Eat Carrots and Prevent Cancer: Unveiling the Superfood's Hidden Powers

Harnessing the Power of Carrots: A Bite into Cancer Prevention

In a world constantly seeking natural ways to combat illness, a recent meta-analysis led by Kirsten Brandt of Newcastle University, published by Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, brings to light the cancer-fighting properties of a familiar vegetable: the humble carrot.

Carrots: More Than Just a Crunchy Snack

The study's in-depth analysis of 50 prospective cohort studies, involving 52,000 cancer cases, reveals a striking correlation between carrot consumption and reduced cancer risk. Spanning various cancer types and geographical regions, the findings suggest that carrots cut cancer risk by 10%-20%.

The Science Behind the Orange Crunch

Carrots are known for their high beta-carotene content. However, this study focused on another compound, alpha-carotene, due to limited cancer reduction benefits seen in previous studies on beta-carotene. Remarkably, alpha-carotene levels, as measured in plasma in 30 prospective cohorts with 9,331 cancer cases, showed a relative risk reduction of 20% in cancer.

A Serving a Week Keeps the Doctor Away

The study highlights a significant linear dose-response relationship. Consuming just one serving of carrots per week can reduce cancer risk by 4±2%, while five servings can slash the risk by 20±10%. This finding underlines the practicality and accessibility of carrots as a dietary choice for cancer prevention.

A Robust Inverse Association

The authors describe the inverse relationship between carrot intake and cancer risk as “robust,” advocating for the encouragement of carrot consumption. They also call for further research into the causal mechanisms through randomised clinical trials, which could offer deeper insights into how carrots combat cancer.

Methodology and Limitations

The meta-analysis compiled data from a wide array of studies, considering different cancer types, geographic regions, and exposure types. However, it's crucial to note that all included studies were observational, not randomised clinical trials. This factor presents a limitation in definitively establishing causality between carrot intake and reduced cancer risk.

In Practice: Integrating Carrots into Daily Diets

This study's findings present a compelling case for integrating carrots into our daily diets. As a versatile and widely available vegetable, carrots can easily be incorporated into meals, offering both flavor and health benefits.

A Step Forward in Cancer Prevention

The study, funded by the Agricultural and Horticultural Board, UK, among others, stands as a testament to the potential of natural food sources in disease prevention. It paves the way for future research and reinforces the importance of a balanced, vegetable-rich diet in maintaining health and preventing illness.

Conclusion: Embracing Carrots for Health

As we navigate an era where lifestyle diseases are prevalent, simple, evidence-based dietary changes like increasing carrot intake can have profound health impacts. The study not only highlights the cancer-fighting potential of carrots but also serves as a reminder of the power of natural foods in preserving our health. So, the next time you're at the grocery store, remember to stock up on carrots - your body might just thank you for it.

Reference: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10408398.2023.2287176?needAccess=true 

Can Particles in Dairy and Beef Cause Cancer and MS?

In our Western diet, dairy and beef are ubiquitous: Milk goes with coffee, melted cheese with pizza, and chili with rice. But what if dairy products and beef contained a new kind of pathogen that could infect you as a child and trigger cancer or multiple sclerosis (MS) 40-70 years later?

Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center(DKFZ) suspect that such zoonoses are possibly widespread and are therefore recommending that infants not be given dairy products until they are at least age 1 year. However, in two joint statements, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and the Max Rubner Institute (MRI) have rejected such theories.

In 2008, Harald zur Hausen, MD, DSc, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery that human papillomaviruses cause cervical cancer. His starting point was the observation that sexually abstinent women, such as nuns, rarely develop this cancer. So it was possible to draw the conclusion that pathogens are transmitted during sexual intercourse, explain zur Hausen and his wife Ethel-Michele de Villiers, PhD, both of DKFZ Heidelberg.

Papillomaviruses, as well as human herpes and Epstein-Barr viruses (EBV), polyomaviruses, and retroviruses, cause cancer in a direct way: by inserting their genes into the DNA of human cells. With a latency of a few years to a few decades, the proteins formed through expression stimulate malignant growth by altering the regulating host gene.

Acid Radicals 

However, viruses — just like bacteria and parasites — can also indirectly trigger cancer. One mechanism for this triggering is the disruption of immune defenses, as shown by the sometimes drastically increased tumor incidence with AIDS or with immunosuppressants after transplants. Chronic inflammation is a second mechanism that generates acid radicals and thereby causes random mutations in replicating cells. Examples include stomach cancer caused by Helicobacter pyloriand liver cancer caused by Schistosoma, liver fluke, and hepatitis B and C viruses.

According to de Villiers and zur Hausen, there are good reasons to believe that other pathogens could cause chronic inflammation and thereby lead to cancer. Epidemiologic data suggest that dairy and meat products from European cows (Bos taurus) are a potential source. This is because colon cancer and breast cancer commonly occur in places where these foods are heavily consumed (ie, in North America, Argentina, Europe, and Australia). In contrast, the rate is low in India, where cows are revered as holy animals. Also noteworthy is that women with a lactose intolerance rarely develop breast cancer.

Viral Progeny 

In fact, the researchers found single-stranded DNA rings that originated in viruses, which they named bovine meat and milk factors (BMMF), in the intestines of patients with colon cancer. They reported, "This new class of pathogen deserves, in our opinion at least, to become the focus of cancer development and further chronic diseases." They also detected elevated levels of acid radicals in these areas (ie, oxidative stress), which is typical for chronic inflammation.

The researchers assume that infants, whose immune system is not yet fully matured, ingest the BMMF as soon as they have dairy. Therefore, there is no need for adults to avoid dairy or beef because everyone is infected anyway, said zur Hausen in a speech.

'Breast Milk Is Healthy'

De Villiers and zur Hausen outlined more evidence of cancer-triggering pathogens. Mothers who have breastfed are less likely, especially after multiple pregnancies, to develop tumors in various organs or to have from MS and type 2 diabetes. The authors attribute the protective effect to oligosaccharides in breast milk, which begin to be formed midway through the pregnancy. They bind to lectin receptors and, in so doing, mask the terminal molecule onto which the viruses need to dock. As a result, their port of entry into the cells is blocked.

The oligosaccharides also protect the baby against life-threatening infections by blocking access by rotaviruses and noroviruses. In this way, especially if breastfeeding lasts a long time — around 1 year — the period of incomplete immunocompetence is bridged.

Colon Cancer 

To date, it has been assumed that around 20% of all cancerous diseases globally are caused by infections, said the researchers. But if the suspected BMMF cases are included, this figure rises to 50%, even to around 80%, for colon cancer. If the suspicion is confirmed, the consequences for prevention and therapy would be significant.

The voice of a Nobel prize winner undoubtedly carries weight, but at the time, zur Hausen still had to convince a host of skeptics with his discovery that a viral infection is a major cause of cervical cancer. Nonetheless, some indicators suggest that he and his wife have found a dead end this time.

Institutional Skepticism 

When his working group made the results public in February 2019, the DKFZ felt the need to give an all-clear signal in response to alarmed press reports. There is no reason to see dairy and meat consumption as something negative. Similarly, in their first joint statement, the BfR and the MRI judged the data to be insufficient and called for further studies. Multiple research teams began to focus on BMMF as a result. In what foods can they be found? Are they more common in patients with cancer than in healthy people? Are they infectious? Do they cause inflammation and cancer?

The findings presented in a second statement by the BfR and MRI at the end of November 2022 contradicted the claims made by the DKFZ scientists across the board. In no way do BMMF represent new pathogens. They are variants of already known DNA sequences. In addition, they are present in numerous animal-based and plant-based foods, including pork, fish, fruit, vegetables, and nuts.

BMMF do not possess the ability to infect human cells, the institutes said. The proof that they are damaging to one's health was also absent. It is true that the incidence of intestinal tumors correlates positively with the consumption of red and processed meat — which in no way signifies causality — but dairy products are linked to a reduced risk. On the other hand, breast cancer cannot be associated with the consumption of beef or dairy.

Therefore, both institutes recommend continuing to use these products as supplementary diet for infants due to their micronutrients. They further stated that the products are safe for people of all ages.

Association With MS? 

Unperturbed, de Villiers and zur Hausen went one step further in their current article. They posited that MS is also associated with the consumption of dairy products and beef. Here too geographic distribution prompted the idea to look for BMMF in the brain lesions of patients with MS. The researchers isolated ring-shaped DNA molecules that proved to be closely related to BMMF from dairy and cattle blood. "The result was electrifying for us."However, there are several other factors to consider, such as vitamin D3 deficiency. This is because the incidence of MS decreases the further you travel from the poles toward the equator (ie, as solar radiation increases). Also, the EBV clearly plays a role because patients with MS display increased titers of EBV antibodies. One study also showed that people in Antarctica excreted reactivated EBV in their saliva during winter and that vitamin D3 stopped the viral secretion.

Under these conditions, the researchers hypothesized that MS is caused by a double infection of brain cells by EBV and BMMF. EBV is reactivated by a lack of vitamin D3, and the BMMF multiply and are eventually converted into proteins. A focal immunoreaction causes the Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes to malfunction, which leads to the destruction of the myelin sheaths around the nerve fibers.

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER IMMUNE CELL THAT KILLS MOST CANCERS

A newly discovered immune cell could lead to the creation of a universal oncology treatment — a system that would work for all cancers, in all people.

The treatment leverages T-cells, a type of white blood cell that helps our bodies’ immune systems by scanning for and killing abnormal cells. For background, scientists have recently started harnessing that ability in the fight against cancer through CAR-T, which involves removing T-cells from a patient’s blood and genetically engineering them to seek out and destroy cancer cells.

While promising, CAR-T has limitations. It’s patient-specific, works against only a small number of cancers, and isn’t effective against solid tumors, which comprise the majority of cancers.

On Monday, researchers from Cardiff University published a new study in the journal Nature Immunology detailing their discovery of a T-Cell equipped with a new type of T-cell receptor (TCR) that recognizes a molecule called MR1.

This molecule appears on the surface of many types of cancer cells as well as healthy cells, but T-cells equipped with this TCR know to kill only cancer cells.

And not just the kind linked to a single type of cancer, either. When the Cardiff researchers equipped T-cells in lab tests with this new TCR, the cells killed lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells — all while ignoring healthy cells.

In another lab test, the team modified the T-cells of melanoma patients to express the newly discovered TCR and found that the cells could then target and destroy both that patient’s own cancer cells and the cancer cells of other patients.

The team has yet to test the modified T-cells in actual cancer patients, but when tested in mice injected with human cancers, the cells recognized the MR1 molecule and exhibited “encouraging” cancer-killing abilities, according to a Cardiff press release.

The Cardiff scientists now plan to conduct additional tests. If those goes as hoped, the treatment could be ready for patients within a few years, researcher Andrew Sewell said in the press release.

“Cancer-targeting via MR1-restricted T-cells is an exciting new frontier,” he added. “It raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment; a single type of T-cell that could be capable of destroying many different types of cancers across the population. Previously nobody believed this could be possible.”

5G makes your internet fast but may double the chance of getting cancer!!

As 5G cellular network tech looms, conventional wisdom dictates that cell phone radiation is more or less safe or less safe for humans.

But writing for the widely respected magazine Scientific American, University of California, Berkeley, public health researcher Joel Moskowitz argues that we don’t yet understand the risks — and that more study is necessary before we roll out 5G infrastructure.

Moskowitz’s main concern: there just isn’t any research on the health effects of 5G. But he also points to a swathe of studies a swathe of studies that suggest that the existing standards 2G and 3G are more dangerous than generally believed.

“Meanwhile, we are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation,” he wrote in SciAm. “These increases are consistent with results from case-control studies of tumor risk in heavy cell phone users.”

It’s hard enough to quantify the health effects of things that have already been deployed, nevermind an upcoming technology. But in SciAm, Moskowitz argues that regulators should listen to the 250 doctors and scientists who recently signed the 5G appeal, a petition for a moratorium on public rollout of the tech until the health implications are better understood.

“As a society, should we invest hundreds of billions of dollars deploying 5G, a cellular technology that requires the installation of 800,000 or more new cell antenna sites in the U.S. close to where we live, work and play?” he asked. “Instead, we should support the recommendations of the 250 scientists and medical doctors who signed the 5G Appeal that calls for an immediate moratorium on the deployment of 5G and demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety.”

Paedophilia Symptoms can be caused by Brain Tumours in the right orbitofrontal cortex

In 2000, a 40-year-old man was rushed to the University of Virginia Hospital emergency department while experiencing a severe headache. Perhaps he was faking it to escape the dire situation he had been in. In the previous year, he had developed an unusual increasing interest in porn, including child porn. While he had a pre-existing interest in porn dating back to his teenage years, he denied a previous attraction to children. He had been in a stable marriage for two years. He did not have a history of psychiatric disorders or prior deviant sexual behaviour.

Throughout the year 2000, he collected a large number of porn magazines and increasingly visited Internet porn sites to satisfy his obsession with child porn. He started soliciting prostitution which he had not done before.

He desperately concealed his activities but continued to act on his sexual impulses, completely unable to restrain his sexual urges. He even made subtle sexual advances toward his stepdaughter. She informed her mother and she discovered his preoccupation with child pornography.

He was removed from the home, found guilty of child molestation and was ordered to undergo rehab for sex addiction or go to jail. While in rehab, he solicited sexual favours from staff and other patients and was expelled.

Sixteen years earlier, he had had a head injury that left him unconscious for two minutes, followed by two years of migraines. During the neurologic examination, he solicited female staff for sexual favours and was unembarrassed when he peed on himself. He confessed he had had suicidal thoughts and rape fantasies. He complained of balance problems and an MRI scan was performed on him. An egg-sized brain tumour was discovered in his brain. Once it was removed, his sex obsession disappeared.[1]

The tumour was located in the right lobe of the orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain responsible for inhibition, judgment and impulse control. It was the first case that brain damage was linked to paedophilia. While his knowledge of right and wrong was intact, the tumour had destroyed his control of sexual impulses.

Seven months after the tumour removal and completing the rehab program, he returned home. He complained of headaches and secretly collected porn again. An MRI scan revealed that the tumour had come back and after it was removed, his behaviour disappeared.

In another similar case, a 64-year-old well-respected pediatrician was caught while enacting sexually inappropriate behaviour towards a child in a kindergarten doctor’s office. He clearly had lost all judgment because his paedophilic urges were carried out in a risky manner leaving the office door wide open. His wife observed he had gradually changed with easy frustration and irritability followed by subtle behavioural disinhibition. His MRI scan revealed a large tumour that displaced the hypothalamus, which is responsible for sexual orientation and compressed the orbitofrontal cortex. After the tumour was removed, all the abnormal behaviour including paedophilic urges, disappeared.[2]

These two cases raise an interesting question: to what extent are these two men culpable? Recent studies have estimated 25–87% of prison inmates suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in their life and indicated associations between TBIs and criminal-like behaviour.[3] [4] [5] TBI-related problems can complicate their management and treatment. They can experience mental health problems such as severe depression, anxiety, anger control issues, self-restraint, alcohol and substance abuse.

This makes it difficult for them to respond to disciplinary action in prison, to understand and remember rules, and anger issues can get them in dangerous incidents with other inmates. They also have a higher rate of recidivism.

The spirit of the law is that responsibility for a crime is reduced when a defendant’s cognitive ability is compromised by illness or injury. This means that people need to be tested soon after being arrested. Many people who are in prison shouldn’t be there due to this lack of diagnosis. There needs to be increased health screenings and rehab treatments and improved coordination between family, community mental health services, GPs and the school system. The justice system will have to move away from retribution and focus more on rehabilitation.

It doesn’t change the purpose of the justice system to reform their behaviour and provide safety for the rest of society. But the sentencing and treatment might have to depend on how modifiable their behaviour is. If a criminal is utterly beyond repair, brain damage or not, (s)he still needs to be locked away. But it might help many others who might benefit from treatment as the two examples in this answer.

Footnotes

[1] Right Orbitofrontal Tumor With Peadophilia Symptom and Constructional Apraxia Sign

[2] Peadophilia emerging in a 64 years old peadiatrician

[3] Brain Injury Rate 7 Times Greater among U.S. Prisoners

[4] https://www.braininjuryaustralia...

[5] Traumatic brain injury: a potential cause of violent crime?

Cure for Cancer! The Executioner Protein

Researchers Find “Executioner Protein” That Causes Cancer Cells to Self-Destruct Without Hurting Healthy Cells!

Scientists have discovered a way to use the "executioner protein" BAX to induce apoptosis in cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact. The treatment has so far been applied only to acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may have broader uses.

KILLING CANCER WITH APOPTOSIS
Albert Einstein College of Medicine scientists have induced cancer cells to commit suicide with a new compound that leaves healthy cells untouched. They deployed their novel treatment approach against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells, which kill more than 10,000 Americans, and makes up about one-third of all new cases of leukemia, each year. Patients survive AML at a rate of only about 30 percent, making effective new treatments a hot commodity. And although the team has only tested the treatment on AML, it could have the potential to successfully attack other varieties of cancer cells.

“We’re hopeful that the targeted compounds we’re developing will prove more effective than current anti-cancer therapies by directly causing cancer cells to self-destruct,” associate professor of medicine and biochemistry and senior author Evripidis Gavathiotis said in a press release. “Ideally, our compounds would be combined with other treatments to kill cancer cells faster and more efficiently—and with fewer adverse effects, which are an all-too-common problem with standard chemotherapies.”

KILLING CANCER WITH APOPTOSIS
Albert Einstein College of Medicine scientists have induced cancer cells to commit suicide with a new compound that leaves healthy cells untouched. They deployed their novel treatment approach against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells, which kill more than 10,000 Americans, and makes up about one-third of all new cases of leukemia, each year. Patients survive AML at a rate of only about 30 percent, making effective new treatments a hot commodity. And although the team has only tested the treatment on AML, it could have the potential to successfully attack other varieties of cancer cells.

“We’re hopeful that the targeted compounds we’re developing will prove more effective than current anti-cancer therapies by directly causing cancer cells to self-destruct,” associate professor of medicine and biochemistry and senior author Evripidis Gavathiotis said in a press release. “Ideally, our compounds would be combined with other treatments to kill cancer cells faster and more efficiently—and with fewer adverse effects, which are an all-too-common problem with standard chemotherapies.”

The new compound fights cancer by triggering apoptosis: a natural process the body uses to get rid of malfunctioning and unwanted cells. Apoptosis also takes place during embryonic development: trimming excess tissue from the growing embryo, for example. While certain existing chemotherapy drugs induce apoptosis indirectly by damaging the DNA in cancer cells, this treatment directly triggers the process intentionally by activating BAX, the “executioner protein.”

THE EXECUTIONER PROTEIN
Pro-apoptopic proteins activate BAX in cells. Once BAX molecules go to work, they find the mitochondria of target cells and drill lethal holes into them, scuttling their ability to produce energy. Cancer cells resist BAX and this process by producing large quantities of “anti-apoptotic” proteins that suppress BAX and even the proteins that activate it. The process discovered by these researchers wakes BAX up again and sends it back to work.

“Our novel compound revives suppressed BAX molecules in cancer cells by binding with high affinity to BAX’s activation site,” Dr. Gavathiotis said in the release. “BAX can then swing into action, killing cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed.”

In 2008, Dr. Gavathiotis was part of the team that first described the BAX’s activation site’s shape and structure. Since that time, he has been searching for small molecules to activate BAX and produce sufficient activity to overpower the natural resistance cancer cells mount to apoptosis. His team screened more than one million compounds and narrowed the field to 500, many of them synthesized by the team, and then evaluated them. These results reveal the outcome of that search.

BTSA1 (short for BAX Trigger Site Activator 1) was the best compound against several different human AML cell lines, including those found in high-risk AML patients. BTSA1 was also able to induce apoptosis in AML cells without affecting healthy stem cells. In AML mice treated with the compound, there was a significantly longer survival rate: 43 percent of the control group was alive and AML-free after 60 days. The BTSA1-treated mice also exhibited no signs of toxicity.

“BTSA1 activates BAX and causes apoptosis in AML cells while sparing healthy cells and tissues—probably because the cancer cells are primed for apoptosis,” Dr. Gavathiotis said in the release. Next the team plans to test BTSA1 on other types of cancer using animal models.

Can WiFi cause cancer?

WiFi operates in the 2 to 5 GHz range - part of the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is in the same part of the spectrum where cell phones operate so I may refer to WiFi or cellphone electromagnetic radiation interchangeably. These are radio waves - no different than those used to broadcast television programs - except that they are higher in frequency. They aren't nearly as high a frequency as visible light - and no one worries about getting cancer from visible light (ultraviolet light, on the other hand, causes skin cancer - but this is the minimum energy necessary to cause ionizations that can cause breaks in strands of DNA - which is the mechanism by which cancer cells can be created). There is no credible evidence that non-ionizing radiation has any adverse health effects at all. There is no radiobiologic mechanism that could explain such an association - and absolutely no scientifically valid evidence that this has ever happened.

Dr Garry Larson MD, Medical Director- Procure Proton Therapy Center OKC states that he has treated patients with cancer for over thirty years as a board certified radiation oncologist and he is familiar with every carcinogenic agent known to man - He is with absolute certainty that radio waves cannot harm you (unless perhaps you were in the path of a multi-megawatt microwave beam in which case they might cook you - but as far as he knows, there is no likelihood that this danger even exists).

There has never been (and will never be) a randomised trial assessing the cause and effect relationship between radio frequency emissions and neoplastic disease. In order to have a randomised study, half of the randomly selected subjects would need to avoid cellphone use and that's not going to happen.

Humans have been exposed to man-made radio frequency radiation for over 100 years and we have always been exposed to microwave radiation from the Cosmos.

For example, the latency period for radiation induced malignancies is, on the average say 20 years, but epidemiologic studies of large groups of people (that only require a few thousand patients to reach stastistical significance) exposed to ionizing radiation start showing an increase above baseline by seven years. So conservatively, there should be at least a few excess cases of glioma, caused by cellular (or WiFi) electromagnetic radiation by now.

See this reference which looks at all the reported cases of gliomas caused by ionizing radiation (where we have a plausible explanation for cause and effect). Millions of people have received brain irradiation and only 73 cases of radiation induced gliomas have been reported.

A Report on Radiation-Induced Gliomas

We do have evidence that cellphones (or WiFi) do NOT cause an increase in brain tumors. Look at the time period over which cellphone use became common - say over the last twenty years. During that time, the incidence of brain tumours has remained absolutely flat. With over four billion people using cellphones (or WiFi) today, if there was any influence on the development of brain tumors, we would be seeing that by now.

The data from the National Cancer Institute below shows no increase in the incidence of primary brain tumours over the period of time that cell phones have been in use.

Say someone found a potential association between carrying coins in your pocket and the risk of a particular type of tumour. It would set off a frenzy of activity among a group of people who were convinced that this association was real. They would lobby for a law requiring that warning signs be placed on change machines. The effect would snowball until some people would demand that the government stop minting coins.

So lets review

There is no biologic mechanism to explain why non ionizing radiation (like the cellphone's emission of radio waves) could induce any type of tumour
We do have a mechanism to explain the association between ionizing radiation and tumour induction, but out of millions of people who have received radiation therapy to their brain, only 73 radiation induced gliomas have been reported in the world's literature.
For radiation induced neoplasms in general, epidemiologic studies can show an increase in the likelihood of tumours with only a few thousand people over a time period less than ten years

At least something on the order of millions (if not billions) of people have used cell phones for over two decades now and there is no evidence that the incidence of brain tumors has increased over that time period
Now lets get down to why this sort of irrational belief takes hold and, among other things, prompts five questions on this subject (at least that I have seen) in the time that I have been reading Quora (less than two months).

We have essentially no control over whether we live or die - except that we should avoid dangerous behaviours like smoking, becoming obese, not wearing seat belts, texting while driving, etc. Otherwise, over a trillion cells carry on countless biochemical processes that we have no control over. One out of four people will get cancer - beyond avoiding foolish behaviour, we can't influence that risk.

Since we have this subconscious, ever present fear of death (see below*), we employ magical thinking to give us a false sense of power over it. When we create artificial threats to our survival in our imagination - and then avoid practicing behaviours that make us vulnerable to those threats - we feel we have some power over whether we live or die. These are also know as superstitions.

Primitive cultures made sacrifices to imaginary gods so they wouldn't destroy their village - Children learn to avoid stepping on cracks - The germaphobe may engage in compulsive hand washing - and some people avoid putting their cellphone right next to their skin.