Now they tell you

Twenty years later.
FDA adds warnings to statins

Health regulators are adding warnings to the labels of widely used cholesterol lowering drugs, such as Lipitor, to say they may raise levels of blood sugar and could cause memory loss.

Now we're talking

Dental Crisis in America

"As a nation, we don't talk about it much but there is a dental crisis in America," Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday at a Senate hearing he chaired. A new report released at the hearing said more than 47 million people live in places where it is difficult to access dental care. More than 130 million Americans do not have dental insurance. One quarter of U.S. adults ages 65 or older have lost all of their teeth. About 17 million low-income children do not see a dentist each year. Only 45 percent of Americans age 2 and older saw a dental provider in the past 12 months. In Vermont, Sanders noted, there has been progress.
...
Sanders' subcommittee also heard evidence that more and more Americans are turning to expensive hospital emergency room care for routine dental problems. Nationwide, the number of ER visits for dental problems rose 16 percent from 2006 to 2009, according to a study presented at the hearing by the Pew Center on the States. In Florida alone, there were more than 115,000 hospital ER visits for dental problems in 2010 with costs of more than $88 million.

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Charles Duhigg

Whose special insight is that we just need to buckle down and reward ourselves properly. Instill good habits with positive reinforcement.

The Power of Habit

If he had an original idea, I didn't see it.
The article does have some interesting historical information about toothpaste, though.

Claude Hopkins' greatest contribution would be helping to create a national toothbrushing habit. Before Pepsodent, almost no Americans brushed their teeth. A decade after Hopkins' advertising campaigns, pollsters found that toothbrushing had become a daily ritual for more than half the population. Everyone from Shirley Temple to Clark Gable eventually bragged about a "Pepsodent smile."

Did you read that? The person who convinced us to use toothpaste was a MARKETER, not a dentist. It was NEVER about Oral Health.

Consumers need some kind of signal that a product is working,” Tracy Sinclair, who was a brand manager for Oral- B and Crest Kids Toothpaste, told me. “We can make toothpaste taste like anything—blueberries, green tea—and as long as it has a cool tingle, people feel like their mouth is clean. The tingling doesn’t make the toothpaste work any better. It just convinces people it’s doing the job.

The tingling is not a benign addition by some clever ad man. It is the result of sulfates and an indication of tissue damage. These products remove the protective coating of your mouth and CAUSE gum disease.

I think Claude Hopkins may just be the Brain Eating Zombie of the Century.

The harsh truth

They know they are wasting our time and money.
They know their shit doesn't work.
And they're sanctimonious about that too.

Why Doctors Die Differently

Willful Negligence

Bill would require suicide-risk training for mental-health providers

A bill that recently passed out of the state House seeks to require mental-health providers to undergo training in suicide-risk assessment and treatment as part of their continuing-education requirements. National experts, including the Institute of Medicine, have been calling for such training for at least a decade. If the bill passes, Washington would become the first state in the nation to require it.

Pardon Me?? This is not required by their professional organizations???
That's pretty much equivalent to a paramedic not learning CPR.
Absolutely. Incomprehensible.

Every 15 minutes, someone dies by suicide in this country, states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Washington, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death, claiming more lives than motor-vehicle crashes, homicide and HIV/AIDS combined.
According to a CDC report, some 230,000 adults in Washington had considered suicide in the past 12 months. That's nearly one in 20 adults, higher than the national average. About 36,000 Washingtonians make a suicide attempt each year.

Old song of the day

Macy Gray- Relating to psychopath

The Circle of Insanity

Life, with Dementia

Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights, threatened a prison official and been caught with marijuana. Despite that, he has recently been entrusted with an extraordinary responsibility. He and other convicted killers at the California Men’s Colony help care for prisoners with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia...

Now that is truly sick and twisted. A cognitive mobius strip.
A exquisite example of what dentists hath wrought.

Party On, Garth

Study: suicide rates fall when states legalize medical marijuana

A University of Colorado economics professor has co-authored a study that concludes that suicide rates among young males decline markedly after states legalize medical marijuana.

For the record, the reason marijuana alleviates depression and anxiety is because they are disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Cannibinoids are neurotransmitters involved in digestion. Cannabis stimulates intestinal neurons that are intrically connected to the mood regulation centers of your brain.

Corollary: If you are depressed enough to require marijuana maintenance- you probably have a gastrointestinal infection or allergy. Figure out which portion of the junk you're eating that's messing you up.

24 hour Napping

The myth of the eight-hour sleep

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep. Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.
In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.

But but but... that means sleep hygiene therapists are completely full of crap.
Say it ain't so.

Nap Map

Penn Medicine Study Discovers State and Regional Prevalence of Sleep Issues in the United States

That is basically the same map one finds for obesity and heart disease.

Hmmmm. I wonder what the connection could be.

Is there someone out there who can map this data? There must be an app for that.

Later: Ooh look, I did it myself.



Thanks to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics for their cool applet.

Sounds Familiar

I cannot find an email address, so somebody please do me a favor and facebook this girl and tell her to read my stuff.
Her family is somewhere in Seattle. I think she can be helped. I am guessing she is having acute strep episodes.

Woman suffers from rare sleep disorder

Update: Thanks to Gina for the contact info!

Correlation Games

Scientists Discover Likely New Trigger for Epidemic of Metabolic Syndrome

The receptors, or sensors, on cells are called Toll-like receptors (TLRs), and the Nobel Prize was awarded last year for discoveries that showed they initiate the swift innate immune response to infections. But the inflammation they trigger can also be harmful. In mice it has been shown that two TLRs -- TLR2 AND TLR4 -- are important in the development of both diabetes and heart disease.

Okay, here we go again-
This is a mechanism not a trigger.
The receptors and the cytokines are involved in immune response to infections.
Infections are already documented to cause heart disease and obesity.

Cause and effect. See how that works?

Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha

Scientists did not break speed of light

Physicists who shocked the scientific world by claiming to have shown particles could move faster than the speed of light have admitted it was a mistake due to a faulty wire connection.

Freakin Geniuses...

I'm shocked, shocked to find bacteria in here

Newly Identified Oral Bacterium Linked to Heart Disease and Meningitis

A novel bacterium, thought to be a common inhabitant of the oral cavity, has the potential to cause serious disease if it enters the bloodstream.
The bacterium was identified by researchers at the Institute of Medical Microbiology of the University of Zurich and has been named Streptococcus tigurinus after the region of Zurich where it was first recognised. S. tigurinus was isolated from blood of patients suffering from endocarditis, meningitis and spondylodiscitis (inflammation of the spine). It bears a close resemblance to other Streptococcus strains that colonise the mouth. Bleeding gums represent a possible route of entry for oral bacteria into the bloodstream.

Yo Doctors

You dismiss us as unmotivated.
I know the true power of obsession and patience.

Bangladesh rickshaw driver builds clinic

Reality Based Medicine

Substituting With Smokeless Tobacco Saves Lives

"Quit or die: That's been the brutal message delivered to 45 million American smokers, and it has helped contribute to 443,000 deaths per year, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Rodu said. "The truth, however, is that total nicotine and tobacco abstinence is unattainable and unnecessary for many smokers."
Rodu's presentation, "Transforming Tobacco Use: The Potential of Tobacco Harm Reduction," was based on his almost 20 years of research. His work shows that smokers can greatly reduce their risk of disease and death by replacing smoking products with e-cigarettes or modern, spit-free smokeless tobacco. These products provide a much safer alternative for those smokers who are unable or unwilling to quit smoking because they continue to deliver nicotine without the harmful effect of smoking.

Actually they insist you quit smoking and prescribe drugs that make you WANT to die.

Steal this Idea

In the Mouth, Smoking Zaps Healthy Bacteria

According to a new study, smoking causes the body to turn against its own helpful bacteria, leaving smokers more vulnerable to disease.

So, smoking may not actually CAUSE disease? Fascinating...

Now it would be really nice if some professional used this information to assist people rather than just blame them. Help them control their illnesses. Offer prophylactic care. Reduce Harm.

This is what we need- a product that will counteract this process.
I see no reason why there can't be a convenient, pleasant way to control oral pathogens. I have been thinking about this for a while, and what I want is Periodontal Candy. Something that will make things better, and doesn't taste like crap. I HATE MINT FLAVORED DENTAL PRODUCTS!! Caramel or coffee flavor please.

This seems like it should be easy. Jelly bean technology is very advanced. Take out the sugar, add some probiotics and omega-3 and make a million...

Homework Assignment

Read this:
Reactive Hypoglycemia

Science you can use

Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat

This new modern wheat may look like wheat, but it is different in three important ways that all drive obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and more.
It contains a Super Starch -- amylopectin A that is super fattening.
It contains a form of Super Gluten that is super-inflammatory.
It contains forms of a Super Drug that is super-addictive and makes you crave and eat more.

I told you so

They are looking for more ways to sell Chantix-

Smoking Cessation Meds Shows Promise as Alcoholism Treatment

A medication commonly used to help people stop smoking may have an unanticipated positive side effect for an entirely different vice: drinking alcohol. A new study by University of Chicago researchers finds that varenicline, sold as Chantix, increases the negative effects of alcohol and therefore could hold promise as a treatment for alcoholism.

They want to give a drug KNOWN TO CAUSE SUICIDAL IDEATION to chronic alcoholics.

Sadly. So. Predictable.

More Silliness

If you really loved me, you would let me eat your brain...

Zombie Valentines

Silliness

Zombie Cake

The Root of the Problem

The non-communicable disease paradox

Severe symptoms of poor health are declining, even as chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes are on the increase.

The problem is real. The paradox is an artifact of definition.
Their very language- "NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE" points out the bias at the core: They buy into the Non-Infectious Assumption. That they have found all the important pathogens and the remaining diseases we have are genetic and environmental.
If they looked a little closer, they would see that many of the very diseases they say are "non-communicable" are low-level chronic forms of the communicable ones they have so proudly "controlled".
Their methods of acute care actually create chronic disease. Their solution is literally the cause of the problem.
Paradox squared.

As I was saying

Obesity Is Associated With Altered Brain Function

The results revealed that in obese versus lean individuals, brain glucose metabolism was significantly higher in the brain's striatal regions, which are involved in processing of rewards. Moreover, obese individual's reward system responded more vigorously to food pictures, whereas responses in the frontal cortical regions involved in cognitive control were dampened.
"The results suggest that obese individuals' brains might constantly generate signals that promote eating even when the body would not require additional energy uptake," says Adjunct Professor Lauri Nummenmaa from the University of Turku.

We are not fat because we are hungry.
We are hungry because we are fat.

Rules of the Revolution

If you think you know what's going on, you're probably full of shit.

-A magnet given to me by my friend Sue about twenty years ago.
It is the only statement I have ever found to always be true.

________________________________________

I am beginning to believe that Dr. Lustig made his radical pronouncement just to get some press.
It kind of makes me feel better to think it's a tactic rather than just an assinine idea, but I'm still going to rant a little more.
As a tactic, it definitely worked. I saw the head line on every news outlet. Sugar should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco.
As an idea- it needs to be squashed. The whole idea of dietary coersion needs to stop.

This is why- doctors make all kinds of dogmatic pronouncements based on the evidence that is available at the time of the proclamation. They have done it since the beginning of doctors. The advice they have given in the past is clearly wrong. There is clearly more information out there that they haven't found yet- that's why we are still fat. Although I agree with a lot of Dr. Lustig's conclusions about sugar, there is no reason to think they are absolute.

They need to stop assuming they know what the hell is going on. Their track record just isn't all that great.

Dr Lustig, while his heart is clearly in the right place, needs to admit his own limitations.
Let's talk about hyperinsulinemia. Dr. Lustig has identified a group of obese people who produce too much insulin. His solution to this problem is to ablate their pancreas. That means fry it. He kills part of their pancreas so they create less insulin.
It does reduce their symptoms. It does. But what if a defective pancreas isn't the problem? What if those people have an illness that alters their insulin activity or something like that. Increasing evidence shows that sugar metabolism is affected by common infections and allergies. If this pathology isn't being addressed, their illness will progress, and he's killed off the very cells that are affected. Rather than treating the cause of type 2 diabetes- surgically inducing type 1 diabetes may be the long term outcome of that particular therapy. Nobody really knows yet.

He has the same attitude as the lap-band hucksters. Doctors' intentions justify doctors' means. It's that kind of certainty that fuels this proposal.

Dr. David Katz makes a more measured and nuanced argument.
He thinks Dr. Lustig has gone too far but the idea is still valid. People need to be coerced. Have incentives.

I am incentivized enough, thankyouverymuch. The reason there is fruit loops and soda in schools is because your profession has pushed the exact OPPOSITE agenda for the last forty years. I have been nagged to lower my fat intake so aggressively that I now avoid doctors. I know that I am sensitive to carbohydrates. And all my doctors have ever been concerned with is my fat intake and cholesterol levels.
Our insurance company actually calls our house and tells us to eat more fruit. Seriously, they do.
Fruit is fructose and that is sugar. My health care provider calls our house to tell my diabetic husband to EAT LESS FAT AND MORE SUGAR.

You need to stand up to Them before you start coming after Us. Get on TV and call out Your colleagues,Your institutions and Your associations.
You need to speak the truth and let us decide what to eat for a while.
When your house is clean, maybe there won't be a mess to blame on your patients.

Heal Yourself, Physician.

See the Pattern

Heart Disease May Be a Risk Factor for Prostate Cancer

In a large analysis of men participating in a prostate drug trial, researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute found a significant correlation between coronary artery disease and prostate cancer, suggesting the two conditions may have shared causes.
...
Previous studies exploring the relationship between coronary artery disease and prostate cancer risk have found conflicting results, making it difficult to determine whether the malignancy is fueled by poor lifestyle choices.

Poor Lifestyle Choices... that's their answer to effing everything: Blame the Patient.

Coronary artery disease is caused by Strep infection.
Strep infection is also known to cause chronic prostate inflammation.
Chronically enlarged prostates become cancerous.

Holy Waste of Time, Batman.
Seriously-they could go on like this forever-
Doing experiments correlating all the symptoms of strep infection to the other symptoms of strep infection. And they could still not even conclude that they're dealing with a frakking strep infection!!!!

Buckle down and apply yourself

Mindful Eating as a way to fight bingeing

Honestly... somebody is making money off that nonsense.
Doncha think that if that's all it took we would have figured it out before now?
Self-righteous asshats...

My kind of guy

In 1995, New Mexico voted on a bill requiring psychologists to dress as wizards.

Which reminds me

Christina and I went to the Narcolepsy Network conference over 3 months ago. We handed out diet information and told people about our remissions.

Nobody from their organization has contacted us yet.

The Root of the Problem

What with all the Komen furor, I just found Gayle Sulik's blog. It's about how health charities are being used to further medical industries' goals. I especially like this post:

Thinking the Unthinkable

While hundreds of thousands of women continue to suffer from the disease and its treatment, and while millions of women are concerned about their risk, the pink ribbon primarily serves industry—diagnostic technology, pharmaceuticals, large non-profits, and all those corporations participating in cause marketing.

and this one's really good too.
Birth of the Perpetual Fundraising Industry

You don't say

Obesity could be infectious

In the study, mice engineered to have a particular immune deficiency developed fatty liver disease and got fatter when fed a Western-style diet. But strikingly, when these immune-deficient mice were put in the same cage as healthy mice, the healthy mice started to come down with symptoms of liver disease, and also got fatter.

Correlation Games

Ulcer-causing bug tied to higher diabetes risk

People who have been infected with the ulcer-causing bacteria Helicobacter pylori are more than twice as likely to develop diabetes later on as people who do not have signs of the infection, according to a new study of Latino adults in California.

H. pylori causes all kinds of problems, but I have seen no evidence of this kind of causation. Here's the most likely relationship:
H. pylori loves to eat carbs and so do diabetics.

Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

Experts Urge Societal Control of Sugar Essential to Ease Public Health Burden

Sugar should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco to protect public health, according to a team of UCSF researchers, who maintain in a new report that sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

I really like Dr. Lustig. He is right about a lot of the health problems caused by sugar. But this is over the line. It's the same self-righteous attitude about patients that all doctors have the urge to indulge.

People are not properly informed. We are told a whole lot of conflicting information, and not surprisingly get terrible results. And then doctors decide that it's because we don't comply.
When you all get your facts straight, and tell people the truth about sugar and fat- you will see exactly how successful we can be.
Without your help.

Well how about that

Exposure to Common Environmental Bacteria May Be Source of Some Allergic Inflammation

Could some cases of asthma actually be caused by an allergic reaction to a common environmental bacteria? New research suggests that this idea may not be as far-fetched as it seems. In a research report appearing in the February 2012 print issue, researchers show a link between common environmental bacteria and airway inflammation. Specifically, their research suggests that some strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cause white blood cells to produce very high levels of histamine, which in turn leads to inflammation, a hallmark symptom of asthma.

Somebody please explain to me why medical researchers think this is a far-fetched idea.
I was told my asthma was due to the bad relationship between me and my mother. I was nine, but still knew that was a load of crap.

My research indicates unrecognized allergies to common pathogens are a very prevalent source of disease.