Tomorrow is my birthday. I will then be 67. Not that I am particularly excited about another birthday, but I think there are some things worth noting. I never felt better in my life. I am pain free. My blood pressure is normal. I take no prescription drugs. I have lots of energy, more than people half my age. I am alert and my memory is as good as it's every been. Next weekend I will teach a workshop in Michigan for 7 or 8 full hours. At home I spend much of my day gardening and I'm writing a new book about superfruits and what I'm learning about gardening with exotics. Not bad for 67.
This morning in the tire store as I waited for tire rotation, I overheard two older women visiting and commiserating about the pains and problems of age. They were my age or younger. My heart goes out to them. Life is not much fun when you hurt and feel crappy. I know. I used to be there. It's not easy, but it's so so worth it to feel this good (and still losing weight) and enjoying life and activity so much!
Is it easy? Well, a lot easier now than it was a year ago. The food cravings are gone. The cooking part is easier because I know what works. I don't miss junk food or grains or things that make me hurt. I'm woefully not in step with my culture and I prefer not to put myself in situations where I have to explain why I don't want bread with my steak or dessert. I'm more self contained. And a whole lot happier.
I'm reading a book, "The Biology of Belief" by Bruce Lipton. It's good for a number of reasons. But here's something he mentions in one of his chapters. In 2000 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that doctors are the third leading cause of death in the US. I've reported that many times. Those deaths are called iatrogenic, caused by the actions of treatment. 120,000 are deaths from adverse drug effects.
But here's the new information I had not known. Just three years later, Null et all reported (based on 10 years of government statistics) that iatrogenic cause of death is the number one killer in the US with 300,000 deaths from prescription drugs. I'm appalled! I am more committed to staying off prescription drugs and staying healthy the way I know works--diet, exercise, judicious supplements, staying out of doctor's offices and hospitals.
If you want to know how to stay healthy, read my booklet, "Inflammation Run Amok" for the why and the how of it. http://www.mindingthemiddleagedmiddle.com/e-books.shtml and "How to Be a Smarter Health Care Consumer." Among others also at that site. Join me in healing and preventing the problems that most of your peers are dealing with!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine
I'm borrowing today's post from the following website. http://www.anh-usa.org/shame-on-ama-archives-of-internal-medicine/
I saw the "news" blurb about how a new study says vitamins cause you to die sooner. Here's the bummer problem with media and with junk science. I was going to write something similar, but these folks have done it so well! Don't believe everything you read about health.
Did you hear the breaking news last night—that multivitamins may shorten your life? Here’s how junk science from the AMA set off the media frenzy.
Bloomberg phrased it this way: “Multivitamins and some dietary supplements, used regularly by an estimated 234 million US adults, may do more harm than good, according to a study that tied their use to higher death rates among older women.” The study’s authors outrageously concluded, “We see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements.”
The study, published in the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Archives of Internal Medicine, assessed the use of vitamin and mineral supplements in nearly 39,000 women whose average age was 62. The researchers asked the women to fill out three surveys, the first in 1986, the second in 1997, and the last in 2004, reporting what supplements they took and what foods they ate, and answering a few questions about their health.
That’s right, all the data was self-reported by the study subjects only three times over the course of the 19-year-long study. To say the data is “unreliable” would be a generous description. This kind of “data” has no place in a valid scientific study.
Then the researchers looked at how many of the women had died by 2008. They reported that the number of deaths were somewhat higher for women who took copper, a little bit lower for women who took calcium, but about average for most of the women.
In the study, all of the relative risks were so low as to be statistically insignificant, and none was backed up by any medical investigation or biological plausibility study. No analysis was done on what combinations of vitamins and minerals were actually consumed, and no analysis of the cause of death was done beyond grouping for “cancer,” “cardiovascular disease,” or “other”—there was certainly no causative analysis done. The interactions of potential compounding risk factors is always tremendously complex—and was ignored in this so-called study.
“Multivitamin” can mean many different things, and of course changed tremendously over the 19 years during which this “study” was conducted. Were they high quality? Were the ingredients synthetic or natural? How much of each nutrient was taken? Were they really taken at all? How good is anyone’s memory in describing what took place over many years? One would assume that that the women’s diets fluctuated greatly over the same period; when self-reporting only three times in 19 years, there is a great deal of information one would naturally leave out even if some of it was accurate. No analysis was done of the effect of supplements on the women’s overall health, nor of their effect on women of other ages.
In short, this study is less than useless: it is dangerous, because it is being used by the media and the mainstream medical establishment to blacken the eye of nutritional supplements using poor data, bad analysis, and specious conclusions—otherwise known as junk science.
I saw the "news" blurb about how a new study says vitamins cause you to die sooner. Here's the bummer problem with media and with junk science. I was going to write something similar, but these folks have done it so well! Don't believe everything you read about health.
Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine
October 11, 2011Did you hear the breaking news last night—that multivitamins may shorten your life? Here’s how junk science from the AMA set off the media frenzy.
Bloomberg phrased it this way: “Multivitamins and some dietary supplements, used regularly by an estimated 234 million US adults, may do more harm than good, according to a study that tied their use to higher death rates among older women.” The study’s authors outrageously concluded, “We see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements.”
The study, published in the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Archives of Internal Medicine, assessed the use of vitamin and mineral supplements in nearly 39,000 women whose average age was 62. The researchers asked the women to fill out three surveys, the first in 1986, the second in 1997, and the last in 2004, reporting what supplements they took and what foods they ate, and answering a few questions about their health.
That’s right, all the data was self-reported by the study subjects only three times over the course of the 19-year-long study. To say the data is “unreliable” would be a generous description. This kind of “data” has no place in a valid scientific study.
Then the researchers looked at how many of the women had died by 2008. They reported that the number of deaths were somewhat higher for women who took copper, a little bit lower for women who took calcium, but about average for most of the women.
In the study, all of the relative risks were so low as to be statistically insignificant, and none was backed up by any medical investigation or biological plausibility study. No analysis was done on what combinations of vitamins and minerals were actually consumed, and no analysis of the cause of death was done beyond grouping for “cancer,” “cardiovascular disease,” or “other”—there was certainly no causative analysis done. The interactions of potential compounding risk factors is always tremendously complex—and was ignored in this so-called study.
“Multivitamin” can mean many different things, and of course changed tremendously over the 19 years during which this “study” was conducted. Were they high quality? Were the ingredients synthetic or natural? How much of each nutrient was taken? Were they really taken at all? How good is anyone’s memory in describing what took place over many years? One would assume that that the women’s diets fluctuated greatly over the same period; when self-reporting only three times in 19 years, there is a great deal of information one would naturally leave out even if some of it was accurate. No analysis was done of the effect of supplements on the women’s overall health, nor of their effect on women of other ages.
In short, this study is less than useless: it is dangerous, because it is being used by the media and the mainstream medical establishment to blacken the eye of nutritional supplements using poor data, bad analysis, and specious conclusions—otherwise known as junk science.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Why do Diabetics get heart disease?
Below are parts of other people's recent take of the diabetes/heart disease/alzheimer's link and the CRP (C-reactive Protein) test results. As you know, I've been saying for a while now...INFLAMMATION CAUSES ALL DISEASE!!! And CRP tells you how much inflammation is going on. I guess scientists need work, just like everyone else, but please don't wait for their future studies about why diabetics are getting heart disease and alzheimer's. Start now reducing your chronic inflammation. And if you have any pain, especially chronic, that's inflammation. Take a look at my website (http://mindingthemiddleagedmiddle.com/) for my booklet on inflammation is you want strategies for reducing your own!
People with diabetes are at increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke at an early age. But that’s not the only worry: Diabetes appears to dramatically increase a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia later in life, according to a new study conducted in Japan.
In the study, which included more than 1,000 men and women over age 60, researchers found that people with diabetes were twice as likely as the other study participants to develop Alzheimer’s disease within 15 years. They were also 1.75 times more likely to develop dementia of any kind.
“It’s really important for the public health to understand that diabetes is a significant risk factor for all of these types of dementia,” says Rachel Whitmer, PhD, an epidemiologist in the research division of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, a nonprofit health-care organization based in Oakland, Calif.
Whitmer, who studies risk factors for Alzheimer’s but wasn’t involved in the new research, stresses that many questions remain about the link between diabetes and dementia. The new study was “well done” and provides “really good evidence that people with diabetes are at greater risk,” she says, “but we really need to look at other studies to find out why
There is more to the diabetic CRP story than heart disease. CRP correlates very highly with insulin resistance and measures of blood glucose control. A study at the Medical University of South Carolina published by ADA concluded that "the likelihood of elevated CRP concentrations increased with increasing HbA1c levels. (your long term blood sugar) These findings suggest an association between glycemic control and systemic inflammation in people with established diabetes." (and you and me, too!)
People with diabetes are at increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke at an early age. But that’s not the only worry: Diabetes appears to dramatically increase a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia later in life, according to a new study conducted in Japan.
In the study, which included more than 1,000 men and women over age 60, researchers found that people with diabetes were twice as likely as the other study participants to develop Alzheimer’s disease within 15 years. They were also 1.75 times more likely to develop dementia of any kind.
“It’s really important for the public health to understand that diabetes is a significant risk factor for all of these types of dementia,” says Rachel Whitmer, PhD, an epidemiologist in the research division of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, a nonprofit health-care organization based in Oakland, Calif.
Whitmer, who studies risk factors for Alzheimer’s but wasn’t involved in the new research, stresses that many questions remain about the link between diabetes and dementia. The new study was “well done” and provides “really good evidence that people with diabetes are at greater risk,” she says, “but we really need to look at other studies to find out why
There is more to the diabetic CRP story than heart disease. CRP correlates very highly with insulin resistance and measures of blood glucose control. A study at the Medical University of South Carolina published by ADA concluded that "the likelihood of elevated CRP concentrations increased with increasing HbA1c levels. (your long term blood sugar) These findings suggest an association between glycemic control and systemic inflammation in people with established diabetes." (and you and me, too!)
Friday, September 9, 2011
Today's guest article: Social Proof
I teach marketing as well as issues of health and nutrition so this article by Bette Dowdell fits both bills and appeals to me. I think to be healthy in this day and age is a challenge and takes some willingness to be pretty different in diet and many typical social situations. Bette's contact info is at the end.
Social Proof
Social proof is a advertising concept based on the fact most people don’t like to be different. To get people to accept a new idea or product, you have to reassure them that anybody who’s anybody is climbing on board.
If would-be customers think you’re asking them to be different from others, they won’t buy.
For example, a few years ago I was asked to give the invocation at a Martin Luther King program. As the program went on, a group of Native Americans got up to introduce a tribal dance. To start the ball rolling, the leader asked me to join them. So up I got, joined the circle and started bobbing and weaving, proving right there in front of God and the whole world that I don’t have a drop of Native American blood in me. Fortunately, the whole point was about going beyond what separates us, so my lack of native dance skills worked well.
It obviously didn’t look like nearly as much fun as it was, though, because most people refused the leader’s invitation to join in. But he kept at it, and after a while another game soul accepted the invitation, then another, and another, until it became more a group thing than individual performances. The poor guy had to work almost the entire, very large room, but social proof finally arrived.
People who had previously refused to join our merry band realized they were being left out of the fun and all but ran to get into the quickly expanding circle. At that point, joining in became the popular thing to do, and they didn’t have to worry about getting funny looks for being different.
What in the world, you might be asking, does this have to do with health?
Right now, social proof aren’t us. Only a relatively small group of health-field natives talk about becoming our own health advocate. So most people, concerned about fitting in, still follow doctors, the media–any “authority figure” that makes them feel comfortable–and not responsible.
When things go south, and as one neighbor said to me, “It just gets to be patch, patch, patch,” they’re still part of the majority. The sick majority, but a majority none the less.
Those of us who take time to learn how to be healthy and do pretty much anything it takes (notice the allowance for an annual Snickers bar), are the oddballs.
And I salute you, fellow oddball. Yes, being different can get wearisome at times. And having people sneer at the decisions you make gets old really fast.
Well, I’ve been sick and heard people suggest I give in to “my lot in life.” Instead, I walked the road less traveled, made my health a priority and took responsibility for my decisions.
I may be an oddball, but now I’m a healthy oddball.
And here’s some good news. I talk to everybody, everywhere I go, usually about health, and people are more receptive than they used to be. Social proof is still a ways off, but we’re gaining ground.
Maybe we should start an “Odd Like Bette” club. We could wear buttons and figure out a secret handshake and stuff. Maybe that would take us over the top, into the land of social proof.
Or maybe not. No matter.
The important thing is that we take responsibility for our own health–no matter what others think. Living the best possible life is always better than following the crowd into the ditch.
Bette Dowdell
http://toopoopedtoparticipate.com/.
Social Proof
Social proof is a advertising concept based on the fact most people don’t like to be different. To get people to accept a new idea or product, you have to reassure them that anybody who’s anybody is climbing on board.
If would-be customers think you’re asking them to be different from others, they won’t buy.
For example, a few years ago I was asked to give the invocation at a Martin Luther King program. As the program went on, a group of Native Americans got up to introduce a tribal dance. To start the ball rolling, the leader asked me to join them. So up I got, joined the circle and started bobbing and weaving, proving right there in front of God and the whole world that I don’t have a drop of Native American blood in me. Fortunately, the whole point was about going beyond what separates us, so my lack of native dance skills worked well.
It obviously didn’t look like nearly as much fun as it was, though, because most people refused the leader’s invitation to join in. But he kept at it, and after a while another game soul accepted the invitation, then another, and another, until it became more a group thing than individual performances. The poor guy had to work almost the entire, very large room, but social proof finally arrived.
People who had previously refused to join our merry band realized they were being left out of the fun and all but ran to get into the quickly expanding circle. At that point, joining in became the popular thing to do, and they didn’t have to worry about getting funny looks for being different.
What in the world, you might be asking, does this have to do with health?
Right now, social proof aren’t us. Only a relatively small group of health-field natives talk about becoming our own health advocate. So most people, concerned about fitting in, still follow doctors, the media–any “authority figure” that makes them feel comfortable–and not responsible.
When things go south, and as one neighbor said to me, “It just gets to be patch, patch, patch,” they’re still part of the majority. The sick majority, but a majority none the less.
Those of us who take time to learn how to be healthy and do pretty much anything it takes (notice the allowance for an annual Snickers bar), are the oddballs.
And I salute you, fellow oddball. Yes, being different can get wearisome at times. And having people sneer at the decisions you make gets old really fast.
Well, I’ve been sick and heard people suggest I give in to “my lot in life.” Instead, I walked the road less traveled, made my health a priority and took responsibility for my decisions.
I may be an oddball, but now I’m a healthy oddball.
And here’s some good news. I talk to everybody, everywhere I go, usually about health, and people are more receptive than they used to be. Social proof is still a ways off, but we’re gaining ground.
Maybe we should start an “Odd Like Bette” club. We could wear buttons and figure out a secret handshake and stuff. Maybe that would take us over the top, into the land of social proof.
Or maybe not. No matter.
The important thing is that we take responsibility for our own health–no matter what others think. Living the best possible life is always better than following the crowd into the ditch.
Bette Dowdell
http://toopoopedtoparticipate.com/.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Have you gotten the "NEWS"--high fat diets cause Diabetes?
Apparently the media is in "hype" mode to get the results of a particular study out there. Here's where you can find the abstract of the study: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.2414.html
We ought to be careful whenever the mainstream media tells us about research. They have an agenda. It is to sell newspapers or magazines or whatever they're pushing. So when this study is actually dissected, it turns out that the high fat diet (IN MICE, not humans) was (fat at 58% of calories) 7% soy bean oil (ugh) and 93% was hydrogenated coconut oil (what????) Oh, and by the way, 25% of their calories was table sugar. This is not a diet that can tell us anything about health or wellness.
For the full dissection, Denise Minger covers it all here:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/does-a-high-fat-diet-cause-type-2-diabetes/
Denise Minger is one of the scientists who dissected the data used in the China study, the book by that name claimed some junk that Denise showed was not in the data but the authors belief system.
Be careful believing what you read. Including even this.
We ought to be careful whenever the mainstream media tells us about research. They have an agenda. It is to sell newspapers or magazines or whatever they're pushing. So when this study is actually dissected, it turns out that the high fat diet (IN MICE, not humans) was (fat at 58% of calories) 7% soy bean oil (ugh) and 93% was hydrogenated coconut oil (what????) Oh, and by the way, 25% of their calories was table sugar. This is not a diet that can tell us anything about health or wellness.
For the full dissection, Denise Minger covers it all here:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/does-a-high-fat-diet-cause-type-2-diabetes/
Denise Minger is one of the scientists who dissected the data used in the China study, the book by that name claimed some junk that Denise showed was not in the data but the authors belief system.
Be careful believing what you read. Including even this.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Here's one of my Soapboxes...
SALT! Like several subjects I write about, salt has lots of bad science sticking to it! I talk about salt in my e-books, along with my other soapboxes (cholesterol and saturated fat) with their bad science we've been force-fed...So today I'm reprinting an article by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D. a doctor who mostly treats chronic fatigue syndrome and fibrymyalgia, but this article applies to all. The article can also be found here:
http://www.endfatigue.com/health_articles_f-n_2/Heart-eat_less_salt_is_wrong_advice.html
http://www.endfatigue.com/health_articles_f-n_2/Heart-eat_less_salt_is_wrong_advice.html
Eat Less Salt — and Die?
I'm being sarcastic, right? The official health wisdom — the wisdom everybody knows is right (because all the top health officials repeat it over and over again) — is that if you "restrict" the salt in your diet, you'll live longer.
That's because (once again, according to those official pronouncements) your blood pressure will be lower, putting you at less risk for a heart attack or stroke, the #1 and #3 causes of death in the U.S.
There's only one problem with that widespread "health wisdom," as I've been telling my patients and readers for many years. It's not true! And a recent article in the May 4, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is the latest evidence to run counter to the medical (and mistaken) myth of "Low Salt Good, High Salt Bad."
Low-Salt Diet = 4X Death Rate From Heart Disease
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium. First, they measured the urinary sodium levels of 3,681 healthy people in their 40s. Then they tracked their health for the next eight years. The folks with the highest urinary sodium levels — a sign of a higher dietary intake of salt — had the lowest risk of developing heart disease. Looked at another way, the low-sodium folks had four times the rate of dying from heart disease, compared to the high-salt folks.
The conclusion of the researchers was straightforward: "Our current findings refute the estimates…of lives saved and health care costs reduced with lower salt intake. They do not support the current recommendations of a generalized and indiscriminate reduction of salt intake."
The recommendations they're talking about are those from the American Heart Association (AHA), which suggests you limit your intake of salt to 1,500 milligrams (mg) per day — way down from the 4,000 or so mg most of us eat every day.
What did the study researchers have to say about the low-salt pronouncements of U.S. heart honchos? Yes, they agree, salt restriction may be a good idea if you already have high blood pressure or congestive heart failure. But for the rest of us? Previous scientific research has overestimated the effect of salt intake on healthy people, they say. And, they point out, hardly anyone actually achieves the level of salt restriction suggested by the AHA — a sign that the salt-needing body naturally triggers you to eat more salt when you try to cut back.
Of course, this isn't the first study to report that salt isn't bad for you. (And, in fact, it's good for you.) Many other studies say the same thing.
7 More Studies Throw Water on Salt Bashing
The Cochrane Library is a widely respected scientific organization that analyzes previous studies (a so-called meta-analysis) on a topic and reaches "evidence-based" conclusions about what's likely to work and not work in medical practice. In May of this year, they published a meta-analysis that looked at seven studies on salt and health involving more than 6,000 people. Their conclusion? "We didn't see big benefits" from salt restriction, said the lead author of the study, Professor Rod Taylor from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Exeter. No lower risk of heart disease. No lower rate of early death.
Another recent study analyzed data from the government's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) — one of the most respected (if not the most respected) nutritional databases in the country. It found the lower the intake of salt, the higher the risk of death!
So do take the advice to “restrict” the salt in your diet with a grain of salt — in fact, a lot of grains of salt! Now, I’m not saying that the insane amounts of salt added by food processing is a good thing — it’s not. But I am saying that of all the things we need to worry about for better health, salt isn’t that big of a deal — with the exception of people who already have high blood pressure or congestive heart failure.
Bottom line: let your taste buds be your guide to the right level of salt. If you want more salt, salt away!
Most importantly, for people with CFS and fibromyalgia, restricting salt is a setup for crashing and burning, and is very ill-advised — especially in summertime, when you sweat and have more salt loss.
Salt restriction is also a terrible idea if you have adrenal exhaustion. How do you know if you’ve got that problem? The symptoms include intense irritability when hungry, low blood pressure, and a tendency to collapse physically, mentally and emotionally when you’re under too much stress. Salt supports the adrenals.
And when I’m talking about salt, I’m not just talking about sodium chloride, or table salt. Saying sodium chloride is the be-all and end-all of salt is sort of like saying the human being is $5 worth of chemicals and nothing more. When you’re at home, consider using sea salt, which is a complex combination of minerals. I think it has many health benefits that are not yet understood by our current medical technology.
References (can be found at the web address given above)
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
The Elder's Birthright
Ok, this seems to be a theme this week, and more power to us! Update on Diana Nyad, who swam 29 hours but called off her swim due to winds and currents. see the article here. But here the interesting part...
Before the swim, Nyad told journalists she hopes her swim will inspire others her age to live active lives.
And here's another news article this morning. 98 year old Keiko Fukuda has become the first woman to acheive the tenth degree black belt in judo. see the article here
Next time you catch yourself thinking or feeling "I'm too old for this," remember you're not! Take a look at the things in your diet and life that age you, make you tired, hurt and ill. Growing old is what everyone does; growing old with vigor is what is possible!
Before the swim, Nyad told journalists she hopes her swim will inspire others her age to live active lives.
And here's another news article this morning. 98 year old Keiko Fukuda has become the first woman to acheive the tenth degree black belt in judo. see the article here
Next time you catch yourself thinking or feeling "I'm too old for this," remember you're not! Take a look at the things in your diet and life that age you, make you tired, hurt and ill. Growing old is what everyone does; growing old with vigor is what is possible!
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