Most prescription drugs deplete your body of essential nutrients

Most prescription drugs deplete your body of essential nutrients. Perhaps the most notorious of these widely-prescribed drugs are statins. Quite apart from the patients-reported adverse effects of pain, statins deplete the body of Co-enzyme Q10. Patients who take these drugs should be warned of this and advised to take Co-enzyme Q10 as a supplement. This information should always accompany the prescription. But it doesn't.

 

The many prescribed drugs that cause sodium retention/water retention/fluid retention/weight gain/obesity/water weight deplete the body of calcium, potassium, magnesium and possibly zinc. This means (among other adverse health effects) that the bones get weaker and a fall is much more likely to result in a fracture - and a more complicated fracture. These dangerous drugs include amitriptyline and other tricyclic antidepressants, Epilim and other anti-epilepsy drugs, HRT, steroids including hydrocortisone, prednisone and prednisolone, anti-psychotics and others. Patients taking these drugs should be advised to eat full fat dairy yogurt for its dairy calcium and to reduce their intake of salt and salty food. They should also eat plenty of potassium-rich foods, e.g. vegetables.

 

Diuretics like bendrofluazide/Bendroflumethiazide, which are often prescribed for raised blood pressure, deplete the body of potassium and magnesium. Patients taking these are often advised to eat bananas because of their potassium content.

 

Isoniazid, a drug used to treat tuberculosis, depletes the body of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). This depletion in turn causes disordered sleep, mainly insomnia. Patients taking isoniazid should be prescribed vitamin B6 to remedy this problem.

 

Beta-blockers such as propranolol can deplete our bodies of melatonin, and insufficient melatonin (one of the hormones in the body) causes loss of sleep. If the physician does not prescribe melatonin to help the patient with this problem, melatonin can be bought without prescription.

 

These are by no means all of the nutritional problems caused by prescription drugs, and of course malnutrition is only one of the host of adverse side-effects of prescribed medications. It is best to consider carefully whether taking prescribed drugs is more likely to do harm than good. For example, statins do most people more harm than good, and anti-depressants work no better than dummy pills, but cause many health problems, including cognitive impairment and memory loss. - You've only got one brain and it is not infinitely elastic to cope with brain-damaging drugs. You've only got one body and you can't trade it in for a new one. In my opinion it's best to avoid all prescription drugs unless they really are necessary, and best to have the lowest effective dose and to take it for the shortest time. The safest medicine is good natural food (not processed food), and the best doctor is good nutrition.

When * come, they come not single spies but in battalions.

Yes, you recognised that, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions," is a quotation from a speech by Claudius, in Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is something most of us have experienced: something goes wrong, something else goes wrong, and so on. Or as the saying goes, It never rains but it pours.

I am particularly aware of the way that troubles seem almost to breed, when I think of the adverse side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs. Adverse effects of drugs are often spoken of as rare or infrequent. I do not believe this to be the case. They are unfortunately common. For example, consider the many drugs, including including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone, SK-Prednisone and Sterapred®), methylprednisolone (Brand names Depo-Medrol, Solu-Medrol), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone (Brand name Decadron), betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair - a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like Premarin and Prempak, and like some birth control medication (contraceptives) - amitriptyline, doxepin and some other anti-depressants, some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably sodium valproate (trade name Epilim), that cause sodium retention.

In effect, sodium retention means that the blood vessels have become distended/swollen with extra sodium and water, and therefore the blood volume is greater than normal. That greater blood volume obviously means that the person's weight is increased by the weight of that extra fluid in the bloodstream. And because the walls of the blood vessels have become stretched, they must also be thinner and weaker, and so the blood volume may more easily fluctuate as the person ingests more, or less, salt/sodium and salty food. This in turn makes blood pressure more variable, and also adds to the variability of blood sugar concentration and increased variability of concentration of other components in the blood. Greater variability of blood sugar concentration is a factor in increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The weakening of the blood vessel walls increases the risk of stroke and of heart problems.

The weight gain will continue if the offending drugs continue to be taken without reducing sodium intake (and this is usually the case because physicians rarely warn their patients about the dangers and consequences of eating added salt when taking these drugs). So obesity, or even morbid obesity, is a very real possibility. The patients are then likely to be told to eat less and take more exercise in order to lose their excess weight. Taking this advice would cause them further harm because their excess weight is the result of the prescribed medication and their intake of added salt (even if it is only a modest intake of salt), and not because of over-eating or taking in too many calories and expending too few calories. If the person then tries to diet/eat less food than their body requires this will exacerbate the nutritional deficits they are already experiencing as a consequence of sodium retention depleting the body of essential minerals (principally calcium, but also magnesium and potassium). A host of health problems tend to develop because of this malnutrition. They may include nerve damage, excruciating cramps, osteoporosis or even osteomalacia, and therefore very weakened bones and much greater risk of fractures, weaker muscles and reduced mobility.

The swollen blood vessels/veins will proliferate, causing the skin to look redder because of the blood vessels close to the skin surface; the skin itself will be thinning and be becoming weakened and overstretched by the greater volume/mass of the person's swollen, heavier body with its increasing fluid retention. The kidneys become over-worked and their function impaired by the greatly increased blood volume and similarly the heart becomes enlarged. The enlarged heart takes up too much room in the thoracic cavity so that breathing becomes more laboured and the person begins to suffer from breathlessness.

And I haven't even mentioned yet the insults of the ignorant, who add to the emotional problems of the victims of drug-induced sodium/water/fluid retention and obesity, the social isolation, the constant misunderstandings, the fatigue, the pain from the over-stretched blood vessels and over-stretched skin and weakened bones. - Have I sketched out for you enough of the battalions of troubles/sorrows/degenerative health problems/adverse side-effects that can and do come from taking certain pharmaceutical drugs when they are too readily prescribed, by prescribers ill-informed about their side-effects and insufficiently informed about the many possible contributory factors involved in causing obesity? I feel sure that, following my lead, you will be able yourself to think of many more adverse consequences from taking these powerful and highly dangerous drugs, with their insidious cumulative damage. Best avoid them if you can!

See obesity and the salt connection, amitriptyline and sodium in foods.

The meds that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause obesity; they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, blood vessels, etc.

The many prescription drugs that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause morbid obesity, they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, skin, blood vessels, metabolism, etc.

Drugs like tricyclic antidepressants, and like HRT and corticosteroids, and many other drugs, including anti-psychotics and anti-convulsants, cause relaxation of the muscles of the blood vessel walls, with sodium retention as a side-effect. This in turn leads to water retention because extra sodium/salt attracts water to itself. The relaxed state of the blood vessel walls and the impaired kidney function permit a greater blood volume, i.e. permit the incursion of more salt and its accompanying water. If the drugs are taken for long enough, the extra fluid in the body (salt water/fluid retention in the veins = extra blood volume) results both in higher blood pressure (because of the extra pressure on the walls of the blood vessels) and, obviously, in weight gain from the extra volume of blood. The blood vessel walls become weakened and the kidney function impaired by the extra blood volume to have to deal with. A general term for this sort of problem (not always caused by prescription drugs) is salt sensitivity. Since more and more drugs are being prescribed by the drug-oriented medical profession, more and more people are becoming sensitive to salt, and therefore gaining weight, especially if they eat a lot of processed food, well-known to contain a lot of added salt. (I’ve never understood or agreed with the usual claim that relaxation of the blood vessels lowers blood pressure. Maybe this is with people who are not sensitive to salt. – I don’t know.)

Extract from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sodium/NU00284

“Your kidneys naturally balance the amount of sodium stored in your body for optimal health. When your sodium levels are low, your kidneys essentially hold on to the sodium. When sodium levels are high, your kidneys excrete the excess in urine.

But if for some reason your kidneys can’t eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood. Because sodium attracts and holds water, your blood volume increases. Increased blood volume makes your heart work harder to move more blood through your blood vessels, which increases pressure in your arteries. Such diseases as congestive heart failure, cirrhosis and chronic kidney disease can make it hard for your kidneys to keep sodium levels balanced.

Some people’s bodies are more sensitive to the effects of sodium than are others. If you’re sodium sensitive, you retain sodium more easily, leading to fluid retention and increased blood pressure. The extra sodium can even lead to high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and congestive heart failure.”

Although the Mayo Clinic mentions arteries rather than veins, people who are extremely sensitive to salt, like me, are far more aware of swollen veins and the problems and pain they cause, since the changes are very obvious and visible, rather than problems with arteries, even if these are possibly more dangerous than the over-stretched, fragile, agonisingly painful veins.

Fancy a Free, Safe Face Lift?

Fancy a Free, Safe Face Lift? - If your face seems to be sagging, with heavy, hanging folds of flesh, don't curse gravity and start to think about surgery to stretch and lift the skin and cut off excess. After all, lots of things can go wrong with surgery and it causes pain and costs a lot of money.

I invite you to consider this instead. - The heaviness of the hanging folds of skin on your face is principally because of excess fluid retention. This excess fluid is in the blood vessels - the veins or the tiny capillaries that are largely invisible except for some reddening of the skin. The excess fluid is excess water held there by some sodium retention/salt sensitivity.

If you seriously cut down on salt and salty food this will reduce the amount of excess water held in your blood vessels. (It just gets excreted in the urine.) So there will be less weight pulling your skin down. - An easy, completely safe face lift! - You will look younger and fitter, and you will feel so much better! - And as well as the 'face lift', you will have lost some of the excess fluid elsewhere on your body too, and so you will have lost some excess/surplus weight. - What's not to like!? - Lose excess weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it!

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.

Is your beer belly really a SALT belly?

So you drink quite a bit of beer and you've also got a fat gut and you guess that it's a 'beer belly'? You may well be right. - But here is some information you may not know about, that I've cut and pasted from this webpage:

Sodium retention can lead to a further problem called ascites, an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, which partly accounts for the protruding abdomen of steroid victims. The good news is that when salt/sodium intake is lowered, the ascites will be reduced along with the fluid retention in the blood vessels. Cutting down on alcohol also reduces the fluid in the abdomen.

You may well conclude from that, and I would agree with you if you did so conclude, that it is really more the fault of sodium retention/salt sensitivity/fluid retention that you are the possessor of that 'beer belly', even though you are probably not a steroid victim. - Whether you cut down on salt or cut down on alcohol, cutting down on either will reduce that fat abdomen, and I suspect that intentionally cutting down on salt will have a more noticeable effect than intentionally cutting down on alcohol, because when you reduce salt intake, one of the benefits is that your thirst is reduced, and so without much effort you may find yourself drinking less beer. - Two birds with one stone! - Well done!

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

Have you ever gained a lot of weight in just one day?

Have you ever gained a lot of weight in just one day? - If you have, then you are, perhaps, puzzled at how that could be possible. Here is the answer to the puzzle:

The weight you have gained is water weight, also known as fluid retention, sodium retention or salt sensitivity. It is often caused by pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by doctors. See anti-depressants and other drugs and HRT, Steroids and other drugs. It can also be caused by pregnancy.

You can read on my website about the vulnerable groups that can gain (and lose) weight very rapidly. They include children.

You can lose water weight fast, easily and safely. You can also safely lose excess fat.

Clinicians should conform to the recommended protocol when prescribing steroids.

I quote extracts from a standard textbook in the section on steroids: "Electrolyte Balance. – This group of drugs leads to retention of sodium and water and loss of potassium through the kidneys. Oedema of the ankles and eventually hypertension may develop…The correct dose of a steroid is the minimum amount of drug required to produce the desired effect…Patients taking steroids should be seen regularly and the following points noted: General appearance – any evidence of Cushing-like appearance…Blood pressure…Blood electrolytes must be estimated in patients undergoing prolonged therapy with these drugs…A close watch should be kept for undue potassium loss or sodium retention…"

There should be a STATUTORY requirement for health professionals to ABIDE by strict rules with regard to prescribing and monitoring steroids and HRT. Then there would not be new victims created every year, as is presently the case.

When I was initially prescribed oral HRT it included a high (unknown to me) dose of oestrogen and I was kept on that dosage for years before my blood oestrogen levels were measured (at my insistence and privately at my financial cost, my G.P. (now retired) having falsely maintained that he was not allowed to get the levels measured) and were found to be DANGEROUSLY high. There had been NO routine monitoring and care whatsoever. I had been laughed at when I queried the weight gain, explaining that I was definitely not over-eating. - I was routinely assumed to be lying, and my anguished reports of pain, principally in my feet and in my swollen, blood-gorged breasts, were sneered at and I was regarded as a hypochondriac. My increasingly troubling high blood pressure went ignored and largely unrecorded until the intervention of a surgeon whom I consulted prior to having a hysterectomy. He had recognised immediately on seeing me that I had high blood pressure. (Why don't all doctors know about the connection between high blood pressure and a red face?)

My blood electrolytes were not measured until 1998, when I tackled the endocrinologist about her negligence – by which time I had been on HRT for over ten years!

The endocrinologist told me she knew NOTHING AT ALL about Sodium Retention! Well I contend that if a specialist knows nothing, and is content to know nothing, about the principal danger listed as a side-effect of a drug, the prescription of which is her responsibility, then it is a scandalous state of affairs. And if specialists don’t know (and, by implication, don’t care, since she had made no effort over many years to inform herself on the subject), it is unlikely that GPs are any better informed. My own GPs appeared to know nothing about it. And GPs are the main prescribers of HRT and other steroids.

Had I been correctly monitored as detailed in the protocol I would have been spared the nightmare weight gain that was oedema, and the high blood pressure, the intense, sustained pain of overstretched blood vessels and overstretched, ever-thinner skin, etc. If I had even just been given the VITAL information that to avoid/minimise the huge increase in the salt and water content of the bloodstream I needed to avoid salt and salty food, I could have been spared monumental unnecessary suffering and harm.

Even now, obese steroid victims and other obese victims of the injudicious prescribing of drugs that cause sodium and water retention are not being told that to lose some of the excess weight/fluid they carry round with them. they need to minimise their intake of salt and salty food. This critically important information would transform their lives. As well as reducing their overweight it would lower any high blood pressure, lower cholesterol (if anyone is bothered about it), reduce their risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, dementia and cancer, and benefit their health in countless other ways too.

Note: I must STRESS that once a person with a salt problem lowers salt intake and loses weight, there needs to be a lifetime commitment to a lowered salt intake. If the previous salt intake is resumed, the weight will return because of the weakened, over-stretched veins. And it is very much more difficult to lose the weight a second time, because high Blood Volume damages the kidneys, which find it harder to deal with sodium.

Read about weight gain caused by steroids and HRT and

my Mensa article about Obesity and the Salt Connection and

the scandalous politics of the situation.

Pharmaceuticals plus Salt: the Deadly Duo

It is a commonplace for doctors to assume that the weight gain of people taking amitriptyline or other antidepressants is actually caused by over-eating, and they commonly assert that depressed people indulge in comfort-eating. But the doctors are wrong; the weight gain consequent on starting to take amitriptyline is caused by salt and water retention, not fat.

When people find the side-effects so unpleasant, and the drug so unhelpful for their chronic pain, for instance, that they stop taking it, they find that much of the weight gain disappears.

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

If you have gained a lot of weight and become obese because of taking prescribed steroids or HRT then I have very good news for you! - You have gained weight because of excess water stored in your body - mainly in the veins. You are suffering from what is called hypervolaemia - that is, abnormally high blood volume - and it is easy to reduce this abnormally high blood volume by losing some of the excess water. Another name for the problem is sodium retention. - This is the name that often appears in the reference books doctors have, that they use to look up correct doses of drugs they prescribe and side-effects that can result from taking the drugs.

To prevent or reduce the weight gained, you need to cut down on salt and salty food, because the sodium retention has made you sensitive to salt.

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or any of the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing's Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients' progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain.

So all you have to do is eat less salt. - If, at the same time, you increase your potassium by eating more fresh fruit and vegetables (unsalted vegetables), then you will lose the water and the weight even faster. - You will already have discovered that calorie counting and 'slimming' do not help you to lose weight if you are a steroid victim. - Take my advice, eat less salt, and the weight will fall off you like magic.

See also my Fat Retention page.

One of the many people I have helped with information about sodium retention was Dame Muriel Spark, who died in April 2006. Even she, as famous as she was, had not been warned to avoid salt while taking steroid medication and so had gained a lot of weight. She had also been taking some effervescent tablets which were high in sodium, but she discontinued these when she learned from me that they were contributing to the excess weight.

A Note about Pain-killers:

The class of drugs known as NSAIDs - Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs - is listed as causing Sodium Retention and in particular causing swelling in the lower legs and ankles. These include commonly used pain-killers, which are available both as prescription drugs and over the counter drugs. Examples are Ibuprofen (Brufen), Aspirin, Diclofenic and many others.

Also remember that effervescent tablets may contain a high proportion of sodium, so you may prefer to change from taking effervescent tablets to taking the non-effervescent type.

A red face is not a sign of health; it is usually a sign of high blood pressure, thin skin and delicate, swollen veins.

A red face is not a sign of health; it is usually a sign of high blood pressure, thin skin and delicate, swollen veins. These problems are caused by salt sensitivity/sodium retention/fluid retention and can be quickly and safely reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food.
See Fat Man with a Red Face.

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.

Study finds dramatic rise in type-two diabetes limb amputations in England

BBC News reports that the "number of people in England having a limb amputated because of type-two diabetes has risen dramatically." Obviously this is related to the continuing rise in the number of people developing type 2 diabetes and also with the illness developing when people are younger than previously.

Type 2 diabetes occurs mostly in people who are overweight/obese, and it is one of the very serious side-effects of the many prescription drugs, e.g. corticosteroids, that weaken blood vessel walls, resulting in fluid retention/sodium retention/obesity/raised blood pressure and many other health problems.

To lower your risk of developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc. in the first place, it would be prudent to avoid prescription drugs unless they are really necessary, and make a serious effort to minimise your intake of salt/sodium and salty food. - Avoiding salty food entails avoiding the highly-salted processed foods like bacon, sausages, bread, cheese, cornflakes etc. See Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Has Christmas excess left you troubled by bloating? - Try cutting down on salt and salty food.

Here are two definitions of bloating:

1. Swollen or distended beyond normal size by fluid or gaseous material.

2. Bloating is any abnormal general swelling, or increase in diameter of the abdominal area. As a symptom, the patient feels a full and tight abdomen.

Very commonly, the 'fluid material' is what I refer to as 'fluid retention', and can be thought of as salt water. When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and bloating (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

and see Sodium in foods and

vulnerable groups

Bloating associated with PMT

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

Prescription drugs can make you very thirsty

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

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

See amitriptyline
prescribed steroids and HRT

The Sun carries a sad story of a poor fellow who has reached 70 stones in weight

The Sun carries a sad story of a poor fellow who has reached 70 stones in weight and is "now almost immobile" and for whom extraordinary measures need to be taken to transport him to a clinic where it is hoped he will receive life-saving treatment. What a tragedy and how shameful it is that the NHS and other health bodies have never yet told people the truth about the causes of obesity and the best ways to reduce the fluid retention that causes it.

The most likely cause in this case is that this man was prescribed medication years ago that has the side-effect of causing salt sensitivity/fluid retention/sodium retention/oedema/morbid obesity - there are many expressions for the problem. Prescription drugs like certains steroids, antidepressants and antipsychotics are a major cause of morbid obesity in adults. What he should have been told was to avoid salt and salty food while he was taking the medication. This would have prevented the massive fluid retention and the terrible suffering, mental, physical, emotional and financial, that he has had to endure. Even now they could give him a diuretic to reduce the fluid retention (that's what jockeys take to lose water weight before a race) but I doubt anyone will have the sense to do so.

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

Fat Retention compared to Fat Storage/Fat Reserves

As we know, some animals store fat for when they need it in the future. This BBC webpage, for instance, tells us that: "Common hibernators are bats, frogs (which hibernate at the bottom of streams or ponds where the water does not freeze), and snakes. Other animals such as badgers and squirrels go into temporary hibernation - staying inside their dens during the very cold days and surviving by living off body fat or a store of food."

So that's Fat Storage. - Fat Reserves, you could say. They are temporary. They are going to get used when the animal is not eating.

And that's certain animals: mainly animals that hibernate, i.e. conserve energy and go to sleep during the winter because there isn't much food around for them to eat in the winter.

Now there's a lot of obesity pundits telling us that obese people store fat in case there's a time in the future when they'll need it. - I believe that that is absolute nonsense. - And here is why:

1. Human beings do not hibernate.

2. The excess fat that humans accumulate is not the special 'brown fat' that hibernating animals store.

3. The excess fat that humans accumulate is not useful; it's a nuisance, a burden. - In fact, I don't think we'd be going far wrong to call it an anomaly - a deviation from what is usually the norm.

I think it's a categorical mistake to call it Fat Storage.

Storage implies purpose - like the purpose of providing a hibernating animal with food when it is unable to feed in the usual way.

So that accumulated excess fat in obese people should more correctly be called
Fat Retention. - And by Fat Retention I mean that there is no biological purpose to it. - It's not going to 'come in useful' if there's a famine. - It's fat that been retained because the normal physiological mechanism the body uses to get rid of excess fat is not working. - And it's not working because sodium retention/fluid retention has depleted the body of the calcium it needs in order to excrete excess fat (by way of the faeces).

And it hasn't accumulated because the fat person ate a lot of fat. It has accumulated because the person is sensitive to salt.

You can read about Fat Retention here: FAT RETENTION

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

The NHS Will Have to Cut Down on Spending

The BBC News website reports that the NHS will experience severe financial cuts after 2011.

The NHS Confederation cites rising costs within the health service, and new treatments and the ageing population as two of the factors causing the inflation in the health service. They suggest a cap on the budget for new drugs and the possible exclusion of care such as IVF, homeopathy and elements of dentistry.

I have some further suggestions to make:

1. A complete ban on psychotropic prescription drugs for children under 18.
2. A complete ban on antidepressants, since they don't work. - See Anti-depressants 'no better than dummy pills'
3. Massive cuts on all prescription drug budgets to curb reckless, damaging over-prescribing.
4. An end to breast enlargements and gender re-assignment operations on the NHS.
5. Put strict legal limits on the amount of salt/sodium that food producers are allowed to add to their products and that food retailers are allowed to sell. This would improve most people's health very quickly indeed.
6. Make it a legal requirement that salt levels appear on the labels at the front of all processed foods and and sandwiches, etc.
7. Have all retail packs of table salt labelled with the information that added salt damages the health of most people, especially children, pregnant women and overweight/obese people.
8. Put a heavy tax on table salt.
9. Abolish higher awards/merit awards for hospital consultants, which, at the top, can double pay to nearly £200,000.

Above all, however, health professionals need to tell the truth about obesity. The lies need to be admitted and the truth told. This would almost instantly improve the health and happiness of millions of users of the NHS and very greatly reduce chronic illness in particular. See
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations.

Obesity is mainly caused by sodium retention/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, not by eating too much food. It can be easily reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food. The calorie explanation for obesity (eating too many calories and not taking much exercise – i.e. greed plus laziness) is clearly wrong because many – possibly most – people can eat as much as they like and not become overweight, even if they take very little exercise. – They are what I call on my website ‘the lucky people’. – They are the slim people. – They are the people who have healthy veins and kidneys and are not sensitive to salt. They simply excrete in the urine any excess salt and its attendant water, so they do not gain weight by fluid retention.

The reason they do not put on excess weight from fat retention when they overeat is that they simply excrete in their faeces any excess fat/calories they eat. (Faeces tend to contain a lot of fat/calories, which is why animal dung is used as fuel in many countries.)
A few years ago BBC2 showed a series of programmes called “The Truth About Food” and I learnt about some Danish research which throws light on this. – See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/slim/calcium.shtml where you will read: "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". – There is the necessary information! – In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium (they suggest yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.
Even the frequent claim that fat deposits in the bodies of fat people are there to be drawn upon 'in leaner times' is a pure guess and is not correct. - The fat deposits are caused by the altered body chemistry (depletion of calcium and other essential minerals in the body) resulting from excess blood volume/fluid retention/salt sensitivity.

So to reduce fat retention, if it is present, the most important thing is to alter the diet to reduce the fluid retention which is the initiating cause of excess weight and the primary reason for fat people being short of calcium and for fat people ‘dieting’. That means reducing sodium intake and ensuring plenty of fruit and vegetables in the diet (because their high potassium content helps to displace sodium from the body).

And specifically it also means having a higher intake of calcium, especially, if possible, from a dairy source like natural unsweetened yoghurt. – It is also necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D intake, as this is needed to metabolise the calcium. There is increasing research evidence that vitamin D deficiency is associated with being overweight - and insufficiency of vitamin D is quite common, as is widely reported, e.g. here - http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

In my personal opinion it is neither necessary nor desirable to adopt a low fat diet. Low fat intake can be harmful, especially for small children.

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

And see Sodium in foods and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions
and FAT RETENTION

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

Misguided WHO researchers mistakenly conclude that greed is the explanation for the 'obesity epidemic'

The Telegraph reports that greed, not laziness is the explanation for the 'obesity epidemic', but in fact the explanation lies in neither greed nor laziness, nor a combination of the two. The researchers studied data from the US from the 1970s and the early 2000s, and found that the diet of children contained 350 more calories, while adult diets rose by 500 calories.

But calorie excess is not the cause of obesity. - The relevant changes from the 1970s to the early 2000s are a bigger salt intake, mainly from convenience foods and ready meals, a smaller intake of fruit and vegetables, and a huge increase in the consumption of prescription drugs, so many of which cause sodium and water retention/salt sensitivity/fluid retention/water weight/weight gain.

You do not need to reduce calorie intake or to take more exercise in order to lose weight. Obesity is not caused by over-eating. - You know that already if you think about it. - You see lots of slim people eating like there's no tomorrow and they don't put weight on, so clearly eating too much is not the cause of the 'obesity epidemic'.

Obesity is caused by a combination of salt sensitivity and salt intake. - Only people who are sensitive to salt become fat/overweight/obese. This happens because for them, salt is very harmful: it holds excess water in their bodies. This is often called fluid retention or oedema. The veins swell and the skin gets thinner as it stretches to accommodate the swollen veins.

Reducing calories does not help with these problems. It is irrelevant to them. - Reducing salt is what helps. - By eating less salt and salty food you can easily and swiftly lose some of the excess water and thus lose weight - a lot of weight, since water is heavy.

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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

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

Some doctors are making the absurd claim that Ritalin could help with Britain's obesity crisis.

In this Telegraph article we read that doctors are making the absurd claim that Ritalin could help with Britain's obesity crisis. - Ritalin is one of the controversial psychotropic drugs that have harmed so many children unfortunate enough to have had them prescribed as treatment for ADHD, a putative illness used as a 'diagnosis' by some psychiatrists with strong connections with the drug industry and the drug industry's money. See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008/06/for-years-harvard-child-psychiatrist.html and http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2009/03/read-about-senator-chuck-grassley-of.html

The Telegraph article says: "Doctors behind the latest findings claim a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by undiagnosed ADHD prevents severely obese patients from having the willpower to lose weight."

This is a nonsensical, completely false claim. - Obesity is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain; it is caused by fluid retention, in turn caused by sodium retention, frequently itself caused as a side-effect of some other powerful prescription drug! - Obese people have more than enough health problems to cope with, without foolish doctors prescribing them pharmaceutical junk that will harm them further.

Obesity is easily, safely and swiftly reduced by giving up dieting completely, since it is harmful and does not work, and instead concentrating on cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food in order to reduce the fluid retention.

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

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

The modern obesity epidemic has its roots in the dramatic growth of the human brain and body over two million years ago, misguided scientists claim.

AAAS: Modern obesity epidemic can be traced back two million years
article in the Telegraph

Yes, folks. - It's the usual dangerously misleading claptrap about calories, this time with the emphasis on modern sedentary lifestyles compared with the more active lives of the hunter-gatherers long ago.

Extracts:

"Higher calorie, nutritionally dense diets became necessary to fuel the energy demands of the exceptionally large human brain and help switch from a foraging to "hunter-gatherer" existence.

But the transition from an extremely active subsistence to a modern, sedentary, lifestyle has created energy imbalances that have played a major role in obesity.

According to Professor William Leonard, an anthropologist at Northwestern University, activity patterns must get every bit as much attention as consumption of unhealthy foods in any attempt to reverse the modern-day obesity malaise.

Professor Leonard, who discussed his work during the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) science meeting, said two million years ago diets had to become richer to provide the nutrition to support the rapid evolutionary increases in both the brain and body sizes of our ancestors."

"The imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure today, Professor Leonard concludes, is the root cause of obesity in the industrialized world."

No, Professor Leonard, the roots of the modern obesity epidemic are much more recent than 2,000,000 years ago. - More like round about 1950, say, which I believe is roughly when doctors started prescribing steroids despite not knowing or understanding that they caused massive weight gain, caused in turn by fluid retention, caused in turn by sodium retention, all of which resulted from the effect of the prescribed steroids on the blood vessels. I don't know when tricyclic antidepressants were first prescribed, but I'd guess it was round about the same time - maybe about a decade later. They had the same damaging effect on the veins and were - and still are - very widely prescribed. Nor do I know exactly when the anti-psychotics started to be prescribed - the anti-psychotics that also caused morbid obesity. And likewise the oestrogen-containing hormone replacement drugs - but I guess that that too was in the second half of the twentieth century, the period in which doctors, hand in hand with the baleful pharmaceutical industry, came to destroy the health of far more patients than they have ever helped. All of these factors were compounded by an unprincipled food industry that ladled vast amounts of salt into inferior processed foods which were bought by consumers who looked for convenience food as more and more women were going out to work and so looking to save time in meal preparation. - To cap it all, the dieting industry started to drop its insidious poison of the need to eat less, exercise more, message that has harmed so many millions of innocent victims.

Obesity is not caused by eating fat or sugar or too many calories. Nor is it caused by inactivity/laziness. It is caused by weakened veins leading to fluid retention in the bloodstream, i.e. sodium retention and water/fluid retention, and thereby to excess weight/obesity.

The way to reduce/prevent obesity is to avoid salt and salty food, and to avoid prescription drugs as far as possible because these are a major cause of the the blood vessel damage that precedes the salt sensitivity/fluid retention.

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

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

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