certainly played a role in the breakdown of many societies' structure and health, but to claim that it's somehow a significant confounding factor demands a much greater justification than a bald assertion.

You seem desperate to find one thing on which you can base a wholesale dismissal of everything Price did that doesn't fit your belief system. Why? Most people seem capable of separating the 1930s medical theory from the 1930s observed results without throwing out the whole lot while accusing the man of being a liar.

[wodgina]

I think Tyler is just having fun playing devil's advocate.   

Yep

[Raw Kyle]

Why wouldn't changing the skull shape do something to development? I mean, that stuff pushes and pulls on glands. Certainly if you smashed your nuts in a wedged position it could interfere with testosterone production and cause a man to have less manly features and development some female ones. Then you remove the nut wedging device and it starts production up at normal levels again.

Now imagine that some genetic defect could cause your nuts to wedge into a corner in your sack and impinge on hormone output. Then imagine someone like Weston Price gave you a special pair of underwear that put them in the right place. See what I'm getting at?