You've not got a cold or any similar infection but you're troubled by frequent sneezing/mucus problems like post-nasal drip or a runny nose?

So - you've not got a cold or any similar infection but you're troubled by frequent sneezing/mucus problems like post-nasal drip or a runny nose? - Well these problems can be caused by sensitivity to salt (which can have resulted from taking prescribed meds), and if that is the case you may like to try cutting down on salt and salty food. The problems can also be caused by eating sugary food, so you could try eating less of that. Whether your problems are salty or sugary, cutting down on processed foods is likely to improve matters. And you will feel so much better!

I've been watching BBC2's The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched Part 1 of The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 last week. I must say it's a refreshing change to have some evidence-supported information about important causes of the dramatic rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and obesity-related ill-health instead of the usual incorrect propaganda.

In Part 1 it was explained how sugar is a major contributor to obesity and how since the second world war the USA's food industry has been ladling sugar, sugar and more sugar, into its processed junk food products, be they sweet or savoury. And another even more-dangerously obesogenic sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is also added to their food junk and their ghastly soft drinks. This corn product use is massively profitable for America's corn farmers and massively damaging to the health and weight of American citizens. - Especially when it is coupled with the ill-conceived (blame Ancel Keys) misinformation that low-fat food is a good way to lose weight (it isn't and it doesn't work) and that low fat intake is good for our health (it isn't). 

So those of us who were paying attention learned that although America purports to be a democracy and proclaims, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," these days it's more like, "Government of the people, by the farm industry's political stooges, for the farm industry's profits, and to Hell with the well-being of the 'American people'".

On Thursday night I watched Part 2, in which it was explained that not content with changing America's food to obesogenic mass-manufactured highly-addictive crap, Big Business perverted civilised eating to a fast feeding process, with fast food outlets serving food fast to customers, who ate it fast (it didn't take too much chewing), sloshing it down with over-sweetened soft drinks, having queued for 'counter-service', so much speedier than table service. And furthermore, they increased portion sizes to ludicrous levels. - I found the gargantuan size of the drinks especially horrifying! 

Well America's citizens are now mostly pretty huge - well huge, certainly, but not so pretty... And they are so big that they almost look like another species. - And what does the food industry suggest as a remedy for this gross obesity problem caused in large part by the food industry itself? - Well, blame it on the victims of course! Like rapists used to do. - The victims need to eat less fat and take more exercise! (NOT)

But it is not lack of exercise that causes obesity, so taking more exercise does not and will not reduce obesity. Obesity causes inactivity, not the other way round, as I explain in my Mensa article. And as Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. explained in Thursday's programme. 

Professor Wilkin led a pioneering study into childhood weight gain and found that children do not gain weight because of inactivity and do not lose weight by taking exercise. The study had been commissioned by the government of the time, but the findings were unwelcome, so they were buried and funding stopped, and successive governments, few among them scientists, chose to heed the falsehoods of the food industry, i.e. cut down on fat, especially saturated fat, and take more exercise! - Oh dear! - Do you think it's too much like America's plight? - Government of the people, by Big Business interests, for the profits of the Food Industry and its mates? - What do you reckon? - We've got the Dept of Health being advised about how to tackle obesity by the food and drinks businesses who promote obesity. - Looks like we're gonna be getting more and more obese with all this crap food and crap advice, doesn't it?

And when are they going to get on to SALT? and anti-depressants? and other prescription drugs that cause weight gain?

Should sugar be taxed to reduce health problems like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes?

Should sugar be taxed to reduce health problems like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes? BBC News reports today that "Sugar is as damaging and addictive as alcohol or tobacco and should be regulated, claim US health experts. According to a University of California team, new policies such as taxes are needed to control soaring consumption of sugar and sweeteners. Prof Robert Lustig argues in the journal Nature for major shifts in public policy." And this is countered by the Industry body the Food and Drink Federation saying that "demonising" any particular foods is unhelpful. - Well that's true inasmuch as it's unhelpful to the Food and Drink Federation and its profits!

The Food and Drink Federation like to sell addictive food and drink to their customers. Addicts return to buy again the products to which they are addicted - to buy them over and over and over again. - I heard the subject of whether sugar should be taxed - because its heavy consumption is causing widespread damage to people's health - being discussed in the last minutes of Radio 4's PM programme today. I think the interviewer was Eddie Mair.

There was Prof Robert Lustig on the phone from America, supplying the voice of reason, and suggesting a heavy tax on sugar stuffs in order to produce a really significant reduction in consumption. And there was a guy from the Food and Drink Federation spouting his ritual rhetoric about sugar not being the baddie - many factors are associated with non-infectious diseases, not just sugar. Think of insufficient exercise, sedentary life-styles, etc. - We need a balanced diet, more exercise, etc etc. - There's no evidence that sugar causes disease... Burble Burble. Burble Burble.

Actually I wondered whether this robotic guy was deaf? - Prof Lustig (Eddie Mair kept calling him Dr Lustig) was explaining that there is actually a great deal of evidence that sugar is definitely being consumed in too high quantities, that it is addictive, that it is actually toxic in that it causes serious metabolic changes to the body - fatty liver, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, etc. - Prof Lustig knows his sugary science (listen to his lecture The Bitter Truth) and he knows his sugary statistics, but his unheeding interlocutor continued burbling about no evidence to support the taxation of sugar, and repeating that it's a matter of a balanced diet, no new evidence, burble, burble, burble. - I think I can hazard his idea of a balanced diet - the sort of balanced diet the Food Industry might find profitable to supply the products for: a Sugar-crammed, intensely sweet cereal breakfast with additive-laden fruit drink, balanced by a salt-laden sandwich for lunch and an over-salted processed ready meal for tea, with snacks throughout the day of biscuits (high in sugar and salt), crisps and maybe a token apple (high in pesticides) added to impress the 'healthy food' brigade.

Health Challenge: Convert your body to a Biscuit-Free Zone!

You really can improve your health by giving up eating biscuits. Just consider their many unhealthy ingredients: transfats/hydrogenated vegetable oil/partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, salt (yes, even sweet biscuits usually contain a lot of salt!), sugar, wheat flour. If you are overweight and you eat biscuits then I'm sure you know that the biscuits are contributing to the excess weight. But you may not know that the transfats in biscuits do not just contribute to overweight, they are actually toxic to the body because they do not exist in natural food and so your body cannot metabolise them in a normal way. They are added for commercial reasons to extend the shelf life of the biscuits. Sadly they do not extend the life of the people who eat the biscuits...)o:- Go on! - Try giving up biscuits! - You'll feel better for it!

Consumer Affairs lists Kelloggs and Quaker as Worst Children's Cereals

Consumer Affairs reports that Kelloggs and Quaker are the Worst Children's Cereals. It is good to see publicity being given to this important health information. "In a list published by Consumer Affairs, some popular cereals measured between 41.4 and 55.6 percent sugar by weight." - That's a helluvalot of sugar! - I am sure that if a parent were mixing a bowl of breakfast cereal from scratch for their child to eat, it would be a very rare parent who would make half of it sugar. Similarly, I doubt that many parents would add a lot of salt to the bowl. - Yet that is what these breakfast cereal manufacturers routinely do.

As well as the high sugar content damaging children's teeth by causing decay, and both the sugar and salt contributing to child obesity, this unhealthy muck is likely to give children a taste for over-sweetened, salty foodstuffs that will damage their health throughout life. They will be at higher risk of developing hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart problems, weakened bones, depression, breathlessness and a host of other degenerative conditions that will cause them unnecessary suffering, unhappiness and a shortened lifespan.

Just because this crap is convenient, popular, heavily advertised, sold in brightly coloured packs attractive to children, and just because your children clamour for the stuff, it doesn't mean it's healthy or good for children. - It isn't. - And just because it's legal to sell such unhealthy junk, it doesn't mean it's really OK to feed it to children. - It isn't. - Feeding this stuff to your children is good for the profits of the manufacturers; it is not good for your children's health.

One of my webpages is about children and salt. - You may like to have a look at it.

Crumpled faces

A couple of weeks ago I watched a very interesting TV programme but found that I was at times distracted by the presenter's face. Such a crumpled face! This was an older man, but by no means an old man. I felt sorry for the owner of the face, as I always do feel sorry for people with crumpled, 'quilted' faces. I think how difficult it must be to wash the face, to clean each wrinkle and furrow, each soft, wobbling line. I wondered why the fellow's face was so crumpled: it could not simply be that he had been out in the sun too much most of his life.

A few days later, by strange coincidence, I came across a possible explanation. Strange, because in all my life I had never heard about it before. The likely answer seems to be GLYCATION. - Go on! - Look it up using your favourite search engine! - It seems that glycation can occur when protein and sugar combine in the body. The Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) that result are undesirable signs of accelerated ageing, which can include wrinkles, cataracts, peripheral nerve damage and many more. So if your poor face has started to look crumpled, or you'd rather like to prevent it ever starting to look crumpled, perhaps you'd like to cut down on the sugar and sugary stuff you eat. Stay as sweet (and young and beautiful) as you are by avoiding the sweet stuff! And reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes...

Have you heard of Bifidobacteria?

Have you heard of Bifidobacteria? You should have done. Bifidobacteria are friends of yours...(o: They are some of the little beneficial microbes that live in your gut. They are sometimes referred to as Probiotics.

You've heard of Antibiotics I am sure. Now when we take antibiotics in order to treat an infection, as well as dealing with the baddie bacteria that are responsible for the infection, antibiotics unfortunately tend to kill off some of the friendly microbes like Bifidobacteria. This can lead to gut problems and many other problems, including thrush/candida and BV/bacterial vaginitis/bacterial vaginosis. And the harmful bacteria in the gut thrive and digestion is compromised. The immune system gets damaged and your risk of developing cancer increases.

But never fear! - Send Bifidobacteria to the rescue! - An easy way to increase the friendly bacteria in your gut and decrease the harmful bacteria, is to eat Probiotic dairy yogurt. - The best sort of probiotic yogurt to look for is that made from full fat milk that has come from cows that eat grass in the fields, not those poor cows that live in overcrowded, dark, unhealthy barns and eat pesticide-treated grains and are given antibiotics because of the poor hygiene. And you should avoid yogurt that has added sugar, because sugar feeds the baddie bacteria that cause those yeast infections like thrush. And you should also make sure the yogurt is organic. Personally I eat Probiotic Yeo Valley natural yogurt usually. It's delicious and it's good for your health. But it is not the only good probiotic wholemilk yogurt. - Why not try all the ones you can find? - Give your gut a treat! - Buy it some probiotic yogurt! - You can read more about Bifidobacteria and the ways it benefits our health by reading this Wikipedia article.

Drug-pushing: irresponsible suggestion that tamoxifen and raloxifene be prescribed to prevent breast cancer

BBC News reports "an international panel of cancer experts" recommending that women at high risk of developing breast cancer should be prescribed tamoxifen and raloxifene, despite the risk of serious adverse side-effects from such drugs. 'Cancer experts' who recommend toxic cancer drugs for people who do not have cancer would, I guess, be 'experts' who have cosy relationships with the drug manufacturers and that their foolish recommendation stems from conflict of interest. I say that because I feel that anyone truly concerned about women at high risk of breast cancer would be seeking to protect them from running any unnecessary risks from taking toxic drugs, and would be advising them to safeguard their health by eating good, natural food free of additives, high in nutrition, low in salt/sodium and low in sugar - something like a paleo diet. There is a well-founded opinion that cancers feed on sugar, so it would clearly be best to avoid sugar as far as possible. (Note : it is often the taking of prescribed drugs that predisposes some women to weight gain and breast disease in the first place, i.e. prescribed steroids and HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and many more.)

The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food

The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food include lowering high blood pressure, lowering your risk of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, most cancers and dementia. It helps with asthma and other breathing problems, inadequate sleep, tiredness, depression, chronic pain, osteoporosis, varicose veins, arthritis, red face, failing memory, inability to concentrate - and so many more! - And that's apart from the benefit I usually write about, namely losing excess weight.

The thing is, pretty well every overweight or obese person loses weight very quickly when they seriously cut down on salt and salty food, and I did believe that it was every one of them. - But last night I heard from a guy in America who was very grateful to me for the advice on my website and blogs and has cut down on salt as a result of taking that advice. - I can't properly remember how long since he started avoiding salt, but I think it's something like a couple of weeks. He says he feels much more mentally alert and is feeling soooooo much better - just like I say will happen - but he hasn't lost any weight yet. So it seems that it's not correct that all overweight people lose weight rapidly, though I assure you that of the people who contact me about cutting down on salt, most of them are eager to tell me straight away that they are losing weight so easily and so fast, as well as all the other benefits, and the compliments they are receiving because they are looking so much better and their work performance has improved so much. Anyway, maybe with some people they get the other benefits first, and the weight loss takes more time.

If you are feeling better because of cutting down on salt but you are not yet losing weight, maybe you have a problem with sugar and other carbs. Not living in America I've not encountered the phenomenon of most food there containing not just salt, but loads of HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and other alien pretend-food, manufactured in laboratories and factories, loads of genetically modified crops/products, loads of hormone-contaminated and pesticide-contaminated frankenfood. Maybe all that 'food' that is so unsuitable for our species that lived for about 2.4 million years on plain, natural animal meat and its fat, plus some plants, and water (not coke! - and not diet coke!) does even more harm to Americans' body chemistry than the UK processed food does to us in the UK. Watch The Bitter Truth when you have 90 minutes to spare. And of course, Americans take even more pharmaceutical drugs than people in the UK, and these drugs do very, very great harm to your body's chemistry and physiology. See Amitriptyline and other drugs. See Prescribed Steroids, HRT and other drugs.

So as well as avoiding added salt/sodium, try low carb, high fat to help you with losing excess weight. - But make sure the fats you eat are good fats - fat from the meat of pastured animals, not from animals that have been fed on grain and hormones and pesticides and anti-biotics. Make sure the butter you eat is made from the milk of pastured cows. Don't ever eat margarine, or low-fat perversions of food. Don't eat oils like corn-oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, 'vegetable oil', etc. You want food that is as natural and unprocessed as possible: so cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil is good. - And don't diet or eat 'diet-foods' or 'slimming foods'. Just eat good, natural, nutritious food. - You will feel sooo much better!

About microbes in your gut that share your body with you

The food you eat influences the proportions of those microbes in your gut that share your body with you. - Personally I favour eating Probiotic, organic, unsweetened, full fat yoghurt from pastured cows in order to increase the proportion of 'goodie' bacteria in my gut.

By contrast, if you eat a lot of sugary food or foods that contain yeast, then the 'baddie' bacteria like Gardnerella, responsible for Bacterial Vaginitis/Vaginitis, and some undesirable yeasts or fungus infections, like candida/thrush, will be more likely to thrive. It is also widely believed that eating sugar feeds cancer...

I suggest that you consider cutting down on the foods that feed 'The Enemy Within'.

What did the ill-mannered sexist NHS consultant say to the female patient recently diagnosed as having Breast Cancer?

Well, almost unbelievably now we are living in the 21st Century, he said, "You're a big girl, aren't you?" - This is the language of the Carry On films. It should not be the language of a health professional to a woman patient in her fifties, especially one trying to come to terms with a diagnosis of a serious illness, with particularly sensitive emotional overtones for a woman.

I heard from my friend, Jane, recently, telling me of the breast cancer. She already has a bad back problem she was born with and a bad leg from a motor accident years ago, and osteoporosis, and has been a wheelchair user for many years. But despite her usual brave struggle with the daily difficulties experienced by a disabled person in our country, this casual, uncalled-for impertinence had upset her very greatly and she dreads the prospect of seeing this guy again. She has made a complaint about his rudeness, but the NHS is notorious for not taking complaints seriously and for doing nothing about them.

Fortunately I was, at any rate, able to offer some positive suggestions for her. I've been reading from several sources recently that sugar feeds cancer, and of course it has no nutritional value anyway, so I suggested that she try cutting down on sugar. I also suggested that she change to using pastured butter (see my previous entry about this, posted on Sunday, 8 August 2010) and that she get hold of some delicious probiotic whole milk organic yoghurt so that these healthy dairy products can improve her bone health at any rate. She already avoids salt and takes calcium and vitamin D3 as a result of my recommending them to her in the past.

Is persistent intolerable itching making you scratch so hard your skin could even bleed? - This may help...

Your skin may have become thinner and more sensitive because of being overstretched by weight gain/fluid retention/salt sensitivity and/or weakened by dieting. - Reducing fluid retention would reduce the weight gain and relax the overstretched skin and thus reduce the itching. - To do this you need to avoid salt and salty food. - It's as simple - and as difficult! - as that...

See Health problems associated with salt sensitivity and fluid retention

Another cause of intolerable itching (especially vaginal or vulval itching: BV, Bacterial Vaginitis/Bacterial Vaginosis) can be a yeast/fungal infection/Candida/Thrush which may have resulted from taking penicillin or some other antibiotic which has altered the balance of your gut flora. Alternative home remedies for this variously include wearing cotton underwear and trying to improve the balance of the vaginal flora by eating less sugar, by eating probiotic yogurt or by applying the yogurt directly to the vagina. By a happy coincidence, eating dairy yoghurt also reduces excess weight by increasing the excretion of fat from the body via the faeces. 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". – 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 eating yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, 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!

I remember reading articles by Professor John Yudkin in which he described sugar as "pure, white and deadly".

I remember reading articles by Professor Yudkin - in the 70s, I believe - in which he described sugar as "pure, white and deadly". I've no doubt he was right in that a lot of sugar can be harmful in many ways.

But I'd say these days that salt is a bigger enemy of health for most people. - "Pure, white and deadlier still..."

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
amitriptyline
prescribed steroids and HRT
See Sodium in foods
and Associated health conditions
and FAT RETENTION

Some Food Myths and how the Food Standards Agency is perpetuating them.

When I looked on 23rd October 2006 at page http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/foodmyths/#elem221121 - part of the Food Standards Agency stable of webpages - I saw the paragraph:
"The most effective way to lose weight – and keep it off – is by changing your lifestyle for good. You need to eat a healthy balanced diet, which means eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, basing your meals on starchy foods, cutting down on foods high in sugar or fat, and by being more physically active."

But actually, cutting down on sugar and fat is not necessary to lose weight. Nor is it necessary to be more physically active in order to lose weight. - All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium, and, preferably, eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, because the potassium these contain helps to displace excess sodium from the body.

Nor was there any mention on page http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/obesity/ (another of the Food Standards Agency pages) of the role of salt sensitivity and fluid retention in causing obesity and the need to eat less salt if you want to lose weight.

Although http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/obesity/ does concede that "Sometimes certain medical conditions and drug treatments can cause weight gain," it has the usual (yawn!) misinformation about calories. - I quote: "When someone is obese, it means they have put on weight to the point that it could seriously endanger their health. This is caused by a combination of eating too many calories and not doing enough physical activity." The claim that "This is caused by a combination of eating too many calories and not doing enough physical activity" is simply not true!

I certainly agree that eating plenty of fruit and vegetables assists in weight loss, and "cutting down on foods high in sugar or fat, and by being more physically active" may well have some health benefits but does not reduce obesity. - The absolutely ESSENTIAL requirement for weight loss is to eat less salt/sodium and they do not even MENTION salt in the context of losing excess weight! - Nor does http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/foodmyths/ give the best advice about salt. - They advise cutting intake to no more than 6g a day. - But if you are very overweight or indeed obese, then you need to reduce your salt intake to the absolute minimum you can manage - much less than 6g a day. - This will enable you to lose as much weight as possible. - Don't worry about whether you will be getting enough sodium. - All food and all water contains a small amount of sodium and this is sufficient for the body's requirements. - So provided you are eating enough food and drinking enough fluid to stay alive, you will be getting enough sodium. - If you are not eat/drinking enough to stay alive then you've got more important problems than sodium to contend with!...(o:

I noticed today - April 8th, 2007 - (I can't remember whether it was there last time I looked at the page) that they have invented a bit of strange misinformation...(o: - http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/foodmyths/ says today:

"Drinking water that is ice cold doesn't use up any more calories than drinking water at room temperature."

Well of course drinking ice cold water does use up more calories than drinking water at room temperature. - I wonder why they are claiming that it doesn't? - The point is though, that it is completely irrelevant as far as reducing obesity is concerned, because obesity is not caused by calorie excess and is not reduced by calorie deficit.

I see that http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/obesity/ also states:

You might be interested in the National Audit Office's Tackling Obesity in England. For a copy of this or other Government publications, contact the Stationery Office.

Don't bother! - I've got a copy and it gives the usual garbage/misinformation about obesity being caused by overeating/too many calories and says that calorie reduction and more physical activity is the way to combat obesity. - It isn't ! - It doesn't work! - It is unnecessary, counter-productive, harmful and often downright dangerous!

Incidentally, I wonder whether the freelance dietitians who have a link on the http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/obesity/ page pay the Food Standards Agency for that link or for the business that accrues to them from it? - Maybe there is no cash involved. Maybe they just have reciprocal links. - My website definitely has no sponsored links. There is no gain to me, financial or otherwise, from your visiting my website or from taking any of the advice it contains. I alone pay all the costs of my website. - So you know that the advice I give is impartial and not tainted by considerations of possible profit.

Forget about calories! - Cut down on salt! - You'll lose weight fast - as if by magic!

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.)