June 2009 Health in the News Archive

[ Monthly Index of New Briefs ]

More aggressive action needed to stem child diabetes

We need better health insurance to combat obesity? That clearly that is the disease management model – they don't make money until you are sick. What we clearly need is more objective information about food. Unfortunately, some of the organizations which deliver public messages about diet get significant funding from the makers of junk food. And to compound the problem, medical schools spend less than 10 hours teaching doctors the value of nutrition.

Food is information, food is medicine. When we give our genes bad information (lots of sugar, lots of starch, lots of chemicals), the genes learn to modify their expression to deal with that information. Unfortunately, that modified expression appears to carry over to the next generation. Thus if Mom eats a diet high in calories, sugars, and chemicals, then her fetus also gets that information and modifies its genetic expression accordingly, to deal with the chemical onslaught as soon as it is born. This has been demonstrated in lab animals, and we are beginning to see the same effect in our children. If we can modify our children's diets now, we may see an improvement in health in their children and/or grandchildren. Remember that every female fetus is simultaneously growing the eggs for her children, so what mother does affects two generations down the line. None of us is an island until him- or herself.

The childhood obesity issue is only partly about food. Also to factor in the equation are the body burden of environmental toxins, infections, and chronic inflammation.

Obama addresses the AMA on health care

There are a lot of mixed messages in his address. The president uses annual cholesterol screenings and mammograms as examples of preventive medicine. Yet if he looked at the science, he would see that half the people who have heart attacks do not have elevated cholesterol levels – inflammation is a much better marker of possible heart disease. The science says that radiation, including the kind from mammograms, causes cancer and that mammograms simply are not as good a breast cancer screening device as thermography which does not use radiation.

These kinds of screenings drive business, to find something that at least needs another appointment, a biopsy, perhaps a prescription drug. For high cholesterol, statins are prescribed. But you have to prescribe statins to several hundred people to save one life. Meanwhile, you suppress the COQ10 levels of several hundred people which creates another risk factor for heart disease by depriving the heart muscle of a much-needed nutrient. Documented side effects of statins also include cognitive issues – who wants to risk losing their marbles? What of time-honored chelation to address the root problems of heart disease? The AMA has fought using this inexpensive solution; by-pass surgeries, angioplasties, and stents generate much, much more revenue.

Obama might have brought up the inconvenient truth that every dollar spent on health care is a dollar of income for someone else. Many doctors order multiple tests – is that preventive medicine, fear of litigation, or worse yet, a doctor with financial ownership in a screening center generating multiple revenue streams?

Obama did not speak to conflicts of interest that also permeate medical journals and the increasing incidents of doctors and researchers being paid by drug companies to reach conclusions favorable to the use of prescription drugs. The drug industry fights the use of non-prescription remedies and persuades the AMA to scoff at less expensive methods like homeopathy and natural medicine.

There is almost no discussion about how we can turn around epidemics of chronic disease. If the President wants doctors to participate in the prevention of obesity, for example, he needs to point out that medical school curriculum includes about a scant six hours on nutrition. We know diet and environmental toxins are much at the root of the epidemics, yet medical schools do not teach environmental medicine. The American Dental Association still approves of putting mercury fillings in the mouth. And on it goes. Our medical system simply is designed to preserve the status quo which fosters the costly and unhealthy disease management paradigm.

If medicine is going to cost less and create a healthier America, then we need to grapple with a whole bunch of sacred cows accustomed to turning a profit on the backs of unhealthy people.

ADHD drugs and children's deaths are linked

The numbers involved in the study were very small. Researchers conducted what is known as a matched case-control study: They obtained information about 564 children in the United States who died suddenly and inexplicably between 1985 and 1996, then reviewed medical documents to determine how many of those who died had been taking stimulant drugs. You could quibble with the results.

But you cannot quibble with the fact that ADHD drugs are not innocuous. There is substantial evidence that stimulant drugs increase the risk of hypertension, stroke and cardiovascular disease. Indiscriminate use of prescription ADHD drugs, and the growing number of healthy teenagers and adults who use the drugs to boost mental performance, set the stage for some deadly consequences.

Regardless of side effects, the effectiveness of popular drugs for ADHD can dissipate after 14 months of use. So drugs are not the best answer all around. ADHD can be treated without drugs.

Root causes of the ADHD syndrome may be multiple, including brain processing abnormalities, problems with the entire listening/hearing system, food or environmental allergies, metabolic insufficiencies, or heavy metal toxicity, among other things. We know many cases of ADHD behavior have been cleared up by making a few extremely important changes in diet.

At the Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine, We use a new modality of therapy, neurotherapy, for treatment of brain processing dysfunction. It is called BrainAdvantage™ and it can be extremely effective in only 20 sessions. We can help the brain re-establish broken pathways and make new ones. We've seen people whose brains could hardly function well enough to read a newspaper work through the various exercises and "get their brain back." The person who was trapped inside is able to come out.

Calcium supplements for weight loss don't work

Why anyone would think that taking calcium supplements would cause an obese person to lose weight is beyond me. Were they trying to contrast dairy industry hype with reality, or simply trying to produce another negative study of supplements to bolster the position that orthomolecular medicine is an invalid way of treating illness?

Weight and health are maintained through healthy eating, exercise, and a willingness to let go of physical and emotional toxins, like heavy metals, anger, envy and resentment. Many people have been living in a toxic world since birth, and they have a stored body burden of toxins, warehoused in fat which the body hesitates to shed because too many toxins in the bloodstream can be fatal. Adenoviruses have also been implicated in obesity, and so too have specific species of bacteria found in the gut. The moral of this story is that obesity is not simply a matter of too many calories.

AMA says anti-aging claims for hormones are unproven

What an extraordinary concept! I am speechless. Well almost.

HRT, synthetic hormone replacement therapy, got a lot of bad press in 2002 when the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) abruptly ended its study on the combination of synthetic estrogen and progestin therapy because their data was surprisingly negative.

Dr. Ted Quigly, MD, did what more doctors should do. He went over the WHI study very carefully. The study grouped women in three categories: those aged 50-59, 60-60, and 70-70. The youngest group is the most relevant. Dr. Quigly found that in the youngest group, the study showed that premarin, made from horses urine, had a definite benefit but provera, a synthetic, had a profound negative effect. So a careful reading of the WHI study shows that the synthetic hormone was not as well accepted by the human body as a hormone made from horses' urine. Even horses' urine is more natural than what is made in the lab. It stands to reason that bio-identical hormones would be even better accepted by the body. However, there never has been a study using human bio-identical, "natural" hormones. Perhaps that's because pharmaceutical companies are unable to patent natural hormones and see them as unwelcome competition.

Another round in court for vaccines and autism

What makes this case significant is that the word "autism" was not used in court. According to an essay by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Kirby in the Huffington Post 2/24/09, CBS News found that the vaccine court has awarded monetary judgments to 1322 families after a judicial finding of vaccine injury. "The vaccine court Special Masters rest their judgments on their finding that the vaccines caused some generalized brain injury, mainly Encephalopathy/encephalitis (brain inflammation) or "seizure disorders" -- conditions known to cause autism-like symptoms," they wrote. "A large number of children who won these judgments have been separately diagnosed with autism. The Vaccine Court, in other words, seems quite willing to award … so long as they don't have to call the injury by the loaded term ‘autism.' That hazard is particularly acute for vaccine victims who appear before the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP). Since that body's decisions are closely watched, published and accorded the weight of precedent, many lawyers consider the burden of proof for petitioners to be impossibly high before the OAP Panel."

Julia's Mom emphasized Julia has no formal diagnosis of autism and said she wanted to keep that "word" out of her daughter's records until her case was concluded.

This paints a pretty clear picture of the political and marketing battles regarding a more aggressive vaccination campaign for both children and adults. Reports forecast that vaccine sales worldwide will more than double in four years. "New products and better-than-expected profits, as well as merger activity, have transformed the vaccine marketplace," says Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. "Continued sales of influenza and cervical cancer vaccines have provided a foundation for growth in the adult market. Meanwhile, the pediatric market was fueled by several major products including Wyeth's pneumococcal vaccines Prevnar and Merck's new rotavirus vaccine TotaTeq."

What is missing from the bigger picture is a solid examination of one of traditional medicine's most sacred dogmas. Do vaccinations deserve the credit for "saving millions of lives" or does that credit largely belong to better sanitation and the discovery of penicillin? Do we give too many vaccines too soon? As was the case with HIV early on, are we spending inordinate amounts of energy trying to deny autism's causes because that implies substantial payouts by courts and insurance companies? Does the mainstream medical community have too many political ties to investigate how not just vaccines but other environmental insults contribute to developmental disorders?

It's official: the 2009 influenza "pandemic" has begun

This is the first global influenza pandemic in 41 years. The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people worldwide. Ordinary seasonal flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide each year.

The real test of its spread and virulence will come as levels of vitamin D fall. It has been documented that where there is less sun, there is more flu and cancer. And, there are more of these diseases in winter, which has less sunlight. There are also more of these diseases the further you get from the equator – the further you move away, the less sunlight there is. Vitamin D does an incredible job of strengthening the immune system.

Coke Zero banned by Venezuela as a health threat

The first news reports do not detail exactly what health concerns got the government's attention. But we do know Coke Zero uses aspartame as its no-calorie sweetener. There are some 92 documented side-effects of aspartame. Aspartame (Nutrasweet®) is a neurotoxin. It has been shown to cause birth defects, brain tumors and seizures and to contribute to diabetes and emotional disorders. And recent studies show that, ironically, diet sodas contribute to weight gain. There is not much good to say about "diet" sodas.

Patient-centered care is a growing trend

In the American medical machinery, primary care doctors often are viewed simply as a portal into the system, the first person you see who can refer you to specialists who generate bigger revenues with tests and procedures. Economics dictate that many primary care doctors see perhaps 25 patients a day because their compensation is tied to the number of patients they see. There is a shortage of primary care physicians in the U.S.

"Medical school loans can be so high, you need to be a specialist to pay them back," said Dr. José Batlle, one who has made the switch to patient-centered care. "But our country doesn't need yet another sleep apnea specialist." Right. We need more primary care doctors who can take a preventive and holistic approach to health.

Today, 8 out of 10 times that patients see doctors, it is for a chronic illness. We need doctors better trained in chronic illness, better able to recognize and deal with the growing body burden of chemicals and contaminants in all of us that fuel chronic inflammation and weaken our immune system. Medical schools are out of sync – they still don't teach much about chronic illness, diet, and toxic chemicals.

As more and more doctors make the switch to patient-centered care, many are deciding not to take insurance. Insurance administration costs can take a big bite out of a practice's revenue; a recent Weill Cornell Medical College study found that a third of the money received by primary care physicians simply pays for interactions between the doctor's office and insurance companies. To make matters worse, you end up with insurance agents dictating what is best for patients.

The marketplace is moving away from the disease management paradigm to one of prevention. Patient-centered care will foster a fundamental and necessary change in how we view medicine. Patients will begin to view health care insurance more like car insurance – you pay for your own oil changes and tune ups, but you have insurance in case of collision and for the really big repairs.

Some medications cause brain issues for elderly

Once again we note that pharmaceutical medication has a significant downside. Drugs are ideally suited for acute treatment in many cases. They keep us going long enough for our bodies to heal. However, drugs are very much like the adrenal stress system, the “fight or flight” system. Continued use for very long can cause significant disruption to our normal everyday lives.

Choline forms the basis for acetylcholine, which is the neurotransmitter involved in memory. So an anti-choline medication lessens the amount of neurotransmitters on board. Nicotinic receptors (yes, tobacco) are acetylcholine receptors, by the way. That's why cigarettes actually help with memory and intellectual processes.

Similarly, getting the blood pressure down when the levels are 220/140 is extremely important. But keeping it there artificially with drugs runs the risk of developing loss of electrolytes, depletion of nutrients, loss of sexual potency, and loss of healthy cell function – not to mention loss of memory. There is a better way to treat many of these chronic diseases – through detoxification and good nutrition. It just takes some time, some money, and a willingness to change. Green health care? Or drugs? There is always a choice.

Doctors warn against genetically modified foods

GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce their own built-in pesticide in every cell. When bugs bite the plant, the poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Genetic engineers insert Bt genes into corn and cotton, so the plants do the killing.

The gene inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function, according to a 2004 study in Nature Biotechnology. This means eating a corn chip produced from Bt corn might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our lives.

No U.S. government safety studies on GMOs are required. It is up to Monsanto and the other biotech companies to determine if their foods are safe. Not a single human clinical trial on GMO has been published.

The AAEM is calling for a moratorium on GMO foods, in lieu of waiting another decade or two for what we see in animal studies to show up in human suffering. It is a good call.

Research links low vitamin D to vaginal infections, asthma

It makes sense, given that good vitamin D levels are so important to a strong immune system. The Pittsburg study's concluding recommendation, however, struck me as absurd:

Lisa M. Bodnar, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author, said the study did not mean that women should be "running out and taking megadoses of vitamin D." "If women have concerns about vitamin D status," she continued, "they should talk with their doctor about whether supplements are appropriate."

Vitamin D3 is readily available over-the-counter in health food stores, and from many of the excellent supplement companies which supply health care practitioners - including me. Certainly there can be other reasons to have bacterial vaginosis (food allergy, immune system dysfunction, diabetes). But the treatment of Vitamin D deficiency is so simple and inexpensive, and the benefits are so huge, why would one not want to supplement Vitamin D?

Current research indicates vitamin D deficiency plays a role in causing some 17 kinds of cancer as well as a host of other chronic diseases. Vitamin D regulates cells, systems, and organs throughout the body.

Almost every patient I test here in sunny Arizona is deficient in vitamin D. Starting in the 1980s, it was decreed that sunlight is unhealthy because it promotes skin cancer. That sold a lot of sunscreen, most of it toxic. The CDC found that 97% of Americans are contaminated with a widely-used sunscreen ingredient called oxybenzone that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage. Is the sun really to blame for the sudden rise in skin cancer? Critics pointed out that the decrease in dietary omega 3 fatty acids coincided with the rise of skin cancer, and that skin cancer is more prevalent the further away you get from the sunny equator.

In any event, lack of sunlight certainly promotes vitamin D deficiency, since D is synthesized in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. If we are not going to get at least 20 minutes of sunlight on our bare skin, then it behooves us to take vitamin D as a supplement – preferably as Vitamin D3, 4000-5000 IU per day for an adult, for health maintenance. And think of all the hospitalizations for asthma that we might prevent!