TONGUE-TIED - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

TONGUE-TIED

The plaintiff was being extremely irritating. How awkward can you get? Why wouldn’t she give her evidence?

“Speak up, please. The Court hasn’t all day. We have your written statement but we must hear you give your evidence and you must be cross-examined by Counsel.

“This really is too bad: - making those grotesque noises and poking her fingers into her mouth in that disgusting way! I suppose we’re intended to conclude that because she’s got no tongue she can’t speak. Well it won’t do. She’s prejudicing the evidence.

“Her statement says that the dentist cut off her tongue while performing a minor operation in her mouth. Well we’ve only got her word for it, and only in writing at that! The surgeon says there was no tongue in her mouth when he started to operate and of course he is an expert. I feel we ought to accept his clinical judgement on the matter. He would have noticed a tongue if one had been present.

“The heavy bleeding afterwards, despite necessitating a massive blood transfusion, could well have been spontaneous. ‘Nervy’ people often get nosebleeds, and this could well have been something of that sort.

“In view of the stubborn refusal of this lady to give evidence I sentence her to seven days’ imprisonment for contempt of court.

“Case dismissed! Costs against the plaintiff!”

© 1988 Margaret Wilde

THE COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT - Poem by Margaret Wilde

The Complaints Department
(dedicated to the NHS Complaints Procedures)

This is the gate
Through which you must go
To get to the door
Of the passage
That leads
To the tunnel
And thence to the stairway,
The which you ascend
(As you tire),
And you find
At the top
That the hatches
Are down
And there stands in your path
A half-witted
Deaf-mute
With a gun.

© 1986 Margaret Wilde

So-called "self-inflicted" unhealthy 'face NHS cuts'

Self-inflicted unhealthy 'face NHS cuts'

Extract from this article:

"Obese people, those suffering from alcohol problems and smokers may not be first in line for NHS treatment if they do not make efforts to amend their unhealthy lifestyles, a newspaper report claims.The Independent warns that that those whose illnesses are 'self-inflicted' to some extent may not receive priority treatment due to the pressures their lifestyles place upon the NHS."

If obese people are to be 'punished' in this way it will be absolutely outrageous and a national scandal! - Obesity is NOT a self-inflicted disease. It is primarily an iatrogenic disease - i.e. it is caused by doctors, because for many many years doctors and other 'experts' have been giving entirely the wrong information about the causes of obesity and entirely the wrong advice about how to reduce obesity. - Obesity is NOT caused by over-eating; it is caused by fluid retention, and the most severe fluid retention tends to result from health professionals' inappropriate prescribing for steroids, HRT, tricyclic anti-depressants and certain other drugs, often in far too high a dose, and without the necessary warning to avoid eating salt or salty food while taking the drug. - See political considerations about responsibility for the high incidence of obesity - If you read the whole page you will find there are several groups responsible for the obesity 'epidemic', but they do not include obese people themselves, who are actually the victims of the medical profession et al.

OBESITY AND THE SALT CONNECTION - Mensa article by Margaret Wilde

Obesity and the Salt Connection

What follows is a slightly modified version of an article I wrote for the British monthly glossy magazine of Mensa, the high IQ society, of which I am a member. It was published in the December 2004 issue. Four months later, the April 2005 issue contained a letter from Joyce Barnard, who has given permission for her name to be used here. She wrote that by following the advice I had given her a few years earlier - i.e. that to lower her high blood pressure and lose weight she simply needed to eat less sodium - she had lost 5 stones in weight (70 pounds) in a year! - All she did was stop sprinkling salt onto her meals and use LoSalt instead of ordinary salt when cooking.

Many years ago I gained a great deal of weight because of taking HRT prescribed by my GPs, mainly on the advice of an endocrinologist. - I did not realise at the time that the weight gain was because of the medication.

I became desperately ill and exhausted and had very high blood pressure for which I took Atenolol, a beta-blocker. I was so fat I could barely walk. Yet I was not overeating. My feet, hands and breasts were exquisitely painful and very red and swollen. I was unable to use my hands for many tasks. I needed a larger size in shoes. My face and neck became beetroot red and very swollen. I developed acne and eczema. I suffered from breathlessness.

Having never sprinkled salt on my food in my life, and never used it in cooking, in 1997 I became aware that there was a lot of salt in bread and cheese and breakfast cereals. Because of the connection between hypertension and salt intake I altered my eating to reduce, and eventually to exclude, all avoidable sodium. This lowered my blood pressure and I no longer needed to take Atenolol.

More spectacularly, and very unexpectedly to me, eating less salt reduced my weight by 51 pounds! - This was nothing to do with calories, fat or sugar. - The weight I lost was clearly water, which I worked out was held in my body by the salt - held in my veins, which had become massively distended and painful since I had embarked on the HRT.

I worked out that it was the oestrogen that had caused the sodium and water retention and this was confirmed when I looked in the British National Formulary for the side-effects of oestrogen. I then realised that oestrogen was a steroid, though it is not normally thought of in that category, and that the sodium and water retention came about because certain steroids and certain other prescribed drugs relax/weaken the walls of the blood vessels so that they take in excess salt and the water which accompanies it. I realised that I was a 'steroid victim'.

For many years I have been providing a free telephone helpline for people in pain in my area and for the last five years have been advising all callers to reduce their salt intake, particularly when they were obese. Their weight loss, too, has been dramatic and swift. One Mensa member whom I helped lost about a stone in a month just by eating less salt. Her dog, too, lost weight when she stopped salting his food!

I firmly believe that the massive rise in the incidence of obesity, especially child obesity, is due to the prevalence of salt in modern diets, mainly from manufactured foods, and that calorie counting and advice about reducing fat and sugar intake and increasing exercise are counter-productive.

But salt causes obesity only in vulnerable people, i.e.

People whose veins are weak because of immaturity (babies, children),

People whose veins are weak because of steroids or HRT or amitriptyline or certain other prescribed drugs, too readily prescribed, often in very high dose,

People whose natural oestrogen levels are higher than normal (e.g. pregnant women).

People whose blood vessel walls have been weakened by 'slimming' – i.e. eating insufficient food.

Inactivity does not cause obesity. Obesity causes inactivity.
In 2001 I wrote to MPs, to medical people, to journalists, to nutritionists and others, explaining that salt sensitivity is what causes obesity, and urging that the facts be made known, particularly to steroid victims. The powerful and influential people to whom I wrote have taken no action to give publicity to the life-saving message. The public is not being told the truth about weight gain and weight loss. The best, the healthiest, the safest way to lose weight is to concentrate on eating less salt (and more potassium).

An Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Oxford, Professor Sir Richard Doll, wrote back to me in August 2001 that I was right about steroids causing weight gain because of salt and water retention and that weight can be lost by eating less salt or by taking diuretics. Sadly he seems to be the only medic who knows this! - A book on salt, written by experts on hypertension and brought out in a blaze of publicity a few years ago makes no mention of steroid victims and specifically states, among other errors, that HRT does not cause a salt problem.

A person who gains weight has a higher calorie requirement. There are two reasons for this. Having to carry a greater mass around and service a more massive body uses more calories. And having a bigger surface area means greater heat loss, since heat lost is proportional to surface area. - A greater calorie requirement results in greater appetite/hunger, so, really, overweight people need to eat more than people of normal weight. If the overweight eat insufficient calories (ie if they 'diet') they may lose weight, but it is at the cost of being hungry. There has never been the slightest evidence that the practice of fewer calories in and more calories out by way of exercise reduces obesity! - It is often confidently stated that fat will be lost by doing this. - Sadly, what is more often lost is lean tissue, usually an irreversible adverse effect.

The result of the misunderstanding of the cause of obesity is the well-known fact that over 95% of dieters actually gain weight in the long term! - They cannot be expected to go hungry all the time. - Nor would staying hungry all the time benefit them. - With insufficient calories for the body's needs, the body feeds on itself. - The skin becomes thinner; the bones become less dense; there is some hair loss, etc.

Contrast this with the right way to lose weight - by eating less sodium. - Eating less sodium releases some of the excess water held in the blood stream. This lowers the blood pressure and, significantly, lowers the weight. - Weighing less results in a lower calorie requirement so very gradually less food is eaten and this becomes a virtuous circle because less food eaten results in lower sodium intake.

In societies in which no salt is eaten (what some might describe as undeveloped or uncivilised societies) there is no obesity and no hypertension.

The cavemen and women who were our ancestors lived for millennia without added salt. Our bodies evolved on a low sodium and high potassium intake. The modern diet has reversed this to high sodium and low potassium. The intake of salt has massively increased in recent years - as has the incidence of obesity.

I submit that the universal 'slimming' advice - to eat fewer calories/less fat/sugar - is a major cause of obesity. - All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium. This is a drug-free, cost-free course of action. There are no hunger pangs and no adverse side-effects. It requires no visits to the doctor or to the gym and it WILL work.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! -Try it! My website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ provides more details and advice. (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Margaret Wilde

Anyone is welcome to copy this article in whole or in part, provided only that it is always attributed to me, Margaret Wilde, that the information is provided free, and that my web-site address http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ is always included.

If you wish to get in touch with me, you can email me from my website.

Psychological treatments 'help back pain'

Psychological treatments 'help back pain'
The review lead author is Dr Robert Kerns, of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

Extract:

"Receiving psychological treatments could help ease the pain of people with back problems, a new review has found.Such treatments can also improve depression and "health-related quality of life", according to the review, published in the January issue of the journal Health Psychology."

This may well be true, but a far more effective way to reduce depression and many pains, including some back pain, is to eat less salt/sodium. - See my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html - Lowering salt intake costs nothing...(o: and has many other benefits too.

Junk food ad restrictions 'absurd'

Junk food ad restrictions 'absurd'

Extracts from this report:

"Recent restrictions proposed for the advertising of junk food have been condemned by Hamish Pringle, the director general of the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising (IPA).

The restrictions were proposed by the regulator Ofcom and cover food judged to be inordinately high in salt and fat content.

If the proposals are taken up, such foods will not be allowed to be advertised during shows directed at children under 16 years old."

Hamish Pringle, the director general of the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising (IPA), speaking on BBC Radio Five Live's Wake Up to Money, said, "The idea that teenagers need protecting from junk food advertisements is "rather absurd"."

He is wrong! - Children are one of the groups vulnerable to salt, and as far as possible they should be protected from unnecessary salt intake. - See my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/vulnerable_groups.html

There has been a climb-down re. NHS computer files records/database

The Government has backed down on plans to put details of patients' records on a national computer system, and agreed to proceed "with caution" with a limited list of medical information.

Good!

Here is more about Helen Wilkinson and about the Big Opt Out

There is more about Helen Wilkinson and about the Big Opt Out from the national database of personal medical records on this page:

NHS Confidentiality

and on this page: Opt out letter is a template opt out letter to send to your GP.

ID database to NHS records & The woman falsely labelled alcoholic by the NHS - Helen Wilkinson

The Government's intended ID database to NHS records stikes me as sinister with its potential for intrusive health-surveillance. And the potential for error and abuse is great. There is no opt-out mechanism for patients on the grounds of concerns about civil liberties.

Woman falsely labelled alcoholic by the NHS - Helen Wilkinson

Extract from the article:

"...millions of patients will inevitably have mistakes in their computerised records which will in the future be read by more people than in the past. The government has not yet delivered on a promise that patients will be able to check their records on the internet for mistakes."

See also Warning over privacy of 50m patient files

and What can patients do? - Extract from this article:

"Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, believes that patients do have legal rights over their medical records: "Write and insist that you are not put on the NHS data spine," Prof Anderson says. "If enough people boycott having centralised NHS records, with a bit of luck the service will be abandoned.""

And there follows a model letter to send - copy each to the Secretary of state for Health and to your GP - if you wish to register your objection to having your medical details on this intended database.

Our Government has an abysmal record with regard to grand IT schemes...)o: - They tend not to work, they tend not to be secure and they tend to contain many errors. - Apart from which considerations, they are monumentally expensive!

Obesity 'could bankrupt' NHS

Obesity 'could bankrupt' NHS a report has claimed.

The report, published in the British Medical Journal, said that obesity causes diseases like diabetes, liver disease, back pain and high blood pressure.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Professor Naveed Sattar said: "Once your body mass index goes above 25, which is effectively being overweight, and not even at the level of obesity, risks do increase."We need to start thinking in real terms what will really generally work and what generally is the cause."

Well I certainly agree that they "need to start thinking in real terms what will really generally work and what generally is the cause" - but sadly I know that they won't...)o: - They will carry on plugging the same harmful message they have plugged for decades, namely eat less and exercise more. They carry on, regardless of the clear fact that this advice DOES NOT WORK and is counter-productive. - This is because obesity is NOT caused by over-eating and inactivity. It is caused by fluid retention in vulnerable groups of people. It can be reduced rapidly by eating less salt/sodium and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - It is important NOT to restrict calories.

I quote again from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html :

"It is over 50 years since steroids were first prescribed and it is beyond belief that most doctors are still unaware in practice of their potential for causing sodium and water retention and morbid obesity and the many other serious health problems attendant on these...

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Another possible factor is the increase in the amount of oestrogen in the water table."

Steroid-free medication 'better for kidney transplants'. - This was not news to me. - Steroids are VERY HARMFUL unless salt intake is minimised.

Steroid-free medication 'better for kidney transplants'

Here is an extract from the report:

"Usually kidney transplant patients take steroids regularly as part of their anti-rejection medication after the transplant, but steroids can have side-effects like obesity and bone disease."

See my post: here

Reduced calorie diet 'may cause osteoporosis'. - This is not news to me. I have been linking 'slimming' with a host of health problems for years now.

Reduced calorie diet 'may cause osteoporosis'.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Restricting calories is extremely hazardous. It can cause MANY grave health problems. And I am not referring only to 'drastic' slimming. - Eating fewer calories than the body requires is always likely to cause harm. Here is an extract from my website:

"Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.
It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge Finnish research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss."

Obesity is not caused by eating to excess or by insufficient exercise. There has never been a scrap of reproducible scientific research or evidence to support the theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity, nor that calorie deficit reduces obesity. The theory and the advice it spawns should be abandoned forthwith. They cause great harm and suffering. When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels). This condition is sometimes called sodium retention. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

So - all that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium, and, preferably, eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

'SLIMMING'/DIETING/RESTRICTING CALORIE INTAKE IS MOST DANGEROUS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE OBESE AND IT IS CATASTROPHICALLY HARMFUL FOR STEROID VICTIMS - THAT IS, PEOPLE WHO HAVE RAPIDLY GAINED A GREAT DEAL OF WEIGHT BECAUSE OF TAKING PRESCRIBED STEROIDS, HRT, AMITRIPTYLINE OR CERTAIN OTHER PRESCRIBED DRUGS.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project - UK

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project

Some extracts from the report:

"Professor Martyn Thomas of Oxford said that glitches in booking appointments for patients in some hospitals using the system were not fully addressed before the next phase of the scheme was embarked on."

"The IT project is so big, that if it went completely wrong, it poses the danger of "wrecking the NHS", Professor Thomas added."

"The man in charge of the project, 42-year-old Richard Granger, failed his computer studies course at Bristol University, it recently emerged."

What a colossal, risky, grandiose waste of time and public money this unnecessary and largely unwanted exercise in folly is!

Silkwood, the film. The Moral Imperative.

I watched the film, Silkwood, on DVD this evening.

A recurring phrase in the film was "the moral imperative." - This took me back many years to when I was studying Kant's moral philosophy and trying to get a hold on the exact meaning of the Categorical Imperative he urged on us. I found his philosophy quite hard to understand at the time, though I believe I'd got it pretty well sorted by the time I wrote a long essay about it. - Unfortunately, after it had been marked, it - my only copy - was lost in the post...)o: - Even now, 30 years later, I still feel a bit sad about that.

Meryl Streep played Karen Silkwood in this true story of how Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant, was intentionally contaminated with plutonium - and possibly murdered - to prevent her from exposing blatant safety violations at the plant. The plant was closed down a year after her death. She had gradually come to realise that some of the workers were getting contaminated - dangerously so - and that the company and the company doctors and other personnel were giving false reassurances and falsifying radiation readings and other data. - To her it became - fortunately for other workers in the plant - a moral imperative to discover as much as she could about this corporate negligence, collect what evidence she could, and to try to warn others about it in order to safeguard them from harm and to put a stop to the negligence. - Like all too many actual or potential whistle-blowers, she was cruelly and unjustly punished.

The film drew me in and resonated with me on many counts. - In recent weeks in Britain, our news media have been reporting facts about the death of a former Russian spy, who is believed to have been murdered by being poisoned with polonium 210. It is proving difficult for the police properly to investigate the murder because of high level non-co-operation by Russian personnel.

I seek in this blog to obey the moral imperative to protect others from harm, to tell the truth about the causes of obesity and salt sensitivity, to inform people of the safest and most reliable way to become less obese (namely to stop restricting calories and simply eat less salt and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables) and to expose corporate, professional and individual wrong-doing/negligence that results in great and needless suffering for millions of people throughout the world.

If anything in my blog or in my website has helped you, or 'spoken to you', then I urge you to tell others about my blog and my website. - Let that be a moral imperative for you. If you have a website or blog then please put a link to mine so that more people have the chance of being helped and having their suffering lessened/relieved/prevented.

Most of my readers realise the truth of what I write. Most medical websites have sponsors or banners or adverts or sell stuff. My blog and my website do not. I myself pay any costs of my website. I do not make money out of visitors to my website and blog. I am not in the pocket of any drug companies or food manufacturers or retailers. I am not a consultant to the 'slimming' industry. You can trust me that what I say/write is the truth as accurately as I can deduce, ascertain and understand it, having spent many years doing just that. I want to save others from the suffering I have endured and do endure.

Visit my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

Read my Mensa article

Chemical firm (Monsanto) 'paid cancer pioneer' (Sir Richard Doll)

I exchanged letters with Sir Richard in the summer of 2001, when I wrote to him about my findings about obesity and the salt connection. He was the only person of the dozens to whom I wrote that summer (MPs, medics, journalists, scientists,etc) who had the kindness and courtesy to read my letter carefully and to reply to it helpfully. - He agreed with me that weight gain when taking steroids or HRT is caused by sodium and water retention and that the way to lose water gained is to reduce salt intake or take diuretics. I had hoped that he would tell other doctors about this in order to save many more people from becoming obese/morbidly obese steroid victims, but sadly he did not do this, and the vital information continues not to be given.

There is a report here that seems to damage Sir Richard's reputation.

Extract from the report:

"Sir Richard, who first definitively linked smoking to lung cancer, conducted much of his research while in the pay of chemical companies.

The American Journal of Industrial Medicine says that Swedish researchers have found that Sir Richard, who also co-wrote a famous paper minimising the role of chemicals in causing cancer, failed to disclose that he was being paid at the time by the chemical company Monsanto.

From 1970 to 1990, Sir Richard, who died last year, was paid up to £1,000 a day as a consultant by Monsanto, now associated with GM crops rather than chemicals."

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer'

'Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer' - My website has been giving information about the correlation between obesity and cancer for a long time. See Social and Economic Considerations

Extract from the 'Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer' article:

"Cancer Research UK is warning that by 2010 the UK could see as many as 12,000 cases of weight-related cancer diagnosed every year, prompting fresh concerns over the ongoing obesity epidemic."

What a shame that expert advice about obesity (i.e. to reduce calories and increase exercise) tends to increase obesity...)o: (See BMJ report about Leeds University Research) - I heard a doctor on BBC Radio 5 this lunchtime giving this advice, as doctors usually do. - The advice does not work, because obesity is not caused by overeating or laziness; it is usually caused by salt sensitivity, which inevitably results in fluid retention when more than a minimum of salt/sodium is eaten. Salt sensitivity is frequently caused by prescribed drugs - most commonly steroids. See Steroids and Salt Sensitivity

All an obese person normally needs to do to become less obese is to restrict salt/sodium intake and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.

MPs want pay rise 'to £100,000 a year' - UK

MPs want pay rise 'to £100,000 a year'

Well I for one certainly am not in favour of such a high salary for MPs. - I regard most of them as self-serving parasites. - You can read about my own experience of their uselessness - and the uselessness of Government Ministers and Departments, etc. etc. - on my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - and I do urge you to read to the end of the page. - I believe you will find it worthwhile.

"Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials"

Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials

Extract from the article:

"Pfizer has been forced to abruptly scrap trials of its most important new drug because too many patients taking it were dying.

Shares in the world's largest drug company plunged more than 10pc in early trading, following the news that patients in clinical trials taking Torcetrapib were more likely to die or develop serious heart problems than those taking other medicines."

Sadly, there are other drugs made by Pfizer, that do great damage to patients, but are not withdrawn and are far too often inappropriately prescribed. I am thinking in particular of prednisolone, a corticosteroid. Like other corticosteroids and like HRT, it can, and frequently does, cause sodium retention and water retention, and many, many thousands - possibly millions - of innocent patients have been harmed by taking such medications without appropriate monitoring and often in far too high a dose and for too long a period of time. The blame for this does not lie wholly the drug companies, of course. - Negligent doctors who do not check/understand the side-effects of drugs and do not monitor patients' progress while taking the medication share the responsibility for the harm done to their patients. - See Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.

For further information about this, read examples of steroid victims and some of my other blog entries. Also see my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Do you believe that obesity is caused by over-eating - by consuming too many calories? - I invite you to consider the evidence and think again!

Do you believe that obesity is caused by over-eating - by consuming too many calories - and/or taking too little exercise? - I invite you to consider the evidence and think again!

Here is an extract from the UK Government's official statistics on page http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1329:

"The prevalence of obesity in England has increased markedly among both adults and children since the mid 1990s. In 2002 it was similar for both sexes; the rate for boys and girls was 17 per cent and for adults was 23 per cent. In 1995 the equivalent figures were 10 per cent for boys and 12 per cent for girls, 15 per cent for men and 18 per cent for women.

There is no evidence that the average calorific intake or consumption of foods rich in fat and added sugar has increased in the UK since the mid 1980s. Men aged 19 to 64 in 2000/01 reported a daily energy intake of approximately 2,323 kcal (a reduction of 6 per cent since 1986/87). Women in the same age groups reported 1,642 kcal, a reduction of 3 per cent.

Reductions over the same period were also observed in the contribution of total fat to total energy intake (from 38 to 34 per cent in men and from 39 to 34 per cent in women) and saturated fat (from 15 to 13 per cent in men and from 17 to 13 per cent in women)."

So people are eating significantly FEWER calories and LESS fat, yet obesity has INCREASED MASSIVELY!!!

Surely the logical deduction from those facts is not that obesity increases because of eating more calories! - So where is the evidence for the constant insistence by medical 'experts' that obesity is caused by over-eating and will be reduced by eating less? - Answer: - THERE ISN'T ANY!!!

The research evidence is that when obese people try to lose weight by following the 'expert' advice they usually GAIN weight...)o:

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and calorie intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Another possible factor is the increase in the amount of oestrogen in the water table.

Now before you engage in the conditioned reaction of attributing the solution to this apparent paradox as being the exercise factor, I invite you read about research on this:

'Exercise has 'little effect on childhood weight' - reported HERE in the Guardian. According to the findings of research carried out by Glasgow University, getting four-year-olds to engage in three extra 30 minute sessions of exercise a week had no effect on whether they were obese or not. "Despite rigorous implementation, we found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," concluded the researchers.

More than 500 nursery school children were recruited for the study, which compared children who exercised three times a week with children left to their own devices.

DESPITE THEIR OWN FINDINGS, the researchers deny that this research means that exercise is completely ineffective in preventing obesity! - They say that "the problem of overweight children needs to be addressed on several fronts at the same time, not just through exercise."

So the researchers are so conditioned by the calorie explanation of obesity (for which there is no supporting evidence) that they deny the results of their own research! Their conclusion is therefore not science; it is mere conjecture...)o:

Here is an extract from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html:

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body."

Alternative medicines 'need stricter regulation' - UK - Surely you must mean Conventional Prescribed Medicines need stricter regulation?

Alternative medicines 'need stricter regulation' - Permit me a cynical laugh here!

OVERWHELMINGLY PATIENTS IN BRITAIN ARE IN DANGER FROM CONVENTIONAL PRESCRIBED MEDICATIONS, RATHER THAN FROM ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS.

Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 5 - Dr Mo Mowlam

Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 5 - Dr Mo Mowlam

Mo Mowlam was an extremely popular British MP and served in Tony Blair's government. She died in 2005, aged 55, and here is one of the obituaries to her - Mo Mowlam's political obituary

The article refers to her "steroids-induced weight gain" - but although the steroids she took because of a brain tumour certainly resulted in the massive weight gain that visually changed a beautiful woman into a fat caricature of her former self, this disfiguring weight gain could have been avoided/lessened by a very low salt/sodium diet, because it is not steroids per se which cause the weight gain, it is steroids PLUS SODIUM. - Steroids plus sodium/salt resulted in massive fluid retention. - If only she had been warned not to eat salt or food containing salt while taking the steroid medication she would not have become obese as she did, and would not have suffered the many problems that the obesity entailed. - I did write to her on the matter but I fear my letter and my later email may never have been read by her, government ministers being such busy people.

For further information see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 4 - Jerry Lewis

Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 4 - Jerry Lewis

Comedian Has Stopped Taking Steroids That Added To His Weight

It's weird, isn't it? - and shocking - that even famous people like Jerry Lewis are not told that when taking prednisolone (prescribed to Jerry Lewis for pulmonary fibrosis) it is dangerous to eat salt or food containing salt. - This is because prednisolone, and many other drugs, cause sodium retention and water retention, and therefore weight gain and often morbid obesity, because of massive fluid retention.

The mechanism for this is that the muscles in the walls of the blood vessels are 'relaxed' by the drugs. - Sodium from ingested salt goes into the blood stream, along with the water it attracts to itself. - Normally any excess sodium and water then leave the bloodstream via the kidneys and the bladder and are excreted in the urine. - But when the blood vessels are relaxed they cannot withstand the incursions of any excess sodium. So the sodium and its accompanying water dilate the blood vessels, which become weakened and overstretched and the walls become thinner. - The blood becomes diluted by the added salt and water. - And the person becomes heavier - obviously. - Water is heavy...)o:

Now that I have explained this, you can see that the obesity caused cannot be addressed or lessened by eating fewer calories or taking vigorous exercise. - The problem is sodium and water, not fat. - How then to reduce the overweight?

Well, reducing the dose of the drugs can lessen the relaxation of the blood vessel walls and so they become less dilated and some of the excess fluid leaves the blood stream and is excreted. - This is obviously the main reason Jerry Lewis was able to lose 58 pounds of the weight gain. And the changes he has made to his diet may very well have included reducing his salt/sodium intake and this also would result in some of the excess water being shed from his bloodstream.

But the blood vessels almost certainly will have been permanently weakened by having been overstretched for so long. And his skin also will have been weakened and overstretched, probably permanently, by the excess water he has been carrying in his body since starting to take the steroids. ~It is unlikely that whatever he does now he will ever return to his former weight. He will always be overweight and carrying excess water in his bloodstream, and he also really needs to minimise his sodium intake for the rest of his life. He will always now be what is called 'sensitive to salt'.

All of this steroid-induced obesity and its attendant ill-health like hypertension and breathlessness could have been AVOIDED ENTIRELY if, when he was given the prescription, he had been told that the drugs cause sodium retention and consequent water retention and that therefore while taking the drugs he needed to avoid eating any salt or food containing any salt at all - because his kidneys would not excrete it as formerly they had.

I suspect that Elvis Presley probably had the same misfortune - drug prescriptions of powerful steroid-type drugs without the vital warning not to eat salt or food containing salt while taking the medication.

You can look up the side-effects in medical reference books and see for yourself that prednisolone causes sodium and water retention. - Why don't doctors bother to do this? - Why don't they get struck off for not doing it? - Why are they allowed to prescribe dangerous drugs without giving necessary information and warnings?

You can read more about obesity and the salt connection on my website. - Try my Mensa article!

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Thousands of hospital staff in Britain fail to wash hands correctly - UK

So numbers of cases of MHSA are still increasing...)o: See Thousands of hospital staff fail to wash hands correctly

Extracts from the article:

"A study has discovered that 88 per cent of hospital staff are not following government orders to wash their hands before and after contact with patients.

Researchers who followed teams of doctors and nurses for a week, found that even when dealing with patients infected with the deadly superbug, 84 per cent were not washing their hands correctly.

Health staff carrying out wound care, such as changing bandages, failed to follow hand-washing guidelines on 86 per cent of occasions, while a quarter of staff did not wash their hands after contact with human waste.The failure of staff to follow hand-washing guidelines is hampering the multi-million pound fight to combat MRSA, which is blamed for the deaths of as many as 5,000 patients each year."

(MRSA stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. MRSA occurs most commonly in people who are already in hospital. People who are more prone to it are those who are very ill, or have wounds or open sores such as bed-sores or burns. The wounds or sores may become infected with MRSA and the infection is then difficult to treat. Infections which start in the skin may spread to cause more serious infections. Also, urinary catheters and tubes going into veins or parts of the body ('drips' etc) are sometimes contaminated by MRSA and can lead to urine or blood infection.)

Puerperal fever (or childbed fever) was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%-35%. It was largely caused by the failure of doctors to wash their hands before dealing with patients. - That was more than a century ago! - Isn't it time that health professionals learnt the importance of effective hand-washing before dealing with their patients, and accepted personal responsibility for what could be the literally grave consequences to their patients when they fail to do it? - Surely this poor hygiene is medical negligence?

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 3.

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 3.

'Jay' had always been slim and smart. He went with pain and other symptoms to his GP in 2000. The GP recognised the seriousness of the signs and symptoms and arranged a prompt appointment with a specialist, who confirmed that it was cancer of the colon. 'Jay' was treated with both radiotherapy and chemotherapy and also had a resection. The excellent treatment he received must, I suppose, have saved his life. He is still alive and the cancer is in remission.

During one of his spells in hospital I was speaking to him on his mobile phone and he told me he had been put onto steroids. Agitatedly I implored him not to eat salt while he was taking the steroids. Anyone who has any dealings at all with me becomes well versed in my views about salt and so he assured me he was not eating salt. - What he meant was that he was not sprinkling salt onto his food. I was unable, sadly, to persuade him not to eat bacon, etc. while he was taking the steroids. I believe things would have been even worse if he had not known from me about salt and steroids, because then he might have been adding sprinkled salt as well to what he ate. As it is, although he took steroids for only about 7 weeks, his weight went from 12 stone to 14 and a half stone - a gain of 35 pounds in 7 weeks! a lot of the added weight being on his abdomen. Of course the response to his weight gain has been for people to point out to him that he is not getting enough exercise!

He now restricts his salt intake but this only ensures that he gains no more weight. He has not been able to lose more than between half a stone and a stone by sodium restriction because he does not follow, and does not feel able to follow, as strict a regimen as I do.

So you see how quickly sodium and fluid retention can cause weight gain! - Only 7 weeks in this case.

'Jay's cancer was expertly dealt with, but what a shame that while he was in hospital - taking prescribed steroids - he was not protected from the sodium and water retention. - If only he had been served low sodium meals for those 7 weeks! - He would then not have gained the weight. - The weight gain now seems intractable because the blood vessel walls have obviously been permanently compromised/weakened/overstretched. - He has also developed the serious complication that sodium and water retention often cause, namely, diabetes...)o:

Many drugs carry warnings not to drive or operate machinery while taking them. Some warn against mixing them with alcohol. I recommend that packs of steroids and packs of HRT and certain other drugs which cause fluid retention/weight gain, be labelled WARNING: DO NOT EAT SALT, OR FOODS WHICH CONTAIN SALT, WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION. Without this warning, morbid obesity and its associated health problems - diabetes, high blood pressure, etc, etc, will be the frequent consequence...)o:

Read more on my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 2.

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 2.

A young woman, 'Dee', was brought to see me in 2000 by Marion, a friend of mine, who recognised Dee’s weight gain as similar to what mine had been.

'Dee' is less than 5 feet tall and she had always weighed 7 and a half stone (105 pounds). She told me that on Feb 1st 1999 a professor in the eye dept at one of our local teaching hospitals had put her on to 22x5mg prednisolone tablets a day for an eye problem. (Prednisolone is one of the steroids that cause sodium and water retention and it should not be prescribed without a warning about this, and the advice to minimise sodium intake while taking the medication. 'Dee' had not been given this information ot advice.) Such a high initial dose beggars belief! After 3 months on this daily dose her weight had increased by 3 stone – 40% of her body weight!!! – and like me she had stretch marks because of so rapid an increase in weight. She had been reduced to eating only one meal a day in an effort - unsuccessful - to lose weight.

When she told the professor of the weight gain and of the pain she was experiencing, his response was to look away and say something like, ‘It’s funny how women are always complaining of pain.’ - It’s not funny, actually...)o: - It’s disgraceful that women patients are treated in this way... - It is a typical example of medical sexism, to which I have referred in a previous entry in this blog. - Medical sexism is extremely damaging to women patients and it is extremely common in Britain...

After that first 3 months the tablets she had been prescribed were gradually reduced in number to one a day, which she was taking when I met her. But the reduction had not brought about any loss of weight. - The damage had been done. Fortunately Marion and I were able to tell her about salt sensitivity. - We spent 2 hours telling her. We had also to overcome the idea that fat/calories have to be reduced in order to lose weight.

Some months later 'Dee' rang me to tell me delightedly that she had lost a lot of weight by following my advice about reducing salt/sodium intake. In clothes, at any rate, she looked normal again. But of course the terrible stretch marks remain, and so does the pain, though it is less.

If you too are a steroid victim, have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.

You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.

Good luck!

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 1

Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 1

Michael had had damaged kidneys and had patiently lived on a very low salt diet for years while waiting for a new kidney. Then he was overjoyed at last to receive a new kidney. The doctors in the hospital told him it would now be OK for him to eat an ordinary diet, not salt-restricted. And so while still in the hospital he was given an ordinary diet. At the same time they put him onto steroids. The consequences have been dire. He put on a lot of weight and his new kidney now has impaired function. He said to me that he would never go to a doctor again in his life - that he would rather die than have any further contact with doctors.

I believe that there are many damaged people who would rather die than have further contact with doctors...)o:

For details of the harm done by eating salty food while taking steroids visit http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and click on the steroids link on the left of the page.

Tomato diet model dies of anorexia

Tomato diet model dies of anorexia

What a pity! - A young woman's needless, avoidable death! - If only the truth were widely known about obesity and healthy 'dieting'! - To achieve a lower weight without compromising your health, just eat as little salt/sodium as possible and also make sure you are eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and enough of all the other essential food groups - protein, healthy fat and micronutrients. - That means not using salt in cooking, not sprinkling it on your food and checking the labels on the packets/tins of food you buy to make sure they contain only a low concentration of sodium. (0.5g sodium or more per 100g food is high sodium, 0.1g sodium or less is low sodium). Essentially, you are better avoiding processed food and instead eating fresh food that you cook yourself from scratch. - THERE IS NO NEED AT ALL TO RESTRICT THE AMOUNT OF FOOD YOU EAT OR THE NUMBER OF CALORIES. - IF YOU ARE HUNGRY, EAT! - AND DON'T TRY TO DECEIVE YOURSELF THAT YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY WHEN REALLY YOU ARE. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

The Overweight Dog or Cat and How To Reduce A Dog's Excess Weight.

The Overweight Dog or Cat and How To Reduce A Dog's Excess Weight.

What I read online today was, "Very simply put, if your pet is overweight it is taking in (eating) more calories than it needs." - This is not the case.

If you have an overweight pet dog or cat it is because they have been eating food containing added salt. This is bad for them. Give them unsalted food instead. They will lose weight, have more energy and live longer. - It could be that you have been feeding them some of the food you or your family eat, and this may well have had salt in it, especially if what you gave them was part of a takeaway or other convenience meal, because these meals have usually had a lot of salt added to them in the cooking. - Salt is particularly damaging to pet dogs and cats because they have a smaller body mass than people and so the salt has a proportionally bigger effect on them. - As well as causing them to become overweight, you could eventually be causing them to become diabetic...)o: - And if they are taking prescribed steroid medication for any reason, then they are at even greater risk! - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Lies, Distortions and Government Spin (UK) - research is used to 'prop up' policies and inconvenient evidence is often buried.

According to a damning report by MPs, research is used to 'prop up' policies and inconvenient evidence is often buried, says Roger Highfield. - The article is here.

Here is an example of manipulating evidence:

"When the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, told one newspaper this year that more women should have babies at home, she signalled her determination by saying that she had even commissioned research to support her case."
Another extract: "Ministers can also lack a certain scientific rigour. Sir John Krebs, former chairman of the Food Standards Agency, singled out the announcement in September last year by the then Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, that the Government planned to ban junk food from meals and vending machines in English schools.

This all sounds very laudable but, according to Sir John, the policy had been developed with no evidence that it would work, no scientific definition of junk food, no cost benefit analysis and no public engagement."

Well I've got news for Sir John! - The Food Standards Agency does not itself set a good example of scientific rigour. - When in the summer of 2005, I was seeking to apprise the Food Standards Agency of the true cause of obesity - namely, fluid retention, usually owing to salt sensitivity and sodium retention - the fellow who had rung me from the FSA, who emphasised to me that he was a Ph.D., told me rudely that people are fat because they are lazy and they eat too much! - That seemed to me typical of a much lower level of thought and sensitivity than Ph.D.s dealing with problems of obesity and advice about it should be displaying...)o: - There is, of course, NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support his contention. - That obesity is caused by over-eating and lack of exercise is an ASSUMPTION, unsupported by evidence or research. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ Eating fewer calories and taking more exercise does not reduce obesity. Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of obese dieters actually lose weight, and most actually gain weight as a result of dieting.

Sir David King, the government's Chief Scientist is also quoted in today's article. He is someone else I contacted last year about obesity. He did not personally answer me, but got someone from the Department for Trade and Industry to reply to me. (The DTI is responsible for science policy.) - That reply was polite, but effectively held the same message as the FSA's ill-mannered Ph.D spokesperson. There followed some correspondence which ended with the DTI saying I should contact the FSA - with the result I have already detailed.

NHS computer chief 'failed IT course'

Currently the NHS IT project, the largest civilian IT project in the world, is over-budget, behind schedule and already rife with glitches and malfunctions. Do you think this could be connected to the fact that the NHS computer chief 'failed IT course'? (He is currently the highest paid civil servant in Britain.)

Too Big To Walk! - Gary Baines, Alice Duxbury, Jack Gordy, Stacey Pinnock, Hayley Rentall, Jane Thompson Smith, Adam Van Gogh and Vincent Youngman

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week Channel 4 TV Too Big To Walk showed an hour each evening of episodes in a 500 mile walk embarked upon by 8 severely obese adults - 4 men and 4 women - Gary Baines, Alice Duxbury, Jack Gordy, Stacey Pinnock, Hayley Rentall, Jane Thompson Smith, Adam Van Gogh and Vincent Youngman - in the hope of losing excess weight and becoming fitter. - It was a gruelling and at times somewhat dangerous walk, especially for such heavy, unfit people, and in my opinion the organisers/makers of the programme pressed the subjects to levels of endurance that were not unlike torture. - I consider it to have been an unwise, ill-considered and risky enterprise, despite the fact that weight was lost and the four who finished the walk were justly proud of themselves and their self-confidence and happiness had improved.

The hard walking caused severe foot problems and great pain for several of the walkers and some of them had to give up the walk because of the damage it was doing to them.

Strenuous, pain-laden exercise like this is completely unnecessary for weight loss. - If only those walkers - and all other obese people - had the correct information, i.e. that all that is necessary to lose weight is to reduce salt/sodium intake and eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables! - They could all of them have lost a stone/14 pounds in a month by making a serious effort to eat less salt. - They could have done this without taking exercise at all and without restricting calories or going hungry. - If they had carried on in this way they could then, if they felt like it, have gone on some nice long walks without the terrible strain on their feet/knees/muscles/heart that it was to walk when severely obese. The exercise would then have been more enjoyable and beneficial.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or
adverts - just helpful information.)

UK Hospital kitchens found 'lacking in hygiene'

UK Hospital kitchens found 'lacking in hygiene' - The report is here. - It makes scary reading! Here is an extract:

"Consumer group Which? has uncovered low standards of hygiene in many hospitals, including evidence of cockroaches, mice and dirty cooking utensils, it has been reported.

Hygiene inspection reports from 50 hospitals across the country which have been inspected by Which?, show problems such as cockroach infestations, lack of soap, lack of hot water and poor refrigeration."

As ever, the Department of Health defends the indefensible: "A Department of Health spokesperson said that over 96 per cent of trusts were meeting the "core standards" on hospital food."

UK Hospitals fail to report spread of new superbug 'more dangerous than MRSA'

UK Hospitals fail to report spread of new superbug 'more dangerous than MRSA' - Report is here and here are extracts:

"The shambolic state of infection control on wards is exposed in a survey by the Patients' Association. It found only about a quarter of trusts are gathering data on Clostridium difficile (C. diff), the bacterium that experts say poses more of a risk to public health than MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus)."

"The findings from 500 infection-control nurses and managers follow mounting concern over the threat to patients' health from C. diff, which can cause severe illness and death in those with weakened immune systems, particularly the elderly.

The bacterium, which spreads easily through unhygienic and filthy wards, is the major cause of infectious diarrhoea, but it can also cause high temperatures and severe inflammation, and comes with a death rate of about five per cent."

"Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "Collection of data about this very dangerous infection is haphazard to say the least, and we are not getting the true picture. How can patients have confidence in their hospitals if the real threat posed by C. diff is being played down?"

Dr Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College London, said that the government agency's monitoring scheme was flawed because a new and more dangerous strain of C. diff had emerged in the past year or so, striking patients aged 40 and over."

The Department of Health retains its usual complacency. - "A Department of Health spokesman said clean, safe care was not an "optional extra" for the NHS, adding: "Infection control should be a core activity for trusts.""

Hospital kitchens that fail the hygiene test

Hospital kitchens that fail the hygiene test: - here is the report. - Here are extracts from the report:

"Dirty equipment, cockroach infestations and instances of food not being properly refrigerated featured in the review of hygiene reports produced over the past three years for 50 NHS and private hospitals...

...only 18 per cent of NHS patients were very satisfied with the quality of the food provided, compared with 57 per cent of private patients. In addition, 29 per cent of NHS patients were still hungry after meals, compared with four per cent of private patients."

Pretty disgusting, isn't it? - But the Dept of Health can always be relied upon for a complacent response to criticism:

"A spokesman for the Department of Health said yesterday that the independent Healthcare Commission last month found that 96 per cent of trusts were meeting core standards on hospital food."

Do you snore? Do you suffer from Sleep Apnoea?

Do you snore? Do you suffer from Sleep Apnoea?

Both these problems tend to be associated with being overweight or obese. - The easiest, safest and most reliable way to lose excess weight is to forget about calories and calorie restriction, and concentrate instead on eating less salt and making sure you eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - And you'll be well on your way to having a better night's sleep...(o:

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

"Relative risk" and NNT (number needed to treat) with particular regard to STATINS

Now here's a very interesting article I invite you to paste into your address bar: http://www.slate.com/id/2150354/?nav=ais - It explains 'relative risk' and in particular considers whether the prescribing of statins as treatment for high cholesterol levels is justified. - A statistical tool you may never have heard of is NNT - the 'number needed to treat'.

Go on! - Read it! - I feel sure that you'll be glad you did!

Are some patient groups close to being extensions of pharmaceutical companies' marketing departments?

Some patient groups are said to be perilously close to becoming extensions of pharmaceutical companies' marketing departments. See this article and judge for yourself.

The South Bank Show. Claire Tomalin speaking to Melvin Bragg about her biography of Thomas Hardy.

I watched the South Bank Show that ended some minutes after midnight - Claire Tomalin spoke to Melvyn Bragg about her new biography of Thomas Hardy, A Time-Torn Man. She had also been filmed visiting key locations and landscapes in Dorset, Cornwall and London. It was an excellent programme. Tomalin has a rich, expressive voice and obviously such a deep love of Hardy's poems and novels, and encyclopaedic knowledge of his writing and his life, and she chose to read and to offer insights into illustrative passages from Hardy's work, and I was moved again to feel as I feel when I read Hardy, as his words and insights again worked their magic.

About thirty years or so ago, I remember watching Melvyn Bragg on TV, speaking about Thomas Hardy, and in particular about Jude the Obscure, and Bragg is clearly also an expert and a lover of Hardy's work. I enjoyed hearing these two knowledgeable people putting flesh onto the bones of what most of us know of Hardy, with telling anecdotes and explanations about his life, his marriage and his writing. I can never these days bear to read again the story of Tess, because its terrible sadness and and inexorable tragedy move me to so many tears, and I shed tears for poor Tess of the D'Urbervilles again tonight.

Bragg commented on the sexual double standards to which Hardy was drawing attention in this novel and he and Tomalin spoke of Hardy's compassion and love for the fictional Tess and the complexity of Hardy's characters. Sexual double standards were, of course, the underlying reason for Tess's unjust and horrifying fate.

But we still have double standards in Britain today, though much less so in the field of sexual morals, of course. I am thinking of the sexism so often seen in the medical profession. Sheena McDonald did some TV work on this in the 90s. - The sort-of standard 'joke' to which I seem to recall her drawing attention, was that when a male patient goes to the doctor he is asked, "And what is the matter with you?" - Whereas a woman patient will be asked, "And what seems to be the matter with you?" And I remember Jean Robinson, former Chair of the Patients Association and former lay member of the GMC (General Medical Council) saying to me in the 80s, when we both were vice-presidents of the College of Health (I was limited to a year as an elected VP, Jean was a long-serving appointed VP), that when men go to the doctor in pain, the doctor tends to prescribe pain-killers, but when women go to the doctor in pain, there is a tendency for the doctor to prescribe anti-depressants...)o: - I shall no doubt return to this topic in this blog in future posts. Medical sexism has equally dire consequences of terrible harm to women as had the cruel double standards of sexual morality did in the past.

I visited the Equal Opportunities Commission in Manchester for an afternoon in the 80s, to bring to their notice the inequality of health care provision with regard to the sex/gender of the patient - health care provision for which both sexes pay by way of taxes, but health care provision that favours men patients over women patients. - They were sympathetic to my mission and said they had heard from a number of women who knew themselves to have experienced medical treatment inferior to that of men, but that the EOC was unable to take up medical sexism as an issue because it was outside the EOC's remit, the conventional wisdom being that doctors are not prejudiced and that men and women are treated equally and that there is no stereotypical thinking among healthcare professionals! - Well, as I say, I shall no doubt return to this topic in a future blog entry...

The claim is made that 'Lack of sleep 'may help make youngsters obese'

The claim is made this news article 'Lack of sleep 'may help make youngsters obese'

The researcher has reviewed studies on this topic. As with the previous researchers, his logic is faulty. There is a positive correlation between lack of sleep and obesity, that is true. - But it is not that lack of sleep causes obesity; it is that obesity tends to cause lack of sleep.

Obesity is NOT caused by eating too much or by lack of exercise. - Overwhelmingly it is caused by salt sensitivity and fluid retention. - It is easy for obese people, child or adult, to lose weight by eating less salt/sodium and forgetting about calorie reduction. Cutting down on salt enables the body to shed (in the urine) some of the excess water held in the body by sodium and so weight is lost.

Once weight is lost by reducing salt intake, sleep will improve.

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and particularly page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html for advice on how to reduce obesity in children.

'Gender-bending' chemicals linked to breast cancer rise and Screening for breast cancer 'may harm women'

Two reports about Breast Cancer in today's online copy of UK's Daily Telegraph:

'Gender-bending' chemicals linked to breast cancer rise here - Extract from the report:

The "gender-bending" chemicals are found in a host of common products, from scented candles and air fresheners to plastics used for babies' bottles and the casings of mobile phones.

and Screening for breast cancer 'may harm women' here - Extract from the report:

Breast cancer screening may be doing more harm than good, a new report says today. One in nine UK women is diagnosed with breast cancer at some time. The research found that for every 2,000 women invited to have mammograms, one would have their life prolonged but 10 would endure potentially devastating and unnecessary treatment.

Since the incidence of breast cancer is rising, and one of the contributory causative factors is obesity, women who are overweight would lower their risk of developing breast cancer if they were to lower their sodium intake, because salt sensitivity and fluid retention are what cause obesity, rather than over-eating.

(A survey carried out by Cancer Research UK found that most British people do not know there is a strong link between obesity and cancer. Most were aware of a link between obesity and heart disease, but not with cancer. Studies have shown that being overweight increases the risk of cancer of the breast, bowel, womb, kidney and oesophagus. A major study (2003) by the American Cancer Society also associates obesity with stomach cancer and prostate cancer in men, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and cancers of the cervix, ovary, prostate, liver, and pancreas.)

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

'Hidden' fats - Transfats - removed from foods in UK - but still not completely...)o:

Report can be accessed on this page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6058416.stm

Good news as far as it goes - but what a shame that transfats have not yet been banned completely from food. You can read some information about transfats on http://www.bantransfats.com/

The UK has the highest obesity rate in Europe

The UK has the highest obesity rate in Europe - reported here today.

Readers of this blog may surmise along with me that there are several reasons for this:

1) the unremitting incorrect and damaging (See British Medical Journal article and Guardian article) advice from health professionals and Government agencies that it is necessary to restrict calorie intake and increase exercise in order to lose weight

2) the reckless inappropriate overprescribing and often overdosing with steroid drugs such as prednisone and prednisolone and HRT, and anti-depressant drugs such as amitriptyline and other tricyclics, and other drugs including some anti-psychotics and many other drugs, all of which cause sodium retention and fluid retention, thus leading to obesity and even morbid obesity and all the other health problems associated with obesity

3) the almost complete failure of doctors and drug company patient inserts and pharmacy warning labels to warn patients taking these powerful medications that these medications cause sodium retention/salt sensitivity and so when taking them no salt or food containing salt should be eaten

4) the shocking failure of either the Department of Health or the General Medical Council to ensure that doctors adhere to drug prescribing protocols

5) the failure to admit to the public that the advice given about the causes of obesity and the advice on how to reduce it has been catastrophically wrong for decades and is still wrong

6) the increasing levels of oestrogen in the domestic water supply

7) the scandalous dereliction of duty by the Chief Medical Officer and Department of Health personnel in previous and present administrations to curb the food companies from adding dangerously high quantities of salt to bread, to processed foods and to ready meals. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html The rising levels of obesity, especially child obesity, are the dire legacy of this dereliction of duty. Even now the legal strictures are insufficient and the nutritional information given on packs of food is still not ideal.

All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables because the potassium they contain helps to displace excess sodium from the body. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Exercise has 'little effect on childhood weight'

Exercise has 'little effect on childhood weight' - reported in this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

According to the findings of research carried out by Glasgow University, getting four-year-olds to engage in three extra 30 minute sessions of exercise a week had no effect on whether they were obese or not.

"Despite rigorous implementation, we found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," concluded the researchers.

More than 500 nursery school children were recruited for the study, which compared children who exercised three times a week with children left to their own devices.

Here is an extract from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body."

Obesity leads to more caesarean births

Obesity leads to more caesarean births - reported here

Since obesity is caused by salt sensitivity, this report gives further reason for pregnant women to minimise their salt intake.

Also see information for pregnant mothers

Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.

Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs. - Here is a report I read the other day: Doctors 'failing patients' over prescriptions from Netdoctor.co.uk
and here are extracts from it:

"The study's authors, from the University of California, Los Angeles (Ucla), say that taking prescriptions as they are intended is "essential in ensuring their effectiveness".

If individual drug specifications are not followed then the patient in question could suffer from a worsening of the disease, a failure of treatment, a range of adverse side-effects and a potential overdose, the research team write.

...only one-third discussed potential side effects and about half explained how many doses should be taken and how often."

This, of course, is an American report. I live in England. I doubt that research such as this would be conducted in England, where the cover-up culture with regard to poor medical practice has a long and ignoble tradition. But I am confident that the medical negligence that fails to give, along with the prescription for a drug, necessary information about the drug and how it should be taken and what its possible side-effects are, is at least as prevalent in Britain as in the States. - And to the best of my knowledge - and that is informed knowledge, because I write as a steroid victim - doctors in Britain never warn their patients that when taking prescribed steroids like prednisone or HRT, or prescribed antidepressants like amitriptyline, or quite a lot of other drugs, they should not eat salt or food containing salt, because these drugs potentially cause severe sodium retention and consequent water retention, followed by massive obesity.

An example of a patient damaged in this way is Jerry Lewis, who became severely obese because of taking prednisone. - He clearly was not warned of the harm that eating salty food while taking the prednisone would cause him. I read today that he has lost a lot of the weight he gained because he has come off the prednisone. - He would not have gained the weight if he had avoided sodium while taking he drug. - If even famous, wealthy people like Jerry Lewis are not told of the dangers of combining prescribed steroids and salty food intake, then it is highly unlikely that 'ordinary' people ever get the necessary warning. - I regard this as criminal negligence on the part of medical practitioners. - If this failure to inform were to be punished with severe sanctions doctors would give the information. - Though goodness knows they should give it anyway! - What good does it do to turn patients into steroid victims, with a host of attendant morbidity and unhappiness and a shortened lifespan?

See helpful advice and information for steroid victims.

Are you depressed? - Maybe you are depressed because you are overweight?

Are you depressed? - Maybe you are depressed because you are overweight? (There is a significant positive correlation between depression and obesity.) - Maybe you are overweight because of taking anti-depressants?

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful info.)

Are you in constant pain 'because you are depressed'? Are you 'depressed' because you are in constant pain? A drug-free, cost-free course of action that might help is to cut down on salt! - Surprising perhaps, but worth a try. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

DOCTORS ON STRIKE. - DEATH RATES GO DOWN!

DOCTORS ON STRIKE. - DEATH RATES GO DOWN!

Whenever medical doctors go on strike, death rates go down! - I'm not making this up. - Type any suitable words or phrases into the search engines and view the evidence for yourself.

The biggest threat to health in the developed world is currently obesity. - Doctors and their retinues are certainly responsible for most cases of obesity and many of the health problems (and consequent premature deaths) that obesity brings in its wake - high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many, many more. This is because of their constantly reiterated, incorrect, counter-productive and damaging insistence that obesity is caused by over-eating and/or taking too little exercise and that the way to reduce obesity is to eat fewer calories than your body requires.

Obesity is, in the main, an iatrogenic disease.

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Read further about this on my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ - in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html and other pages on my website.

Sleepy kids at greater risk of obesity

Sleepy kids at greater risk of obesity

This was the title of an article published on the internet and dated 17th March 2006. Here is the article http://news.netdoctor.co.uk/news_detail.php?id=17071351 - And here is an extract from the article:

"Kids who get less sleep are at a higher risk of becoming overweight or obese, researchers have claimed.

Experts from Laval University in Quebec, Canada, said that busy parents and a lack of strict bedtimes could be a major factor in rising levels of childhood obesity.

In a study of 422 children aged between five and ten years old they found that those who slept for just a couple of hours less each night were 40 per cent more likely to be overweight.

Of the children taking part in the study, one in five of the boys was overweight or obese compared to a quarter of the girls."

The researchers clearly believe that lack of sufficient sleep is a major factor in the causation of childhood obesity.

In my opinion they have confused cause with effect. Obesity causes a host of adverse physical and emotional health outcomes, and it is these adverse health outcomes that lead to reduced sleep.

In any case, obesity, whether of children or adults, is caused by sensitivity to salt, so to reduce obesity AND improve sleep, the most effective and reliable measure is to reduce salt/sodium intake. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and other pages on the website.

Morbid Obesity - You could find it helpful to eat less salt.

Are you morbidly obese? - You have my great sympathy; I am so sorry that you have this affliction. I hope this blog entry will help you.

No doubt many people have added to the many difficulties of your life by blaming you for your condition. - How wrong they are!

Unless you ate a great deal of salt or salty food when you were a small child or you have the great misfortune to be a sufferer from Cushing's Disease, or some other rare disease which causes great obesity, then the most likely responsibility for your obesity lies with prescribed steroids, like prednisolone, or prescribed HRT or certain other prescribed drugs, possibly prescribed in too high a dose and possibly prescribed for too long a time and almost certainly inadequately monitored by the prescriber. - And I'll bet you were not warned that these drugs commonly cause sodium and water retention (the cause of your overweight) and that while taking them you should not eat salt or food containing salt, were you?

Your excess weight is largely water (extra water in your bloodstream) and is definitely NOT caused by eating too much. But you obviously need more food than slim people, because you have more weight to carry round all the time. - Don't let anyone stop you eating when you are hungry! - You need that food and those calories.

Have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.

You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.

Good luck!

This morning (29 August 2006) on Stephen Nolan's BBC Radio 5 phone-in

This morning (29 August 2006) on BBC Radio 5 there was a phone-in about obesity. A listener rang in and described himself as 5' 4" tall and weighing 15 stone (ie 210 pounds). He asked for help/advice about how to lose weight, saying that he had porridge made with Buxton Water for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch and that he took a LOT of exercise, even though he is 65 years old. He stressed the exercise and that he does not overeat, yet he is clearly obese and is puzzled why he is obese.

The presenter of the programme, Stephen Nolan, immediately assumed that the caller was lying about the amount of food he eats, and accused the caller of eating too much or drinking a lot, and simply refused to accept that the man was telling the truth. The nutrition expert who was in the studio congratulated the caller on his healthy lifestyle and seemed a little non-plussed when the caller pressed him as to why he is so overweight, then suggested that the caller would lose a little weight if he swapped his main meal of the day from the evening to the midday lunchtime.

None of this can have been much help to the caller, whose problem is clearly sodium and water retention!

I rang the programme's number, 0500 909693, and explained that some people gain weight because of sensitivity to salt. I asked the young man who answered the phone to bring up my website on his screen so that he knew that what I said was genuine and not motivated by commercial considerations, and he did so, and agreed. He said that if the producer of the programme decided to include me in the phone-in I would be rung back. (I had given my phone number.) - I knew that I would not be rung back. - This scenario has been played out so many times before. I've rung this sort of phone-in on Radio 5 many times over a period of 6 or 7 years now but I've never been able to get on to explain the true cause of obesity (salt sensitivity) and to suggest that people like the caller should abandon the calorie restriction and excess of exercise they are vainly using to try to lose weight, and instead lose weight rapidly, safely and easily simply by cutting down on salt.

I wasn't called back though there was ample time for me to be on the programme. - What a shame! - That caller's life could have been transformed, and so could the lives of many others of the listeners to the programme. - As it was, most of the contributions from listeners seemed to be on the predictable lines of insulting fat people and explaining how simple it would be for them to lose weight if they would only stop eating such a lot and get off their fat backsides and do some exercise...)o: - Therapy by insult, you might say... - But it is 'therapy' that does not work and that adds to the difficulties and suffering of obese people.

My help is free, effective and safe, but I don't seem to be able to get onto radio programmes to give it. - If you know that guy who rang in with his problem, tell him about my blog and my website, or if you know anyone else who is desperate to lose weight and has been unsuccessful with the usual 'slimming' advice, tell them. - PLEASE!