HRT: Researchers advise against taking HRT if you are a smoker

The New York Times reports that researchers are advising against taking HRT if you are a smoker, because of increased risk of dying from lung cancer. They suggest giving up smoking while you are taking HRT.

HRT is prescribed much less than it used to be, because of increasing knowledge of the harm it can cause, e.g. the increased risk of breast cancer.

I myself took HRT, prescribed for me for about ten years, by doctors ill-informed about its side-effects. The oestrogen it contained did me monumental harm, giving me very high blood pressure and causing massive weight gain and a host of other serious health problems. Like most doctors, mine did not know that all these health problems could have been avoided/minimised by telling me that the pills cause sodium retention/fluid retention/salt sensitivity/weight gain and that anyone taking them should strictly avoid eating salt or salty food while taking them. Read my Mensa article about this: 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, 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!

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

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

Cannabis smokers are exposed to more toxic chemicals in each puff than those who smoke only tobacco

Cannabis smoke more toxic than puffing tobacco

Extract from the Guardian:

"Cannabis smokers are exposed to more toxic chemicals in each puff than those who smoke only tobacco, scientists have found. Earlier research shows cannabis smokers are more prone to lung damage than cigarette smokers.

In tests, directly inhaled cannabis smoke contained 20 times more ammonia than cigarette smoke, five times more hydrogen cyanide and five times the concentration of nitrogen oxides, which affect circulation and the immune system."

Smokers to get drug before cancer patients do

Smokers get drug before cancer patients - Telegraph

Extract:

"A controversial drug to help smokers quit has been approved for use on the NHS at the same time as cancer sufferers and others have been denied potentially life-saving medication, it was disclosed yesterday.

Champix helps four times as many people stop smoking as those who take nothing and will be given free on the NHS.

The announcement was greeted with dismay as some patients are campaigning for access to cancer drugs, Alzheimer's medication and a treatment to prevent blindness.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) argues that helping people to quit smoking will save the NHS money in the long run because fewer will develop smoking-related diseases.

Champix, also known as varenicline, costs £163.80 for a 12-week course. Nice calculated that Champix would cost £6 million a year but treating fewer smoking-related diseases as a result would save about £11 million a year.

Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: "It won't be a lot of comfort for those whose mother is deteriorating with Alzheimer's or if you are going blind. There are lots of ways to give up smoking - you can get patches from the chemist or join a club. Why does the NHS need to fund it?"

The drug, which is made by Pfizer, eases smokers' cravings and reduces the satisfaction from a cigarette."

I can't say that I regard smoking as a disease and so I don't see why the NHS should be involved in funding drugs that are claimed to help in quitting smoking. If smokers choose to spend money on cigarettes, surely they equally can choose to spend money on methods of stopping smoking...


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

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

Some NHS trusts refusing some treatments to heavy smokers or patients who are obese

Hewitt: NHS ban on fat people legitimate - Telegraph

Extract:

"Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, said yesterday that it was "perfectly legitimate" for NHS trusts to refuse some treatments to heavy smokers or patients who are obese.

A survey found at least four trusts have stopped providing orthopaedic surgery for smokers
Miss Hewitt defended the right of doctors and managers to draw up local guidelines on treatment after a survey revealed that some trusts are already banning operations."

I have no strong views on whether smokers should have limited access to health care, but I have very, very strong views about obese people and health care. - Since doctors, nutritionists and successive governments/Departments of Health, et al, are those actually responsible/to blame for the huge and growing incidence of obesity, particularly by their negligent prescribing of steroids and other dangerous drugs which cause salt sensitivity and massive fluid retention, followed by almost non-existent monitoring of their patients/victims (see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html), no obese person should be being denied treatment if there is any useful treatment that would help that person.
Obesity is NOT a self-inflicted disease. - It is an iatrogenic disease.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - 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.)

Smoking while pregnant increases the likelihood of having a girl baby rather than a boy.

Smoking while pregnant raises the likelihood of having a girl - Independent

Extracts:

"Parents who are smokers when they conceive a child are far more likely to have girls than boys, an extensive study by paediatricians has found. The chance of having a male baby drops by almost half if both parents smoke during early pregnancy, amid fresh evidence that smoking could "kill" male foetuses in the womb.

Smoking not only reduces the chances of conceiving a male child, but could stop male embryos implanting in the womb and cause miscarriages.

While almost 52 per cent of all new-born babies are male in the western world, the proportion of female offspring rises dramatically among smokers. The study into 9,000 pregnancies in Liverpool found a startling imbalance in the number of girl babies among parents who smoke.

Mothers who smoked during pregnancy were one-third less likely to have male children than mothers who did not smoke. If the father also smoked, and if factors such as the health and age of the mother were accounted for, the chances of having a male child reduces by almost half.

The research by paediatricians at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has caused excitement in the international scientific community, which says it raises serious questions about the effect of smoking on population balance."

"The research, by a team of paediatricians led by Professor Bernard Brabin, found that substances contained in cigarettes, such as nicotine, inhibit sperm carrying male chromosomes from fertilising eggs."


If you are pregnant, reducing your salt intake is good for your own health and also that of your baby-to-be. - See pregnant mothers

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - 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.)