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