Hiromi Shinya
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese-born general surgeon. He practices half of the year in Japan and the other half in the United States . He is a clinical professor of surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
at Yeshiva University
; head of the endoscopic center at Beth Israel Medical Center
in New York, New York; and Vice-chairman of the Japanese Medical Association in the United States. He pioneered modern colonoscopic
techniques, and invented the electrosurgical polypectomy snare now common on colonoscopes, allowing for removal of colon polyps without invasive surgery.
Shinya is also known for his health theory. He has authored a number of books, many of them in Japanese.
in Fukuoka Prefecture
, Japan (Shinya Medical Clinic: About Dr. Shinya). From a young age, his mother encouraged him to earn a medical degree and pursue medicine in the United States. He graduated from Juntendo University School of Medicine in 1960. He then applied with nine hundred other candidates for one of fourteen openings for interns at the United States Naval Hospital in Yokosuka
. Passage of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
examination was required for the program, necessitating a high degree of English fluency, so he "spent a lot of time going to American movies" to prepare.
. In 1967, Dr. Shinya became involved with colonoscopy
as a senior resident at Beth Israel. (Shinya Medical Clinic: About Dr. Shinya).
Dr. Shinya began developing colonoscopic techniques with an esophagoscope from Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.
. The instrument was a short fiberscope
with a two-way maneuverable tip and was designed for use on the esophagus, but with it, Dr. Shinya was able to reach the splenic flexure
--the first bend in the colon—about 50% of the time. While other doctors were concurrently developing colonoscopic techniques, most of them practiced a two-person technique, with one person controlling the direction of the tip while the other controlled insertion. Dr. Shinya was in the minority who rejected this procedure, preferring to develop methods which allowed one endoscopist to perform colonoscopy reliably. As a result, "many and probably most of the fundamental principles of the procedure [colonoscopy] were developed by Dr. Shinya" . By the beginning of 1969, Olympus had introduced several iterations of dedicated colonoscopes, and Dr. Shinya was able to reach the cecum
--located at the end of the colon—in 90% of his patients .
Dr. Shinya's other major contribution to colonoscopy was the invention of the electrosurgical polypectomy
snare, with the support of Olympus employee Hiroshi Ichikawa. Even before the results of the National Polyp Study linked colon polyps to colon cancer, Dr. Shinya instinctively "thought the polyp was the forerunner of cancer and that removing these polyps could reduce the risk of cancer" . Since polyp removal accounted for 30% of the colon surgery of the day, Dr. Shinya's primary focus from his first experiences with colonoscopy was a noninvasive method of performing polypectomy. On January 8, 1969, he and Hiroshi Ichikawa sketched out the first plans for a snare attached to the end of a colonoscope that would allow for easy removal of polyps during colonoscopy . They experimented with different types of wire, testing them on animal bowels. Within a few months, they had a workable polypectomy snare . Dr. Shinya then performed the first colonoscopic electrosurgical snare polypectomy in September 1969. In 1970, he delivered the first report of the procedure to the New York Surgical Society, and in May 1971 presented his experiences to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy .
This development made Dr. Shinya famous worldwide. There was immediate demand for his procedure, with his performing 20 colonoscopies a day. To date, he has performed approximately 370,000 colonoscopies and given nearly 300 live demonstrations of the technique. Polypectomy has gone on to surpass "all other endoscopic therapeutic procedures in terms of numbers performed" and "impacts the lives of millions of people throughout the world." According to Michael Sivak, Jr., it is the most important achievement in gastrointestinal endoscopy .
Dr. Shinya has authored many books, of which Living without Disease: A Miracle Enzyme Determines Life (in Japanese. The original title is: '病気にならない生き方 ミラクル・エンザイムが寿命を決める') is the most well-known, which is said to have sold more than a million copies in Japan.
Shinya has recommended in advertisements to take enzyme
from your meal. There he cites a medical paper which is irrelevant to his claim; the article reports decrease in the secretion
quantity of three kinds of digestive enzyme
(and bicarbonate
) from pancrea which is speculated to be due to aging. It has nothing to do with nutrients intake. He also says that nutrients in vegetables are poorer in recent years, and that it's diffcult to take sufficient enzyme
from meal only, by showing a chart based on references of years 1963 and 2008. But they only show values of beta-carotene
, vitamin C
and iron
included in spinach
and carrot
, not of enzyme. On the other hand, Shinya fails to show any evidence to reinforce his idea.
He claims that his prescription of water has 0% cancer
recurrence rate , but notice that such miraculous, so to say, treatment is unknown to date.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...
at Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
; head of the endoscopic center at Beth Israel Medical Center
Beth Israel Medical Center
Beth Israel Medical Center is a 1,368-bed, full-service tertiary teaching hospital in New York City. Originally dedicated to serving immigrant Jews living in the tenement slums of the Lower East Side, it was founded at the turn of the 20th century. The main hospital location is the Petrie...
in New York, New York; and Vice-chairman of the Japanese Medical Association in the United States. He pioneered modern colonoscopic
Colonoscopy
Colonoscopy is the endoscopic examination of the large bowel and the distal part of the small bowel with a CCD camera or a fiber optic camera on a flexible tube passed through the anus. It may provide a visual diagnosis and grants the opportunity for biopsy or removal of suspected...
techniques, and invented the electrosurgical polypectomy snare now common on colonoscopes, allowing for removal of colon polyps without invasive surgery.
Shinya is also known for his health theory. He has authored a number of books, many of them in Japanese.
Early life
Hiromi Shinya was born in 1935 in the city of YanagawaYanagawa, Fukuoka
is a city located in Fukuoka, Japan.On March 21, 2005 the towns of Yamato and Mitsuhashi, both from Yamato District, were merged into Yanagawa.As of April 30, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 71,848, with a household number of 24,507, and the population density of 934.55 persons per km²...
in Fukuoka Prefecture
Fukuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on Kyūshū Island. The capital is the city of Fukuoka.- History :Fukuoka Prefecture includes the former provinces of Chikugo, Chikuzen, and Buzen....
, Japan (Shinya Medical Clinic: About Dr. Shinya). From a young age, his mother encouraged him to earn a medical degree and pursue medicine in the United States. He graduated from Juntendo University School of Medicine in 1960. He then applied with nine hundred other candidates for one of fourteen openings for interns at the United States Naval Hospital in Yokosuka
Naval Hospital Yokosuka Japan
United States Naval Hospital Yokosuka Japan with its eight branch clinics are US Navy medical treatment facilities catering to the medical needs of eligible Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, family members, U.S. government employees, retired military service members and other eligible...
. Passage of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
Through its program of certification, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates assesses the readiness of international medical graduates to enter residency or fellowship programs in the United States that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education...
examination was required for the program, necessitating a high degree of English fluency, so he "spent a lot of time going to American movies" to prepare.
Professional career
Following the internship, Dr. Shinya began his residency at Toho University Hospital, with the hope of becoming a neurosurgeon. However, when a position was offered to him in 1963 in another program to which he had applied, he accepted it. He left Japan for New York, New York to complete a surgical residency at Beth Israel Medical CenterBeth Israel Medical Center
Beth Israel Medical Center is a 1,368-bed, full-service tertiary teaching hospital in New York City. Originally dedicated to serving immigrant Jews living in the tenement slums of the Lower East Side, it was founded at the turn of the 20th century. The main hospital location is the Petrie...
. In 1967, Dr. Shinya became involved with colonoscopy
Colonoscopy
Colonoscopy is the endoscopic examination of the large bowel and the distal part of the small bowel with a CCD camera or a fiber optic camera on a flexible tube passed through the anus. It may provide a visual diagnosis and grants the opportunity for biopsy or removal of suspected...
as a senior resident at Beth Israel. (Shinya Medical Clinic: About Dr. Shinya).
Dr. Shinya began developing colonoscopic techniques with an esophagoscope from Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.
Olympus Corporation
is a Japan-based manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscope and thermometer businesses. Its global headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, while its USA operations are based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania,...
. The instrument was a short fiberscope
Fiberscope
A fiberscope is a flexible fiber optic bundle with an eyepiece at one end, and a lens at the other. It is used for inspection work, often to examine small components in tightly packed equipment, when the inspector cannot easily access the part requiring inspection.The lens is often a wide-angle...
with a two-way maneuverable tip and was designed for use on the esophagus, but with it, Dr. Shinya was able to reach the splenic flexure
Splenic flexure
The splenic flexure is a sharp bend between the transverse and the descending colon in the left upper quadrant of humans. The left colic flexure is near the spleen, and hence called the splenic flexure. There are two colic flexures in the transverse colon — the other being the hepatic...
--the first bend in the colon—about 50% of the time. While other doctors were concurrently developing colonoscopic techniques, most of them practiced a two-person technique, with one person controlling the direction of the tip while the other controlled insertion. Dr. Shinya was in the minority who rejected this procedure, preferring to develop methods which allowed one endoscopist to perform colonoscopy reliably. As a result, "many and probably most of the fundamental principles of the procedure [colonoscopy] were developed by Dr. Shinya" . By the beginning of 1969, Olympus had introduced several iterations of dedicated colonoscopes, and Dr. Shinya was able to reach the cecum
Cecum
The cecum or caecum is a pouch, connecting the ileum with the ascending colon of the large intestine. It is separated from the ileum by the ileocecal valve or Bauhin's valve, and is considered to be the beginning of the large intestine. It is also separated from the colon by the cecocolic...
--located at the end of the colon—in 90% of his patients .
Dr. Shinya's other major contribution to colonoscopy was the invention of the electrosurgical polypectomy
Polypectomy
The method used to perform colonic polypectomies during colonoscopy depends on the size, shape and histological type of the polyp to be removed. Prior to performing polypectomy, polyps can be biopsied and examined histologically to determine the need to perform polypectomy.Gastrointestinal polyps...
snare, with the support of Olympus employee Hiroshi Ichikawa. Even before the results of the National Polyp Study linked colon polyps to colon cancer, Dr. Shinya instinctively "thought the polyp was the forerunner of cancer and that removing these polyps could reduce the risk of cancer" . Since polyp removal accounted for 30% of the colon surgery of the day, Dr. Shinya's primary focus from his first experiences with colonoscopy was a noninvasive method of performing polypectomy. On January 8, 1969, he and Hiroshi Ichikawa sketched out the first plans for a snare attached to the end of a colonoscope that would allow for easy removal of polyps during colonoscopy . They experimented with different types of wire, testing them on animal bowels. Within a few months, they had a workable polypectomy snare . Dr. Shinya then performed the first colonoscopic electrosurgical snare polypectomy in September 1969. In 1970, he delivered the first report of the procedure to the New York Surgical Society, and in May 1971 presented his experiences to the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy .
This development made Dr. Shinya famous worldwide. There was immediate demand for his procedure, with his performing 20 colonoscopies a day. To date, he has performed approximately 370,000 colonoscopies and given nearly 300 live demonstrations of the technique. Polypectomy has gone on to surpass "all other endoscopic therapeutic procedures in terms of numbers performed" and "impacts the lives of millions of people throughout the world." According to Michael Sivak, Jr., it is the most important achievement in gastrointestinal endoscopy .
Claims on Health
Shinya is also known for his claims on health, but he has repeatedly done deceiving citations in commercial advertisements.Dr. Shinya has authored many books, of which Living without Disease: A Miracle Enzyme Determines Life (in Japanese. The original title is: '病気にならない生き方 ミラクル・エンザイムが寿命を決める') is the most well-known, which is said to have sold more than a million copies in Japan.
Shinya has recommended in advertisements to take enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
from your meal. There he cites a medical paper which is irrelevant to his claim; the article reports decrease in the secretion
Secretion
Secretion is the process of elaborating, releasing, and oozing chemicals, or a secreted chemical substance from a cell or gland. In contrast to excretion, the substance may have a certain function, rather than being a waste product...
quantity of three kinds of digestive enzyme
Digestive enzyme
'Digestive enzymes' are enzymes that break down polymeric macromolecules into their smaller building blocks, in order to facilitate their absorption by the body. Digestive enzymes are found in the digestive tract of animals where they aid in the digestion of food as well as inside the cells,...
(and bicarbonate
Bicarbonate
In inorganic chemistry, bicarbonate is an intermediate form in the deprotonation of carbonic acid...
) from pancrea which is speculated to be due to aging. It has nothing to do with nutrients intake. He also says that nutrients in vegetables are poorer in recent years, and that it's diffcult to take sufficient enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
from meal only, by showing a chart based on references of years 1963 and 2008. But they only show values of beta-carotene
Beta-carotene
β-Carotene is a strongly-coloured red-orange pigment abundant in plants and fruits. It is an organic compound and chemically is classified as a hydrocarbon and specifically as a terpenoid , reflecting its derivation from isoprene units...
, vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...
and iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
included in spinach
Spinach
Spinach is an edible flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is an annual plant , which grows to a height of up to 30 cm. Spinach may survive over winter in temperate regions...
and carrot
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
, not of enzyme. On the other hand, Shinya fails to show any evidence to reinforce his idea.
He claims that his prescription of water has 0% cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
recurrence rate , but notice that such miraculous, so to say, treatment is unknown to date.
See also
- Scientific misconductScientific misconductScientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. A Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries provides the following sample definitions: *Danish definition: "Intention or...
- PseudosciencePseudosciencePseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
- Tondemo-bon