Category Archives: Health

Preventive Health Care – What is it really?

Preventive health care has gotten a lot of wind from the people running for President of the United States. Hillary Clinton says, “focus on prevention: wellness not sickness.” Mike Huckabee said that focusing on prevention “would save countless live, pain and suffereing by victims of chronic conditions, and billions of dollars.” Obama added that “too little is spent on prevention and public health.” But what is preventive health care.

According to the pharmaceutical industry, it would be statin drugs to prevent heart disease, except, it really doesn’t do that but they won’t admit to that. Screening tests, like blood and urine are deemed too costly because they are used willy nilly and expenisve procedures like MRIs and PET scans are way overused. In a recent (February 14th) issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the Prospective omitted one type of prevention, nutrition.

Making our food supply real again would cut back on disease and would improve the quality of life more than anything out there. Eating real foods, not processed junk, would stem the tide of obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease and cancer yet they talk about everything else instead of the cause of high medical costs. Stop subsidizing big agriculture and helping them make things that have no business being called food is one way. Another, is to help educate Americans about what real food is.

Unfortunately, the government is not where this is going to happen. It will only happen when each and everyone of us makes a conscious choice at the supermarket to buy real food and avoid junk. The dollar speaks mightier than the legislative pen. Buy organic, buy local, buy real.

Why Is Our Health Care is So Expensive? Someone Finally Got It!

In the February 7th, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, page 549, a perspective written by Robert Kuttner should be mandatory reading for every politician, doctor, patient and anyone else who avails themselves or is involved in the United States health care system. In this brilliantly written article, Mr Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect, talks about the real reason our health care system is so ridiculously expensive. 

He writes “The extreme failure of the United States to contain medical costs results primarily from our unique, pervasice commercialization. The dominance of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies, a new wave of investor-owned specialty hospitals, and profit-maximizing behavior even by nonprofit players raise costs and distort resource allocation.” Basically these profit hungry organizations cost you the patient between a staggering 400-500 billion dollars annually.

His comments and insight into the reasons why market optimization and competition does not mean greater efficiency in delivering health care and does not lower cost as with other industries is a must read. Do whatever you have to, to get a hold of this article.

His last paragraph was so telling. “Sometimes, we Americans do the right thing only after having exhausted all other alternatives. It remains to be seen how much exhaustion the health care system will suffer before we turn to national health insurance.” I have always been against this idea until I read this article. Maybe it is time to stop the greed and redo our failing and overly expensive health care system.

My Book is Out and Available

My book, Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World is now available through multiple outlets. It is the story of a child, my daughter, and her battle with a rare type of epilepsy, given little chance of recovery by the medical world, but through it all she has made it through, not perfectly, with the ability to live a normal life.

It also deals with what I believe caused her disorder, environmental toxicity. We are polluting our world at a staggering ratewhich is causing epidemics of diseases unheard of in human history. Big corporations would want you to believe this is not happening but my book shows you the truth.

The scariest part of my research delved into the effect these toxins are having on our most vunerable citizens, our children, and the up coming generations. In the final two parts of the book, I give you real world ideas on how to cope with the toxins and how you can begin the movement toward changing our world before it is too late. The increase in the rate of autism, asthma, epilepsy, ADHD, childhood cancers, cannot be explained by a “genetic epidemic”. We are poisoning ourselves and we can change that.

To order the book, you can go to either Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com or for faster service my publisher –  AuthorHouse’s web site . This book represents my 20+ years of research along with the passion that comes with fighting for a daughter’s life. I can guarantee one thing about the book and that is it will move you, both emotionally and physically to help us change the world.

Book Cover Picture

Allergies and Toxicity in Children – A Real Dilemma

Robyn O’Brien, a mother from Boulder, Colorado has taken up the battle against the people who would lead you to believe that environmental toxins and genetically modified foods have nothing to do with the explosion of allergies in children (among other health issues). Having just gotten off the phone with her, I noted a passion to tell the world about this issue and to educate the mother out there as to the growing problem affectin so many of them. Her website Allergy Kids is full of useful information about this important issue.

The more toxic our environment, the more damage will be done to our children and almost more importantly, their children. People like Robyn are the ones who will shake up this world and force the changes necessary to protect ourselves and kids. Please visit her site today.

Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World – Book Due Out Soon

In the next two weeks, my book Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World will be coming out. Three years in the making, it first tells the story of how my daughter Tasya has dealt with epilepsy and how this battle has driven me to research the effects of toxicity on human health, especially children. It is a guidebook that hopefully will have people understand how important it is for us to clean up the mess we are making, if not for us than for the coming generations. Here is a review from a friend, Dr. Robert Zieve, an MD from Arizona.

Mark Schauss has written a very important book, a book that needs to be required reading for all practitioners. The title, “Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World” wakes us up to the reality that we live in a toxic world. While we sit around and debate whether our world is toxic, or watch media headlines about lead poisoned toys from China, headlines that soon disappear, the volume of toxins that are affecting our daily lives and especially the lives of our children, continues to grow in both amount and in harmfulness.

Mark begins his book with his personal story of his daughter’s neurological illness, and how this led to his commitment to this work. Our stories are what makes us most human. They enable others to see into our lives and conflicts, and awaken our heart’s interest and need to continue reading. Mark’s story does just this, so that we do not become overwhelmed with statistics.

He then moves on with “Today’s Toxic World,” and he does not mince words with the title “The Loaded Revolver Theory of Toxicity.” It is important today the we use words that remind us of what is at stake; we have a gun to our heads, with toxins that threaten our lives much more than any foreign terrorist. Mark provides specific and simply organized guidelines for the reader to steer his or her way through the maze of information that we now have access to about the severity of effects these accumulated toxins are having upon our health. Even more important, he informs us of what specifically we can do about each of these toxins.

Mark has listed the important labs that must become commonplace in every practitioner’s work with patients. Testing for the presence and concentration of these toxins in our bodies, and testing for the adverse results of the presence of these accumulated toxins, such as Mark has outlined with depth and simplicity simultaneously, must be part of our health care system. I would venture to say as a practitioner that the results of these tests provide more useful information in developing effective therapeutic programs than many of the routine CT scans, PET scans, ultrasounds, and MRI’s that are done today. These tests show the results of the accumulation of toxins that Mark has detailed here.

There is a huge denial today about the magnitude of the effects of these toxins upon our health. They are scarcely mentioned in any medical training, in any product advertising, or by medical doctors in their work with patients. And yet, as we can clearly see in this well-organized and humanly written book, the health effects of these toxins are at the foundation of virtually all of our current illnesses. After reading this book, I wondered what good it is to even discuss health care from any political or economic perspective without placing the topics in this book at the center of the discussion of how
we develop a system of effective and affordable health care for everyone. The reasons this has not happened are due to many factors, which include the financial strength of corporations that make these toxic products and promote them in warm, fuzzy advertisements, and our general resistance to changing our lifestyles. The only way to end denial is to name the realities and claim responsibility for these realities. This book enables us to do this.

Much of what causes illness, and much of what an effective practitioner does with patients, is common sense. Towards the end of his book, Mark provides very good Common Sense Tips that the reader can take and put into activity.

If our commitment is to healing, this book must be part of our core reading program. It really should be part of core political discussions in the halls of those who are outlining sweeping plans for health care reform. It should be discussed at Grand Rounds at major medical centers. It should part of the central dialogue in local communities throughout the United States. And it needs to be discussed in the highest echelons of the corporate business world.

We must have the courage to look with clarity and purpose at the fundamental causes of our epidemic of chronic disease today. It is an epidemic that has as one of its fundamental causes, our toxic world. We can no longer afford to shy away from discussing the effects of today’s toxins in our lives and health.

Robert Zieve, M.D
Pine Tree Clinic
Prescott, Arizona

Obesity Caused By Over Eating? Not So Fast.

Coming out soon is a book that Gary Taubes, a New York City journalist has written called The Diet Delusion by Vermilion. In it he writes that obesity is not simply eating too many calories but the abnormal effect on ones hormones. Taube wrote in the recent New Scientist magazine (January 19-25th, 2008) that “There is considerable evidence that the obesity epidemic is caused by a hormonal phenomenon, specifically by the consumption of refined carbohydrates, starches and sugars, all of which prompt (sooner or later) excessive insulin secretion.”

Furthermore, he skewers many in the diet industry by saying “Obesity researchers, nutritionists and health authorities have refused to contemplate this scenario, partly because it would imply that diet-book doctors advocating carbohydrate-restricted diets – Robert Atkins et al – were right all along. Instead, these alleged experts and guardians of our health have wasted a good part of a century on research based on a high-school misconception, watching their compatriots grow ever fatter while blaming everyone but themselves. In the process, they have created a field of clinical medicine that functions more like a religion than a science. It is time to put science back in charge.”

I agree with him that hormones are at the root of obesity but I want to add something he hasn’t looked at (or at least I don’t think he has which is the effect of environmental toxins on hormones and obesity. To me, it is the very cornerstone of why the world is getting fat. Toxins like phthalates, bisphenol A, benzene, toluene, and xylene, all have been shown to have an effect on hormones. Heavy metals which can also interfere with hormones as well so just putting the blame on bad carbohydrates, is only part of the story.  I highly suggest reading the article in the New Scientist and getting a subscription while you’re at it.

The Deceit Just Keeps Getting Deeper

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any lower, it does. A report published on the Nature magazine website claims that Dr. Steven M. Haffner of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, forwarded a report to drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline warning them about a paper that was about to be published by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) critical of their blockbuster (blockbuster meaning big money maker) drug Avandia. He was supposed to be reviewing the paper and it is highly unethical and against NEJM rules to let anyone else see a paper being reviewed.

To see the full extent of the problem, go to this link at the New York Times. My question is, when do we put a stop to this unbridled greed and deceit?

Antidepressants – Hidden Drug Trials Show Negative Results

It almost seems to be an everyday issue, but more and more we see how drug trials that don’t show benefits are being either ignored, hidden or modified by the pharmaceutical industry. In a review of the studies on 12 antidepressant drugs, researchers led by Erick H. Turner found that 31% of the studies on these drugs went unpublished and the majority were negative or were conveyed to have a positive outcome which was contrary to the data. The paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in their January 17, 2008 issue. What was truly remarkable was how much the perceived benefits of the drugs were changed because of the lack of publication of all of the data. According to the authors, if you looked at the published research, the antidepressant drugs had positive outcomes 94% of the time. If you include the unpublished research that number drops to a mere 51%. This is a huge difference and should make everyone think twice before agreeing to be put on the medications or at least safer, alternatives should be investigated first.

According to the papers conclusion, “We cannot determine whether the bias observed resulted from a failure to submit manuscripts on the part of authors and sponsors, from decisions by journal editors and reviewers not to publish, or both. Selective reporting of clinical trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, health care professionals, and patients.” In my opinion, it is the sponsors who are probably most likely to apply pressure to stop publication. This would mean that the pharmaceutical industry is to blame. We need to take research on drug efficacy out of their hands and into the hands of real researchers without the onus of pressure and conflict of interest.

Why is this so damaging? When you do a search on meta-analysis of antidepressant drugs, you find a number that show how beneficial the drugs are, like the one by Drs. Dubika, Hadley and Roberts entitled, “Suicidal behaviour in youths with depression treated with new-generation antidepressants” published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2006. Would that study’s conclusion, which is that “Antidepressants may cause a small short-term risk of self-harm or suicidal events in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder” have changed to a large short-term risk or a small long-term risk or maybe worst case scenario, a large long-term risk? Chances are, based on the Turner paper that the answer is yes, the results would have changed but by how much, we cannot tell.

What we can say is that there is a major problem that needs a solution and it has to come sooner than later. How many of us are on medications that may not be helping us or maybe damaging our health and that of our loved ones?
So what do we do about it? Determine biochemical imbalances and toxicity influences on behavior as well as inflammatory processes that have been shown to cause depression in people for decades. The research exists but it is being downplayed by greedy pharmaceutical giants whose obvious intention is to make money at all costs and deflect criticism and downgrade safe alternatives.

Tomorrow, I will discuss a few tests I think are extremely helpful in working with mild to moderate depression in both adults and children.