Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website
Wilde About Steroids

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Read my Mensa article on Cruelty, Negligence and the Abuse of Power in the NHS: Fighting the System

Read about the cruel treatment I suffered at the Sheffield Dental Hospital: Long In The Toothache

You can contact me by email from my website. The site does not sell anything and has no banners, sponsors or adverts - just helpful information about how salt can cause obesity.

Wednesday 31 January 2007

Trans fats 'to be eliminated by retailers' (Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Sainsbury, Iceland, Co-Op, Boots and Waitrose)

Trans fats 'to be eliminated by retailers'

Extracts:

"Companies such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Asda have volunteered to stop adding trans fats to foods in order to prolong their shelf life."

"Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) food policy director, said: "This is the latest in a string of healthy food initiatives and shows BRC members, responding to customer concerns, are willingly delivering a scale and pace of change way beyond anything retailers or manufacturers are doing anywhere else in Europe.

"Sainsbury, Iceland, Co-Op, Boots and Waitrose are also among the companies that made the step."

"Unlike other fats, trans fats are in no way beneficial and can cause heart disease."

A pity transfats were ever added to foods! - and a pity they were not removed from foods long ago! - They have LONG been known to be harmful to health...)o: - See Ban Transfats and http://www.tfx.org.uk/

Operation ordeal that will haunt me forever - the appalling experience of Andrea Carey at Darlington Memorial Hospital, County Durham, England

Op ordeal that will haunt me forever

Extracts:

"Ms Carey, 33, from Houghton Road, Darlington, underwent what she thought would be a harmless diagnostic procedure in January 2003."

"During the procedure, which involved passing a camera-tipped tube into her stomach, a major artery was severed.
For four hours, doctors and nurses did not realise she was bleeding internally."


"She underwent five operations as surgeons fought to stop the bleeding.
This involved a massive incision in her stomach, which had to stay open for many hours.


To add to her misery Ms Carey's deep wound was infected with the superbug MRSA.

Now, nearly four years later, Ms Carey has appealed to the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to recognise the distress caused by her experience.

But a trust spokesman said that, although it acknowledged her distress, there were risks with all surgical procedures and it did not believe there was any negligence."

"I had a baby at the time, which I was unable to look after," she said.
It also meant she had to give up her work as a nursing assistant."


On the AvMA (http://www.avma.org.uk/) forum, Andrea says, "THE SURGEON ASKED ME IF I'D SAVED MYSELF A PLACE IN HEAVEN !! AND TOLD ME GOD WAS TESTING ME !!!"

If you read other entries on the AvMA forum pages you will see other examples of the deplorable way in which British victims of medical negligence have the physical and psychological distress already caused by the negligence, compounded by the shamefully inutile complaints procedures and legal avenues they try to battle through, adding financial stress and many other burdens. - Is there anyone reading this who can help Andrea in any way?

Monday 29 January 2007

SUPERSIZE THIS. - Extract from the New Scientist weekly online newsletter I have just received. - My website has the answer to the question they ask!

"SUPERSIZE THIS
It takes a lot of planning to get 6600 calories of junk food down you in one day. But that's what Adde Karimi did for an experiment based on the 2004 documentary Super Size Me - in which film-maker Morgan Spurlock spent 30 days eating exclusively at McDonald's. Karimi followed a similar regime of stuffing his face, but unlike Spurlock whose cholesterol and weight both soared, Karimi suffered no medical problems and his cholesterol was lower after a month on the fast food than it had been before. We are used to being told that if we are overweight the problem is simply too much food and too little exercise, but now it doesn't seem as straightforward as that. Are some people just more susceptible to obesity than others?"

If you have the ear of anyone on New Scientist's editorial staff, please tell them about my website, which explains the mystery...(o:

Obesity is not caused by overeating! And 'slimming'/eating less is not necessary to reduce obesity! - Obesity is caused by fluid retention, most usually in people who are sensitive to salt.

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.)


Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

Paramedics call on bars to ban glass.

Paramedics call on bars to ban glass

Extract:

"Paramedics from the South Central Ambulance Service are calling on clubs and bars to limit the use of glass bottles.

Staff from the service claim that reducing the amount of glass will limit the number of alcohol related incidents dealt with by emergency medical staff.

Paramedics were called to over 3,000 assaults in the Hampshire area during the latter half of 2006, reports the Basingstoke Gazette.

"We see some very unpleasant injuries caused by broken bottles and glasses, which are used as weapons," Paramedic Tony Heselton, told the newspaper. "

Consensus Action on Salt and Health calls for boycott on salty foods. - Still no warning or vital salt info/publicity targeted at steroid/HRT victims!

Watchdog calls for boycott on salty foods

Extract:

"Some of Tesco's and Sainsbury's own brands are among 10 products identified by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash), a health pressure group which claims they have almost as much salt as sea water.

Quaker Salt and Vinegar Snack-a-Jacks and Peperami sticks have well over that amount, it claims.

Cash says there is no justification for so much salt in the products and lists 10 alternatives with a fraction of the amount. It hopes its campaign will persuade more manufacturers to reduce salt in their products.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash, said it was important to reduce the amount of salt added to foods in order to cut the number of people dying from strokes and heart attacks caused by high blood pressure.

Around 80 per cent of the 200,000 tons of salt consumed every year is taken in through processed food and children are particularly vulnerable."

What a pity Professor MacGregor does not give the vital message that reducing the amount of salt eaten by obese/overweight people would be the safest, swiftest and most reliable way to reduce their excess weight! - What a pity he does not mention that high salt intake is the chief cause of child obesity! - What a terrible pity he does not mention that steroid victims, made morbidly obese because of taking certain prescribed steroids or HRT, need to reduce their salt/sodium intake to as low as they possibly can - permanently - in order to lose some of the vast volume excess fluid they are carrying! - And what a pity he does not warn them that reducing calories is completely inappropriate and ineffective as a means of steroid victims losing weight and that eating less food will exacerbate their health problems, rather than helping them!

What a pity he does not press the food companies to produce some lines of foods specially for steroid victims and other obese victims of negligently prescribed/monitored drugs and people morbidly obese from other causes! - These would be foods containing NO ADDED SODIUM AT ALL. - And for everyone who thinks it's easy to avoid salt by cooking from fresh, I agree. - But it isn't easy cooking from fresh when you are morbidly obese and exhausted at having to carry gallons of excess fluid round with you all the time. - Nothing much is easy for morbidly obese people actually...)o:

And what a pity he doesn't seek to get it across to doctors that when they give their patients prescriptions for these potentially dangerous drugs they should give them a serious warning that eating salt while taking the drugs is likely to result in their becoming salt-sensitive and obese!

And what a pity he doesn't press for on-pack labelling of these drugs to warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while on the medication!

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.)

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

NHS plan for elderly could save 800 lives.

NHS plan for elderly could save 800 lives

Extract:

"Preventing falls and looking after patients' needs better after an accident could stop 4,000 hip fractures a year and save strategic health authorities millions of pounds, it says.

The study, by Prof Ian Philp, the National Director for Older People, sets out how health and social care services need to change to take care of the increasingly elderly population.

It highlights a scheme operated by the North East Ambulance Service where every ambulance officer was issued with a "falls assessment form". In 18 months the number of falls dropped by 23 per cent.

Under the scheme a handyman was given access to people's homes to secure carpets, move furniture or install handrails. Patients suffering from fainting, poor eyesight or brittle bones were referred to a consultant.

The service also used computer programmes to identify "fall hot-spots" such as uneven pavements or paths that were not gritted in winter, and then asked local councils to take action."

Sounds a good idea.

Sunday 28 January 2007

A Cautionary Tale about Bulimia. - Bulimia often causes weight gain, rather than weight loss!

A Cautionary Tale about Bulimia.

Someone whom I helped years ago by advising her to reduce salt intake in order to lose weight rang me this mornng. - We are friends now, though we have never met, and we usually speak to each other about once a week on the phone.

She told me today that she now realises how her weight problem began.

She had not been overweight - just sort of a nice normal weight - not thin. And then someone took to teasing her about being a bit tubby and she decided she would lose weight, and she tried to do this by making herself sick after eating in order to lose the food and the calories it contained. We tend to refer to this as bulimia these days, but at the time she was doing it either the word was not in use or she was not aware of the word. (I didn't think to ask her how long this went on.) The reason she stopped doing it was because the acid in the vomit was damaging her teeth. And it was while this self-induced vomiting was going on that she became overweight.

She then went to 'slimming' classes for years and counted calories and went hungry but continued to gain weight and became very fat indeed. She also developed diabetes and impaired vision as a complication of the obesity, and hypothyroidism, in my opinion as a consequence of eating insufficient food.

It wasn't until I told her that the way to lose excess weight - and to lose it fast - is to cut down on salt/sodium, that she started to lose weight. By taking my advice and forgetting about reducing calories and going hungry, and just concentrating on reducing salt, she is now not much above her original weight.

But it was the bulimia that started her weight gain. - This is because when the body has insufficient food/calories it has to feed on itself. It has to make the skin thinner, the muscles weaker. It has to rob the bones of some of their mineral content - leading to osteopenia. It conserves resources by shedding hair and eyebrows and eyelashes and weakening nails. - Short of calories, the person feels very tired and has to rest. Rest exacerbates bone loss and muscle weakness. You can think of many further consequences yourself. This is a downward spiral.

Crucially, as far as weight gain is concerned, eating insufficient food causes the walls of the blood vessels to weaken and get thinner. - Then, if the person is someone who likes salt in/with their food, the excess salt and the water it attracts to itself will enter the bloodstream and the weakened veins will not be able to resist the incursion of this extra salt water, and the sodium retention and water retention that result cause in turn weight gain and obesity. - The way to lose some of this weight gain is to do as this person did - abandon dieting/slimming/inducing vomiting and all that nonsense, and simply eat less salt! - Reduce salt intake to the lowest you can manage and keep permanently to a low salt/sodium intake.

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.)

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

Consider the Duck! - Compare it with the obese human swimmer!

CONSIDER THE DUCK! - Compare it with the obese human swimmer!

Now, everyone who has ever cooked a duck, along with everyone who has never cooked a duck, knows that much of the weight of a duck is fat. - FAT. (In fact, fat comprises almost half of the weight of a duck.) - But when it is swimming, which is how we mostly see it when it is alive, it's a nice compact creature; its fat doesn't wobble about, does it? - Not at all. - And when it is out of its favoured element and moving on dry land, admittedly it waddles because its legs are so short and its webbed feet so big and ungainly on land, but its fat doesn't wobble. And its fat stays nice and compact when it flies as well. And clearly the fat does not make the duck uncomfortable or ill. - To BE a duck entails carrying a lot of fat.

Now consider those poor extremely obese people who have the misfortune to be selected to appear on TV as salutory lessons for the viewer and also to 'entertain' the viewer. Their body parts wobble as they walk or run. Their thighs and knees chafe painfully. Their breathing is laboured. They have large appetites - i.e. they are always hungry because they need extra calories to service the extra weight they have to carry around with them.

Now bring to mind the poor souls among them who have been filmed while swimming, for us to view on TV programmes. The unspoken invitation as we view this, is to be appalled and disgusted at the sight. - What do we see? - It is not the compact, comfortable swimming of the fat duck.

The obese person's swimming body, filmed from under the water, shows rolls of 'fat' moving about in a clearly abnormal way which certainly disturbs, and frequently disgusts, the viewer. - But is this what fat, in fact, does do? - No, it isn't, and it doesn't.

I refer you back to the duck. - No rolls of fat wobbling round when the duck swims...

What we have seen is rolls not of fat, but of excess water held in the distended blood vessels of the obese human swimmers, whose obesity is caused not by over-eating, but by abnormal fluid retention - hypervolaemia, i.e. excess blood volume. Only fluids move as freely as that, not fat.

© Margaret Wilde 2006...(o:

Friday 26 January 2007

'Professor Peter Kopelman, of Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, tackles Gov't childhood obesity strategy' - Britain

Professor tackles government childhood obesity strategy

Extracts:

1) "Professor Peter Kopelman, of Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, said that every part of the community, from parents and teachers to local government and the food industry, must help in tackling the problem."

2) ""While there is no "quick fix" to the problem, there do need to be policies in place that have been fully thought out and are sustainable," Professor Kopelman added."

As I wrote in my earlier post today about Caroline Flint, there is, in fact, a "quick fix" possible, if the facts about Obesity and the Salt Connection become more widely known and accepted and the discredited, counter-productive advice about calorie restriction is abandoned.

British Youngsters with a £280 a year sweets and fizzy drinks habit

Youngsters with a £280 a year sweets and fizzy drinks habit

Extracts:

1) "British children spend nearly £280 a year each on sweets and fizzy drinks and have the worst eating habits in Europe, a survey reveals today.
The figures go a long way to explaining the obesity epidemic, with children as young as five spending more than £100 a year on sweets and the same on fizzy drinks. The information comes from market analysts Datamonitor, which says that snacking has never been easier."


2) "The report says that one British child in three is overweight."

Salty food causes fluid retention in children and that of course results in obesity. -The obesity in turn creates a need for more food/calories because of having to carry around and service a body of greater weight. The need for more food, and especially for more calories, is probably the main reason for the high sweets and sugary drinks consumption the British children favour.

In the countries cited as having lower spending by children on sweets and soft drinks, children are fed less on convenience/processed meals so have a lower salt intake and therefore are less obese and have smaller calorie requirements, resulting in lower sugar/sweet consumption.

The facts are that child obesity is caused by high salt consumption and not by high energy consumption or by inactivity.

Children's meals need to be low in salt.

See children and salt

Caroline Flint defends UK obesity policy. She says, "It is a complex issue and I am afraid to say there isn't a quick fix for this." - She is WRONG!

Flint defends obesity policy (Caroline Flint is Britain's public health minister .)

Extract:

"Speaking on BBC One's Breakfast programme, Ms Flint said: "It is a complex issue and I am afraid to say there isn't a quick fix for this.""

She is WRONG! - As far as halting the increasing incidence of obesity is concerned, and as far as reducing the obesity of present sufferers is concerned, a quick fix is eminently possible. - Just tell the truth about the causes of obesity, and the facts - based upon research, rather than guesswork, about the correct ways to prevent/lessen obesity. - See Warning from Mr Edward Leigh

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.)

Thursday 25 January 2007

'Obesity surgery 'should be last resort' for children.' - The first and by far the safest resort should be reducing the amount of salt they eat.

Obesity surgery 'should be last resort' for children

I believe this is more likely to prove to be a harmful, dangerous procedure rather than a therapeutic measure...)o:

All that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. It is particularly important for children to have a low salt intake, because salt is more harmful to children than it is to adults, and high salt intake is actually the cause of child obesity. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Warning (from Mr Edward Leigh, British MP, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee) of obesity risks to entire generation

Warning of obesity risks to entire generation

Extract:

"An entire generation of children now at primary school is heading towards increased rates of serious health problems, an influential committee of MPs says today.

It criticises the departments of Health and Education and Skills for doing too little to stem the "alarming" obesity epidemic. At least one primary school child in seven is now classed as obese."

I started writing about the increase in the incidence of obesity, and in particular about child obesity, to MPs - scores of them (all three major parties), and to journalists, broadcasters, scientists, medics, appropriate agencies, nutritionists, etc - in the summer of 2001, and explaining that the assumption that obesity is caused by overeating is incorrect and that obesity cannot, therefore, be remedied by undereating. I also wrote to Mr Edward Leigh, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the initiator of this news item, and to other appropriate parliamentary select committees. - Unfortunately my evidence and my argument were, and continue to be, disregarded. People fail to realise that there has never been any scientific evidence to support the overeating theory of obesity. Nor has there ever been any scientific evidence to support the theory that obesity is lessened by calorie reduction. Both of these theories are mere assumptions, and both are false.

I explained to them that obesity results from sodium retention and water retention in people who are vulnerable to salt. These days I often refer to these vulnerable people, of whom I am one, as sensitive to salt.

The 'Obesity Epidemic' would best be reduced by giving the correct advice about how to prevent/lessen obesity. Obesity is NOT caused by eating too much! - It is caused by fluid retention, usually in people who are sensitive to salt.

The most severe obesity - morbid obesity, as it is usually called these days - is mainly caused by the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, often in far too high a dose, 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.

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 intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article about Leeds University research 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.
Another possible factor in the increasing incidence of obesity is the increase in the amount of oestrogen in the water table.

If overweight/obese people seriously and genuinely reduce their salt/sodium intake, they all lose weight fast - and even faster if they also make sure they are eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, because these high potassium foods help to remove excess sodium from the bodies of salt-sensitives.

Eating less and counting calories hinders, rather than helps with the problem of obesity, as it usually increases salt sensitivity. - That is why, as countless unfortunate 'slimmers' have found, 'dieting makes you fatter.'

Read my 'political' page The 'Obesity Epidemic' - I ACCUSE! and my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection and my page about child obesity http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

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.)

Wednesday 24 January 2007

Patricia Hewitt 'pleased' with doctor's wages. - Latest spin. - Hewitt must think/hope we're as foolish as she is!

Hewitt 'pleased' with doctor's wages

Extracts:

1) "Health secretary Patricia Hewitt has said that she is proud of the fact that doctors in the UK are some of the highest paid in the world.

Her comments came after concerns were raised over the fact that the current contract for doctors sees their wages uncapped.

This means that potentially doctor's earning powers are completely unlimited."

If there's one thing British doctors are really good at, it's negotiating pay-deals!

2) "a recently published report has claimed that diabetic children are at risk of losing limbs because the current NHS cash crisis has hit services."

The current cash crisis is largely the result of the massive levels of cash going into doctors' pockets.

To lower the risk of your children developing obesity and/or Type 2 diabetes it is important to ensure they eat food low in salt/sodium. - See low salt intake is good for children's health (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Tuesday 23 January 2007

'New NHS rating website coming'

New NHS rating website coming

Extracts:

"Using the new site, the public will be able to express their opinions of individual doctors and hospitals."

"The spokesperson said: "The NHS does amazing things every day. "We want people to put down their views. Good or bad, we want an honest review of the services they have received.""


I think they'll have a hard job convincing people that they want to hear 'good or bad' of the NHS and that people who report bad treatment will not be 'punished' in some way! - From my personal experience, it is routine for patients damaged by the NHS to be treated abominably - victimised - even more so when they make a justified complaint - to be insulted, bullied, humiliated, accused of lying, refused appropriate investigations/treatment and to have their condition and their suffering trivialised... - I am not alone in this experience. I have been providing a free helpline for people harmed by NHS doctors/dentists for nearly 20 years and I have never heard of even one person for whom there was a satisfactory outcome from making a complaint! Despite much-vaunted 'medical ethics', doctors seem to regard victims of medical negligence not as damaged fellow human beings in need of help, but as adversaries or nuisances.

As a steroid victim (i.e. massively harmed by being inappropriately prescribed HRT in far too high a dose and inadequately monitored - for nearly ten years) I remain very ill and disabled and in great pain, but I have not been to see a G.P. since 1999. I would prefer to give them no further opportunity to harm me. Consulting them was an ordeal that only added to my health problems. - I'll add that I have never been other than courteous and reasonable in all my dealings with doctors and never registered a complaint about any of them, knowing how futile such complaints are in this country, and being too ill and exhausted to want to waste time and energy and experience further victimisation.

You can read about other people's experiences of the NHS (and the futility of complaining about the NHS) on Medical Mistakes and AvMA (click on 'Share experience' and then go to the forum pages) and Patient Protect. And my website is http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (My website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful and essential information which doctors do not give their patients.)

'Use Afghan opium for NHS drugs'

'Use Afghan opium for NHS drugs'

Extract:

"Afghanistan's opium poppies should be used to alleviate a shortage of painkillers in the NHS, the British Medical Association has said."

If you are in pain and lack effective painkillers, or if, like me, you have a philosophical or a rational objection to taking painkillers because you have found them useless or suffered from their many adverse side-effects, or would prefer to try to address the cause of the pain, then you may like to try cutting down on your salt/sodium intake. - This is not a frivolous suggestion; eating less salt reduces a lot of - possibly most - pain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

"Stem cell hope to defeat diabetes" and "Maternal cells 'generate insulin'"

Stem cell hope to defeat diabetes

Extract:

"Scientists have discovered that stem cells are passed from mothers to unborn children with type 1 diabetes and may help repair the damage caused by immune attacks on insulin-producing cells thought responsible for the development of the disease."

and Maternal cells 'generate insulin'


A cost-free, healthy way to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in children is to ensure that young children eat food low in salt/sodium. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Elderly people in Britain's hospitals and care homes are frequently being left to starve.

See Starving on a spoonful of mash a day

Care home elderly go hungry, says minister

Hungry to be Heard

Youth culture is the death of the old

Sunday 21 January 2007

Stressed doctor lost his temper and cut off his patient's penis

Stressed doctor cuts off patient's penis

Extracts:

1) "Naum Ciomu, 58, was operating on the man to correct a testicular malformation when he lost his temper. Grabbing a scalpel, he sliced off the penis in front of amazed nursing staff, then cut it into three pieces before storming out of the operating theatre at the Panduri Urology Hospital in Bucharest.

A Romanian court has ordered Prof Ciomu to pay £100,000 damages and £20,000 costs to the victim, Nelu Radonescu, a 36-year-old builder."

2) "The medical costs will be covered by the hospital's insurer, but doctors' unions have criticised the court's decision to make Prof Ciomu pay the damages personally. The unions claim the case could set a dangerous precedent, and doctors may refuse to carry out operations for fear of making a mistake. They said Prof Ciomu, a urologist and lecturer in anatomy, had been punished enough by having his medical licence suspended."

3) "The surgeon told a court he lost his temper after he accidentally cut the patient's urinary channel. He said it was a loss of judgement due to personal problems.

Mr Radonescu will use the compensation to pay for an operation to rebuild his penis, using tissue from his arm."It will never be the same, but if I am even a quarter of the man I was, I will still be very content," he said."

Clearly, anyone so lacking in self-control, judgment and concern for the welfare of others as this doctor has no business being a doctor at all!

I applaud "the court's decision to make Prof Ciomu pay the damages personally". - Well done! - If all medical negligence resulted in the negligent personnel paying substantial funds to their victims (rather than insurance companies paying) there would be an immediate and lasting fall in the incidence of negligence and consequent suffering of patients.

But surely, there should also be a criminal prosecution for the gross, wanton, inexcusible mutilation wrought by this surgeon on his innocent patient?

Woman dies after Entercom Sacramento's water drinking contest - FURTHER UPDATE

Death by Water and the Blame Game

Extract:

"At first police thought the answer to the criminal charge question was a simple ‘no’. The woman had taken part in the challenge voluntarily. No one forced her to drink nearly two gallons (7.5 litres) of water. Presumably she thought she knew what she was doing.

But then they listened to a tape of the radio programme and discovered that a nurse had called in to warn organisers their contest was potentially fatal. The DJs told the nurse they already knew about the dangers, according to the recording, and said the contestants would throw up before they died. They made jokes, even referencing the death of a student at a nearby college following a similar stunt in 2005.

One of the hosts, laughing, said: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK." Was it criminal not to pass the nurse’s warning on to the contestants? Should the organisers have researched the stunt first and made their findings public? "

In my previous update on this subject, I drew attention to the criminal implications. - I wrote:

"Should there now be a criminal prosecution of those most responsible for organising such an obviously risky contest which occasioned the death of this 28 year old mother-of-three? And should the radio company pay an exemplary amount of money to the bereaved young family of the dead woman?"

Saturday 20 January 2007

Compare "Salt Consumption connected to Obesity" with "Obesity and the Salt Connection"

Salt Consumption connected to Obesity

The Finnish researchers appear to have no scientific evidence to back their claim that “the increased intake in salt since has apparently played an important role in the increase in the consumption of soft drinks and, hence, also in the increase in energy intake." Increased salt intake certainly results in increased thirst, but sugary drinks are a poor choice to slake one's thirst, since sugar itself increases thirst. - If you want to know the facts about Obesity and the Salt Connection, read my Mensa article on the subject: Obesity and the Salt Connection

Jade Goody - late of "Big Brother" - the fitness video, the "healthy new diet", the "fitness regime", the liposuction and the lie

Apparently Jade Goody was not being quite truthful when she claimed to have lost 2 stone in weight by following a healthy new diet and a fitness regime. Apparently her new, slimmer figure was purchased in the form of liposuction. See article in The Sun.

Reportedly, she spent £4,500 on the liposuction.

All in all, it's a pity she did not know that the easiest, safest, healthiest way to lose weight fast is to make a significant reduction in your salt/sodium intake. - Yes, folks - and it costs nothing at all!...(o: - If you know Jade, tell her!

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, free information.)

Chips 'can increase the risk of infertility'. (So can obesity and salt/sodium intake.)

Chips 'can increase the risk of infertility'. - Worth reading! - It's the transfats, apparently, that cause this increased risk, but read further details in the report.

Being obese also increases the risk of infertility. And since obesity is caused by salt sensitivity, any woman wanting to increase her fertility would benefit from reducing her salt/sodium intake. - See aspects of health that are affected by salt sensitivity and salt intake

Also see information for pregnant mothers

BLOODY-MINDED - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

BLOODY-MINDED

Of course, my blood’s the wrong size, you know. It keeps slipping down and getting clogged up in my feet.

And then there’s my skin: there’s bits missing. And it’s not the regulation thickness.

You’d think they’d get the basics right, wouldn’t you? They couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery.

“I want the standard size blood,” I said. I told ‘em. “I pay my taxes like anybody else.”

“The Complaints Department is on the tenth floor,” she said. “There is no lift. All complaints must be made in triplicate, witnessed by a J.P. and certified by a Commissioner for Oaths. There is a small charge for this service.”

“What’re you on about?” I said. I told ‘er. Made it clear, I did. - And about not getting the normal issue skin. And the bones which have got gaps in. - You can’t let them get away with it, can you?

What did she do? you’re wondering. – Well just then I passed out because of lack of blood to my head. Came to outside the building with a piece of paper pinned on my left shoulder. It was a duplicated standard form J/7938/A/A. It said that my complaint was out of time, and that anyway complaints could only be made between the hours of 8.45a.m. and 9 a.m. and only on the fourth Thursday of the month. Furthermore they’d had no other complaints about faulty bodies; p’r’aps it was really my brain that was faulty, and that was a different department, and not covered by the guarantee in any case.

Margaret Wilde ©1990

Friday 19 January 2007

NHS blunders kill 200 a year - that they admit to...)o:

NHS blunders kill 200 a year

Extract

"More than 200 patients died last year as a result of mistakes made by hospital staff while another 1,800 were made worse during treatment, it has been revealed.

Some patients were given overdoses of radiation or had healthy organs removed in operations, while others died after being wrongly attached to medical equipment.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 2,109 events which could injure patients, staff or public - known as serious untoward incidents - were reported to health authorities in 2006.

At least 221 resulted in avoidable deaths, including a 76-year-old man who had a feeding tube inserted into his lungs instead of his stomach and a pensioner who was given air instead of pure oxygen.

Hundreds more patients were made worse while in hospital because of wrong diagnoses or mistakes in treatment, such as a woman who had chemotherapy and surgery for ovarian cancer when she never had the disease."


There is absolutely no doubt that the real numbers of people who lost their health, or even their lives, will be far, far, far higher than given in this report.

And what about the thousands of patients who lose their lives because hospital staff don't wash their hands between dealing with patients, thus spreading MRSA, with its devastating consequences? See thousands of hospital staff fail to

I have written many times (see other entries in this blog and see also my website) of the many thousands of patients greatly harmed and suffering early death because of cavalier prescribing of drugs that cause sodium and water retention and poor or non-existent monitoring of patients on these drugs, and because of the counter-productive, incorrect and harmful advice to lose weight by eating fewer calories. instead of recognising that obesity is caused by fluid retention, which can usually be considerably reduced by reducing salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

No record at all is kept of the numbers of steroid victims and other victims of this negligent prescribing which results in morbid obesity - unless the warning about sodium retention is given!

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.)

Thursday 18 January 2007

NHS invests £1.4bn in IT.

NHS invests £1.4bn in IT

What a colossal waste of money!

SPEECH IMPEDIMENT - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

SPEECH IMPEDIMENT

“Does that hurt?”

Rigid with agony, breathing arrested mid-inspiration, fingers digging into the arms of the chair, thrust skull pinning the headrest, she waited for the end of eternity – waited for the drill to stop. It stopped.

Limp and drained, she breathed again.

“Did that hurt?” he asked impassively.


Margaret Wilde ©2007

Woman dies after Entercom Sacramento's water drinking contest - UPDATE

The hosts of the radio show have been sacked.

Extract:

"A company spokesman, Charles Sipkins, confirmed the three DJs, as well as two other on-air personalities, “Carter” and “Fester,” were among those fired. Five other employees who worked on the “Morning Rave” also were let go."

Well that's a start. - I trust this will be the last of drinking-water-to-excess contests.

Should there now be a criminal prosecution of those most responsible for organising such an obviously risky contest which occasioned the death of this 28 year old mother-of-three? And should the radio company pay an exemplary amount of money to the bereaved young family of the dead woman?

Tuesday 16 January 2007

British Medical Association spokesperson says that treatment for gambling should be offered by NHS

BMA: Treatment for gambling should be offered by NHS

I don't agree. - I do not believe that there is anything to be gained by labelling gambling as a medical condition, nor by treating it as a medical condition, and certainly not on the NHS.

If people want help in giving up gambling, they can obtain it from an organisation called Gamblers Anonymous. And I believe that Gamblers Anonymous should be largely or wholly funded by the gambling industry.

Department of unsubstantiated obesity claims: Chewing gum to help tackle obesity...(o: (Professor Steve Bloom's work.)

Chewing gum to help tackle obesity

Extracts:

1) "The chewing gum would act as an appetite suppressant by releasing a hormone which would make the stomach feel full, according to Professor Steve Bloom."

2) "Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Professor Bloom said: "We asked the simple question, why do you feel less hungry after lunch and it turned out there was a hormone being released."

My comments:- It is food that makes the stomach feel full, not the hormone!

FACT: Obese people need more food/more calories than people of normal weight because they have more weight to carry around and a greater surface area from which to lose heat. It is dangerous for obese people to lose weight by restricting calorie/food intake. - See Guardian report 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.

But in fact, most obese people do not lose weight when they reduce calorie consumption and/or increase exercise. 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.

3) ""The idea of chewing gum was hit on because overweight people like to chew," continued Professor Bloom."

My comment: I wonder whether Professor Bloom has a scrap of evidence for this extraordinary claim? - Let us bear in mind that there is no evidence, even, that obesity is caused by overeating; it is merely an assumption that was first made many years ago and has never actually been put to the test. In this respect, it resembles the former universal belief that the earth was flat, and has been subjected to the same reasoning process, i.e. the reasoning that "it is obvious..."!! - Not very scientific...(o: - But then few could accuse the medical profession of scientific rigour...(o:

In fact, obesity is caused not by overeating, but by fluid retention, caused in turn by salt sensitivity in the groups of people vulnerable to sodium retention. I believe that all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to forget about calories and just eat less salt/sodium and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. - See my webpage about vulnerable groups

You can easily put my assertion to the test. - 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.)

Cloudy apple juice 'four times healthier'

Cloudy apple juice 'four times healthier'

Extract:

"Apple juice that is cloudy is up to four times healthier than its clear counterpart, according to a newly released report.

Cloudy juice contains four times the number of polyophenols, which reportedly help fight cancer, a research team at the Agricultural University of Wroclaw, Poland, found.

Published this month in the Society of Chemicals and Industry's Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the research found that the process of clearing juice removes the beneficial compounds present in the apple pulp."

Monday 15 January 2007

Woman dies after Entercom Sacramento's water drinking contest

Woman dies after water drinking contest

Extract:

"John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station's owner, said staff were stunned when they heard of Ms Strange's death. "We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred," he said."

What a thoroughly irresponsible contest! - The organisers obviously should have checked out the risks of over-consumption of water - and then abandoned this foolish idea for a contest. Let's hope they receive condign punishment.

Britain - New Public Services super database 'will improve efficiency'

New Public Services super database 'will improve efficiency'

Quick! - Just look out of the window! - There's a herd of pigs flying past...(o:

Sunday 14 January 2007

Another nice little earner for Britain's overpaid GPs! - GPs' piecework pay boosts chronic caseload

Extracts from an article entitled "GPs' piecework pay boosts chronic caseload" which appeared in the Telegraph on 14 Jan, 2007:

"New GP contracts could be open to exploitation by doctors, it is feared, after nearly 850,000 extra cases of chronic disease were diagnosed in England last year.

The rise follows the introduction of a contract which pays doctors when they identify diseases and provide treatment. It has seen their annual earnings rise 63% in three years to an estimated average of £118,000.

The greatest increase has been the number of patients with high blood pressure. An additional 371,000 cases were identified between the beginning of the contract in 2004/5 and 2005/6. As a result, the proportion of people officially suffering high blood pressure has risen from one in nine to one in eight, in a year.

At some GP practices, alarmingly high levels of disease have been identified. At one in West Yorkshire, one in 14 patients has been diagnosed with emphysema or chronic bronchitis, when on average only one in 71 patients in England is a sufferer. Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Teaching Trust admitted that the GP had "had difficulty in recording accurate data". At a practice in east London, one in 32 patients has been diagnosed with cancer when on average, only one in 143 patients in England has been diagnosed with the condition. The GP declined to comment.

Michael Summers, a spokesman for the Patients' Association said the findings were a cause for concern. "There appears to be a sudden onset of diseases that were not present one year ago. One could be forgiven for suspecting that in some cases, the sudden diagnoses were driven by the desire for a greater income. Some patients could be receiving treatment – and medication – unnecessarily.""


See also aboutsalt.blogspot 2006/09/01 archive

many doctors are failing their patients

sleaze in the medical profession

prescribed steroids - potential for grave harm

Saturday 13 January 2007

Brothers convicted over fat dog.

Brothers convicted over fat dog

I expect that the men who own the dog do not know that it is fluid retention that is the trouble and that it is caused by giving the dog food that contains salt. I know that many - very probably most - vets advise people that dogs should not be given salty food, but maybe some of them just haven't happened to mention it. Or maybe the customers simply don't realise how very important it is to protect their pets from salt.

Here is an extract from my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/:

"Overweight Pets

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."

UK dentist, David Quelch, who pulled out an elderly woman's teeth without anaesthetic "to teach her a lesson" has been thrown out of the profession.

Dentist pulled out teeth 'as a lesson' (UK)

Extract:

"David Quelch left the 87-year-old with blood pouring from her mouth after she made a complaint about previous treatment at his hands, a discipline hearing was told yesterday.

He was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Dental Council yesterday and the committee ordered his name be removed from the register."


I believe that in cases like this - professional malpractice and deliberate cruelty in order to punish and victimise a complainant - the police should be involved and there should be criminal procedures. I also think that this fellow should pay substantial monetary recompense to his victim without her having to pay a solicitor to take the matter to the civil courts, if she should so choose. - In my opinion, the General Dental Council and the General Medical Council are of little use to anyone other than the many negligent members of their respective professions, but at least they have, in this instance, 'struck him off', though incredibly they "found charges that he restrained her and against her will not proved."!!! - It would have been heart-warming if the GDC had had the power to order him to pay money to his victim, and had exercised that power.

Friday 12 January 2007

The Daily Telegraph asks on its pages today, "How can we save the NHS?" - Here is my simple solution.

The Daily Telegraph asks on its pages today, "How can we save the NHS?" - Comments are invited. (Daily Telegraph webpage) - Unfortunately my contribution was not selected for inclusion. - Here is (roughly) the comment I sent:

"Abandon the discredited calorie reduction advice as treatment for obesity! 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 British Medical Journal 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 fluid retention that causes excess weight, not over-eating. - Just look around you. - You can always see slim people overeating and not becoming overweight - and it is not because they are taking lots of exercise. - It is because they do not suffer from fluid retention.

Every overweight person has a problem with fluid retention, whether they are aware of it or not. This is usually caused by salt sensitivity, and the fluid retention can be lessened by reducing salt/sodium intake."

Give up the calorie battle! - Forget about calories! If you are wanting to lose excess weight, please try this simple, safe, healthy, risk-free, cost-free, drug-free way of losing weight - Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - See my website for further details: http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.) If you would like to get in touch with me you can do so via my website.

There are many other health problems associated to fluid retention/salt sensitivity, though they are seldom attributed to it. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Research inequality 'harming women's health'

Research inequality 'harming women's health'

Further evidence of sex discrimination against women by the medical profession...)o:

Extracts from this short report

"The exclusion of women from clinical trials and other associated medical research is putting the health of millions of women potentially at risk, it has been claimed. According to University College of London academic Anita Holdcroft, sexual discrimination legislation introduced in the 1970s has done little to rectify the "fundamentally-flawed" imbalances in medical research."

"Women may have a different drug efficacy or side effect profile to men. Only recently it was reported that eight out of ten prescription drugs were withdrawn from the US market because of women's health issues," she claims in the editorial of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

"With the advent to gender medicine as a specialty, a woman's reproductive status, menstrual cycle and contraceptive history [have] become significant in studying health and disease. In the UK we should seize the opportunity to establish gender specific evidence based guidance," she concludes.

"Commenting on the editorial, Kamran Abbasi, editor of the journal, described gender imbalances in medical research as "abysmal". "Professor Holdcroft raises fundamental issues not only for researchers and clinicians but also female patients whose care depends on translating relevant research into practice."This sexual discrimination might make the lives of researchers and sponsors of research much easier but it doesn't help patients," the editor explained."

Thursday 11 January 2007

NHS 'saves millions' by cracking down on fraud

NHS 'saves millions' by cracking down on fraud

Extract from the report:

"The NHS has saved 811 million pounds by cracking down on fraud, official figures released recently show.In the last eight years the service has launched a concerted effort to dispel fraud, and since 1999 patient fraud has fallen by a full 55 per cent, the figures from the NHS Counter Fraud Service indicate.And fraud by NHS workers themselves has fallen by 60 per cent, the service claims."

The most pernicious, widespread and catastrophically damaging fraud perpetrated almost universally throughout the health service is the unsubstantiated and constantly reiterated claim that obesity is caused by over-eating and can be remedied or reduced by reducing calorie intake. And the money savings bruited in this report pale into insignificance when compared with the vast waste of money and resources expended both by the NHS and by individual patients because of these false claims as to obesity's causes and remedies. But the greatest cost is, of course, the needless suffering and shortened lives of the victims of this medical negligence...)o:

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, not by over-eating, and the most severe cases of obesity are most commonly caused by inappropriate prescribing and poor or non-existant monitoring, of certain steroids, HRT, anti-depressants and other drugs, often in high dose, by NHS doctors who should know better, but don't...)o:

Read here about the deplorable political aspects of this sorry state of affairs: http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

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.)

Reducing the daily intake of salt can minimise the severity of asthma attacks, a study - in the International Journal of Clinical Practice - suggests.

Reducing the daily intake of salt can minimise the severity of asthma attacks.

Well I've been saying that for years! - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - See my website for further details: http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.) - If you would like to get in touch with me you can do so via my website.

Children’s packed lunches – are they even worse than turkey twizzlers? - A report based on a study at Bristol University

Children’s packed lunches – are they even worse than turkey twizzlers? - A report based on a study at Bristol University.

I have only read the perhaps abbreviated press releases about this, but in those I have read there is no mention of salt/sodium at all! - It is very important to protect children from high salt intake, because high salt intake in childhood is the main cause of child obesity. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - See my website for further details: http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.) - If you would like to get in touch with me you can do so via my website.

BEST FOOT BACKWARD - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Best Foot Backward.

“What you have to realise, my girl, is that your foot is really there. – The fact that I can’t see it and that you feel the need to wear a platform attached to your ankle is quite immaterial. Your real problem is psychological. Once conquer your obvious but groundless resentment of the surgeon who operated on it and the foot will return, good as new. You need to be open-minded about these matters, you know. We’re learning more and more about the invisibility of physical parts following lack of trust on the patient’s part. It used to be thought, for instance, that if a foot were there it would obviously be visible, but now we realise that this is far too simplistic a view. The mind works in strange ways. We are learning more and more all the time. – Why, only the other day I was reading about this. I could lend you the book. - It would help you a lot.”

“Look, Professor, this is silly. – My foot has been missing for over two years now. I used to fall down constantly without it until someone with a mind uncluttered with psychological hogwash made me the platform. That has enabled me to avoid many of the falls so that I feel somewhat better and can get about a bit and discuss the matter and pursue it.”

“Ah, yes – discussion – that’s right. You need to talk over your imaginary grievance with a psychiatrist – a sympathetic one, of course.”

“No. I have ventilated the issue enough with my friends. I do need to talk with you about the best type of artificial foot to use, since making artificial feet is your speciality.”

“Well I’ve given you ten minutes already. I really do feel that it’s twenty or thirty sessions of an hour or so with a psychiatrist that you need. It’s a lady psychiatrist I have in mind. Alternatively you might prefer to have your leg amputated. That would stop this obsession about a missing foot.”

“Look: I have a list here of other people who have missing feet, hands, etc. after being operated on by that surgeon. None of us is resentful. Many are outraged – including me. But the addition of the pseudo-psychological claptrap to the severe physical problems makes some people too ill to summon the energy to do anything but suffer. And one artificial limb maker rang me anonymously to say that many of the victims have died following particularly bad falls caused by missing feet.

“We only want you to ensure that all of us get the most suitable prosthesis possible and that the matter of the accidentally severed limbs be properly investigated so that others are saved from this distress in the future. We thought that in so physical a matter there could be no mistake but we were wrong. There seems no limit to the credulity of artificial limb makers – or rather, to the lengths to which they will go in covering up negligence.”

“I really cannot listen to talk like this. It is very upsetting for me. I must recommend immediate referral to a psychiatric ward. Totally away from the misguided friends who encourage your delusions, and out of touch of the similarly deluded wretches you mention, you may very easily recover your senses after a few years – by which time it will be too late for you to sue and that surgeon will have retired anyway!”

Margaret Wilde © 2007

Tuesday 9 January 2007

ITV's Bariatric Gastric Surgery as treatment for Obesity, Jan 8th 2007. Message for Ricky Grover.

I watched ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald last evening. It was a programme about 'Drastic Gastric Surgery', performed as a treatment for obesity, and was presented by the comedian, Ricky Grover, who is himself obese. The government has controversially recommended that severely overweight teenagers go under the knife. Ricky was considering having the surgery to help with his own weight problem. He has tried dieting and exercising but they have not reduced the obesity. The three sorts of operations were explained to us.

Ricky interviewed people who had experienced this surgery. Some were very happy with the surgery and its outcome, but very sadly, one person interviewed was a widower, whose young wife had suffered very great pain and had died as a result of the surgery.

I'm pleased to report that Ricky decided against such surgery for himself.

If you are wanting to lose excess weight, please try this simple, safe, healthy, risk-free, cost-free, drug-free way of losing weight - Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - See my website for further details - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

And if you know Ricky Grover, please tell him about my website... - I tried to email him from his website but my email was returned to me undelivered.

If you would like to get in touch with me you can do so via my website.

Hospital starved our grandmother to death, family tells inquest

Hospital starved our grandmother to death, family tells inquest

Monday 8 January 2007

Obese nine-year-old girls at 'heart attack risk'

Obese nine-year-old girls at 'heart attack risk'

Extracts:

"Overweight girls as young as nine years old have an increased likelihood of suffering from short and long-term cardiovascular problems, a far-reaching US study has found. The authors of the ten-year study from the country's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute are warning that girls aged between nine and 12 are much more susceptible to obesity than teenagers.

More than 2,300 girls aged between nine and ten were studied over a decade as part of the research, with their height, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol recorded annually until they reached 18 years old."

"Publishing their results in the Journal of Paediatrics, the authors add that overweight girls were found to be up to 30 times more likely to suffer from obesity later in adulthood. In addition, girls of African-American descent were revealed to be 1.5 times more likely to be become overweight in adulthood than Caucasian girls."

It is high time - more than time! - that health professionals and others should be giving the information that it is fluid retention that causes obesity and not overeating. - To reduce fluid retention it is necessary to cut down on salt/sodium intake - AND FORGET ABOUT THE CALORIE ADVICE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT WORK!

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.)

If you would like to get in touch with me you can email me from my website.

Friday 5 January 2007

Sex and Power - Women remain seriously under-represented in senior positions

Sex and power

Extract from the report:

"A "sex and power" survey of women in senior positions across the public and private sector in Britain says that 30 years after the Sex and Discrimination Act, women should be sharing power more equally."

Well I've got a good idea to help with this problem: We need sexist attitudes to be eradicated from healthcare provision, ideally by meticulously thought-out legislation, banning medical sexist discrimination by statute. If women were to be treated with the same care and concern as men are by doctors and their retinues, then their health would be much better and that would remove one unnecessary obstacle to their advancement in the workplace.

In the '90s, Sheena McDonald presented television programmes about this, and The Times national newspaper carried detailed and serious articles highlighting with statistics and with personal testimonies the demeaning attitudes encountered by women patients consulting doctors, in contrast to male patients consulting them with the same symptoms. Men were much more likely to be taken seriously and to be examined and sent for tests; women were more likely to be considered to be exaggerating their symptoms or imagining them, and to be offered 'reassurance' or worse, and sent away, possibly with anti-depressants. There were, of course, grave consequences to this medical malpractice.

How we laughed - ruefully - when a typical greeting was parodied! - To a male patient: "Good morning. And what is the matter?" - To a woman patient: "Good morning. And what seems to be the matter?" - But the parody is still all too close to the truth, and the humour is all too black and all too many women are harmed by this nonsense...)o:

And if you think that sex discrimination in medical services is within the remit of the Equal Opportunities Commission, amazingly, you are wrong! - I brought up the matter with them in Manchester years ago and was told that although they do hear from women who know themselves to have received poor treatment from health professionals because of what I could these days call institutional sex prejudice, they cannot assist because medical services are outside their terms of reference.

Anti-obesity drugs 'need safety data' - Canadian Research

Anti-obesity drugs 'need safety data'

Extract from the report:

"In light of the lack of successful weight-loss treatments and the public
health implications of the obesity pandemic, the development of safe and
effective drugs should be a priority," Dr Raj Padwal and Dr Sumit Majumdar
from the University of Alberta Hospital, Canada, said.

"We think that anti-obesity drug trials powered to show clinically important
reductions in major obesity-related morbidity and mortality should be
required either before these drugs are approved for widespread use or as a
condition of ongoing approval".


Well I'm pleased that someone is concerned about the safety of these drugs. But in my informed opinion, "trials powered to show clinically important reductions in major obesity-related morbidity and mortality should be required" to test the efficacy of the universal advice from health professionals and their retinues, that to lose weight, obese people must eat fewer calories and/or take more exercise, because such trials HAVE NEVER BEEN DONE and there is therefore no scientific evidence to support the advice that is being given, either for its effectiveness or for its safety...)o:

Obesity is caused not by excess calories, but by fluid retention.

All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium, and, preferably, eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, because the potassium these contain helps to displace excess sodium from the body. See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and in particular read about the politics - on page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - of the 'medical misinformation' which is the cause of the increasing incidence and severity of obesity.

Wednesday 3 January 2007

Britons blame cancer risk on 'fate'

Britons blame cancer risk on 'fate'

Extract from report:

"As stopping smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, eating fruit and vegetables and avoiding sunburn have all been proven to reduce cancer risk, Dr Lesley Walker, director of information at Cancer Research UK, said that education is a key issue in lowering cancer cases in Britain.

"It is alarming that such a large percentage of the British population do not realise that half of all cases of cancer can be prevented by lifestyle changes," Dr Walker commented. "We can give people information about how to do this but it is seriously worrying that so many people think cancer is down to fate." "

Extracts from my webspage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

"...most cancers have obesity as the biggest contributory factor..."

"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.)"


As my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ explains, obesity is caused by salt sensitivity and fluid retention, not by over-eating, and is most safely and reliably reduced by forgetting about calories and dieting, and instead cutting down on salt and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - It would be great, therefore, if Cancer Research UK and other Cancer charities would give the best advice to people, i.e. that the best way to reduce your risk of developing cancer is SPECIFICALLY TO EAT LESS SALT.

Tuesday 2 January 2007

British patients 'at risk from fake drugs'

Patients 'at risk from fake drugs'

But it's not just fake drugs that harm patients. Many prescribed drugs do them great and avoidable harm. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Have you made a New Year Resolution to Lose Weight? - PLEASE DO NOT TRY DIETING! - JUST EAT LESS SALT!

Have you made a New Year Resolution to Lose Weight? - PLEASE DO NOT TRY DIETING! - All you need to do is EAT LESS SALT. - To lose weight FAST, eat less salt and eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - FORGET ABOUT CALORIES AND DIETING! - Eating fewer calories than your body needs is likely to cause you health problems and will NOT make you slim.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ for further details. (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)