Category Archives: Medical Research

Men, Before You Get A Biopsy – Run This Test First

In America, thousands of men get prostate biopsies after getting a PSA (prostate specfic antigen) test that registers over 4.0. Problem is, 80% of the biopsies show no cancer which is means that the test was highly non-specific, which quite high for any type of procedure. Because this is an invasive procedure, having an 80% failure rate is unacceptable. There is an alternative.

If your PSA is between 4-10, and you are over the age of 40 a free-PSA is the next step and should become the standard of care. If you are under 40 and your PSA is over 2, all bets are off and there may be a need for a biopsy. PSA comes in two types, one is bound to proteins, the other is free.

The higher the percentage of free-PSA, the lower the likelihood that there is prostate cancer present. If the free-PSA is under 10%, then there is a high likelihood of cancer. If it is over 25%, there is a 5% chance that it is cancer if you are between 40-64 and 9% if you are between 65-75.

If your doctor insists on doing a biopsy before doing a free-PSA and you fit in the categories above, find another doctor.

Another Source of Lead – Lipstick

Just when you thought the lead news couldn’t get any worse, it does. Women need to be aware that their lipstick may contain unacceptable levels of the neurotoxin, lead. In a report from The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, over 61% of all the lipstick brands out there contained lead. The industry and their spokespeople use the age old excuse that “lead is naturally occuring” instead of recalling their products and vowing to never allow their products to contain lead.

What is disturbing is that children who innocently play with lipstick can ingest levels of lead that can lead to brain damage that may not be able to be reversed. There needs to be tighter restrictions on lead in products as well as other heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. Also, industry has to step up and take some damn responsibility instead of acting like a kid who accidently broke the cookie jar and blames it on the dog.

Alcoholism Cure? Media Nonsense and Poor Medical Research

The latest in a series of research papers being published by once respected journals has reared its ugly head today.  According to the lastest issue of JAMA and the media, you would think that the drug Topamax, can help cure alcoholism. Turns out that the reality calls for a much different read on things.  Not only was the drug also known as topiramate not that much better than placebo, there was a 20% dropout rate amongst the rather small 371 person study.

Now comes the real news about the drug and the study. I won’t embellish anything, I’ll quote the study which is available free of charge here and let you decide whether this treatment modality is worth pursuing.

“Adverse events that were more common with topiramate vs placebo, respectively, included paresthesia (50.8% vs 10.6%), taste perversion (23.0% vs 4.8%), anorexia (19.7% vs 6.9%), and difficulty with concentration (14.8% vs 3.2%).”

Hmmmm, increases in paresthesia a sensation of tingling or numbness is 5 times higher in those who take topiramate versus placebo, taste perversion 5 times higher, anorexia, a very serious disorder occurred 3 times more in the drug group and a 4 1/2 times higher rate of mental concentration difficulties in those taking the drug. Now let’s think about this. Those taking the drug had lots of side-effects and all they got was an 8% improvement over placebo. That isn’t very good.

Of course, the papers authors all belong to the Topiramate for Alcoholism Advisory Board and/or the Topiramate for Alcoholism Study Group which are funded by Ortho-McNeil, the makers of Topamax which goes for $350 a month. Save your money and look into nutritional ways of reducing alcohol intake at a much lower cost with far fewer side-effects.

Vegetarians Need More Protein

In an interesting article on CNN.com, reporter Judy Fortin talks about how vegetarians need to watch and adjust their protein intake regularly or they run the risk of protein deficiencies.  Over the past 20 years, I have been able to view the laboratory test results of a number of vegetarians and rarely do I find normal protein/amino acid levels.

The article talks about how vegetarians seem to like the addition of chicken flavored soy products to their diet to make up for their lack of animal protein but in my opinion, this comes at a cost. From the talks I’ve had with people who run hormone testing labs, excessive soy intake may not be as healthy for you as the media would like you to believe. In a future blog, I’ll discuss the problems with soy.

Real Life Health Issues and More…. Podcast on Autism and More

Welcome to my second attempt at podcasting and hopefully the start of a regular series of shows devoted to disseminating the science of health.  Today’s podcast is on autism and the latest research that has just burst on the scene.  Enjoy,

Pesticides and Autism – More Data Supporting My View on the Effect of Toxins

At the AutismOne conference back in 2005, I was in room #2 talking about the link of multiple toxins and autism. In room #1 was Dr. Rasheed Buttar who was all about mercury. I told my audience that one day, the multiple toxin theory was going to be in room #1 eventually, maybe not with me in it, but eventually the day would come.  One more study, published by the journal Environmental Health Persepectives, has led credence to my theory.

In the October 2007 issue, researchers led by Eric Roberts et al, published a paper called Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children in the California Central Valley (click on the link and you get to read the entire paper free of charge). In this paper the authors find that there was an increase in the incidence of autism the closer the pregnant mothers were to certain organophosphate pesticide applications. For years I have said that toxic exposures to the mother can cause fetal developmental disorders depending on the time of the exposure. This is just more data to back up my claims.

My theory has always been than somehow my daughter Tasya was exposed, while in fetal development, to some form of toxin to cause the brain dysfunction that caused her unusual epileptic disorder. I feel that many people with children have had the same issue whether it be autism, epilepsy or even other neurological or health related disorders. Fetuses are very suceptible to the dangers of toxins, more so than anyone else.

One other issue I want to bring up is the preposterous article that gave a clean bill of health to thimerasol by authors publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine. You would be hard pressed find a more poorly done study, misreported by the media, than this. Instead of listing my thoughts on all of the poor study parameters, follow this link to the Adventures in Autism blogsite, run by Ginger Taylor. The one really striking part of her eight part rebutal to this paper is that no autistic children were included in the study. Now that is a convenient way of avoiding finding a link between autism and thimerasol.

Two other very disturbing issues come up as well. First, that around 70% of the participants in the study dropped out. When I worked in the pharmaceutical clinical trial business, it was pretty well known that when you have a drop out rate any where near that level, the study is pretty much worthless. The data cannot be used to make any kind of a judgement. Second real major issue is the huge conflicts of interest among the authors of the study as each one has significant ties to the vaccine manufacturers!  Poor judgement on the part of the NEJM to publish this paper, worse than that, for the media to so misrepresent the data.

As you can see from the first part of my post, I do not believe that mercury is the sole cause of autism. It isn’t. Having said that, I believe it is one of the factors in the epidemic of autism.

Drug Reactions Up….. Way Up

In 1998, 5519 people died from side effects due to prescription and non-prescription drugs. In 2005 the number sky rocketed to 15,107. And these numbers may be underestimating the effect. So why the rise?  Here are a few reasons.

First off, the number of prescriptions given by doctors has gone up quite a bit but not by as much as the number of adverse reactions have. There have been a number of drugs pulled from the market recently because of adverse effects but they only account for less than 1 percent of total reports of side effects. The real reason is that so many people are on an unconscionable number of drugs and the interaction possibilities have not been throughly looked into.

In my consults with physicians, I have heard list of drugs people are taking that just makes me shudder. One person was on two antidepressants, thyroid medication, NexiumTM, blood pressure meds, a statin drug and Depakote (an antiepileptic drug). Their complaint to their doctor?  They felt like hell. Well no kidding. How can any physician stand by and put their patient on this array of meds without wincing and feeling guilty about turning their back on the Hippocratic oath they took when they graduated from medical school.

More work needs to be done to educate physicians how not to prescribe drugs instead of being sent on trips and being bribed by the pharmaceutical industry to prescribe more drugs. This is a cover-up mentality that does nothing to address causes of disease. More research dollars should be spent on prevention of disease not on covering it up.

A recent study showed that people with type 2 diabetes had improved blood sugar control just by simply exercising three times a week. How many other such suggestions should find their way into a physicians discussion with their patients?  A whole lot of them but instead of doing that, it’s easier to throw a pill or two at the patient even if it eventually may harm them.

Heart Attacks and Cholesterol – Public Policy That Makes No Sense

I have touted the book Overdosed America by Dr. John Abramson over and over. It is shocking to me that so few people, especially doctors, know that high cholesterol and heart attacks are only correlated through the age of 40. Lowering weight, eating right, not smoking and exercising have more benefits and reduce heart attack risk more than statin drugs by far. Too low cholesterol increases the risk of other fatal diseases and over use of statin drugs does little but enrich the pharmaceutical industry.

On his blog site, Dr. Abramson has reviews of his book listed which are well worth reading. Here is one such review from the San Diego Union Tribune:

“Abramson, who has a background in statistics and health policy, took the time to read the full 284-page version of the panel’s 2001 report, rather than the 11-page summary that most doctors saw. The results of his careful analysis are enough to shock a healthy heart into failure. He notes that data from the venerable Framingham study – a large, long-term study of risk factors for heart disease – show that elevated total cholesterol levels correlate with an increased risk of death only through the age of 40. Even more astounding is the finding that the risk of death from causes other than coronary heart disease increases significantly with lower total cholesterol levels for both men and women after the age of 50. And that doesn’t even touch on the question of the long-term side effects – both known and unknown – of the statins themselves.”

Buy two copies of the book which is in paperback and give one to your doctor. Physicians need to know that prescribing statin drugs to all but a small percentage of individuals is bad medicine, morally wrong and just plain harmful. Statin drug prescriptions is an industry not true medicine.

A National Shame – The Lack of Healthcare Coverage in America

How is it that the most affluent country in the world has 44 million of its citizens lacking health care coverage? How do we as a people allow our fellow Americans to lack something so basic as commonly available health assistance? Are we as a people so lacking compassion that we allow children to be forced to avoid medical treatment because their families lack the financial ability to afford health care?

My feelings here run deep as I feel that the lack of such a basic and fundamental right is a blemish on our nation. We spend billions on fighting a war in Iraq, yet we see no problem in cutting back on services to our growing population of poor and middle class citizens who flat out cannot afford the spiralling out of control health care costs. Why do we do this? Greed. Since the 1980s our country’s focus has been on making money, making rich people richer and cutting back on services to our citizens all the while wasting money on pet projects that do nothing more than enrich the few at the expense of the many.

Our country grows lazy, obese and uncaring. The percentage of people who volunteer time to their community is shrinking. We have focused on our own personal pleasures at the expense of others. Unless we have a fundamental change in what we want in life, our health care system will continue to flounder and more people will have to do without.

It is the will to change our ways that will make a change in health care. If we get away from the pharmaceutical, treat the symptom, not the cause model, we will begin to make the first step towards real health. The FDA also needs to regulate their approval program so they can stop pharmaceutical companies from introducing new drugs at higher costs with only minimal benefits over cheaper drugs. We need to cut back on the mountains of paperwork and bureaucracy that fuels medical care expenses. We need to take the stance in health care that prevention, through the use of alternative and complementary means are much cheaper and preferable than emergency care medicine which is the mind set of today’s health care community.

Obesity In America Map

Not only is America becoming growingly obese but certain parts of the country are fatter than others. Yet again, Mississippi is the fattest state (30.6% of the population is obese) followed closely by West Virginia (29.8%) and Alabama (29.4%). To see the map click here and find out how your state ranks.

Why would the state information be important?  Recently, a study was published that indicated that people who hang out together tend to have an influence on the weight of their friends. Obese people tend to be with obese people (especially when picking a mate) and those who are fit tend to hang out together. This isn’t really rocket science but it goes to show that this growing trend in obesity will not be resolved any time soon. I think the lesson here is if you need to lose weight, not only do you need to change your diet, but it might benefit you if you change, or at least broaden your circle of friends to include people who are thinner which might help you lose weight by following their lifestyles.

When I was a runner, I tended to hang out with other runners which supported my habit. If we stay around people who gorge on food or who use food as a crutch, we tend to do the same.