(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
ACTION PROVOKING THOUGHTS
- “Keep the commandments and keep your life; despising them leads to death.” Proverbs 19:16
- “Honoring the LORD lengthens one’s life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.” Proverbs 10:27 (see also: 1 Kings 3:14, Psalm 91:16, Proverbs 3:5-8; 4:22; 11:19, 12:28, 16:24; Isaiah 38:16)
- “If you listen to these regulations and faithfully obey them, the Lord your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he promised with an oath to your ancestors…the Lord will protect you from all sickness. He will not let you suffer from the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all your enemies!” Deut. 7: 12a &15 (also Exodus 15:26, Proverbs 3:7-9)
- “My health is broken because of my sins.” Psalm 38:3 (see also: Jeremiah 27:13, Isaiah 66:17)
- “You and your children and grandchildren must obey the Lord your God as long as you live. If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life.” Deut. 6:2
- “If you obey all his decrees and commands,…You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. ” Deut. 7:12,14
1000s of scientific studies confirm that good health habits are a crucial foundation for longevity, effective studying/intelligence, avoiding/delaying mental diseases, wealth, happiness, creativity and other things. Disregarding God’s health laws can cause you to lose decade(s) of life. Health helps us to be happier and being happier can help us to be ~20-30% more successful in reaching our goals. The Bible has ~50 principles of health to protect us from diseases. Harvard lists some principles of health that the Bible does and that SDAs have taught and advocated for ~150 years and which have helped them become the #1 longest living group in America and top rankings in the world too and says that they are the single best thing people can do to protect themselves from this corona virus and pretty much all viruses (since vaccines takes years to develop).
An overview of some of the more important Bible health principles in an acronym called NEWSTART are here with a doctor explaining why they are important for basic health and some tips on how to follow them:
https://www.newstart.com/about/
A free Adventist “Amazing Facts Health Magazine” Download is here (with many tips for good health and preventing viruses and diseases):
https://bit.ly/2Q7GwdB https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/seventh-day-adventist-diet
Many scientific studies on the Adventist diet/lifestyle are here.
https://adventisthealthstudy.org/studies
1000s
of scientific studies confirm that good health habits are a crucial foundation
for longevity, avoiding/delaying mental diseases, wealth, happiness, effective
studying/intelligence, creativity and
other things. Disregarding God’s health laws can cause you to lose decade(s) of
life. Good health helps us to be happier and being happier according to former
Harvard professor Dr. Stephen Achor can help us to be ~20-30% more successful
in reaching our goals.
Research shows that these are some of the most serious
challenges/crises we face now and science confirms that Bible health principles
are profoundly helpful in reducing or stopping all of them.
TOP 3 CAUSES OF DEATH
- Diseases: ~41,000,000 people die per year from bad health[1]
- Poverty: ~13-18,000,000 people die per year from poverty[2]
- Pollution: ~12,600,000 people die per year from pollution[3]
Nobel prize winners and experts with the Copenhagen Consensus group try to solve problems by identifying the world’s most serious crises and the cheapest/easiest solutions so that every dollar invested can bring ~$15-40 of benefits for people.[4] Their work is admirable, but Jews and Christians pioneered almost all the major solutions/advances for human rights in many areas in history before us and that’s a huge reason why 2 billion believe in the Bible now (https://www.aish.com/sem/wp/, http://www.truth-is-life.org/GoodLifeEvidence.html).
God gave the Jews wise health principles and those who follow them live much longer than others. The Bible has ~50+ principles of health to protect us from diseases. SDAs pioneered studying these biblical health principles and why they work with science, biblical education, abolition, Sabbath, biblical economics and other doctrines. SDAs especially focused on understanding how biblical health principles work from science. And research from the WHO confirms that the best ways to prevent the most serious diseases are a good health diet (especially a vegetarian one), not smoking, clean air, avoiding alcohol and exercise. These are 5 of the 8 main principles of NEWSTART that SDAs have been talking about for over a century.
Valuable solutions that are simple for all to understand and follow are called genius by Einstein, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, etc. 1000s of scientific studies confirm that NEWSTART/biblical gardening, biblical economic principles/principles of justice and equality, Bible family principles, environmental principles, creation science etc. are some of the simplest and most effective solutions to the world’s problems and can save millions of lives and trillions of dollars every year.
SDAs have long emphasized God’s health habits. This is far more valuable than we understand. Bad health habits cost the world ~$6.5 trillion a year.[5] Just 5 major types of disease will cost the world $47 trillion in the next 20 years (enough money to eradicate poverty for ~2.5 billion people).[6] For the US, NCDs like mental health diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases will cost the US ~$94.9 trillion dollars between 2015-2050, ~$265,000 per person, or ~10.8% of all income.[7] Health emergencies/crises are the #1 cause of bankruptcy.[8]
No wonder James Poterba, an MIT professor, says people can double their money by their 50s by following good health habits.[9]
James Poterba, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Money.
“The healthiest people in their fifties had more than doubled the assets of the least healthy, and this wealth gap only grew.” [10]
Many people share how they have lost everything due to not following wise health habits and this can hopefully be a lesson to everyone else to motivate following God’s health principles.
**“I was fit as a fiddle. At 35 I got cancer. I was making 6 figures in Atlanta saving 20% of my income. I had short term and long term disability. My employer was patient for a year and then made up a reason to terminate…I had three yrs of savings,…a great career and I lost it all due to health.“ Mary
**“[Due to a health crisis], I lost my savings, home and credit in bankruptcy.” Karol
**“I just am stunned I was so naive. I saved, had stock options, bought and sold homes on side as additional income, and maxed out 401k. We had a BMW and Mercedes and paid someone to pick up dog poop in the yard! The stupidity. Now[due to a health crisis]… I have 300.00 in savings…I tell you this not for pity but just how easy it can all go away.”
BIBLE HEALTH SOLUTIONS
NEWSTART has at least 12+ different benefits for life[11] and many secular scientists have paid tribute to SDAs improving the health of the world as a result.[12]
These principles are what scientists call solution multipliers. If followed by large numbers of people, science shows that can they solve numerous problems that communities and civilization face including reducing deaths by 10s of millions per year due to vastly strengthening immunity to fight diseases, saving us trillions of dollars per year due to saving people from diseases and high medical costs, improving brain function, reducing pollution, improving happiness/attitude, reducing stress, improving relationships and so much more.
The instructions about hygiene and quarantine are good and valuable (and originate from Bible principles which scientists confirmed 1-200 years ago), but that is only a small part of the principles God gave to protect us. And it is really important for all our church members to understand much better the most valuable ible principles that massive amounts of science are confirming are the single best ways as Harvard recently put it, to keep our immune systems strong. This is esp. important to know when vaccines/medicines take ~1-5 years to develop, because the Bible predicts there will be more pestilences and other disasters in the period before Jesus comes (Matthew 24:3-14 (esp. v. 7) and Luke 21: 7-31 (esp. v. 11)) and because scientists predict that this will happen too.
What most people are reading and watching about how to deal with the corona virus is kind of like a heavy smoker going to a doctor and the doctor telling him that he is getting lung cancer and needs to use social distancing and stay away from second hand smoke while telling him nothing about the danger of smoking himself or the wise health and diet habits that can help him build a strong immune system and repair the damage done to his body already to protect himself from more serious problems. They are also a demonstration of the big war that is happening in society that the Bible predicted in 2 Peter 3:3-7, 2 Thess. 2:10-11 and other places
Richard Dawkins, during an interview about his book, The God Delusion, made the real issue clear:
“[T]he big war is not between evolution and creationism, but between naturalism and supernaturalism.”
Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wired (November 2006): 182-193, p. 186. 2
Methodological naturalism is one of the most crucial deceptions to understand now, a fallacious philosophy that is at the foundation of almost every deception in modern times. A couple major scientists give a simple definition of it.
A) ‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.’ Kansas State University immunologist Scott Todd, correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.
B) “By definition, science cannot consider supernatural explanations…I think this methodological materialism is well understood by evolutionists.” Eugenie Scott (long time head of the National Center for Science Education)
This new redefinition of science from what it was for 1000s of years, to follow the weight of evidence WHEREVER it leads (similar to the Bible’s principle of “Test everything that is said…always do good to each person and all people.” 1 Thess. 5:21,14) is causing enormous harm to many lives in many topics, including the area of diseases and viruses.
In the Bible, and at various times in history after Bible times and in SDA history, people who followed God’s principles well had strong body/immune/health systems that were protected from those plagues, or else most were able to recover and avoid death or serious harmful long term consequences fairly quickly usually. This confirms God’s promises like these.
–“He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.” Psalm 103:3, 4
–“Honoring the LORD lengthens one’s life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.” Proverbs 10:27
–“If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life…You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young. And the Lord will protect you from all sickness. He will not let you suffer from the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all your enemies!…” …the Lord our God commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear him so he can continue to bless us and preserve our lives, as he has done to this day.” Deut. 6:2, 14-5, 24 (see also Exodus 15:26, Deut. 7: 12a &15, 1 Kings 3:14, Psalm 91:2-10,15,16 , Proverbs 3:5-18, 4:18,19-23; 11:19, 12:28, 19:16; Isaiah 38:16)
The best experts on viruses and contagious diseases in the world have said that building a healthy immune system is by far the best defense against the corona COVID-19 virus and all other viruses. How do you do that? Several thousand studies done or cited by Adventist doctors, non-Adventist plant based nutrition scientists with the best track record (not connected to the chemical medical industry/cartel), doctors from Harvard, Stanford, the University of California and many other places are showing that the best way to do make strong immune systems is by following the same Bible health and lifestyle principles that SDAs have been promoting for over 100 years, especially NEWSTART or a newer one with the acronym SANCTUARY. Harvard says that these principles are “the single best step you can take” to avoid viruses, including the corona virus (It is criminal negligence that govts and most media are saying nothing about this, as well as some severely misguided SDAs). This knowledge could save tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives if it was spread through the media…or even on facebook.
This confirms the statements of God through Ellen White that:
The things of nature are God’s blessings, provided to give health to body, mind, and soul. They are given to the well to keep them well and to the sick to make them well. Connected with water treatment, they are more effective in restoring health than all the drug medication in the world. 7T 76.2
You don’t have to believe me. Read and listen for yourself.
How to boost your immune system
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/how-to-boost-your-immune-system
A couple highlights are:
“Your first line of defense is to choose a healthy lifestyle. Following general good-health guidelines is the single best step you can take toward naturally keeping your immune system strong and healthy. Every part of your body, including your immune system, functions better when protected from environmental assaults and bolstered by healthy-living strategies such as these:
–Don’t smoke.
–Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables.
–Exercise regularly.
–Maintain a healthy weight.
–If you drink alcohol, drink only in moderation.
–Get adequate sleep.
–Take steps to avoid infection, such as washing your hands frequently and cooking meats thoroughly.
–Try to minimize stress.
…Like any fighting force, the immune system army marches on its stomach. Healthy immune system warriors need good, regular nourishment. Scientists have long recognized that people who live in poverty and are malnourished are more vulnerable to infectious diseases…
Walk into a store, and you will find bottles of pills and herbal preparations that claim to “support immunity” or otherwise boost the health of your immune system. Although some preparations have been found to alter some components of immune function, thus far there is no evidence that they actually bolster immunity to the point where you are better protected against infection and disease…
Modern medicine has come to appreciate the closely linked relationship of mind and body. A wide variety of maladies, including stomach upset, hives, and even heart disease, are linked to the effects of emotional stress. Despite the challenges, scientists are actively studying the relationship between stress and immune function….
Regular exercise is one of the pillars of healthy living. It improves cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure, helps control body weight, and protects against a variety of diseases…Just like a healthy diet, exercise can contribute to general good health and therefore to a healthy immune system. It may contribute even more directly by promoting good circulation, which allows the cells and substances of the immune system to move through the body freely and do their job efficiently.”
See also:
BEST Stanford dietitians talk about how we can strengthen the immune system through diet (it relates to cancer, but much applies to all diseases and protecting the body against viruses too).
Nutritional Considerations to Help Support the Immune System: During and Beyond Cancer Treatment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIcdNxxgkyk
Another factor is that eating unclean animals whether it be in China or factory farms in America or other countries is a cause of over 75% of modern diseases because they have billions of viruses ( several top scientists from several countries also say the virus did not originate from China and possibly from America, but was brought to Wuhan and expanded from there…Harvard said the number of infections in America could be 50x what is being reported.)
Around minute 45+, Dr. McDougall says
45 factory farms and wet markets have billions of viruses. Perfect conditions for mutations. Eating unclean food is a major factor in diseases and novel viruses and has been for a long time.
Dr. McDougall’s self help to prevent COVID-19 (this is a very good one with many scientific references showing that principles of health that God has given to SDAs are crucial for protecting people against not just diseases, but also viruses too).
https://youtu.be/ALwuVx-U6bg
And there are many others like this.
A few of the best talks/sites by Adventists who were sharing these simple life saving principles because of trust God’s wisdom ~150 years before Harvard realized how important they were) and which confirm that NEWSTART is the most powerful way to build a strong immune system against all threats and also list some scientific references supporting this are:
A) “Preventing and Treating Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Infections Naturally” by Dr. Wes Youngberg (Adventist doctor with a doctorate in clinical preventive care from Loma Linda University)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=fdWg2RMbWVg
B) Some good articles with good overviews of Bible health principles are these:
WILDWOOD recommendations (with scientific references)
https://wildwoodhealth.com/super-virus/
https://wildwoodhealth.com/blog/how-to-protect-yourself-from-super-viruses-part-1/
https://wildwoodhealth.com/blog/how-to-protect-yourself-from-super-viruses-part-2/
This summary of Bible and NEWSTART principles is more relevant than ever. A good short summary of NEWSTART ( an acronym for: Good Nutrition (esp. a vegetarian diet), Exercise, Water, Sunshine, Temperance, Air, Rest and Trust in God) is here:
www.newstart.com/about
Another very good overview of some Bible health principles with a few verses and references to scientific studies that confirm them is this free one:
“Amazing Health Magazine” Download (with many tips for good health and preventing viruses and diseases): https://bit.ly/2Q7GwdB
C) Several talks with more Adventist doctors are here.
Defeating the Coronavirus with Immunity & Hydrotherapy by Dr. Eddie Ramirez
(Adventist doctor with a short presentation. His website has many Spanish language lectures.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2XBjQTLols
Coronavirus Updates
https://www.itiswritten.com/coronavirus/
One good one at the above link is Dr. David DeRose who offers some practical steps you can take to protect your physical and spiritual well-being from the coronavirus (COVID-19). He has created another good mnemonic of God’s principles of health and lifestyle that adds a couple more details to the good NEWSTART one and is also very good at keeping immune systems strong.
SANCTUARY
Stress reduction: Stress is a huge factor in causing many diseases and lowering immunity defenses. Many studies show that being able to trust in God and give our stress to Him is highly beneficial to improving immunity.
Activity: Exercise is a brilliant way to improve immune defenses, but don’t overdo it.
Nutrition: Eat mostly/all plant based foods for the best immunity since they have 1000s of micronutrients in them. Research by Dr. Steve Provonsha has shown that body treats meat as invader, increases stress response and this makes the body more vulnerable to disease.
Comprehensive environment: The environment around you, how fresh the air is, how free the water is of toxic chemicals, the emotional environment and others play a significant role in having the best body function and immunity..
Thankful: A positive attitude is quite valuable for the best health, brain efficiency and immunity since the mind and body have a major connection.
Useful work: People who have a purpose in life have much better health than those that don’t. And this helps protect them against various dangers.
Abstemiousness: Stay away from smoking, alcohol, drugs and other things that do severe damage to your body’s health and immune function.
Rest: Good sleep is enormously helpful to having ideal health and the best levels of immunity.
Yearning/hope: Having a hope for the future does wonders for your health, success and improves immunity too.
Since there are so many scientific studies showing that Bible health principles are by far the best, most effective and simplest way to keep immune systems strong, I don’t see how it is not criminal negligence for governments and most leading doctors/scientists to not tell people about these principles. But this happens largely because
A) There is a big war between God’s way and man’s way, supernatural wisdom, verses corporate secular “wisdom” that is often based on greed. This was predicted in the Bible in many places like 2 Peter 3:3-7 as explained briefly above.
B) As Dr. McDougall, a leading authority on nutrition says, most doctors and scientists are taught little or nothing about nutrition and our extremely sophisticated immune system and how to make it strong and resistant to all threats.
When diseases and viruses put people’s lives in danger, God’s health and lifestyle principles, especially those of NEWSTART, but also quite a few others in the Bible and ones that doctors discover with the tool of science that God gave us are the best way to protect against or beat all diseases and viruses…as well as the much more dangerous sin virus. So let’s trust God in this area and not wait for secular “science” that ignores God to catch up. We SDAs have been given the most valuable truths on planet earth and this topic is just one more example of MANY areas where this is true.
To sum up, if I could illustrate the problem, the govt. recommendations are sort of like telling people about 1 cause of cancer, and one that is very difficult to prevent (such as polluted air), while ignoring the most crucial ways to prevent cancer (such as smoking).
In addition to their ignoring of God’s best protections against all health threats, there are some other problems such as these.
A) Governments say to wear masks, but very few wear them they way they can be effective.
“Two types of devices are most commonly used in the healthcare setting: N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) and surgical masks (commonly called facemasks)…When worn properly, FFRs are designed to protect the wearer (e.g., healthcare worker) by removing at least 95% of particles from inhaled air…However, to provide this expected level of protection, an FFR must seal to the wearer’s face, without allowing air leaks to pass through gaps between the respirator and the wearer’s skin. https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2020/04/09/masks-v-respirators/
Dr. Oz says that masks are mostly for stopping viruses from getting to sick people. Most won’t stop the corona virus. Only the n95 mask will, but you have to seal it perfectly for it to work.
Business Insider asked the Senior Director of NYC Health + Hospitals System-wide Special Pathogens Program and a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University to debunk 13 of the most common coronavirus myths (including why masks won’t help very much).
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-myths-debunked-wuhan-china-2020-2
B) Governments are advising 6 foot distances. But scientists from John Hopkins, MIT and other places are saying that the virus can be transmitted by air. It’s not limited to 6 feet or being carried by droplets. It can be “aerosolized”
Lydia Bourouiba, an associate professor at MIT, has researched the dynamics of exhalations (coughs and sneezes, for instance) for years at The Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory and found exhalations cause gaseous clouds that can travel up to 27 feet…In a Journal of the American Medical Association article published in March, 2020, Bourouiba said,
“[The World Health Organization] distances are based on estimates of range that have not considered the possible presence of a high-momentum cloud carrying the droplets long distances….currently used surgical and N95 masks are not tested for these potential characteristics of respiratory emissions.”
The protective efficacy of N95 masks depends on their ability to filter incoming air from aerosolized droplet nuclei. However, these masks are only designed for a certain range of environmental and local conditions and a limited duration of usage.9 Mask efficacy as source control depends on the ability of the mask to trap or alter the high-momentum gas cloud emission with its pathogenic payload. Peak exhalation speeds can reach up to 33 to 100 feet per second (10-30 m/s), creating a cloud that can span approximately 23 to 27 feet (7-8 m)…Currently used surgical and N95 masks are not tested for these potential characteristics of respiratory emissions.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852?appId=scweb
C) “A report from the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released on April 1 states that based on current research, SARS-CoV-2 may be spread through aerosols. The letter cites a recent study at the University of Nebraska Medical Center that found “widespread evidence of viral RNA in isolation rooms where patients with SARS-CoV-2 were receiving care” in air and surface samples. Even air collectors that were more than six feet away from patients detected the RNA, calling into question whether current social distancing guidelines are sufficient to prevent the spread of the disease….“In the mind of scientists working on this, there’s absolutely no doubt that the virus spreads in the air,” aerosol scientist Lidia Morawska of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia tells Nature. “This is a no-brainer.””
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/the-covid-19-coronavirus-may-travel-in-aerosols-67380
So if people follow government guidelines, they can help a very little bit, but far more people will still get sick and die from the corona virus or others of the millions of viruses that are swirling around people daily as science shows.
[1] World Health Organization. “Noncommunicable diseases.” June 1, 2018. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases.
[2] “One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year – are caused by poverty.” “The facts about world poverty.” May 14, 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/may/15/uk.g81. Ilaboya, I.R. et al. “Causes, Effects and Way Forward to Food Insecurity.” Iranica Journal of Energy & Environment 3 (2): 181, December 18, 2011. www.ijee.net/article_64396_9d9a696fd79aacfd9d88ad31817cc1dd.pdf. Poverty is closely linked with NCDs that kill 41,000,000 a year as this WHO site shows. www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs355/en/. See also: Rosegrant, M.W., “Looking Ahead. Long-Term prospects for Africa’s Agricultural Development and Food Security”. 2005. Washington D.C.: IFPRI and “The World Health Report 2004”, http://www.who.int/whr/2004/annex/topic/en/annex_2_en.pdf.
[3] “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”. www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ March 25, 2014.
[4] Copenhagen Consensus “Nobel Laureates Guide to Smarter Global Targets to 2030.” https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/nobel-laureates-guide-smarter-global-targets-2030.
[5] Spending on health: A global overview. 2012. www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs319/en/.
[6] Harvard School of Public Health. “The Global Economic Burden of Non-communicable Diseases.” 2011, www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBurdenNonCommunicableDiseases_2011.pdf.
[7] Chen, Simiao et al. “The macroeconomic burden of noncommunicable diseases in the United States: Estimates and projections.” November 1, 2018, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206702.
[8] Mangan, Dan. “Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study.” July 2013, www.cnbc.com/id/100840148.
[9] Olson, Samantha. “Good Health Habits May Actually Save You Money, Possibly Lead To High Paying Job” , Jul 28, 2016.www.medicaldaily.com/health-habits-save-money-high-paying-job-393010,
[10] “Good Health Habits May Actually Save You Money, Possibly Lead To High Paying Job” , Samantha Olson, www.medicaldaily.com/health-habits-save-money-high-paying-job-393010, Jul 28, 2016.
[11] “The Incredible Value of God’s Health Habits.” http://blog.truth-is-life.org/health/health/.
[12] THE ADVENTISTS AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU! https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/what-adventists-mean-to-you.