Health & Wellness

Health experts calling for inquiry into excess prescription drug deaths

Paul Gallagher
iNews
Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:01 UTC

© Charlie Forgham-Bailey
Dr Aseem Malhotra, consultant cardiologist and leading obesity campaigner, is among several health experts calling for a public inquiry into how drug companies and doctors are putting millions of patients at risk.

Leading British health experts are calling for a Chilcot-style inquiry into why they say tens of thousands of people continue to die every year through the overprescription of drugs.

In a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels, the doctors and academics will say millions of people are being given unnecessary medication - such as statins, blood pressure pills and glucose lowering drugs for type 2 diabetics - which have no effect whatsoever and are therefore a waste of money, leave many people suffering further due to side effects, or cause excess deaths.

In November, a Cambridge University study found half of over-65s take at least five drugs a day. The figure has risen from just 12 per cent 20 years ago, while the proportion taking no pills at all fell from around 20 per cent in the late 1990s to seven per cent now. Taking up to five drugs a day increased the dangers of premature death by an estimated 47 per cent, researchers warned.

Comment: See also:

The many health benefits of kombucha tea

LowCarbAlpha
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 00:01 UTC

Kombucha tea has gained a lot of popularity as a beneficial health supplement and beverage.

It is a simple fermented drink made from tea.

This ancient Chinese drink has a lot of health benefits ranging from disease preventing, maintaining a healthy body and state of mind.

Modern-day dangers bombard, test and compromise the human immune system like never before, and we are increasingly resistant to prescribed antibiotics.

Comment: Keep in mind that much of the above needs to be taken with a grain of salt as, while the benefits may be true, kombucha can only do so much given the impact of other dietary and lifestyle factors. It isn't a cure-all but should rather be looked at as a tasty beverage that may also confer some moderate health benefits. Also keep in mind that the sweeter the kombucha is, the more sugar remains unfermented, and that sugar will end up in the drinker's bloodstream. Long fermentations of kombucha are likely much healthier since they will be lower in sugar.

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Blocked arteries & heart disease don't always go together says study

Tom Cowan, M.D.
Fourfold Healing
Mon, 02 Jul 2018 19:34 UTC

One of the best things about writing a book is the feedback you get after the book is published. In many ways, one's education really begins after writing the book, rather than before.

In the past year and a half, about every other week, I do a "practitioners" call, in which we spend about 15 to 30 minutes talking about heart disease and strophanthus. As many of you know, one of the main themes of my book was that blocked coronary arteries are not the sole or even the predominant reason that people have heart attacks or chest pain. In these short calls, which are free to any licensed health practitioner, I talk a little about how I arrived at this conclusion and how strophanthus addresses heart disease.

In the latest call, I was joined by nine practitioners, one of whom was a cardiologist from Southern California. After hearing me speak, he asked whether I had heard of the growing trend of more and more women having heart disease in spite of totally clean coronary arteries. He pointed out that this phenomenon was becoming a subject of considerable interest in the conventional cardiology community. He also sent me a very interesting study, which addresses this subject directly.

The study is from the European Heart Journal (2014) 35, 1101-1111. The title is "Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction: An Update," and the authors are Filippo Crea, et. al, basically, a group of cardiologists from around the world. The study is an update of the role of microvascular disesase (what I call the collateral circulation) in the etiology of heart attacks and angina. In reviewing the scope of the incidence of patients with evidence of heart disease who have completely clean coronary arteries, the authors conclude:

Estimates from the WISE database show that there are at least 3-4 million patients in the USA alone with signs and symptoms of ischemia despite no evidence of obstructive atherosclerosis.

Medicine sold to the highest bidder

Dr.Jason Fung
Medium
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 20:28 UTC

One of the greatest problems in medicine today is that academic medicine has been sold to the highest bidder. Under the guise of 'Evidence Based Medicine' the public has been sold fraudulent goods, and the result is that people suffer from unnecessary but lucrative procedures and take unnecessary but lucrative medications. Let me explain. Much of the data we use in medicine comes from epidemiology studies - where one thing is associated with another. It is easy to prove association, but much harder to prove that one thing causes the other, which is what we want to know.

It is very dangerous to accept data from epidemiologic studies because there are too many confounding factors. That is how we wound up with millions of women prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which turned out to be giving them cancer. In the late 1990s, there was a very strong association between women taking HRT and reduction of heart disease - about a 50% reduction. Based on this flimsy evidence, millions of women were prescribed the drug. It turns out, that when the trials were finally completed a decade or so later, that HRT did NOT reduce heart disease at all. Instead, women who took HRT were also healthier in many other ways - and these confounding factors accounted for the apparent heart disease risk reduction.

Alabama woman has 50-pound ovarian cyst removed after months of unexplained symptoms

Elizabeth Tyree
weartv.com
Sat, 28 Jul 2018 13:56 UTC

A woman in Alabama is feeling a lot better after months of unexplained stomach issues, pain, and weight gain.

In May, Kayla Rahn had surgery to remove a 50-pound ovarian cyst.

She told WSFA that the persistent stomach issues impacted even the most normal day-to-day activities.

"I couldn't even walk to my car without losing my breath," she said.

Medical professionals first told her that the solution to her problems was weight loss, but when the pain got overwhelming, her mother took her to the ER at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama.

After a series of tests, a large mass was found in one of her ovaries.

Busting the myth of the Japanese rice and vegetables diet

Food Lies
Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:01 UTC

I went to Japan to squash the vegan propaganda that they eat mostly rice and vegetables with a little fish every 3rd leap year. No, no, NO.

Fatty meat everywhere you look. Fatty tuna, eggs, wagyu beef. This country is dripping in saturated fat and are in amazing health.

Researchers find vitamin D receptor is disrupted by environmental chemicals

Phys.org
Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:01 UTC

© Scientific Reports (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-27055-3
Structure-based molecular docking using Glide and the human VDR structure (PDB code 1S19): (a) Docking results for all compounds with their associated XP docking and eModel scores, mechanism and experimental AC50 values; (b) Binding modes of calcipotriol (red) and proflavine hydrochloride (blue) superimposed in the binding site.

New research from North Carolina State University sheds light on the ways in which environmental chemicals can affect vitamin D receptors (VDR). The work shows that compounds identified as possible VDR disruptors in the Tox21 database interact with VDR in vitro and supports the efficacy of high throughput screening programs to identify compounds of interest.

"Most people think of vitamin D as only a vitamin, but in the body vitamin D is converted to a hormone, so VDR is part of the endocrine system which regulates hormonal function," says Seth Kullman, professor of biological sciences at NC State. "If something - an endocrine disrupting chemical, for example - interferes with the hormone's function at different times of development or aging, it could drastically alter physiology of a number of important systems."

Kullman is interested in exploring the effects of environmental chemicals on vitamin D receptors. He, along with a team of researchers from NC State and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) looked at compounds that the Tox21 database had flagged as potential VDR disruptors.

Comment: The importance of vitamin D cannot be overstated. If environmental toxicity can interfere with the normal metabolism of vitamin D, this is yet another threat to human health.

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UK: World's first local hospital calls for its community to ditch sugar and processed foods

Marika Sboros
FoodMed.net
Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:01 UTC

You know the dietary times really are a-changin' when a UK hospital calls on a community to stop eating sugar and processed foods.

And when mayors, MPs and celebrities support it. Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester has issued a world-first 70-day challenge to the 250,000 people it serves to go sugar-free.

The DITCH SUGAR! call comes on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the NHS (National Health Service). It highlights soaring levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the UK as linked chronic health conditions - which doctors now call "diabesity". Tameside is also holding a symposium on Wednesday, July 4. Those who register will receive a free guide to kickstart their sugar-free challenge by email. It is based on UK consultant cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra's bestseller The Pioppi Diet and includes a freeview of his groundbreaking doccie, The Big Fat Fix, with filmmaker Donal O'Neill.

Comment: Eliminating sugar is one of the best things one can do to begin to see improvements in health. Good on Tameside hospital and Dr. Malhotra for encouraging their community to take back their health. Hopefully, other hospitals will follow suit in ditching the official dietary guidelines and encouraging all to participate in a diet of real food!

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Pediatrician put on probation for giving a vaccine exemption

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 30 Jun 2018 15:46 UTC

In an alarming decision that could be used to set the standard for doctors who choose not to follow the state's strict vaccine schedules for infants and toddlers, the Medical Board of California has suspended a pediatrician who claims that he approved a 2-year-old's vaccine exemption, after the child showed a severe adverse reaction.

Dr. Robert Sears has been the subject of controversy ever since the board threatened to revoke his medical license altogether when he was accused of "wrongfully writing" a doctor's note for a 2-year-old boy that exempted him from required vaccinations, after the boy's mother told him that previous immunizations made the boy's body limp, and caused him to lose urinary functions.

Because he took the mother's word and believed her testimony of her son's condition, Dr. Sears is now under probation for the next 35 months, which means that every decision he makes as a pediatric doctor will be strictly scrutinized by other medical professionals, he must notify all hospital and medical facilities where he practices that he is on probation, and he is not allowed to supervise physician assistants or nurse practitioners.

Comment: Medical journalist Del Bigtree interviews pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears while touring the nation in the VaxXed bus. Dr. Bob Sears' concern: 'Informed consent and freedom to choose without penalties' - "No matter how much you like vaccines as a doctor don't you want that decision to be between you and your patient?"

Low B-12 and folate in mature adults are 'of concern'

Maria Cohut, Fact checked by Jasmin Collier
Medical News Today
Sun, 01 Jul 2018 14:59 UTC

A large population study conducted in Ireland has found that a worrying number of adults aged 50 and over have vitamin B-12 and folate deficiencies, which may expose them to poor health in the long run.

Researchers from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland have analyzed the medical information of 5,290 adults from Ireland aged 50 older.

They did this to establish whether the general levels of two key nutrients - vitamin B-12 and folate - were adequate among the mature population.

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Health & Wellness

Health experts calling for inquiry into excess prescription drug deaths

The many health benefits of kombucha tea

Blocked arteries & heart disease don't always go together says study

Medicine sold to the highest bidder

Alabama woman has 50-pound ovarian cyst removed after months of unexplained symptoms

Busting the myth of the Japanese rice and vegetables diet

Researchers find vitamin D receptor is disrupted by environmental chemicals

UK: World's first local hospital calls for its community to ditch sugar and processed foods

Pediatrician put on probation for giving a vaccine exemption

Low B-12 and folate in mature adults are 'of concern'

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