I listened to Carrie Grant presenting the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease

I listened this afternoon to Carrie Grant presenting the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity National Association for Colitis & Crohn's Disease. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sf7hj As a sufferer herself, Ms Grant has personal experience of inflammatory bowel diseases which can have a devastating impact on education, work, social and family life. And it is good that there is a charity - The National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (NACC) - that helps people suffering from these illnesses. Ms Grant explained that part of what the charity does is give monetary grants to people who need them, for example, a grant to buy a washing machine to make the work of constantly having to wash soiled bedding less of a chore. She said that another grant was for 'Adam', for new clothes. She explained that Adam had become a lonely, isolated teenager because he had gained such a lot of weight as a result of taking the medication for his illness and that he had needed new clothes because the weight gain made his old clothes too small for him. Well that's a good practical way to help Adam and his mother, and a good way to use money donated to the charity.

But I have another suggestion to make. - It would be great if the NACC would inform sufferers and their families about how the weight gain can be avoided or minimised in the first place. - This is easy. Explain to people that the drugs that cause weight gain do so because they cause sodium retention/fluid retention and that this fluid retention/weight gain/water weight can be avoided or reduced by avoiding salt and salty food. - Even now it is not too late for Adam to reduce the excess weight he has gained. If, from now on, he reduces his intake of salt and salty food he will lose some of the excess weight easily, safely and fast.

I read on this page that one of the drug types used for Crohn's Disease is Corticosteroids and that "Steroids have an anti-inflammatory effect and can treat symptoms quickly. There are varying types, and so can target specific affected areas of the gut. A high dose is often required initially to reduce inflammation rapidly, which can be an issue as side-effects are often dose related. It is common for patients on steroids to gain weight quickly and teenagers can suffer acne breakouts as a result of such treatment. Long term usage can also result in poor growth development in children."

As well as reducing the problem of sudden weight gain on steroids, my advice about avoiding salt/sodium and salty food would also reduce or avoid the acne that teenagers aften suffer as a result of the steroid medication.

Having experienced massive weight gain and acne myself as a consequence of taking prescribed steroids I would like to help people like Adam, and other people who take prescribed steroids, to avoid unnecessary suffering. I have written a webpage with the necessary information and advice. I hope you will visit it.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Some prescription drugs can cause breast tenderness. This is because of fluid retention. You need to cut down on salt intake.

Here are some of the drugs that can cause breast pain/tenderness/enlargement:

Birth control pills (oral contraceptives)
Corticosteroids, such as prednisone
Hormone therapy, such as HRT
Tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline

The pain/tenderness/enlargement/weight gain is because the blood vessels have swollen with excess sodium and water. - Reducing salt/sodium intake will reduce or remedy this problem. - See:

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

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

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

Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases

Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases - Guardian

Extract:

"The number of people suffering from high blood pressure worldwide is expected to rise to more than 1.5 billion over next 20 years, a new report shows.

Research in the Lancet medical journal warns that that people living in developed countries have a 90% chance of lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure.

The article says that in 2000 there was an estimated 972 million adults living with high blood pressure around the world. This is expected to rise to 1.56 billion by 2025.

"Lifestyle factors, such as physical inactivity, a salt-rich diet with highly processed and fatty foods, and alcohol and tobacco use, are at the heart of this increased disease burden, which is spreading at an alarming rate from developed countries to emerging economies such as India and China," the research states."

A major cause of high blood pressure is the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs, often in high dose. Many of these drugs (eg corticosteroids like prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, and many other drugs) cause high blood pressure because they weaken the walls of the blood vessels, which then become vulnerable to the incursion of excess salt/sodium and the water it attracts to itself. - So these prescribed drugs are the cause of salt sensitivity and drug-induced weight gain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Lower your blood pressure and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(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

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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

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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Misguided scientists claim to have found the hormone to stop over-eating. - They are proposing more pharmaceutical junk drugs to mimic leptin.

Scientists find hormone to stop over-eating - Telegraph

Extract:

"A new class of drugs to treat obesity could be developed within a decade after a study of a hormone that stops us eating too much.

Those who lack the chemical, called leptin, find less appetising food such as broccoli as mouthwatering as chocolate cake. The result is that they over-eat even when they are not hungry.

Although the hormone is well known to influence appetite by signalling how much fat is in the body, a study today shows that it also controls emotional attachment to food.

The research suggests that it should be possible to design anti-obesity drugs which interfere with the brain's "pleasure" centres - the regions that respond to rewarding emotions and desires.

Leptin has been intensively studied since it was discovered in 1994. But several years ago it was found that injections of the hormone are ineffective as an anti-obesity treatment.

Today's work, published in the journal Science by Dr Sadaf Farooqi and Dr Paul Fletcher of Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, will boost research since it shows that drugs that can mimic leptin's effects in the part of the brain that governs our food cravings could offer a treatment for obesity.

Dr Farooqi said that such drugs are already being studied and, if effective, would over-ride brain signals that regulate hunger. The drugs would not turn people off food but make them more discriminating."

It's such a shame/scandal that researchers waste time and money on stuff like this. - The assumption behind all this twaddle is that obesity is caused by eating too much - eating too many calories. - This assumption is not supported by evidence and has never even been subjected to trial. - Pharmaceutical drugs that alter the brain in some way are clearly not a desirable route to take in tackling obesity. - It is the body that is functioning abnormally in obese people, not the brain. - And the fundamental abnormality in the body of an obese person is the state of the veins. - When the veins have been weakened by high salt intake in childhood, or when the veins have been weakened by a high salt intake during pregnancy or by salt intake when taking prescribed steroids/corticosteroids like prednisone (AKA Deltasone) or prednisolone (AKA Prelone, Pediapred), HRT, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline (AKA elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl) or many other prescription drugs, then the bloodstream becomes suffused with excess salt/sodium and excess water that the salt attracts to itself. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

This excess fluid in the bloodstream leads inevitably to weight gain. There are various names for the condition - salt sensitivity, sodium retention, fluid retention, hypervolemia, obesity, water retention. - Doctors and obesity 'experts' fail to understand the etiology of obesity because they consistently disregard the evidence their obese patients give them.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, not by overeating.

Fortunately, it is extremely easy to reduce the fluid retention and therefore the obesity. - Sodium is the vector holding the excess water in the bloodstream, so reducing sodium intake releases some of the excess water and it is excreted in the urine.

Sometimes fat retention follows fluid retention, especially if people try to lose weight by dieting and therefore are eating insufficient food, leading (significantly) to insufficient calcium, magnesium and vitamin D. - If you increase your intake of these, you will excrete some of the excess fat in the faeces. - It is not necessary, or even desirable, to eat a low fat diet. See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/search/label/calcium and BBC webpage about calcium from The Truth About Food series of programmes

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

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(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

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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

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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

In one of its leading articles today, The Sunday Telegraph critically reviews ten years' political control of the NHS

Ten years of the wrong medicine

Extract:

"Take the issue of waiting times, of which the Government has made so much. Liam Halligan, our economics editor, reports today that his research has established that almost half of all hospital trusts admit to operating minimum waiting times for surgical procedures. Those minimum waiting times often turn out to be close to six months, the maximum the Government has said we will wait for in-patient treatment.

The minimum waiting times are not the result of a lack of capacity within the NHS. Surgeons are available to perform the procedures; nurses to help them and to provide post-operative care; and there are operating theatres on standby. Why then are patients in pain being kept waiting for six months for the procedures they need? Purely, it seems, for political reasons. The Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has said she will resign if the NHS does not show a surplus by April 1, the end of the financial year. In the last quarter, the NHS ran up a deficit of £1.3 billion. In order to get the NHS into surplus and to keep Ms Hewitt in her post, surgeons and nurses are being kept idle and operating theatres left empty."

I agree completely with the argument and the tenor of this article, but I believe that there is a more fundamental problem at the heart of dealing with ill-health in this country - namely negligent prescribing practices by health professionals, and wrong assumptions and advice about the causes and treatment of obesity.

It is over 50 years since steroids were first prescribed and it is beyond belief that most doctors are still unaware in practice of their potential for causing sodium and water retention and morbid obesity and the many other serious health problems attendant on these - diabetes, hypertension, osteopenia, etc. and are still failing to warn patients to avoid eating salt while taking the medication.

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 British Medical Journal article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of corticosteroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
Visit my website for the FACTS about obesity - www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.).

In particular, read my page about the politics and vested interests involved in the obesity epidemic