Do you have a lot of unpleasant symptoms of ill-health and keep developing more? And keep getting more and more pills to deal with the new symptoms?

I sometimes look at forums on the internet and in particular those in which forum members write about symptoms or diagnoses they have, and invite other members to suggest a course of action. Mostly other forum members do indeed try to help the OP by suggesting a course of action or by sympathising with the OP because they think they themselves have, or have had, the same problem and know how difficult it is to cope with. 

 

There is usually a strong tendency to suggest what they feel will be acceptable to the OP. Thus if the OP is taking such and such drug for such and such problem, and a second drug for the second problem... and an nth drug for the nth problem, rounded off by an anti-depressant for feeling fed up about it all, then the response might well be to get the GP to send the OP for, say, an X-ray or a CT scan or MRI scan, for this or that or the other in the hope of sorting out the new symptom by giving it a medical name and another pack of pills to tackle it or to 'legitimatise' it.

 

 

My cast of mind would cause me to wonder whether some of the troubling symptoms are caused by the actual drugs themselves, or possibly by the fact that the drugs are adversely reacting with one another. Another thought I would have straight away is to consider ditching the anti-depressant (by gradually reducing the dose) since anti-depressants 'work' no better than dummy pills and have a multitude of serious adverse effects that cause harm both in the present and in the future, to both the body and the brain. Most importantly I'd be concentrating on what has caused all these nasty symptoms - 'cos they sure as Hell weren't caused by lack of pharmaceutical drugs in the body!

 

 

It is increasingly the case, surely, that the unnatural and unhealthy food that the food industry foists on its customers is responsible for a large proportion of the degenerative illnesses those customers suffer from. - "There is no compulsion to buy unhealthy food!" I hear you cry - and you are right. I agree with you. - But like the magic food of the wicked witches and goblins in some fairy stories, modern convenience foods are highly addictive. Junk foods create junk food junkies, enslaved by their food cravings.

 

 

If a daring forum member were to suggest a change of diet - cutting down on salt or sugar perhaps, eating fresh food, home-cooked, much more often than ready-cooked crap from the supermarket, drinking water rather than highly addictive fizzy drinks, one of which drinks can be used as a pretty effective toilet-cleaner! - I don't think that answer would go down too well. Gosh no. - Health is nothing to do with food and nutrition, you know...(o: - Ill-health is caused by magic and must be treated by magical drugs - even if they don't work and require another drug to remedy their side-effects!

House of Lords committee finds Nudge Theory for improving health is not good enough

BBC News reports that The House of Lords science and technology committee finds Nudge Theory with regard to improving the nation's health is not good enough, and that legislation is also required. Well I'd certainly go along with that. - The current health nudges/snippets of advice include that increasing exercise levels helps with reducing obesity - but it doesn't! - and that saturated fat causes heart disease - but it doesn't! - and that high cholesterol levels should be treated by taking prescribed statins - although these drugs do most people more harm than good and cost a lot of money.

Another nudge is called voluntary agreement, and that is when the manufacturers of unhealthy food agree to reduce levels of harmful additives/contaminants/poisons in the processed junk/food they inflict on consumers, and then do this reduction by miniscule amounts at the speed of an exhausted snail on tranquillisers. - My especial grouse about this is the continued presence of toxic synthetic transfats in manufactured biscuits, cakes, etc. Adding these factory-produced poisons to food intended for human consumption should be banned by Law, and that Law backed up by criminal sanctions against the CEOs of any companies that continue to add them to their products.

If the continued rise in incidence and severity of obesity that wreaks havoc on the economy and great, unnecessary suffering on huge numbers of individual people, is ever to be stemmed, and, hopefully, reversed, then any nudges/advice given should be supported by reliable evidence that it is correct, and not just the repetition of unproven mantras, assumptions and misinformation.

NHS hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals.

Patients 'revolted' by NHS food

Extract from the Observer article:

"Hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals, according to a survey by the consumer organisation Which?

The new research reveals that some hospitals are offering many of the 13 million people admitted every year unhealthy food, portions that are too small and cold meals in the evening. Patients' other complaints include being served meals at inconvenient times and failure by hospitals to cater for people with special diets, such as diabetics and the overweight.

Michael Summers, a vice-chairman of the Patients' Association, said the quality of hospital food had improved until many hospitals began running up deficits. 'There had been quite a decent variety of food, people given menus the night before and the temperature of the food was taken. But cutbacks by hospitals have had a terrible effect,' said Summers. 'It's quite common now for hospital food to be sub-standard.'

Some of the 3,000 patients interviewed described the food they had been served as 'repulsive' or 'a disgrace'. One had been given a pie and chips despite struggling to drink because of tonsillitis; another was given sandwiches for dinner.

After interviewing 250 doctors, nurses and other NHS personnel, Which? also found that one in five hospital staff would turn their nose up at food served to patients. 'We are extremely concerned that hospital food is still of such poor quality that just a third of people feel they're getting the food they need to get better, and that one in four thinks it's so bad they have to make alternative arrangements,' said Clare Corbett, a health campaigner with Which?"

I found the meals provided while I was an in-patient in the Northern General Hospital Sheffield in the summer were very poor and I had to get friends to bring me in unsalted protein food and extra fruit. Most of the hospital meals were high in salt despite the Chief Dietician's claims to the contrary...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart, 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!

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vulnerable groups

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See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

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