Many people who were not sensitive to salt become so when they take certain prescription drugs

Many people who were not sensitive to salt become so when they take certain prescription drugs. - Yes. These are some of the pharmaceutical drugs that cause salt sensitivity and a host of associated health problems: amitriptyline and the other tricyclic antidepressants, also many prescribed steroid meds, including HRT and some birth control meds, also Epilim and other anticonvulsants, and some painkillers, and some anti-psychotic drugs. And you can read here about other groups of people who are or who can become vulnerable to salt in different ways.

A reminder about the high levels of salt in bacon

A few days ago the Guardian reported that CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) has again warned about the high salt content of bacon, and has described it as "now the second-biggest source of salt in the UK diet after bread." - Me, I sometimes describe it as laden with salt. One of the reasons the food manufacturers make it so salty is so that they can get away with adding more water to it, because salt helps to hold water in a product. This enables salt water to be sold at the same price as the bacon which holds it, and accounts for that off-putting feature, when frying bacon, of seeing water vapour rising from it as some of the water content is driven out by the heat. 

 

If you have high blood pressure, or if you are overweight - particularly if you are overweight as a result of taking anti-depressants or prescribed steroids or anti-epileptics or anti-psychotics - then cutting down on salt-laden food like bacon would benefit your health immensely and you would feel sooo much better. - Go on! - Give it a try!

Criminal fine for J & J drug company re Risperdal anti-psychotic

"Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay as much as $2.2 billion to resolve an investigation into its marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, according to a published report."
Read article in the Houston Chronicle (USA)

Johnson and Johnson: heavy fine for misleading doctors about adverse effects of Risperdal antipsychotic

So Johnson and Johnson have been sued again, been in court again, and been fined again, as reported here by BBC News. They have been understating the seriousness of the side-effects of Risperdal anti-psychotic, and a fine of $1.1bn (£690m) makes clear the gravity of the offence. Pharmaceutical drug companies are notorious for their practice of avoiding giving information about the potential harm their products can cause. But sizable fines like this one do not deter them from repeating the offending behaviour. Why is this? - Well it's because these large fines make little dent in their huge profits . And even more pertinently, corporate fines do not deter the individuals largely responsible for the harmful misinformation. This is a feature of most white-collar crime, and it is perhaps the main reason the criminal practices continue. The personnel who profit so handsomely with massive salaries clearly feel no moral qualms at the horrifying and needless suffering they inflict on the innocent patients/victims who take their vile meds. Risperdal "increased the risk of strokes and death in elderly dementia patients, could lead to seizures, major weight gain, onset of diabetes and potentially fatal high blood sugar."

If you click on the Johnson and Johnson label beneath this post, you will bring up other instances of J & J's corrupt business practices. The guilty individuals should have to appear in the criminal court, where they could receive a prison sentence appropriate to the gravity of the damage their dangerous drugs have inflicted.This would be far more effective in curbing the excesses of the drug companies.

If your medication causes sodium retention you will gain weight and may become obese

There are many medications that cause sodium retention/fluid retention/water retention/weight gain/obesity/edema/swelling. Here are some of them: steroids and HRT, most antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, anticonvulsants, and more.

If you have become overweight/obese because of drug-induced sodium retention, you need to reduce your salt intake in order to lose weight. If you do not reduce your salt intake you will continue to gain weight, regardless of how many or how few calories you eat.

Antipsychotics kill five UK dementia sufferers every day

The Telegraph reports that antipsychotics kill five UK dementia sufferers every day and that at last meaningful action is being proposed to instruct doctors to review all antipsychotics prescriptions and to seek to reduce them by finding “therapeutic alternatives” to these harmful drugs.

Harmful antipsychotic drugs are still being wrongly prescribed to dementia sufferers

BBC News reports that harmful antipsychotic drugs are still being widely and inappropriately prescribed to elderly dementia sufferers. "More than 50 health and social care organisations are calling for fresh action to cut the prescription of "chemical cosh" drugs. Around 180,000 people with dementia are thought to be prescribed antipsychotic drugs in the UK. But 80% of those prescriptions are said by critics to be inappropriate. Long-term use of the drugs can make dementia symptoms worse, reduce the ability to talk and walk and increase the risk of stroke and even death."

Study: Ineffective, harmful antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed more and more, without good reason

Study finds that ineffective, harmful antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed more and more, without good reason, as reported here. Increasingly these powerful drugs, with their many ghastly adverse side-effects, have been prescribed 'off-label', even to children! (Off-label drugs are those prescribed by doctors for purposes not approved by the FDA.) This damnable pharmaceutical junk causes terrible physical, emotional and mental suffering and it destroys lives!

Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, is chairman of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University, and was not involved in the study. But he tells us the reason for this off-label prescribing: “Off-label prescribing is an important component of practice,” Lieberman says. “The reason is that it really takes a lot of money for a drug company to jump through all the hoops to get an FDA indication. There may be good evidence that a drug is effective in a given condition, but the company doesn’t see enough of a market there to get it approved.”

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, straight from the mouth of a psychiatrist: all that prescribing of drugs that cause such great suffering to innocent patients, including children, is in order that drug companies cover the costs of jumping through "all the hoops" to get FDA approval!

But the most important hoop should be that a drug is safe. And the next most important hoop is that a drug is effective - that it 'does what it says on the tin'.

Periodically, these evil drug companies and their complicit stooges, the medically qualified prescribers of these toxic drugs, get some sort of punishment following court cases, and usually it is that the companies have to pay money - fines and/or damages. Sadly, the money they have to pay is insignificant in comparison to the huge profits they have raked in from selling the drugs, and so the punishment for their wrongdoing does not deter them from repetition of the wrongdoing.

The CEOs of the companies should be punished personally, with the full rigour of the Law. A long spell in prison is more likely to deter them from continuing to harm people for company profits. - OR - and here is a radical suggestion! - since they favour off-label prescribing for conditions not covered by their licence to use the drug - why not inflict the drug on them while they are in the prison? - I have a firm belief that by themselves suffering the adverse side-effects, they would be completely cured of encouraging off-label drug use again, provided it were to be made clear to them that they would receive the same punishment again if they re-offended.

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.

Zoe has some good ideas about reducing obesity

This Daily Mail article informs us that Zoe Harcombe has written a book which attributes the increasing incidence of obesity on a radical change in government dietary advice a few decades ago, and the promulgation of myths about what is healthy food and how to reduce obesity. I tend to agree with her and I believe that people who follow her advice are likely to be successful in losing some of their excess weight and in improving their health. I especially agree with her in her criticism of the involvement of the food and drink industry in public health advice.

The article does not, however, mention salt intake or salt sensitivity, or that people who are sensitive or vulnerable to salt gain weight because of salt intake, which for them results in fluid retention leading to obesity. Salt and salty food is indeed the main cause of child obesity. Protecting toddlers and small children from high salt intake protects them from many health problems in addition to protecting them from the main factor in children becoming obese.

The other very important omission from the article is the role of pharmaceutical drugs in causing obesity. Prescribed drugs are a major cause of obesity, since many, possibly most, prescription drugs cause fluid retention/obesity when they are taken for an extended period of time. Drugs that routinely tend to cause overweight/obesity include many steroids, HRT, most anti-depressants, anti-epileptics, anti-psychotics, etc. See steroids and HRT and amitriptyline and other anti-depressants.

See Sodium in Foods and my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection. You may also like to read my political page about salt, pharmaceuticals and medical misinformation leading to obesity and a host of avoidable ill-health and suffering.

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

Further evidence of harm from anti-psychotics

This time it's about raised risk of blood clots. See BBC News report.

AstraZeneca Pays to settle 17,500 of the outstanding Seroquel Suits

AstraZeneca is moving closer to resolving the large number of lawsuits filed in the US over claims that the risks of its Seroquel antipsychotic were not properly disclosed. In this disclosure, AstraZeneca has agreed to pay about $198 million to settle 17,500, or roughly two-thirds of the outstanding lawsuits, according to a statement.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Chemical cosh to be used less on dementia sufferers in Scotland

See Telegraph report. I've been urging for a curb on the use of anti-psychotics on elderly people for a long time. The declared intention to reduce their use now though seems less to be motivated by humanity than by a desire to cut costs!

AstraZenica, its drug, Seroquel, its illegal marketing of antipsychotic drugs,

and its misleading of doctors and patients, and the serious harm Seroquel does to the unfortunate patients/victims who take or have taken it, reported here by the New York Times.

I urge you to read the article in full. It contains a resumé of other pharmaceutical companies who have similarly poisoned the people who have taken their dangerous antipsychotic and painkiller junk. Some of the damaged people are children, their lives and health now permanently blighted by massive weight gain, diabetes and other attendant ill-health. Some victims have actually died from the adverse effects.

Yes, the evil pharmaceutical industry pays out huge sums of money in a sort of system of fines, though these huge sums are insignificant set against their colossal profits, but they don't seem to go to prison for these crimes against humanity, including what many would regard as torture and murder, do they? Why? Why don't they go to prison? They knowingly lie about the results of drug trials. They knowingly supply products they know will do grave harm. - Why does the judicial system not protect the citizens? Should the members of the judiciary be held to account? Should they themselves go to prison?

In a fierce and deadly irony, I see that on the same webpage as the report to which I refer, there is an advertisement to recruit volunteers to take part in drug trials! - Not me, guv!

If you, or anyone you know - maybe one of those poor, damaged children - gained weight from taking any of these ghastly drugs, or gained weight from taking any other prescription drugs, please be aware that that weight gain can be reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food. - It makes a great difference, believe me. Please tell these victims. Do not have it on your conscience that you failed to tell them about this safe, fast, effective way to lose excess weight and improve their health and happiness. Don't pass by on the other side and leave them to suffer needlessly.

See Sodium in foods.

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

Fat Retention

Anti-psychotics double the risk of pneumonia in the elderly

BBC News reports that Dutch researchers find that use of anti-psychotic drugs in the elderly doubles the risk of potentially fatal pneumonia. An expert report last year found that these drugs are responsible for up to 1,800 deaths in the UK every year and Ministers have said they want to see a significant cut in their use. What I want to see is Ministers putting a legal curb on the use of these drugs, which are overwhelmingly prescribed with no benefit whatsoever to the patient/victim.

Tell me, WHY are doctors (mainly paid by the State, i.e. paid by taxpayers) allowed to prescribe these harmful drugs for no good reason, and by means of the drugs allowed to damage the health of patients and cause them to die sooner than they otherwise would?

Why aren't the guilty doctors arrested and charged with Grievous Bodily Harm or Drug Abuse or some other appropriate charge and punished with the full rigour of the Law?

Is it because the State tacitly favours ending the lives of its citizens who are no longer part of the work force? Or is the explanation even more sinister?

Radio 4's File on 4 tonight deals with how AstraZeneca 'suppressed' Seroquel drug test data re massive weight gain and diabetes side-effects

Radio 4's File on 4 tonight (26/01/2010) deals with how AstraZeneca 'suppressed' Seroquel drug test data about its side-effects of massive weight gain and diabetes. See article on BBC News. "The marketing team sued over a drug's alleged side effects tried to suppress key data, an ex-employee has claimed. Seroquel's former UK medical adviser told the BBC he was pressured to approve promotional material which said weight gain was not an issue."

The British Medical Journal editor, Dr Fiona Godlee, sensibly urges that the medicine licensing system be reviewed. She says the pharmaceutical industry should no longer provide the evaluations of its own drugs for the licensing body to consider.

See also File on 4 itself: "A British drug company is being sued by more than 15,000 people in the United States who claim its bestselling antipsychotic drug caused severe weight gain, diabetes and other serious medical conditions. Ann Alexander investigates concerns about the way it was marketed and asks how much the public should be told about the drugs they take."

Actually there are dozens of commonly prescribed drugs that have these side-effects and these are obviously a major cause of the continuing rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and type 2 diabetes and a host of other degenerative illnesses that are co-morbidities of obesity. The drugs include cortico-steroids, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like some birth control medication (contraceptives), tricyclic anti-depressants, especially amitriptyline, some SSRI anti-depressants, anti-psychotics (notoriously Zyprexa,aka olanzapine), some anti-epileptics/anticonvulsants, e.g. Epilim (sodium valproate). This is by no means an exhaustive list. See my webpage about steroids and HRT et al.

So the NHS (and all other purchasers of pharmaceutical drugs the world over), as well as paying for the drugs that its doctors prescribe, incurs the astronomical costs of the vast spectrum of disabling chronic health problems they cause. - ALL of this avoidable ill-health and suffering results from the primary adverse side-effect, which is sodium retention, and all of the innocent patients who are its victims become sensitive to salt/sodium, and should have been warned strictly to avoid salt and salty food while taking the medication, because for them, salt intake causes them weight gain. I have been researching this subject intensively for well over ten years now, and I have not heard of even one doctor who gives and stresses this vital message to his/her victims/patients. Inadequate knowledge of drug side-effects is lamentably widespread in the medical profession. Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, 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.

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

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'.

The Telegraph reports that care homes are still administering anti-psychotic drugs to dementia patients.

The Telegraph reports that care homes are still harming dementia patients by administering 'chemical cosh' drugs (aka anti-psychotic drugs) to them.

Massive overuse of antipsychotics to treat elderly patients with dementia in UK's hospital wards.

The Telegraph reports on massive overuse of antipsychotics to treat elderly patients with dementia in UK's hospital wards. As well as the article itself, there is a letter today on the letters page of the Telegraph - a letter drawing attention to this scandalous abuse of the human rights of vulnerable citizens. The letter is signed by spokespeople for ten leading charities, carers groups and experts. These drugs cause serious side-effects and increase the risk of death. I am sure that the doctors who prescribe these dangerous drugs would run a mile from themselves being made to take the drugs! There is a similar situation in care homes - dementia patients being overprescribed this pharmaceutical junk, sometimes called a 'chemical cosh'.
But these facts are not new facts. They have long been known but nothing effective has been done to curb this abuse of NHS patients. The letter urges that the government crack down on this overprescribing. When I heard about this on the radio I gained the impression that it is doctors who are largely to blame. But the government must surely have the power to curb the reckless over-prescribing of drugs by our drug-obsessed doctors. - They should do so promptly. - I personally favour making it a criminal offence to prescribe this junk inappropriately, harming the patient. A few successful prosecutions would soon bring down the reckless prescribing rates of doctors.

My Response to Elsevier's article on "Combating Weight Gain Caused by Antipsychotic Treatments"

Combating weight gain caused by antipsychotic treatments
by Elsevier

Many antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain, often massive weight gain, and Elsevier's article is about research evaluating the effect of another drug, modafinil, on olanzapine-associated weight gain in normal volunteer subjects.

It's alarming how ill-informed 'prescribers' are about the adverse effects of the powerful drugs they inflict on their patients.

All prescription drugs that result in weight gain do so because they cause the person taking them to develop some fluid retention. The extra fluid that accumulates in the patient's body contains sodium ions and the water associated with the sodium, in other words it is salt water. - The person has become slightly sensitive to salt.

The longer the medication is taken and the higher the dose, the greater the salt sensitivity. In a person who is not sensitive to salt, any excess salt intake above the biological minimum of salt that the body requires - about 1.3g per day - the excess salt and the water associated with it is excreted in the urine. In salt-sensitive individuals. some of the excess salt intake is retained in the body, along with the water that always accompanies it, thus causing fluid retention and weight gain (and also, incidentally, damaging the kidneys to some extent).

The way to reduce or to prevent the weight gain associated with antipsychotic drugs (and many other drugs too, including many prescribed steroids and antidepressants) is to avoid eating salt and salty food. - It is as simple - and as difficult! - as that. - So much food that we eat these days has had salt added by manufacturers that it is difficult to achieve a low salt intake; it is, however, well worth the effort.

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