A group of 11 cousins had their stomachs removed after genetic testing revealed that they had a genetic “defect” that made them likely to get a rare form of stomach cancer that had killed a number of their uncles, aunts and parents. In all of my reading of the data on this procedure, no where did I see any talk about whether they were likely to get another form of cancer even though they removed they’re stomach. They may have had this procedure without any long-term benefit which will be quite sad.

What really strikes me is the lack of talk about trying to suppress the expression of the flawed gene. This concept is beginning to gain a great deal of emphasis as more and more scientists come to the realization that this is the way to go. One of the biggest purveyors of this idea is Dr. Bruce Ames of the University of California, Berkeley. If you’re interested in his work, do a Google search on him and be ready to be fascinated.

Well, I’m finally back after a brief but needed respite.

The topic today relates to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) which many health care professionals have wrongly thought of it as a psychological disorder. A recent coroners report in the UK showed that a 32 year-old women had actually died from complications from CFS. A neuropathologist named Dominic O’Donovan said that the inflammation in her spinal cord was a clean sign that the CFS that she had been suffering from over the past 6 years was at fault.

Getting told that “it’s all in your head” when a disorder is really biochemical in nature must be a frustrating experience. When my daughter was first diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctor told us to just get use to it as we weren’t able to do much else ourselves as the doctor was the “epileptologist” and we were just parents. It would be nice if there were more doctors willing to listen and learn.

I get the following inquiry more often than I care to hear and it is “My doctor told me that excessive vitamin C intake can cause kidney stones. Is this true?” My answer is an emphatic, NO!  This myth was perpetrated by the late Victor Herbert who was a notorious anti-vitamin shill.  The myth has been carried on for decades despite evidence to the contrary. 

For a nice review of the issue, go to Chris Gupta’s blog site http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.r484.cgi/1891 and read up on the issue.  So the next time a doctor tells you to cut back on the vitamin C because it causes kidney stones, your response should be – Read the literature and realize what you just said was wrong.

One very common misconception is that medical malpractice lawsuits are at the core of our rising medical costs in the U.S. and that many of them are fraudulent. Well a study published in the May 11th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine begs to differ.

What the reviewers found was that 97 percent of the patients who sued for medical malpractice had indeed suffered harm. The study also found that most people who did not suffer injury did not receive compensation so that the system does seem to work there.  The problems came up with the time it took to complete the litigation process which was as long as 6 years. Streamlining the process is where much of the true savings would be although the costs pale in comparison to the drug cost increases over the past 20 years.