Monthly Archives: May 2007

Drug Companies Are Buying Your Doctors

Articles published in both the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association are showing that drug companies are spending big bucks try to influence physicians to buy their brand of drugs over the competitors even though there are rarely any real clinical benefits to a new drug. Many of the companies deny this practice is really effective but it makes you wonder why they keep spending more each year on it if it doesn’t work. Doctors claim they aren’t influenced but all the research suggests otherwise.

If the doctors groups like the American Medical Association are unwilling to force their members to change this practice and deny entrance to their offices to big pharma reps then legislation is in order. We need our physicians to be impartial and objective, not beholden to the purveyors of gifts and free lunches. We need a change in the way our country goes about its health care and we need a change now. If not we will continue to slip down the rankings of countries when it comes to delivering health care to our citizens.

Science in the News

Here are some recent tidbits and factoids that might be of interest.

  • Women who live in polluted areas with poor air quality have babies with lower birthweights. This finding, according to researchers at Yale University should make it clear that air quality improvements are critical in protecting new born babies. Low birthweight equals poor health so it would behove us to work to make our cities healthier.
  • According to a study done in the U.K., researchers found that women who had an early start to puberty were more likely to have obese children. While it is obvious to some of us that hormone disrupting chemicals in the environment are partly to blame, we also have to ensure that these high risk women are educated in the field of proper nutrition so that their children don’t become obese,
  • When it comes to air quality, ethanol and gasoline are pretty much the same.  To this date, I can’t seem to wrap my brain around the whole ethanol is good for America mantra. It isn’t that efficient, takes a lot of fuel to make, and will cause food prices to go up as ethanol producing corn gets planted over a greater area. Bad politics following bad science is a sure fire way to a big mistake.
  • In 2005, industrial and federal facilities in the United States released 4 billion pounds of chemicals into the environment, up 3 percent from the previous year or 117 million pounds more. This number explains why the present administration is so hell bent on not making some companies report their toxic releases. Not for business sake, but to hide the frightening numbers. Lead, a known neurotoxin, was added to our environment to the tune of 469 million pounds. Mercury, one of the deadliest poisons known, had 4.4 million pounds injected into our world by industry. Just think that only a few milligrams can spell disaster for a person and we are talking in the millions of pounds.
  • Polyphenols found in green tea, may have negative side effects when taken in large quantities. Taking 10 cups or the equivalent as a supplement form of green tea is the limit. Too much of a good thing can be bad for you in this case.
  • Every mother knows them and dreads them, the infamous baby growth chart. Ub a review published by the New Scientist, those charts may have been flawed, causing mothers to overfeed their children thereby leading to an increased risk of obesity.  Oops. According to Laurence Grummer-Strawn of the Center for Disease Control, “rapid growth in infancy has been shown to be associated with increased obesity.” My tip to mothers, dump the charts and watch your baby, if they look healthy and not emaciated, they are probably fine. To pediatricians, do the same.

 

    For the Environments Sake – Stop Buying Bottled Water

    When it comes to wasting reseources, there are few things that can highlight human folly than bottled water.  As I mentioned in a previous post, buying bottled water, especially Fiji water, is a terrible drain on the environment. What is sad is many of the people who drink bottled water are the same people who want to protect the environment. Time to change folks.  Here is an article from a Tasmanian on-line newspaper (I go to the ends of the internet world for my readers) that spells out how bad bottled water is for our world. Hopefully it will make you stop buying it. I did.

    Anti Global Warming Activists Stop Pointing Your Finger at China and India

    The rallying cry by American anti-global warming activists has been the growing concern that China and India’s burgeoning economies will quickly surpass the United States as the largest polluters in the world. Only problem is, that those two countries and many other third world nations are doing far more to curtail pollution than we are. The fact is, they have more regulations demanding better gas mileage from auto manufacturers than we do, are doing more to curb greenhouse gases and doing more to better the environment than we are. Of course, they have a lot of work to do because there are segments of their society that think dumping toxins on the poor is ok because they don’t have a strong voice in the government but do we?

    It really saddens me when I see people complain about mercury in the environment and how it negatively affects human health, yet they see no problem whining about the cost to business if we demand they be better environmental citizens. The Bush Administration continues to put roadblocks in our way by proposing to cutback industry reporting of pollution to “remove the burden on small business”. Yeah, small business. That is if you define small as making of half a billion dollars a year. What price our health?  Apparently not much. Sad but true.

    Personal Observation – The Planet Earth

    Has anyone not seen the television series The Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel???  This amazing piece of work should be mandatory viewing for everyone who marvels at the beauty that is our home world. After seeing it with my kids (who can watch it over and over), I have a far greater respect for Earth and vow to continue my work to educate people to do more to protect this beautiful place we live in.

    A Test for Everyone Thinking of Having a Child

    In a past blog I mention that giving a developing fetus the best opportunity for a healthy life started with the parents making sure that they were as environmentally healthy as possible. In lectures I have given around the world, there is one test I adamantly propose as a must for both men and women who are contemplating having children and that is the Environmental Pollutants panel from US Biotek in Seattle, Washington.

    This test looks at excretion levels of the following chemicals, some of which are carcinogenic and can disrupt hormonal levels in the developing child. These chemicals include benzene, trimethylbenzene, styrene, toluene, xylene, parabens and phthalates. The last one, phthalates, has been shown to affect male children especially, making them more feminine structurally as well as shortening pregnancy by up to two weeks which has been shown to have a negative long-term health effect on children.

    Breast Cancer and Hormone Replacement Therapy – A Major Indictment

    In the April 19th, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a special report was issued showing a significant drop in the incidence of breast cancer starting in mid-2002 through 2003 due in large part, according to the authors, to the drop in the use of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) due to the release of the Women’s Health Initiative report. The decrease was largest in women over the age of 50, those most likely to use HRT.

    An observation I have is that this study shows the effects of artificial hormones that are prescribed to women but what about the multitude of toxins in our environment that have estrogenic effects like bisphenol A?  How about phthalates?  What about all those other chemicals that are known to disrupt the endocrine system?  Our bodies, male or female, are awash with these carcinogenic chemicals. This is why it is critical to do what you can to avoid exposure and to get your body efficient at detoxifying itself.

    Another issue I have here is how the pharmaceutical industry has responded to this travesty. Instead of a mia culpa, it is attacking natural hormone replacement therapy produced by compounding pharmacies. These are far safer than the horse urine derived toxins the harmaceutical industry foisted on unsuspecting women. Senator Ted Kennedy is helping his harma buddies by introducing a bill to ban compounding pharmacy’s from making this and other healthy compounds. Shame on Mr. Kennedy for being so blatantly purchased by an industry that continues to put out one dangerous drug (Vioxx, et al) after another.

    Nutrition Update for the Week of May 9th

    Vitamin D and Physical Performance in the Elderly – In this study, vitamin D status was correlated to physical performance in elderly patients and this study suggested that there was a definitive relationship between the two. Those with low vitamin D levels did poorly on physical performance tests. What was striking was the percentage of people with vitamin D deficiency (28.8% women, 13.6% men). Even more disturbing was the percentage of people with vitamin D insufficiency (74.9% women, 51.0% men).

    The authors of the study go on to state. “Given the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in older populations, additional studies examining the association between vitamin D status and physical function are needed.” Do we really need more studies or do we need to educate our aging population that they need to take additional vitamin D. My suggestion is 800 to 1,200 i.u. daily in the spring, summer and fall and 1,200 to 2,000 i.u.’s in the winter.

    Vitamin D and Breast Cancer Risk – As if you need yet another reason to take this nutrient the authors of this study suggest that taking 2,000 i.u.’s of vitamin D would decrease a women’s risk of developing breast cancer by 50%!!! If you aren’t taking this essential nutrient, what are you waiting for???

    CoEnzyme Q10 Does Not Illicit Positive Findings in Healthy Subjects – I a poorly constructed study, the authors of this study suggest that CoQ10 does little to affect help heart markers in healthy men. The stupidity of this study is the fact that they made these conclusions despite the fact that all they measured was a single, 50 mg dose of CoQ10! Are they kidding me?  Why waste time and effort and paper to report on this unless there was an agenda to fill medical research with negative papers of supplements. It is well known that either you need to look at a higher dose (300 mg) or long-term effects of CoQ10. Shame on the authors of the paper and shame on the journal that published this drivel.

    Valerian Root and Sleep Quality and Quantity – In a meta-analysis of research on this calmative herb, the authors suggest that valerian may be beneficial in helping improve sleep quantity. They do have some reservations and state that “Future studies should assess a range of doses of standardized preparations of valerian and include standard measures of sleep quality and safety.” Given this study though, if you have sleep problems, trying valerian may be a good idea as the study also states that this herb has shown little in the way of side-effects unlike drugs like AmbienTM.

    Circumin and Liver Cirrhosis – In this study, the authors suggest that curcumin may be helpful in treating this serious liver disease. They conclude, “Curcumin inhibited the development of TAA-induced liver cirrhosis mainly due to its anti-inflammatory activities and not by a direct anti-fibrotic effect. As curcumin ingestion is safe in humans, it may be reasonable to assess in clinical studies the beneficial effect of curcumin in slowing the development of liver cirrhosis.”

    Multivitamin Supplementation May be Beneficial in Reducing Osteoporosis in the Elderly – Despite the claims by CNNs medical reporting team, here is yet another human study showing the health benefits of nutrient supplementation. In this paper the authors state that the results of the research suggests that daily intake of a multivitamin supplement containing cholecalciferol/vitamin D3 may improve overall nutritional status and reduce the risk of osteoporosis in a nutritionally vulnerable group, such as the elderly.

    The End of Food – A must have book. Be forewarned, it is scary!

    The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Food Supply–And What We Can Do About It“>The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying our Food Supply – and What You Can Do About It by Thomas F. Pawlick is an eye-opener. This investigative science journalist uncovers the ugly truths about what we eat. His two part book goes into the problems with our food supply and the solutions on how to eat better and healthier. There are a couple of instances where I disagree with him, like the part where he puts down the need for nutritional supplements (his argument is truly weak sauce), but for the most part, it is a spot on indictment of greed over health.

    Click on the book below to get your copy of this excellent piece of work.

    The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Food Supply--And What We Can Do About It 

    The Five Worst Cancer Causing Foods

    According to the weekly (signup by clicking the link) NewsMax News Health Letter, these are the five foods you want to avoid if preventing cancer is part of your health agenda (can’t see why it shouldn’t).

    This information comes from natural health researcher Mike Adams:

    • Hot dogs — Because they are high in nitrates, the Cancer Prevention Coalition advises that children eat no more than 12 hot dogs a month. If you can’t live without hot dogs, buy those made without sodium nitrate. Other information I found in the book The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Food Supply–And What We Can Do About It” by Thomas F. Pawlick shows that all-beef hot dogs are even worse than others.
    • Processed meats and bacon — Also high in the same sodium nitrates found in hot dogs, bacon, and other processed meats raise the risk of heart disease. The saturated fat in bacon also contributes to cancer.
    • Doughnuts — Doughnuts are cancer-causing double trouble. First, they are made with white flour, sugar, and hydrogenated oils, then fried at high temperatures. Doughnuts, says Adams, may be the worst food you can possibly eat to raise your risk of cancer.
    • French fries — Like doughnuts, French fries are made with hydrogenated oils and then fried at high temperatures. They also contain cancer-causing acrylamides which occur during the frying process. “They should be called ‘cancer fries,’ not French fries,” said Adams.
    • Chips, crackers, and cookies — All are usually made with white flour and sugar. Even the ones whose labels claim to be free of trans-fats generally contain small amounts of trans-fats.