Health & WellnessS


Pills

What are the risks of 'coming off statins'?

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The statin industry is the utmost medical tragedy of all times.
Once upon a time, the rhetoric around statins was relentlessly positive. More recently, though, I think there's been increasing numbers of doctors and commentators expressing concern about the limited effectiveness of statins, as well as their known but perhaps under-recognised risks. A few weeks back an Australian documentary aired that featured several quite-conventional doctors and academics who expressed considerable scepticism about statins. You can see the documentary on YouTube:


I've noticed reports this week from doctors who have expressed concern that since the airing of this documentary, many patients have taken matters into their own hands and stopped their medication. The general tone of these reports is been that the documentary has encouraged individuals to put their lives in perilous danger. But let's leave the rhetoric aside for the moment. What are the real risks of stopping statin medication? Does stopping a statin really increase the risk that someone will 'have a heart attack and die'?

Comment: For more data on the absurdity of taking statin drugs, see: Statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic calcification. Yes, the statin industry is the utmost medical tragedy of all times.


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Can't remember where you left the keys? One week of junk food may be enough to damage your memory

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A new study from the University of New South Wales in Australia published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity shows that just one week of eating an unhealthy diet is enough to cause lasting memory impairment in rats.

For a week, the rats were given access to a bottle of sugar water in addition to a healthy diet, or were fed a cafeteria-like diet loaded with cakes, cookies, and fat. Although only the rats on the cafeteria diet gained weight, both groups of rats had memory impairments compared with control animals who ate only healthy foods, suggesting that weight gain alone wasn't to blame for their memory lapses.

Poor Diet Damages the Hippocampus

The rats had little trouble with object recognition, a type of memory that involves a brain region called the perirhinal cortex. But they did far worse with place recognition, a type of memory that involves a brain region called the hippocampus, which is responsible for many types of memory formation, including retaining new facts.

Ambulance

Study says fracking chemicals interfere with endocrine functions, linked to heightened risks of cancer, low fertility rates and decreased sperm quality

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© AFP Photo / Getty Images / Spencer Platt

Equipment used for the extraction of natural gas is viewed at a hydraulic fracturing site

Researchers at the University of Missouri and the United States Geological Survey say that chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could be causing serious hormonal disorders in humans.

A new report published in the latest edition of the journal Endocrinology examines a dozen chemicals used regularly in fracking - an increasingly commonplace practice of releasing natural gas from within the Earth by blasting a cocktail containing millions of gallons of water and other components deep underground.

The researchers say that there are hundreds of different ingredients used in various fracking formulas, but a considerable chunk of them are suspected of being endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs - chemicals that can interfere with the human body's endocrine functions and have been linked to heightened risks of cancer, low fertility rates and decreased sperm quality.

These chemicals "could raise the risk of reproductive, metabolic, neurological and other diseases, especially in children who are exposed to EDCs," co-author Susan Nagel of the University of Missouri's School of Medicine said in a statement released this week by The Endocrine Society.

"The rapid expansion in drilling operations utilizing hydraulic fracturing increases the potential for environmental contamination with the hundreds of hazardous chemicals used," her group's report reads in part.

"With fracking on the rise, populations may face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure," Nagel added.

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Mystery illness claims 4 lives in Montgomery County, Texas

Officials with the Montgomery County Health Department are on a mission to find out more about a mystery flu-like illness.


So far, half of the people who have come down with it have died.

According to the health department, all of the patients have had flu-like and/or pneumonia like symptoms. However, all of them have tested negative for the flu.

There have been eight confirmed patients ranging in age from 41 to 68. Four of those patients have died.

Pills

The selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

stimulant
© Karsten Moran for The New York Times"This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels,” Keith Conners, a psychologist and early advocate for recognition of A.D.H.D., said of the rising rates of diagnosis of the disorder.
The Number of Diagnoses Soared Amid a 20-Year Drug Marketing Campaign

After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating.

Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem. Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs like Adderall and Concerta to temper the traits of classic A.D.H.D., helping youngsters succeed in school and beyond.

But Dr. Conners did not feel triumphant this fall as he addressed a group of fellow A.D.H.D. specialists in Washington. He noted that recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children, and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. He questioned the rising rates of diagnosis and called them "a national disaster of dangerous proportions."

"The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it's not. It's preposterous," Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, said in a subsequent interview. "This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels."

Comment: One question: Who is being cured?


Smoking

Study: Second-hand smoke and lung cancer not linked

smoking
© HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/GettyImages
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta attribute approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths every year to second-hand smoke.

A new study suggests that CDC researchers may be mistaken, however.

Researchers at Stanford University discovered during a study of over 75,000 women who smoke that there was no reasonable connection between passive exposure to cigarette smoke and the development of lung cancer.

"The fact that passive smoking may not be strongly associated with lung cancer points to a need to find other risk factors for the disease [in nonsmokers]," Ange Wang, a Stanford University medical student, was quoted as saying while presenting the study at the June 2013 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. E Canada Now learned that the study was also recently published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Comment: For more information:

Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
Aliens Don't Like to Eat People That Smoke!
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!


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It's not just rotting teeth and obesity you're risking: From dementia to liver damage, the real toll of sugar

  • London cardiologist believes it should be regulated like alcohol
  • 'It's toxic, unavoidable, capable of abuse and has negative impact on society'
  • Can trigger heart attacks, may cause dementia and is bad for livers
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British adult will consume the equivalent of 32 teaspoons of the stuff on Christmas Day alone
Mince pies, pudding and brandy butter, chocolates, - Christmas truly is the season of sugar. The average British adult will consume the equivalent of 32 teaspoons of the stuff on Christmas Day alone, according to the British Heart Foundation.

UK guidelines recommend that we should have no more than 50g - or around ten teaspoons - of sugar a day.

But surveys suggest the average British adult goes over this by two teaspoons - much of this coming from sugars added to our food by manufacturers.

Comment: "UK guidelines recommend that we should have no more than 50g - or around ten teaspoons - of sugar a day"

Ideally none at all should be consumed, see also:

146 reasons why sugar destroys your health

Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin, Researchers Say

Is Sugar Toxic?


Smoking

Coffee and cigarettes may protect against liver disease

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Coffee and cigarette smoking may protect against the rare liver disease Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC), study shows.

In a new study from Norway published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, both coffee consumption and cigarette smoking are shown to potentially protect against primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). This is a chronic liver disease caused by chronic inflammation of the bile ducts.

The findings are of great interest against a backdrop of increasing knowledge on coffee as a possible protective agent in other liver diseases.

The cross-sectional study was conducted by researchers at the Norwegian PSC Research Center based at Oslo University Hospital and the University of Oslo.

The study was conducted using a questionnaire about environmental exposures, and included 240 PSC patients and 245 controls.

Alarm Clock

Are too many kids taking antipsychotic drugs?

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© blogs.discovery.com
Use is climbing despite questions about how safe the drugs are and how well they work.

The number of children taking powerful antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the last 10 to 15 years, according to recent research. The increase comes not because of an epidemic of schizophrenia or other forms of serious mental illness in children, but because doctors are increasingly prescribing the drugs to treat behavior problems, a use not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And a disproportionate number of those prescriptions are written for poor and minority children, some as young as age 2.

Doctors are prescribing antipsychotics even though there's minimal evidence that the drugs help kids for approved uses, much less the unapproved ones, such as behavioral problems. And to make matters worse, the little research there is suggests the drugs can cause troubling side effects, including weight gain, high cholesterol, and an increased risk of type-2 diabetes.

Doctors can legally - and commonly do - write prescriptions for any medication they see fit to treat a condition. (See here for more details on off-label prescribing)

Comment: To learn more about The Over-Prescribing of Psychoactive Drugs to Children: A Scourge of Our Times read the following articles:

More Children on Drugs Than Ever: Chronic Prescriptions Increase Dramatically
What is Happening in Our Society That We Need to Drug Five-Year-Old Children?
Child Abuse! More Toddlers, Young Children Given Antipsychotics
ADHD drugs prescribed to 'all academically struggling' children
Use of hyperactivity drugs soars
Ritalin Gone Wrong


Cupcake Pink

Sugar and your brain: Is Alzheimer's disease actually type 3 diabetes?

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It starves your brain, tangles and twists vital cells, and for decades it has been misrepresented as an untreatable, genetically determined disease. Alzheimer's disease is the 6th leading cause of death in North America1. The truth, however, is that this devastating illness shares a strong link with another sickness that wreaks havoc on millions of individuals in North America - Diabetes.

We all know that individuals affected by Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes have a notable resistance to insulin. Type 1 is caused by the body's inability to produce insulin, and Type 2 is caused by the deterioration of the body's insulin receptors and associated with the consumption of too much refined carbohydrate like processed grains and sugar. But when studies began to appear in 2005 that revealed a shocking correlation between insulin and brain cell deterioration, major breaks were made around Alzheimer's prevention[i]. Health practitioners became curious about a critical question - could Alzheimer's disease simply be Type 3 Diabetes?

Alzheimer's disease has long been perceived as mysterious and inevitable. 5.3 million individuals suffer every year from the disease that appears to be untreatable[ii]. But, if this illness is associated with insulin resistance, this simply isn't the case.

Comment: Additional interesting articles to support the author's theory about the connections between sugar, carbohydrates, Alzheimer's Disease, Diabetes and the brain:

Depression: Your brain on sugar
146 reasons why sugar destroys your health
Study: Sugar availability linked to type 2 diabetes
High-carb diets increase rise of Alzheimer's disease
Research links Diabetes to Alzheimer's
Food for thought: Eat your way to dementia - sugar and carbs cause Alzheimer's Disease
'Carbohydrates rot the brain': Neurologist slams grains as 'silent brain killers' - and says we should be eating a high-fat diet
What's behind 'Grain Brain': Are gluten and carbs wrecking our brains and our health?