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.

Friday, 31 December 2010

New Year Resolution Suggestion: Give Up Dieting!

You've tried many diets. They didn't work. You know that dieting doesn't work. You know that you end up weighing more than before. To do again what you have done so many times before and expect a different outcome does not make sense. - Give up dieting! - Let the deadly dieting industry make money out of other people, not you, in 2011.

Eating fewer calories than your body needs is likely to cause you health problems like eating disorders and osteoporosis, and will NOT make you slim. - Here is how to lose excess weight without counting calories or going hungry: cut down on salt and salty food. This reduces the fluid retention which is the basic cause of overweight or obesity. You will definitely lose weight - and you will lose it rapidly and safely.

Salt/Sodium in foods

Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Vitamin D: good for your health in so many ways

Read Voice of America news item.

Many painful, crippling adverse effects from taking Levaquin or other Fluoroquinolone antibiotics

Johnson and Johnson has to pay damages to a victim. See Pharmalot.com item. - Be sure to read the Comments from other victims beneath the report. Doctors know too little about the dangers of the drugs they prescribe. Too many lives are being destroyed by pharmaceutical drugs.

Don't become part of the statistics. Avoid prescription drugs if you can.

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Vitamin D lowers breast cancer risk: study suggests

A new study has suggested that high levels of sunlight combined with a diet packed with Vitamin D can reduce the risk of breast cancer by 43 per cent.
Laboratory studies have suggested that Vitamin D may have a number of anti-cancer effects and has been shown to slow the spread of cancer cells.
Read article in The Times of India

Average man in the year 2000 over a stone heavier than he was in 1986

Scientists from Oxford University’s British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group have analysed data on body weight along with changes in the amount of food people consumed over the 15-year time period. See physorg.com news item. They found that the average man in the year 2000 is over a stone heavier than he was in 1986. But "Dr Peter Scarborough of the Department of Public Health at Oxford University, who led the research, said: ‘We looked at how much food was available over time, accounting for food that’s wasted or thrown away. It’s clear people are eating more, and today we’re seeing a continued increase in the amount of food available.’"

I don't myself find that Dr Scarborough's conclusion follows from the data. For one thing "the actual observed increase in average male weight of 7.7kg was much more than expected from the extra food available to men in 2000." The researchers then use the usual get-out of ascribing this discrepancy to a reduction in physical activity. - But remember, folks, exercise - even a lot of exercise over a long period - produces little or no weight loss, even though researchers constantly claim that it does. - Exercise is not the answer - not even part of the answer - to the increasing problem of obesity and its attendant ill-health.

For another thing, there is no mention of salt in the article, and yet the fastest, safest and most reliable way to lose excess weight is to reduce salt/sodium intake.

Thirdly, there is no mention of the constantly increasing number of pharmaceutical drugs being prescribed by GPs and other healthcare workers, when weight gain is a very common side-effect of many, or even most, prescribed drugs. These drugs include steroids, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics and many more that are frequently over-prescribed and frequently unmonitored. (The weight gain is because of fluid retention resulting from weakened blood vessel walls/ salt sensitivity.)

Fourthly, the research is funded by the BHF, who have as their constant refrain the need for calorie reduction and taking more exercise to lose weight, and yet that is not at all a good, or even a likely, way to lose excess weight. The BHF would be unlikely to publish or give prominence to research findings at variance with their reiterated advice. As likely as politicians on the make being heard telling the truth, I reckon. I am not an admirer of the BHF and its iffy advice and constant plugging of statins, a drug that does more harm than good to most of the people who take it.

So I would favour other factors as more likely reasons for the heavier weight of men. These would include as major causes:
1) taking more prescription drugs and not being told of the need to avoid salt and salty food when taking the ones that cause sodium retention/ fluid retention
2) the irresponsibly high concentrations of salt that food companies add to their processed foods and to their bread
3) dieting - by which I mean eating fewer calories than the individual's body requires and/or expending more energy by way of taking more exercise.
A lesser cause would be the increasing amounts of oestrogen in the drinking water supply because it and other sodium retention-causing compounds are excreted in the urine of women on 'the pill' or on HRT and so enter the water table.

And of course the heavier you are the more calories you need, both to carry your heavier body around and service its organs, and to keep the heavier body warm, since heat lost from a body is proportional to the surface area of the body, and the heavier person tends to have a bigger surface area than the lighter person.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Gifts we can all afford to give - every day

Gifts we can all afford to give - every day - include
a friendly smile
a sincere compliment
appreciation
a listening ear
consideration
kindness
thanks
help
useful information

I'm sure you can add more to the list yourself. I hope you all had a happy day yesterday.- I did. - It was great to meet some new people and to share thoughts and friendliness with them. - I wish you a happy day today.

Saturday, 25 December 2010

Indian study finds that most hip fracture patients are deficient in vitamin D

A study from New Delhi India has revealed high rates of vitamin D deficiency among hip fracture patients, confirming the conclusions of similar international studies which point to vitamin D deficiency as a risk factor for hip fracture.
Read article at physorg.com

Vitamin D is necessary for so many aspects of health and conversely there are a multitude of health problems that result from deficiency of vitamin D. - Worth making sure that you are not deficient in this vital vitamin, which is, unfortunately, the nutrient that research keeps finding most people in the developed world actually are short of.

Friday, 24 December 2010

Did you know there is a European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG)?

Did you know there is a European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG)? - They appear to have had a 'congress' last month: - I wonder how many 'child obesity experts' attended, and how much that 'congress' cost? And whether it has contributed an iota of anything worthwhile toward preventing or reducing child obesity. - I doubt it.

Let's just pick on one guy: Richard Storey. I don't know him or any of the other people who attended the congress. I've just arbitrarily picked on him. - I see that he is Chief Strategy Officer, M&C Saatchi, London, and that his brief is Communicating the messages of obesity prevention to the public. - What d'you think? Think he's doing a good job? Are the messages getting through? - Is child obesity being reduced? Are obese children learning how to combat their very great problems of constantly being insulted and sneered at and bullied and being given the wrong information and advice, and the wrong sort of food? - Or are the messages about obesity prevention that Mr Storey is giving out the same damaging, ineffective pre-digested gobbets of misinformation that obese adults and children have been force-fed for decades now?

If he's plugging the low-fat, calorie-counting garbage that the self-serving Food Industry pushes, then the incidence and severity of obesity will continue to soar. If he's saying that exercise promotes weight loss then he's helping no-one to lose excess weight. If he himself is slim and fit and thinks that 'eating less and exercising more' reduces obesity then he's plain WRONG, and if he thinks that dieting is helpful and that weight loss drugs and weight loss surgery have a part to play in reducing child obesity then I would profoundly disagree with him.

But Mr Storey may not be treading the doom-laden path I have envisaged. He may be giving the correct advice after all. In which case I'm surprised that it's not been headlined in the press and trumpeted in the broadcast media. Too much salt and salty food is the principal, the most important, the overwhelming, cause of child obesity. Children need to have a low intake of salt/sodium in order to prevent damaging fluid retention/weight gain and also to avoid developing a taste for salty food. Too much sugar can also cause unhealthy weight gain, but salt is a major culprit that most people do not know about. An obese child who is fed food containing no added salt will lose weight rapidly, easily and safely. - No dieting, no hunger, no drugs, no exhausting strenuous exercise: it's a no-brainer.

I invite Richard Storey to read my child obesity page, my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection, and the other information on my website, and to read some of the stuff on my blog/s. I wish him success in his mission.

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Are you unsteady on your feet? A bit wobbly? Prone to falling?

Are you unsteady on your feet? A bit wobbly? Prone to falling? - It may well be, that like me, upping your vitamin D intake would bring about a great improvement.

Here is news of recent studies that have found that for older people, taking exercise and taking vitamin D supplements is associated with reduced risk of falls. This was certainly my own experience, coupled with much greater muscle strength that makes it easier to rise from a chair, and much more confident walking. If you decide to take vitamin D supplements, then be aware that Vitamin D3 is the more effective version of this vitamin supplement. You could be saving yourself from a fall and a consequent broken bone or two. - Well worth taking the tablets...(o:

Vitamin D is one of the vitamins that are soluble in fat, so the best way to take Vitamin D supplements is with or after a meal that contains some fat.

It's also vital to improve your dietary intake, of course. - Healthy, natural, unsalted food, raw or cooked from scratch, is more likely to reward you with a healthy body than feeding it processed, highly-salted, sugar-laden, chemical-drenched, nutrient-low, denatured junk, isn't it? - Take care of your body! It's the only one you've got. - Saving money by choosing to eat cheap, processed rubbish instead of real food, preferably organic, is the most costly economy measure you could take, because it could cost you your health.

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Concerned about Animal Welfare? Access to pasture? Healthy food?

Concerned about Animal Welfare? Access to pasture? Healthy food? Then you may want to object to a proposed ‘mega-dairy’ in Lincolnshire, which if allowed to go ahead would be the largest dairy in the UK, with an initial herd of 3,770 cows to be increased to 8,100 when practicable. "Each cow would be expected to yield 10,000 litres of milk per year. These animals would be kept indoors for the majority of their lives, with little or no access to pasture." Read the Soil Association's webpage about it and how to submit an objection to it.

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Good News: 7 influential UK health groups are revising their position on Vitamin D

I recommend you to read the whole of this excellent article about the merits of Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, and about the harm done by not getting enough of this vital nutrient, often because of being wrongly advised by misinformed health experts. My personal experience is that by taking vitamin D3 supplements (my skin is too sensitive to sunshine for me to expose it to the sun much) my health has benefited immeasurably. I have not had a cold or cough or any other infection since I started taking the supplements, my muscle strength is much improved, my hair is in much better condition, etc.)

Sunday, 19 December 2010

Do YOU think that illegal drugs should be decriminalised?

Do YOU think that illegal drugs should be decriminalised? - Bob Ainsworth, a former Home Office minister has been calling for it. See this BBC News report. My personal opinion is that the overwhelming need is for legal drugs - by which I mean the drugs medics prescribe - to be very severely restricted, and I suggest that the heaviest prescribers should be charged with a criminal offence. And maybe we could have something like a 'Three strikes and you're out' system - three offences and they get struck off the Medical Register.

The main drug-pushers in the country are, of course, the doctors, largely paid by the state - and their recklessly high prescribing of drugs, most of which do far more harm than good, e.g. statins, antidepressants and antipsychotics, is arguably a primary cause of the drug culture pervading and damaging so much of our society.

Here's a contrarian viewpoint with information you may not have encountered before: The secret history of Big Pharma's role in creating and marketing heroin, LSD, meth, Ecstasy and speed.

Ten Food Additives to avoid

Read Top Ten Food Additives to Avoid. - Plus avoid added salt/sodium, of course, especially if you are overweight or have high blood pressure or suffer from breathing problems.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

NHS Cumbria's director of Public Health favours seasonal flu vaccine propaganda on Eastenders and other TV soaps

NHS Cumbria's director of Public Health favours seasonal flu vaccine propaganda on EastEnders and other TV soaps, as reported here.

If you favour staying healthy without recourse to vaccines or other drugs, and favour your TV drama unlaced with propaganda, then you may like to consider supplementing your diet this winter with Vitamin D3 tablets and with Vitamin C. Good nutrition is the safest medicine. Another way to improve your nutrition is to reduce your intake of salt and salty food.

Read this very informative page: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Vitamin-D-Deficiency.htm

See also www.vitamindcouncil.org

NHS appeals for blood donations because of low stocks

BBC News reports that the NHS is appealing for blood donations because of low stocks caused by bad weather.

Friday, 17 December 2010

Pfizer and its calamitous drug trials in Nigeria.

Pfizer and its calamitous drug trials in Nigeria.- Justice delayed is justice denied. The Law should serve the afflicted, not the Pfizer pharmaceutical company that harmed them. Read this article and weep for the child victims of Big Pharma and its corrupt associates.

Will oranges become the next frankenfood?

Will oranges become the next frankenfood? - Read farmwars.info on GM Oranges and China.

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Dangers for elderly patients who regularly take opioid painkillers

It is often the arthritis sufferers among elderly patients who most regularly take painkillers, because their pain tends to be chronic. Adverse side-effects are not uncommon, especially with the opioid painkillers, which include codeine, morphine, methadone and brand names such as Demerol, Percocet, Percodan, Darvon, , Vicodin, and Lomotil. The side-effects can be very serious, even dangerous, e.g. more fractured bones. Read this report on MedicalNewsToday.

Yet there is a completely safe and very effective way to reduce the pain/severity of osteo-arthritis, and it does not involve taking pharmaceutical drugs. - You just need to avoid salt and salty food as much as you can. - The less salt you eat, the less pain you will experience from your arthritis...(o: And, since you will also lose some excess water weight from your body which salt has been holding there, there will be less wear and tear on your joints, not having to carry so much water around. - So give salt the elbow, and say goodbye both to so much pain and to dangerous drugs. - See salt/sodium in foods.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Be amazed at how quickly your health improves when you stop eating salt and salty food

You really will be astonished at how quickly your health improves when you stop eating salt and salty food. - Within just a few days you will feel better, have more energy and be more mentally alert. If you are obese or overweight you will have lost some of that excess weight without dieting or counting calories. If you have high blood pressure it will be lower. If you worry about your high cholesterol that also will be lower. And you may well be having people comment on how well you are looking...
See Lose weight by eating less salt! and Sodium in Foods.

Saturday, 11 December 2010

Yet another Johnson and Johnson Product Recall

See JnJ recall of Rolaids after customer complaints of finding metal and wood particles in the product.

I reckon that taking painkillers is a habit best avoided, especially for children

I reckon that taking painkillers is a habit best avoided, especially for children. - Don't you agree? - And so I'd suggest not getting into the habit of giving babies and toddlers liquid paracetamol or similar after they have had an injection or taken a tumble. When I was a little girl it was unheard-of for children to be given pharmaceutical drugs to stop their tears. Instead their mothers would give them a kiss and a cuddle, and a special kiss on the poorly place to 'kiss it better'. Happily,unlike drugs, a kiss and a cuddle have no adverse side-effects. I offer this little couplet:

Give a kiss and a hug,
Not a painkiller drug.

Older children can be encouraged to be a 'big boy' or a 'big girl' when they experience pain and to be rewarded with approval for their stoicism. This could serve them well in later years. Our society is too dependent on pharmaceutical drugs, which, on the whole, do far, far more harm than good.

Friday, 10 December 2010

Tony Blair recalled to Iraq War Inquiry

Tony Blair has been recalled to appear at Britain's inquiry into the Iraq War for the second time. The former Prime Minister is likely to give evidence at a public hearing in late January. It is thought Sir John Chilcot and his panel were concerned about gaps and possible inconsistencies in his evidence. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion, cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and Lord Turnball, his predecessor, have also been asked to return. Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, is among those the panel has asked to submit written evidence.
Read article on the Sky News website

Tuesday, 7 December 2010

Butter: is Good, Better and Best

Here is an impressive array of the virtues of Butter. If you have been misled into believing, as I was misled years ago, that margarine was a healthier option and that saturated fats were bad for your heart and made you fat, etc then for your health's sake you need to read the evidence, which clearly shows that margarines are the baddies, and good dairy butter has been wrongly maligned both in the past and in the present. See what Dr Briffa has to say here and here. Here's what I wrote about butter last August. And remember, it's best for your health to avoid added salt, so buy unsalted butter for preference.

Sunday, 5 December 2010

Too much salt in ready-made Sunday lunches

See BBC News report. This is another instance of Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) homing in on a particular example of salty food and highlighting the worst excesses of the Food Industy's responsibility for that high salt content.

These groups of people are vulnerable to salt. They need to minimise their salt intake.

Saturday, 4 December 2010

Andrew Lansley, UK's Health Secretary, does not favour regulation to improve public health

It is shaming to read in this excellent Independent article, that Britain's Secretary of State for Health intends to reduce the regulation of junk food, smoking and cheap alcohol. And it is astonishing that a guy who was formerly a director of a marketing company with junk food clients, should have been placed in a position to exert such malign power over food policy. Britain has massive health problems, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, etc. that could so easily be reduced by banning food producers from adding transfats to foods and by putting legal curbs on the amount of salt/sodium that processed food manufacturers, restaurants and fast food takeaways are allowed to add to the food they sell. Lansley is seeking to promote the interests of the food and drinks industry, rather than the health of UK citizens. This is deplorable.

Are you vulnerable to salt? Here is the safe, sure way to lose excess weight fast by cutting down on salt and salty food.

Friday, 3 December 2010

Well done to the Daily Mail for campaigning about the appalling care provided to far too many elderly patients by our unaccountable NHS!

As readers of this blog already know, the NHS Complaints Procedure does nothing about complaints except make life harder for the complainants; it is a sheer waste of time and effort making a complaint about poor or negligent treatment. And Kenneth Clarke, the Secretary of State for 'Justice', is proposing to remove clinical negligence from the scope of the civil legal aid scheme, so no help there either for anyone brave enough to take on as adversaries the extremely experienced legal eagles employed by the NHS and the healthcare professionals.

So very well done to the Daily Mail for campaigning about the appalling care accorded to far too many elderly patients by our non-accountable NHS, and for making a large donation to the Patients Association, a charity that tries to help victims of poor NHS treatment.

Medical Journals Complicit in Corruption

"A growing number of prominent physician-scientists, including several former journal editors, and New York Times columnists, have written sobering critiques about the corrupting impact pharmaceutical industry influence has had on medicine. That influence has debased the integrity of medical research, clinical practice and medicine's institutions."
Read article on the website of the Alliance for Human Research Protection (USA)

EU disregards first ever citizens' petition

The EU hopes to set aside a million signatories in a petition, organised by Greenpeace, calling on the EU to ban GMOs.
Read article at euobserver.com.

Thursday, 2 December 2010

13% increase in written complaints about NHS and community services

The Patients Association reports a rise of over 13% in the number of written complaints about the NHS and community services, and Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive, deplores "stories of neglect, misdiagnosis and a distinct lack of care and compassion," and states that the number of complaints between 2008/9 to 2009/10 rose from 89,139 to 101,077, and that this is certainly a massive underestimate of the number of people who actually want to complain. She says, "We need a fundamental review of the complaints process. As a first step every person that makes a complaint should be asked to rate the response and that information should also be published. That will also enable us to pick up those Trusts making no effort to learn. At a time when the NHS is facing budget constraints, we want to make sure that the quality of care patients receive is not compromised and that staff and management become more open and more accepting of complaints and respond constructively when something goes wrong."

A previous Chair of the Patients Association told me years ago that she did not know of even one case of a complainant being satisfied with the response to their complaint. My own experience of the NHS Complaints Procedures is that the complainant is actually punished for making the complaint, and nothing at all is done to help the complainant or to prevent appalling treatment from happening again. Indeed, that the healthcare staff complained about are routinely protected from censure or sanction, ensures that poor treatment will be repeated.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Study links tricyclic antidepressants to increased risk of CVD

The Telegraph reports on a study that finds that taking tricyclic antidepressants is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease. These harmful anticholinergic drugs, the most commonly prescribed of which is amitriptyline, are well known for causing unhealthy weight gain and many other serious side-effects. See amitriptyline.

Since antidepressants do not work anyway, doctors should not be prescribing them. Don't doctors ever read research about antidepressants? Don't they care about the harm their prescribed drugs cause their unfortunate patients? The very tiny likelihood of benefit from them is far, far outweighed by the harm they do, and the risk of further harm, including brain damage in later life.

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

EU Consumers reject GM food

EU Consumers are still overwhelmingly opposed to GM food, new research published by the European Commission shows.
Read article at farmersguardian.com

More retailers are being asked to use ‘reared without GM’ labels

European supermarkets are coming under NGO pressure to label produce from animals reared on non-GMO feed, following a move from Carrefour.
Read article at foodnavigator.com

Monday, 29 November 2010

Low Carb, High Fat: LCHF. This is such an engaging little video about losing weight.

I apologise for its title, but this little video is really so good and great fun to watch.
It's from a Swedish paleo type movement, LCHF (Low Carb High Fat).

youtube

Note: Paleo is short for paleolithic, and refers to the (Old) Stone Age. Obviously Stone Age people had a very low intake of salt/sodium.

Sunday, 28 November 2010

The Telegraph reports that drug and cosmetics firms intend to eliminate animal testing

The Telegraph reports that drug and cosmetics firms intend to cut down on animal testing. - So drug firms and cosmetics firms are going to cut down on animal tests, are they? - Let's hope so! There's been horrifying cruelty along the way. And precious little benefit to the health or safety of the humans the testing is purported to protect.

Does testing drugs on animals result in safer drugs for people? - You're kidding! - What then has been the purpose of testing on animals the drugs intended for use by people? - The purpose of the testing has been to pretend that it makes drugs safer for people, and, most importantly, to allow the drugs eventually to be manufactured and sold.

You cannot trust drug manufacturers. - Avoid pharmaceutical drugs unless they are absolutely necessary. Take them in as small a dose and for as short a time as possible. Report any side-effects.

Bernard Matthews: A man whose debased food products have harmed the health of many thousands of people

The Guardian's obituary for Bernard Matthews: A man whose debased food products have harmed the health of many thousands of people. This obituary seems a fitting tribute.

I always think, in particular, of the school-children who were served his highly-salted, toxic, Turkey Twizzlers as their school dinners, thereby damaging their health at that time and also giving them the taste for salty meals that would continue to damage them throughout their adult years. Children need to be protected from salt and salty food.

The Education Authorities and the Health Authorities that permitted children's health to be damaged by perversions of food in order to save money and to prosper big business, share the responsibility for harming those innocent children, and for much of the nation's present ill-health by way of obesity, high blood pressure, heart problems, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis et al.

Saturday, 27 November 2010

Friday, 26 November 2010

Nutrition Science or Nutrition Science Betrayed?

The War for Nutrition Science Integrity
"The American Society for Nutrition (ASN), the largest society for nutrition researchers in the US, openly receives support from pharmaceutical companies like Abbott Nutrition and Martek Biosciences, genetic engineering and pesticide giant Monsanto, food processor ConAgra, and junk food suppliers and producers Coca-Cola, Mars, Kraft, McDonald’s, General Mills, and Kellogg’s, not to mention the Sugar Association, Inc. (among many others). Think about that: an organization claiming “excellence in nutrition research and practice” receives major funding from companies making drugs, pesticides, and some of the most health-damaging foods on the planet."

We must all stand up and be counted in the battle against pharmaceutical junk, food junk and manipulated junk science. Good nutrition should be our civilisation’s foundation and a legacy to be bequeathed to future generations. Our health is being sold by scoundrels and bought by arch-criminals.
Read article on the website of the Alliance for Natural Health (USA)

An apocalyptic vision of the future for Ireland's working class under the thumb of the EU and the IMF

Europe’s Dirty Secret: Financial Elite Looting Public Treasuries
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website

Justin Webb is turning me off the Today programme

I used to like Justin Webb's well-modulated voice and thoughtful contributions from America to the BBC News on television. I have a very different view of his work today.

He started off on the wrong foot by replacing Ed Stourton, a broadcaster of great intelligence and experience and unfailing courtesy to interviewees - a courtesy that accompanied mastery of complex material, and did not preclude rigorous inquisition when appropriate. I was sorry that the Today programme lost Stourton, though of course he is not lost to Radio 4 itself.

Webb has fairly recently fashioned himself into a boor with a posh voice, and his patently insincere and constantly repeated, "Sorry to interrupt you," coming as it does mere seconds into his interviewee's scarce-begun reply to a question asked by Webb, and in which you would think he had an interest, is turning me off Today. These ritual ill-mannered interruptions are not forensic questioning to get at the truth; they are an attempt by Webb to make a name for himself. - Unfortunately that name is Boring.

Thursday, 25 November 2010

Just say No to GMOs!

Just say No to GMOs! Read on responsibletechnology.org about how "GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems." Protect human health and the health of other animals and other species by saying No to GMO.

Thinking of having a flu jab?

Before deciding to to have the flu vaccination I recommend you read this thoughtful article, written by a medical doctor whose careful evaluations of the evidence I respect. I think you may then decide against having it. Speaking for myself, I haven't had a flu jab for many years - nor any other vaccination, come to that...

A good, natural, non-drug way to protect yourself from infections like colds and flu is to eat plenty of good food (i.e. not processed food) and optimise your nutrition, especially by ensuring you are not deficient in Vitamin D and other important nutrients. And hand hygiene/hand washing is very important because flu microbes can be passed from nose to hand and from hand to another person's hand or from hand to eye by rubbing your eyes, etc.

Avoid 'slimming', because insufficient food/inadequate nutrition lowers your immunity to infection and leaves you less able to fight it and to recover from it. If you want to lose weight, do it the safe, sure, rapid, natural way by avoiding salty and salty food and avoiding diet junk and weight loss drugs.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Improve your health by eating more like the hunter-gatherers and by avoiding added salt, and by avoiding pharmaceutical drugs

For millions of years our species ate what we might call for the sake of brevity a Stone Age diet. These 'hunter-gatherers' lived in the Paleolithic Age. We are separated in time from them by a 'mere' 10-12 thousand years. Our genes are our inheritance from those ancestors of ours, modified by natural selection over that geneological 'blink of a eye' since Neolithic, the New Stone Age, succeeded the old. This brought farming to the service of our kind. It was a mixed blessing: more food to feed more people, but a radical change of diet that caused some harm to the people who ate it.

The Paleolithic diet had mainly comprised meat, fish, nuts, non-starchy vegetables and fruit. The new foods of the Neolithic diet included cereals, i.e. grains. Grains make up such a large part of the modern day diet that it bears little resemblance to the hunter-gatherers' food of long ago and cannot logically be considered best suited to our species, the genes of which have not altered to suit it.

What 'food substance' have I not specifically mentioned? - SALT! - Salt is an even more recent newcomer to the modern diet. Humans started to eat added salt, it has been estimated, between 5,000 and 2,500 years ago, and in recent decades the food industry has, by adding copious amounts of salt to its processed foods, ensured that there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell that our bodies could possibly adapt to so massive a change from the low sodium intake of our ancestors to the very high sodium intake of our societies today.

The outcome is that modern food is unsuitable for the health and nutrition of most people today and this partly explains the growing incidence of what we have come to think of as the new diseases of civilisation - diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, stroke, dementia, etc. And of obesity.

The even more recent scourge that is afflicting our species is the rapidly increasing ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs recklessly prescribed by an over-powerful medical profession, under-informed about the harm their prescriptions do to their unfortunate patients.

You could improve your health, rapidly and immediately, by seriously cutting down on your intake of salt and salty food, by cutting down on sugar and cereals/grains, and by avoiding prescription drugs unless they really are necessary. - Why not start in this way to improve your health this very day? - You have nothing to lose but excess weight, some avoidable pain, and the unnecessary risk of degenerative illnesses. - I wish you Good Health!

The transgressions of the EU and the folly of the eurozone

The transgressions of the EU and the folly of the eurozone. Read these articles assembled here: Reject the EU!

Sunday, 21 November 2010

Suggestion for makers and sellers of tiny softgels

Some dietary supplement retailers supply their products in the form of softgels. I am currently taking supplementary vitamin D3 in the form of tiny softgels. I find them easier to swallow than caplets. But my, they are little rascals! - You tip the container to get one out, and if you are a tad too fast/clumsy and spill a few, then away they go like spilt quicksilver, eager to escape their bounds. I think if the manufacturers or retailers could imprison them in some sort of device to dole out one tiny softgel at a time when you depress a button it would save purchasers a few little searches over the kitchen floor...(o:

Overpaid top hospital consultants continue to ride the gravy train

The Telegraph reports that despite Britain's austerity measures and cuts in public spending, and the assurances made by the ConLib government - to overhaul the system, limiting rewards which currently give most consultants bonuses for life - massive lifetime rewards have continued to be awarded to the top consultants. The awards are meant to be for "outstanding contributions to patient care or research" and yet they are received by more than half of doctors! - How can more than half of them be outstanding? - The correct answer to that question, as you well know, is that they can't. It's got to be a fix, hasn't it? - Overpaid and on the make is a common moral failing in these materialistic days...)o: - Oops! - I forgot! - It's medical ethics, no doubt...

Friday, 19 November 2010

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims takes place on the third Sunday of November every year as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by RoadPeace in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.
Read article at physorg.com

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

Truthman speaks out against GlaxoSmithKline

Truthman speaks out here against nefarious practices by GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company. He writes about the illegal marketing of depression drug Wellbutrin as a weight-loss aid, and the tragedies caused by SSRI anti-depressants, including Prozac, Seroxat, Citalopram and Zyprexa, because of their grave side-effects. If you ever think of taking any of this pharmaceutical junk yourself, I urge you to ponder Truthman's words and the words of Dr David Healy, an expert on SSRI drugs, and think again. Improving your nutrition is far more likely to lessen depression than any pharmaceutical mind-altering drugs. Can you really trust GSK or other drug companies with the safety of your brain/mind when you read of their iniquitous behaviour? - Your brain is not infinitely elastic. Guard it from assault by psychotropic drugs.

Study suggests garlic capsules help to lower high blood pressure/hypertension

Read this BBC News webpage where there is a great deal more detail about this. Speaking for myself, I try to eat a few cloves of garlic a day and I believe it is doing me good. - A safe, rapid way to reduce high blood pressure naturally without using drugs (which always have undesirable side-effects), is to cut down on salt and salty food. This provides many other health benefits too. - Do yourself a favour and cut down on your salt intake. - You will feel so much better!

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food. I just lost it steadily during that time, without gaining weight at all except when I bought and ate a ready-made sandwich while I was out one day and that week gained a pound. (Bread is very fattening for overweight people because it contains a lot of added salt.)

If you are overweight/fat/obese, you too could lose weight easily and safely by eating less salt and salty food. There is no need to go hungry or to count calories and definitely no need to damage your health by taking weight loss drugs or appetite suppressants. Just eat less salt and salty food. - You will feel so much better!

Sunday, 14 November 2010

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today, 14th November 2010, is World Diabetes Day. Here is a page of links to good advice/information for people with diabetes or metabolic syndrome, and for other people to reduce their risk of developing diabetes. It is also helpful to cut down on salt and salty food.

Saturday, 13 November 2010

Department of Health favours Big Business over Public Health for its policy on Obesity, Alcohol and diet-related disease

Read Guardian article. "The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned."

I haven't read all of the hundreds of readers' comments published beneath the article, but I've read a lot, and not one of those I've read was other than deeply cynical about this catastrophic decision by the DoH. Even the catering company guilty of providing innocent school-children with salt-laden, additive-rich, nutrient-free crap called Turkey Twizzlers, instead of with proper food for their school dinners years ago, is to play a part in the advice given to the asinine DoH.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better.

NHS provides poor care for elderly surgery patients

BBC News informs us that "Hospitals must improve their care of elderly patients undergoing surgery, an independent review has concluded. Pain management, nutrition and delays were all highlighted as problems by experts from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death. Overall, just over a third of patients were judged to have had good treatment."

I heard this discussed on Radio 4's Today programme the other day and was dismayed that the discussion was steered almost immediately into focussing on the need for better pain relief. - I may be in a minority, even a very small minority, here, but I believe the strong emphasis on pain relief is counterproductive. - What is far more necessary and far more beneficial is to work at pain prevention. - This means the surgeons should perform any necessary surgery ASAP instead of after considerable delays which increase the pain and emotional distress, compromise nutrition, extend the length of hospital stay, and result in more complications and greater need for rehabilitation and caring. - As far as I am concerned, stuff the pain relief and the dedicated pain teams and the multitude of pain-killers with their many harmful side-effects! Concentrate on getting the surgery done as a matter of urgency and compassion, and providing nutritious food and good nursing to promote a speedy recovery.

Thursday, 11 November 2010

NICE issues draft guidance that broken hips should be operated on on the day of admission or the day after

NICE has issued draft guidance that broken hips should be operated on on the day of admission or the day after, as reported by the Telegraph, in order to reduce complications. The report states that "in some hospitals around half of patients wait longer than 48-hours for surgery even though evidence shows it doubles the risk of major complications and death."

Surely this is a no-brainer! If delay "doubles the risk of major complications and death," what on earth are surgeons thinking of? - How can they routinely be doubling the risk of their hip fracture patients (who are mainly elderly, and many of whom are frail and ill) suffering major complications and death? This is disgraceful. Is it an example of covert age discrimination?

The longer the delay, the more pain the patients will suffer, the more physiotherapy and other rehabilitation they will need, the longer stay in hospital, the more support/care at home. - All avoidable extra suffering, all avoidable extra expense.

I've never had a hip fracture, thankfully, but I've had a very complicated fracture of the humerus, which needed an operation. If I had had the operation within a few days, as I was promised on admission to the Northern General Hospital, I would have been back at home again within a week, I am sure, little the worse from the fracture. But because my agonising pain from the splint was discounted and it was almost a fortnight before the arm was operated on, there was massive damage to my right hand - mainly radial nerve palsy and ulna nerve injury - and my stay in hospital lasted a month instead of the few days it would have been with prompt treatment. My (dominant) right hand was completely unusable and intensely painful for months. No one in the system ever apologised or even expressed regret.

I needed many months of physiotherapy and occupational therapy before I could move the hand at all. - It takes you a few seconds to read that sentence. - Just think of having to cope with that yourself: months with a swollen hand, totally unusable and exquisitely tender to the slightest touch. And I have had to have carers to help me since then, though I previously had managed without. Are these inexcusable delays attributable to callousness, ignorance, incompetence or what? - They are certainly unnecessary and they benefit no-one.

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

If David Cameron speaks out on the subject of human rights abuses while in China

I hope the response he receives will include a reminder that the UK itself has an extremely poor record on human rights. - Read about Chemical Cosh drugs that are harming and bringing early death to many thousands of dementia sufferers. And the appallingly callous treatment in the Staffordshire Hospital that resulted in terrible suffering and premature death for hundreds of patients. And the many millions of UK citizens (mostly women) gravely harmed for decades by tranquillisers and other toxic psychotropic drugs which are still being prescribed by foolish doctors. - Just a few examples of the atrocious treatment far too many UK citizens routinely receive from the NHS.

Medical Journals Also Have Conflicts Of Interest

Much attention has been paid to conflicts of interest relating to the pharmaceutical industry, but where do medical journals fit in this equation? A new study notes that journals also have vested interests that warrant disclosure. Specifically, industry-supported clinical trials can boost a journal’s so-called impact factor by generating greater distribution of reprints that increase citation rates and, of course, revenue. The trials are often supported by drugmakers, which purchase reprints.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Novartis Downplayed Bone Drugs' Risks, Lawyer Told Jurors

Novartis AG officials downplayed risks that the drugmaker’s bone-strengthening medicines Aredia and Zometa could destroy patients’ jaws, a lawyer for a woman suing the company told a North Carolina jury. Officials of the Basel, Switzerland-based drug company got reports from doctors as early as 2002 that Rita Fussman and other cancer patients taking Aredia and Zometa to prevent bone loss during treatment suffered irreplaceable jawbone damage, Bob Germany, a lawyer for Fussman’s family, said in opening statements in a trial over the medicines.
Read article at Bloomberg.com