Obesity is on the increase in Scotland. Scottish people desperately need to be told the truth about how to reduce obesity.

BBC News reports that two-thirds of men and more than half of women in Scotland are now overweight. Well that's a great shame and much of that increase could have been avoided. It is about eight years since I contacted Bill Gray, who was at the time National Project Officer of the Scottish Community Diet Project, Scottish Consumer Council, and also others working in the same field. We wrote and we spoke on the phone. I sent him lots of material and evidence making clear that to reduce obesity/overweight it is necessary to reduce salt intake and that it is not necessary to diet or to try to lose weight by exercising.

This is an extract from what I wrote to him almost exactly 8 years ago:

"As I explained to your female colleague, I am not asking you to endorse my
advice.

I am asking you to tell people that it could be salt and water retention
that has caused their weight gain and that if they reduce their salt intake
they could lose weight. They have only to try it. They will then find for
themselves that they lose weight. Without the information that salt can be
the cause of weight gain they are highly unlikely to discover it for
themselves.

I have quoted to you EXACTLY what Sir Richard Doll wrote to me, but you seem
to have discounted what HE says, as well as what I say.

Why I say you have treated me shabbily is mainly because you are not a man
of your word. You promised, TWICE, to reply to my letters. You did not
reply. Your colleague, stammering and almost incoherent when I spoke to her,
also promised me a response. Again nothing. Good God! You would think I was
asking you to tell people something that might endanger their health rather
that enhance it! Cutting down on salt is entirely safe and completely free.
Just give the additional information that it could also cause weight loss in
the obese.

Why don't you have the courage to believe Sir Richard?

My MP has sent me a photocopy of a letter he has received from Pauline
Jackson, a friend of mine and another of his constituents. In a separate
email, I shall send you a copy of it.

THEN PLEASE COME BACK TO ME ON THIS.

Copying my stuff and passing it on to others in the hope that they will have
the courage to do what you yourself lack the courage for, is just a waste of
time and paper. They will be as cowardly as you have shown them that you
are. They too will be unwilling to put their heads above the parapet and you
will all continue to leave many THOUSANDS of people needlessly suffering all
sorts of health problems and all sorts of emotional and social and
psychological distress. Do you really want that on your conscience?"

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Canada Reviews Pfizer Executive Appointment To Health Board

Canada’s Health Committee plans to review the controversial appointment of a Pfizer exec to the board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the government agency that oversees health research in Canada, The Tyee reports. Bernard Prigent, Pfizer Canada’s medical director, was appointed last month to the CIHR’s governing council (see here). Last month, CIHR president Alain Beaudet said that he hopes to create closer ties with industry to ensure involvement and investment, but the move has stirred concerns since the organization is responsible for allocating research funding across the country, the paper writes. “There’s no place in our scientific organizations like CIHR for a drug company official,” NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, tells The Tyee. “It’s shocking that this government appointed the vice president of the biggest brand name drug company in the world, to the board of the CIHR which is supposed to be a body of independents and scientific endeavors free from any ties to industry at all.”
Read article at pharmalot.com

I'm Against Genetically Modified Food

I'm against GM food. I'd like GM food to be banned in this country. Maybe you too have views on GM food. Most people in the UK seem to be against GM food. I have the impression that the Government and the Food Standards Agency don't give a damn what members of the public think; they are in favour of GM food. I suppose there's some inducement involved somewhere.

The Food Standards Agency commissioned a report Exploring Attitudes to GM Food, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, containing the findings of a focus group, involving a sample of only 30 people.

The Telegraph has an article here about the report. I'd say the most obvious 'attitude' to which the report draws attention is the patronising attitude of the report's authors towards the people whose attitudes they are supposedly exploring.

Here are some websites that, like me, and maybe you, are also against GM food. There are many others.

http://www.gmfreeze.org/index.asp

http://www.bangmfood.org/

http://www.soilassociation.org/

Shocking Report: Irish Catholic Priests Sexually Abused Vulnerable Children and both Church and State failed to Protect Victims

BBC News reports on the scandal of decades of child sexual abuse by Irish Catholic priests: abuse that was covered up by church leaders who cared more about the reputation of the church than the welfare of the children, abuse covered up also by state authorities who allowed the church to operate outside the law.

The "Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin" covered a period from 1975 to 2004. "Instead of reporting the allegations to civic authorities, those accused of horrific crimes were systematically shuffled from parish to parish where they could prey on new, unsuspecting victims." The police regarded priests as outside their remit, showing deference to the church, rather than protecting children.

This is more than paedolphilia in individual priests. It is collusion in criminality by officials of the church and of the state authorities. Apologies have been made. Much more is needed.

The church has forfeited any right to deference any longer. I hope those guilty in any way will be pursued with the full rigour of the law.

Experts now say the recommended daily maximum salt intake of 6g is too high and should be lowered.

BBC News reports that experts now say the recommended daily maximum salt intake of 6g is too high and should be lowered.

Professor Graham MacGregor, said: "All the evidence now points that the target should be set lower. Getting it below 6g would give more benefit."

He said the 6g figure, set by the government's expert advisers back in 1994, had been "plucked out of the air" because the evidence at the time was not that good.

"We knew it was important to cut salt intake and we wanted a target that the food industry would accept."

Well not to put too fine a point on it, Professor MacGregor is being somewhat misleading in what he says! - Although the 6g figure was advised in 1994, for many years from 1994 on, the food industry ladled more and more and more and more salt into their highly salted convenience foods and ready meals and salty snacks and the government didn't start advising people to cut down on salt till round about 2003/4. (And if memory serves me correctly, the first advice given was max 7g a day for men and 5g a day for women. Years later it was changed to 6g a day.)

Recommendations made about salt

COMA

1 Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease 1994 This COMA report considered the evidence for a causal relationship between the consumption of sodium and both the level of blood pressure and the rise in blood pressure with age. A statement in the report said it recommended: "A reduction in the average intake of common salt (sodium chloride) by the adult population from the current level of about 9g/day to about 6g/day. There needs to be a gradual reduction in the amount of sodium from salt added to processed food and food manufacturers, caterers, and individuals should explore and grasp the opportunity for reducing the sodium content of foods and meals." The Chief Medical Officer at that time, accepted all the recommendations in this COMA report except for the recommendation to reduce salt. The reason for this is not clear but is believed to be pressure from industry. Department of Health (1994), "Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease", HMSO, London.

2 Dietary Reference Values 1991 This COMA report considered that: "Current sodium intakes are needlessly high and we caution against any trend towards increased intakes". It set its recommended intake for salt, as with all the other recommended intakes for nutrients, on the basis of the balance of risks and benefits, which might practically be expected to occur. The RNI for a particular population group is defined as the amount of the nutrient that is enough or more than enough for about 97% of the people in this group. The Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) for sodium for adults was set at 1600 mg/day. This is equivalent to approximately 4g of salt, if all the sodium was present in the diet as sodium chloride. This is considerably less than the present intake of 9-12g. Department of Health (1991), "Dietary Reference values for food, energy and nutrients for the United Kingdom", HMSO, London

I wonder why The Chief Medical Officer (Kenneth Calman, I believe) in the early '90s apparently did nothing to implement the recommendation of a maximum of 4g of salt a day, and apparently gave greater consideration to the desires of the food industry than to the health of the nation, and I wonder how many deaths and how much terrible suffering he was, therefore, personally responsible for? And I wonder why his successors in the post were so tardy in taking effective steps to give warnings about salt consumption? - Political considerations? - What though, could be more important in this matter than the health of the members of public - the electorate - the tax-payers, in fact?

I consider the failure until recent times to put pressure on food manufacturers and caterers to reduce the sodium content of foods and meals to be a dereliction of duty of successive political administrations and health departments. - I remember buying McCance and Widdowson's 'Composition of Foods' in the late '90s, at considerable cost, in order to discover how much sodium there was in food. There was no way consumers could get this information from the pack. - The people of this country have been very ill-served in this matter.

See my webpage about the Politics of Salt for fuller coverage of the issue.

And it is more than time for Professor MacGregor to tell the truth about salt sensitivity, especially that caused by the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs that cause weakened blood vessels, massive fluid retention and consequent morbid obesity. - I wrote to him about this OVER TEN YEARS AGO and yet he is still not telling the truth about obesity and the salt connection.

Urgent need for safer devices for injecting drugs into the spine and not mixing them up with other drugs.

BBC News reports that the NHS, prompted by the National Patient Safety Agency, is threatening to stop using current drug equipment in a bid to get firms to start making safer devices. They want to see an end to universal syringe connectors which can be used for jabs into both the vein and spine.

Wayne Jowett's parents have been campaigning about this since the terrible suffering and death of their son, reported here. See also here. Since Wayne's agonising and avoidable death, after the highly toxic drug vincristine was injected into his spine when it should have been injected into a vein, staff have been given extra training and there are now strict rules governing the separate storage of spinal and intravenous drugs. But despite improvements in safety, mistakes are still occurring.

Boots Pharmacies offer asthma sufferers advice on correct way to use their inhalers

The Daily Mail reports on a free nationwide service (funded by the NHS) offered at Boots chemists to people with asthma to help them to get the best from their medication and their inhalers.

Cutting down on salt and salty food helps reduce asthma problems and has many other health benefits too.

See Lowering Salt Intake reduces symptoms and increases lung function in people whose asthma is usually triggered by doing sports and physical activity

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Ban on particular vitamin and mineral food supplements from 1 January 2010 may contravene EU law

The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) has informed the UK’s food regulator, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), that the proposed ban on particular vitamin and mineral food supplements from 1 January 2010 flies in the face of the European Court of Justice ruling on the ANH’s case in 2005.
Read press release on the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) website (UK)

More bad news about cholesterol-lowering drugs

I recommend Dr Briffa's latest blog article on this subject. We read such a lot of inflated claims about statins and suchlike drugs, clearly underpinned by drug company cash and lobbying, and absurd suggestions that more and more people should take cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives as a prophylactic measure, that it's a refreshing change when a medical practitioner throws cold water on all the hyperbole.

Dr Briffa impresses me with his industrious reading of research material and by his rendering it more comprehensible for his lay readers. His blog is easy to navigate and contains a wealth of interesting articles.

Personally, although as a steroid victim my cholesterol reading is higher than it otherwise would be, I would never consider taking the drugs claimed/designed to lower it, partly because I've read so much negative stuff about them, but mainly because the best and safest measures to reduce risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke, are to avoid salt and salty food, eat good nutritious meals, avoid taking unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs and abandon dieting.

A reminder that cosmetics and skincare products sometimes contain potentially harmful chemicals

A timely reminder in this Telegraph report that cosmetics and skincare products used by women contain many ingredients and additives (a figure of 515 chemicals is suggested), some of which have been linked to cancer, hormone problems, skin conditions and allergies.

I know I sometimes look at the list of ingredients on these products and feel uneasy about some of them. - At least I now can buy body lotion and shampoo without SLS and parabens in the ingredients list.

Radio 4's Moral Maze programme this evening debated the apology from the Australian Prime Minister to the former child migrants

The panel pretty well always enrages me.

Claire Fox! Melanie Phillips!

The debate/discussion tonight was about the apology recently made by the Australian Prime Minister to the former child migrants who were taken from Britain and put into state-run homes in Australia where they suffered abuse and neglect. They were lied to, including being told, in some cases, that their parents were dead. They were separated from their siblings. The possessions they arrived with were taken from them.

Many terrible things. Some of the children were as young as five.

Gordon Brown intends to make a similar apology in January.

Now of course, the wrongs those children (and their parents) suffered were not perpetrated by either of those prime ministers or the present governments. And I've read in various places that that makes the apologies meaningless and useless. - But the people that say that are not the people who were harmed, and I feel that if the apology is something that gives some comfort to those who were harmed, then it's not up to someone else to object to it.

But those two women are major bullies on this programme, and Claire Fox in particular was arguing with one of the former child migrants. He was on the phone from Australia. He sounded a nice, level-headed guy. He said he was pleased that the apology had been made. CF kept interrupting him and saying couldn't he see that the apology was meaningless, etc. - The one who couldn't 'see' was CF! (If you want to read the very moving apology it is on this Telegraph webpage.)

If someone who has been grievously harmed, finds some measure of comfort in sincerely spoken words - which I believe they were, and which this guy believed they were - who the Hell is CF to try to talk him out of feeling that small comfort, and, in effect, criticise him for the way he feels?

(I really need to resolve not to listen to this ghastly programme any more. The views expressed by the two women nearly always appal me. Michael Portillo seems to be the most human member of the panel.)

Further severe criticism of poor NHS treatment of elderly patients and dementia patients

BBC News reports further severe criticism by the Alzheimer's Society of NHS treatment of elderly patients and dementia patients. Half of all dementia sufferers leave hospital in a worse state than when they arrived.

"The Patients' Association said it was a "sad indictment" of the priority our society gives to elderly people.

"There is now an overwhelming amount of evidence that elderly patients are being neglected in hospitals across the NHS.

"Whether they have dementia or not, if they are in need of help with personal care many of them won't get it. Time after time the issue is raised, but the problems continue.""

And of course NHS Complaints Procedures are Orwellian in the extreme. Nothing gets improved.

The NHS is extremely expensive and so much of the vast expense is wasted and compounded by providing poor and damaging treatment for the most vulnerable patients, who are most in need of care and compassion. - And heaven help you if you haven't any family to visit and stick up for you!

Dame Joan Bakewell highlights ageist attitudes and poor care for elderly people by NHS and in care homes.

Dame Joan Bakewell has drawn attention to ageist attitudes, neglect and poor care for elderly people by the NHS and in care homes. See Telegraph report.

GMOs cause 'genetic pollution'

A conference has heard that "genetic pollution" is being "imposed" on the public via GMO products. French ALDE deputy Corinne Lepage told the hearing that any supposed advantages of GMO products were "hugely outweighed" by the disadvantages. Lepage, vice-chair of the environment committee, said, "We in Europe are very fortunate that we have very few GMO products, particularly compared with the United States. "However, we must continue to make every effort to press for GMO-free agriculture."
Read article at theparliament.com

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is in our food as well as our bodies

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — about six pounds weight per American per year. More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike. Now it turns out it’s in our food.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

The treatment of Alzheimer's disease patients in UK hospitals is a 'disgrace'

The Telegraph reports that the treatment of Alzheimer's disease patients in Britain's hospitals is so poor that many relatives are driven to complain, and many more would like to complain. Some patients are going hungry because they were not helped to eat or drink and many are generally treated with a lack of basic dignity and respect. The Alzheimer’s Society has said that the situation is a “disgrace”.

Dementia is by no means an inevitable consequence of aging. You can reduce your risk of developing dementia or any of a host of illnesses commonly, but inaccurately, attributed to aging, by avoiding dieting, by avoiding taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary, and by seriously cutting down on your intake of salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Experts are now advising that the daily intake of calories should be increased by 16%

BBC News reports change in calorie intake advice. Apparently the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition is now advising that the daily intake of calories should be increased by 16%, but that this increase in calories in should be accompanied by increasing exercise, i.e. calories out. - If you think that this advice sounds amazingly like maintaining the status quo, then you and I are in agreement.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, ever-ready with an ill-judged comment laced with prejudice against a stereotype of overweight people, said it was a "dangerous assumption" to say that adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day. What nonsense! Slim people regularly eat far in excess of the recommended daily calorie allowance and never gain weight.

I say again that excess calorie consumption is not what is causing increasing numbers of overweight and obese people. The cause is fluid retention/salt sensitivity, occasioned mainly by
1) prescription drugs that weaken blood vessel walls and impair kidney function,
2) salt-laden processed foods and
3) dangerously ill-informed advice from doctors, nutritionists and the dieting industry.

Avoiding salt and salty food is the SAFE, healthy, natural, effective, RAPID way to lose weight!

See Sodium in foods

Lose Weight

Vulnerable Groups

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today is World Diabetes Day. - The most common type of diabetes is type 2 diabetes. If you want to avoid developing type 2 diabetes you need to avoid becoming obese, because obesity is very strongly linked to type 2 diabetes. To avoid becoming obese you need to reduce your intake of salt and salty food, because salt/sodium increases fluid retention/weight gain in people who are vulnerable/sensitive to salt.

See Vulnerable Groups and
Lose Weight and
Children and Obesity

Eating walnuts may be helpful for diabetics

Walnut-rich diet may boost diabetic heart health
Daily consumption of walnuts, rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, may improve the health of blood vessels, thereby decreasing the risk of heart disease, says a new study from Yale. Supplementing the diet of middle aged diabetics with 56 grams of walnuts led to significant improvements in the function of the blood vessel lining (endothelium), and there was also a trend towards improved cholesterol levels, according to findings published in Diabetes Care.
Read article at nutraingredients-usa.com

HPV Vaccine Researcher Drops A Bombshell

Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15. Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. Although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, participants said they came away convinced the vaccine should not be received.
Read article in Alliance for Human Research Protection

Reckless over-prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs (so-called chemical cosh) to care home residents continues.

The Telegraph again carries a report on the reckless overprescribing of anti-psychotic drugs (so-called chemical cosh) to care home residents.

That many of the residents suffer from dementia is no excuse for dosing them with these harmful drugs, because anti-psychotics are rarely appropriate for dementia. The article says that, "Only around 36,000 of the 180,000 people on the drugs in the UK derive any benefit from them," and that "Over-prescribing of the drugs is linked to an extra 1,800 deaths a year among elderly people."

The matter was being reported and discussed on the radio today and I heard a medic blaming the care homes for this scandalous practice, and a care home spokesperson blaming the GPs. - Well there's a great deal of blame to share out! - While it's clearly the prescribers who are mainly to blame, there is equally clearly no proper regulation of this dangerous prescribing. - and here surely blame lies with the government for giving doctors a pretty free hand (misnamed 'clinical judgment!) in their reckless prescribing habits. Blame also lies with the Department of Health and the NHS. And a whole heap of blame lies with the drug companies, who are the main beneficiaries of this wicked, cruel perversion of health care.

It isn't as if they don't know about the harm done. - To quote further from the article:

"Paul Burstow, a Liberal Democrat MP who has led a 10-year campaign highlighting the risks of over and inappropriate prescribing, said: "This review comes much too late for thousands of elderly people whose lives have been cut short by the reckless prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs.

"The evidence that anti-psychotic drugs do more harm than good has been mounting for years. There is next to no benefit for the older person and prolonged prescribing can lead to premature death.

"The Government has sat on this review for long enough. What is needed now is leadership and a relentless drive to end abusive prescribing.""

It is my considered opinion that many of these avoidable deaths should be regarded as manslaughter, and that the harm done to health not resulting in death should be regarded as actual or as grievous bodily harm, i.e. crimes have been committed.

Sort out the blame. Get the offenders tried in court. Some of them surely would warrant custodial sentences. Most should never be allowed near a prescription pad or a patient again.

A few doctors and drug company executives in prison would ensure a rapid reduction in this terrible cruelty inflicted on vulnerable people by the medical profession who often claim that they 'first do no harm'.

Thinking Allowed with Professor Laurie Taylor

If you have never listened to the Radio 4 programmes called Thinking Allowed with Professor Laurie Taylor, I’d like to recommend that you give them a try. Laurie Taylor is an excellent presenter, always on top of his subject, always with interesting topics and always with knowledgeable people in the field for discussion and information.

Currently he is tackling the subject of White Collar Crime, a rather more serious topic than is usually his wont. Details are here: Thinking Allowed, and on that page is the facility to listen to the 30 minute programme on the BBC’s iPlayer.

In the notes for the programme it says:
“In a series of special programmes in association with the Open University, Laurie Taylor explores the subject of white collar crime, from its late addition to the statute books to the increasing difficulty in securing a conviction. He speaks to the key academic experts in the field, explores the latest sociological research and hears from professionals on both sides of the law about the culture, the practice and most often the non-prosecution of white collar crime.

In this edition, Laurie explores the culture of corporate crime and how regulatory bodies serve to keep the police at arm’s length. In the UK, people are twice as likely to suffer a serious injury at work than to be a victim of violent crime, yet only a fraction of safety crimes are actually prosecuted.

Globally, more people are killed at work each year than are killed in war. Why has corporate crime had a low priority, why has it been so hard to prosecute corporations and will the new crimes of corporate manslaughter and corporate murder make firms more responsible for the crimes they commit?”

I wish it would include the terrible harm that healthcare professionals so often perpetrate on their innocent patients, usually with near-impunity, since the General Medical Council and similar bodies are lenient paper tigers, of no use whatever in protecting the public from medical negligence and medical ignorance, particularly in relation to the ghastly effects of doctors’ reckless over-readiness to prescribe powerful, dangerous drugs when ill-informed about their side-effects, and in relation to their woeful lack of understanding about how obesity comes about and how best to treat it. Maybe in a future programme this largely taboo subject will be broached. We can but hope.

EU GMO-labelling laws fail consumers

France is poised to become the latest in a growing trend of European countries to introduce GMO-free labels for food in a bid to counter weaker EU standards and to compensate for a loophole in European labelling laws. Currently, EU labelling laws mean meat, dairy and eggs from animals fed with genetically modified animal feed do not have to be labelled.
Read article on the Friends of the Earth Europe website

Surely feeding chicken faeces to cattle must risk spread of infection?

FDA urged to ban feeding of chicken feces to cattle
Food and consumer groups say the practice increases the risk of cattle becoming infected with mad cow disease.
A fight is brewing over the practice of feeding chicken feces and other poultry farm waste to cattle. A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the practice.
Read article in the Los Angeles Times (USA)

Personally, I don't see how anyone could ever come up with the idea of considering a bacteria-laden waste product a suitable feed for animals.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity problems associated with low folate levels in expectant mothers

It has long been suggested that healthy folate (the natural form of folic acid) levels in expectant mothers goes hand in hand with healthy nervous system development in their children. A study published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry finds that low maternal folate levels is linked to the development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity problems in children at age seven to nine years.
Read article at physorg.com

GPs are being warned yet again to prescribe fewer antibiotics.

BBC News reports that GPs are once again being warned to prescribe fewer antibiotics. "The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control has warned if trends continue it will make it harder for hospitals to carry out operations. The UK has seen rates of antibiotic resistance rise in recent years. For example, rates of E. coli infections showing signs of resistance have trebled to 12% since the turn of the century."

The phenomenon of diseases becoming resistant to the drugs used to fight them has been known since the 1950s. (See this interesting library archived report Crofton J. The MRC randomized trial of streptomycin and its legacy) Despite this, GPs have routinely, recklessly and unashamedly continued to over-prescribe antibiotics, in many cases quite inappropriately, thereby compromising the recovery chances of very ill patients, their usual excuse being that the patient insisted on having antibiotics.

We need sanctions to be taken against these doctors who are putting so many people's lives and health at risk. - Sanctions would be more effective than a 'warning'.

You don't need diet food to lose weight; you need unsalted food.

Give up dieting and eating diet junk! - Avoiding salt and salty food is the SAFE, healthy, natural, effective, RAPID way to lose weight!

See Sodium in foods and Lose Weight

And visit The Truth About Obesity

Prescription drugs can make you very thirsty

There are many prescription drugs that often cause great thirst, particularly if you are taking a high dose. These include:
antidepressants, especially amitriptyline,
steroids, including prednisone, prednisolone, cortisone and hydrocortisone,
HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like some birth control medication (contraceptives),
some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs,
and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

The thirst is because sodium retention/fluid retention/weight gain/salt sensitivity is a harmful side-effect of these drugs. To prevent or reduce the weight gained, you need to cut down on salt and salty food, because the sodium retention has made you sensitive to salt.

See amitriptyline
prescribed steroids and HRT

Vast overspend on the London 2012 Olympics

The Telegraph reports a vast overspend on the London 2012 Olympics. - I'll bet that comes as no surprise to anyone. By now there must be few people who believe a word that government ministers say/promise.

My personal opinion is that we should never have tendered for these Olympics. I don't know even one person who was/is in favour of having the Olympics in Britain. The claims that it would inspire youngsters to take up sport and athletics, and improve fitness and reduce obesity, were glib, ludicrous and false. Exercise does not reduce obesity, however often that claim is made and however important the person making the claim.

Let's look at some of the main official 'partners'/sponsors of the games: aha! - those well-known fit and healthy companies, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s! - They'll do a lot for children's health and fitness, to be sure!

Children's health is best served by protecting them from highly salted food like McDonald’s mainly provides, and protecting them from heavily sugared junk drinks like Coca-Cola. High salt intake in childhood is a major cause of obesity and the host of chronic illnesses that are associated with obesity.

See Children and Obesity

Lose Weight

Sodium in foods

100,000 cancer cases a year caused by obesity

CNN reports American researchers' claim that 100,000 cancer cases a year are caused by obesity. I can well believe that. - But what causes the obesity in the first place? - No, it's not caused by greed and inactivity; it's caused by fluid retention, and fluid retention in its turn often leads to fat retention. - Want to know more?

See FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Hundreds of deaths a year in British hospitals associated with poor health care

The Telegraph reports that the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) say that poor care contributed to at least some of the more than 3,000 deaths they analysed. "One in three patients who died within days of being admitted did not receive acceptable standards."

I urge you to read the report, which is described as "shocking".

Around 300,000 people die every year in British hospitals.

Nearly 40% of breast cancer tumours change form when they spread

BBC News reports that breast cancer is more complex than was previously realised. "Lead researcher Dr Dana Faratian said: "We were surprised that such a high proportion of tumours change form when they spread beyond the breast. This suggests there is a need to test which type of disease a woman has in the lymph nodes, because it could radically alter the course of treatment she receives. We now need a clinical trial to see how these results could benefit patients.""

You can reduce your risk of developing breast cancer by avoiding salt and salty food and eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables. And in particular be aware that many prescription drugs increase the risk of most cancers, including breast cancer. - The drugs that increase the risk of cancer are mainly the drugs that cause weight gain/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, and these include many steroids, HRT and other oestrogen-containing drugs, many antidepressants (especially amitriptyline), anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

And see Sodium in foods

Healthy people are again being advised not to take daily aspirin to help to prevent heart attack or stroke, because of the increased risk of bleeding

The Telegraph reports that healthy people are again being advised not to take daily aspirin to help to prevent heart attack or stroke. The increased risk of potentially deadly stomach bleeding because of taking aspirin greatly outweighs any benefit the aspirin might confer.

An excellent, completely safe way to lower the risk of heart attack or stroke is to cut down on salt and salty food. Pharmaceutical drugs always carry risks of adverse side-effects, which, as in the case of stomach bleeding, can sometimes cause death. "The known deadly side-effects of prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in the industrialized world" (see article about the Pharmaceutical Business) so it's obviously safer to avoid potentially harmful pharmaceutical drugs if you can, especially if there is a good, drug-free therapy. Cutting down on salt/sodium benefits your health in a multitude of ways.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

and FAT RETENTION

FDA fails to take action on useless pharmaceutical drugs

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs for cancer and other diseases to stay on the market even when follow-up studies showed they didn't extend patients' lives, say congressional investigators. A report from the Government Accountability Office also shows that the FDA has never pulled a drug off the market due to a lack of required follow-up about its actual benefits - even when such information is more than a decade overdue.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

Struck off paediatrician Professor David Southall, UNICEF and possible harm done by vaccines

Thought-provoking article by Christina England in the American Chronicle about the struck off paediatrician Professor David Southall, UNICEF and possible harm done by vaccines.

I've written about this guy before...)o: