This video discusses some amazing statistics from a recently completed 25 year study of Latter-day Saints. The non-member authors concluded “these were the lowest death rates and longest life-expectancies ever documented in a well-defined U.S. cohort’ and that the findings ‘suggest a model for substantial disease prevention’. Several other studies are covered as well, along with some fascinating recent research into many of the substances prohibited in the Word of Wisdom (and differences from the temperance movement started in 1826). Also – with the largest legal fines in world history, the documentable proof of ‘conspiring’ men in the last days are vividly show in the video.
Okay. In this Evidences video I want to talk about the Word of Wisdom. I just did a video on the Word of Wisdom. I was talking about various issues. This is the one focused on the evidences of the Word of Wisdom. I do want to point out that many critics will say, “Well, Joseph wasn’t ahead of his time. He was part of the temperance movement that came about in the 1820’s and 1830’s in the United States. And I think that did help Joseph go to his knees in prayer to seek this revelation on what they should do in the midst of all of this and the focus on health and specifically alcoholism. I talked a lot about that in the other video.
But if you look at the temperance movement, where did it go? Where is it today? In the mid-1830s 1 of every 12 people in the United States was part of the temperance movement. Think of that today. I thought, “Well, let’s look at Alcoholic’s Anonymous as maybe something.” And that’s really for recovering alcoholics. There’s 1 in 253 today. Also, the temperance movement did have a huge focus on replacing alcohol with coffee. So we’ll talk about even a study that just was released on throat cancer coming from hot drinks, an interesting study.
Also, I want to talk about pure evidence we have today, just recently, of the evil and designs of conspiring men in the last days that was a reason for the Word of Wisdom to be given. Also, I want to talk about other recent updates on various substances as well. So let’s get started by looking at this study. This was a huge study that was done over 25 years of California Latter-day Saints. This was done at UCLA. These were not members of the Church that conducted this study. Again, 25 years, the largest of its kind. And if you look at the results of this study and the abstract here zooming in, there were 9,815 religiously active California Latter-day Saints that were studied.
If you look at the baseline, what they call the standardized mortality ratio, and then if you look at the line here for all causes of death was .45 for males and .55 for females. I’ll explain what that means exactly on the next slide. But life expectancies for males 84 and for females 86. Now, the conclusion, if you look at the next slide, here’s the summary, really, what this means. Males lived 9.8 years longer than average. Females, 5.6 years longer than average. And then that SMR statistic, what that meant was that males had chance of dying from cancer or disease 55% less than the average, females 45% less than average.
And look at these interesting three insights that they shared, the authors of the study. “Latter-day Saints in California had the lowest total death rates and the longest life expectancies ever documented in a well-defined U.S. cohort. The authors conclude the findings suggest a model for substantial disease prevention in the general population. And in the last, the more strictly and constantly Mormons followed Mormon lifestyle elements, the longer they lived.” That’s their final quote. Here’s the next study to share. This was one that was done from 1971 to 1985 looking at cancer incidences of Latter-day Saints and non Latter-day Saints living in Utah.
If you look here, “For all causes of cancer, the rates in Utah for male members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was about 24% less than the comparable U.S. rate. There is 50% lower rate of cancers associated with cigarette smoking among LDS men. LDS women had an all site cancer rate 24% below the comparable U.S. rate and a 60% lower rate of smoking associated cancers. Over the past 40 years, Utah has had the lowest age-adjusted cancer mortality rates for all causes of cancer of any of the 50 states.”
And then last study here did demographic research published in 2004 on life expectancy. Life expectancy was 77.3 for LDS males, 70.0 for non-LDS males in this study. 82.2 for LDS females and 76.4 for non-Latter Day Saint females. And then tobacco use explains some of the higher life expectancy, but it only counted for 1.5 of the 7.3 years for males and 1.2 of the 5.8 years for females. Now, I want to focus for a minute on tobacco very specifically, because if you think about the evil and designs of conspiring men, there were significant advancements that were made in chemistry and technology and understanding.
The cigarette rolling machine was invented in 1880. You see these things that came about that caused this amazing storm. If you look here on the screen, “Tobacco has now been linked to many types of cancer, including lung, bladder, esophagus, head and neck, throat, cervix, stomach, pancreas, and kidney cancers as well as acute myeloid leukemia. Smoking causes about 90% of male lung cancer deaths, about 80% of female lung cancer deaths, and a total of approximately 440,000 deaths annually in the U.S.”
“Men who smoke are about 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer, and women who smoke about 13 times more likely. In addition, smoking is a major cause of emphysema, coronary heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, infertility, dental diseases and other diseases.” And then if you look at the annual global death toll caused by smoking is 4 million, 4 million a year. By 2030 they’re predicting 10 million, with 70% of those deaths occurring in developing countries. “According to the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, lung cancer is the leading cause of death among both men and women, and about 1 in 4 cancer deaths are from lung cancer.”
“They estimate that in 2017, more people in the US will die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.” Then you think about, again, these conspiring men, this was a bulls eye. The big five tobacco companies were fined 250 billion, with a B, dollars in the United States from the findings over a 50-year period of what had happened. If you look here on the screen, this was Tobacco Explained. It’s a London-based action on smoking and health. It took all of the statements made from the tobacco industry, internal documents. So if you look on the summary it says, “Thousands of internal tobacco industry documents released through litigation and whistle blowers revealed the most astonishing systematic corporate deceit of all time.”
“What follows is a survey of the documents, 1,200 relevant and revealing quotes grouped under common themes.” And then the seven chapters are: “smoking and health, nicotine and addiction, marketing to children, advertising, cigarette design, second hand smoke, and emerging markets.” You can pause the screen if you want to see some of the detail there. But I want to show this quick clip that has become iconic of these big tobacco CEOs in front of congress outright lying at the time here for the record. So watch this clip for a second.
Speaker 2:
Please consider yourself to be under oath. We just would like to have this for the record.
Speaker 3:
I don’t believe that nicotine from our products are addictive.
Speaker 4:
I believe nicotine is not addictive.
Speaker 5:
I believe that nicotine is not addictive.
Speaker 6:
I believe that nicotine is not addictive.
Speaker 7:
And I, too, believe that nicotine is not addictive.
So the big tobacco found guilty of lying five things here forced here to admit publicly. So this just happened in 2017. “U.S. district court judge, Gladys Kessler, found tobacco companies guilty of breaking of civil racketeering laws, engaging in ongoing fraud, and lying to the public about the dangers of smoking. Judge Kessler ruled that the tobacco industry must publish corrective and educational statements about the dangerous effects of tobacco. Big tobacco has spent nearly 11 years fighting their corrective statements in court. Now they are being forced to come clean with the public after nearly 50 years of lying and deceiving.”
Corrective statements began running November 26th. This was of 2017. And here are the five big tobacco lies they’re being forced to admit publicly. Number one big tobacco lie, saying smoking wasn’t dangerous. Number two, big tobacco knew nicotine was addictive. And look at the little sub-note there. “They withheld their research that proved it was addictive from the public and the government.” Number three, big tobacco lied about light and low-tar cigarettes being healthier. Number four, this one really gets me, big tobacco engineered cigarettes to contain higher amounts of nicotine.
Look at the sub note. “Evidences show that big tobacco designed their cigarettes with engineered filters, special paper, and additives to increase the nicotine content and make cigarettes even more addictive.” And last, fifth, big tobacco continually denied the dangers of second hand smoke. This is a direct bulls eye for the Word of Wisdom that was talking about the future. If you recall, it’s a consequent of the coming of this that existed now, but would also be in the future of conspiring men in the last days. Fascinating.
Okay. Alcohol. Here is an interesting study released in 2005. “It is commonly accepted that alcohol consumption is associated with cancers of the esophagus, liver, and pancreas. The relationship between alcohol and the development of breast cancer has been debated for years. The largest study on this subjects was presented in 2005. The Nurse’s Health Study that studied 121,700 nurses followed over a 20-year period found that even modest alcohol intake was associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer.”
And then on the mormonsandscience.org website they shared this from a New Zealand research findings in July 2016. The effect of alcohol in the Journal of Addiction. The authors report that “the epidemiological evidence can support the judgment that alcohol causes cancer of the oral pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum, and breast.” Seven types of cancer. What about the positive benefits of a little bit of wine? Isn’t the resveratrol in wine supposed to make us healthier? Regarding the supposed benefit, the New Zealand researchers also said that “earlier epidemiological studies which reported that drinking can protect us from cardiovascular disease should now be regarded with a high level of skepticism.”
I mentioned the hot drinks study. This just came out here March 2019. Look at this headline in USA Today. “Drink hot tea at your own risk: New study is latest to show link to esophageal cancer.” So throat cancer. “If your daily drink is too hot, however, you may dramatically increase your risk of cancer according to a new study. Research published Wednesday in the International Journal of Cancer tracked the habits of more than 50,000 tea drinkers in a province in Northeastern Iran over a 10-year period.” Look at the findings here on the study.
“Based on the results of our study, drinking hot tea is associated with an increased risk of throat cancer. The study found that those who drank more than basically two cups of tea a day at a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit had a 90% higher risk of esophageal cancer. Beverages at restaurants may be served at higher temperatures as was revealed in the infamous 1994 lawsuit against McDonald’s during which the company admitted to keeping its coffee at temperatures between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Previous studies have examined the link between hot beverages and cancer, including a 2018 China-based study published in Annals of Internal Medicine that found drinking hot tea when combined with heavy alcohol and tobacco use significantly increases the risk of throat cancer.”
“The World Health Organization in 2016 said drinking coffee, tea, and other beverages at temperatures hotter than 149 degrees probably causes cancer.” And then the last two things, just on some nutrition do’s of the Word of Wisdom. There wasn’t a lot of science around nutrition at the time of the Word of Wisdom. And there was a lot of desire to have knowledge and health focus. But even vitamins weren’t discovered until the 20th century. Here’s a great article I’ll link in the program, Cancer, Nutrition, and the Word of Wisdom: One Doctor’s Observation. This was in the July 2008 Ensign, Dr. William Stephenson who also has a degree in nutrition from BYU.
He says, “What does medical science teach us about this kind of diet? Certainly all kinds of diets are being recommended by one seeming authority or another. The diets in fashion change from year to year. Consistently over the years, however, the evidence favors a diet in keeping with the recommendations contained in the Word of Wisdom. The medical community widely accepts that a low-fat diet, consisting mostly of complex carbohydrates found in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, along with limited amounts of nuts and high-protein foods like low-fat meats is associated with lower incidences of diseases and a longer life.”
I love this final quote here from BYU nutrition professor, Lauren Beth Larson Brown in the April 1977 Ensign. She said, “But for most of us our diets are not extreme enough for us to see such dramatic consequences of poor nutrition, because heredity, environment, attitudes, and healthcare also influence our health today. Nevertheless, those who are well-nourished do receive health in their naval and marrow of their bones. They will be alert to finding wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures. They will have the energy and endurance to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint. And the greatest promise, one that we may see fulfilled in ways we cannot yet imagine is, “And I the Lord have given to them a promise that the destroying angel shall pass by them as the children of Israel and not slay them.” Hope you enjoyed the video. Subscribe for more and go check out the other Word of Wisdom video that I did.
Resources:
Papers/Studies:
https://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/…
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3553394?…
https://www.demographic-research.org/…
http://www.scientificintegrityinstitu…
Articles:
https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/2008…
http://www.mormonsandscience.com/reli…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/h…
https://stopswithme.com/big-tobacco-f…
https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/1977…
https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/2008…
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/7…
Latter-day Saints’ Q&A is a video series not produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but by me, an ordinary member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an independent voice, with a passion for studying Church history and defending the faith. In this series, I provide evidences for the restoration, and address tough questions posed by critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offering faithful answers based on accurate research and historical references which will be posted at the end of each video.
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