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Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Virginia Tech: Is there a link between noodle consumption and mass murder at school?

The murder of 32 people and the wounding of dozens more by Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung Huiat, at Virginia Tech this week may have been the worst, but it was only one of about 20 mass shootings that happen each year in the US. The fashion, it seems be it from boredom, being unfairly fired or cruely snubbed by one's peers - is to retailiate with all guns blazing.

Place a modern weapon like a Glock hand gun in the hands of even a monkey and you have a natural born killer.

Since the 1966 Texas Tower killings when Charles Whitman, a student at the University of Texas, climbed a 27-storey tower and killed 15 people, wounding 31 others, there has been a disturbing rise in the the frequency of school mass killings and they have become increasingly bloodthirsty. What is going on here and what on Earth has this to do with noodles?

One of the disturbing facts about these college mass killings (please correct me if I am wrong) is that every single one of these crazed killers was on one or more mood-altering prescription medications and, in some cases, various illicit drugs as well. Refer to this website for more information about this topic.

We know that some prescription anti-depressants cause more - not less - suicide and more violent behaviour in young people - not less. Refer a troubled young man to a psychiatrist and you can be assured 99/100 that he will exit the consultation with a prescription for a mood-altering drug like Prozac or Ritalin. And possibly some counselling that he may never attend.

These drugs do nothing at all to address the multitude of underlying factors, beginning before birth, that may be contributing to poor concentration, muddled thinking, depression and violent outbursts. A factor not to be overlooked is a young man's nutrition. Take some time to view this compelling video here.

As an aside: Another factor that can not be ignored in the United States nowadays is institutionalised fear-mongering and the social isolation of those who do not quite fit in with the majority (Do prescription drugs cure this problem?). This situation must be especially difficult for minority races and for ex-patriats living within the USA. Gosh! In some security-sensitive institutions, non-US citizens are required carry distinctive ID tags that make them to stand out from others.

Whenever I talk to groups of young people about health and fitness, I always take along a supply of a teen's staple food - instant noodles. Almost without exception, instant noodles make up a significant part of a young man's diet - more so if he is a student. I get the young audience to do a nutritient analysis of the contents of the instant noodle pack. Of course, the conclusion we always come to is that there are no real nutrients worth mentioning and they are packed with flavourings and other chemicals that are of dubious safety.

The brain requires a range of essential fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to function properly. A fat-free diet, such as instant noodles and skinless chicken is capable of triggering a full-blown psychotic episode. Additional factors such as stress, excessive caffeine and sleep deprivation can cause an explosive cocktail when combined with a fat-free diet. Add mood altering prescription drugs and the ready access to automatic weaponry and we have the recipe for mass killings.

"...The law-abiding citizen is entitled to own a rifle, pistol, or shotgun. The right, put simply, shall not be infringed..." Charlton Heston

Out of this latest set of killings is the call for even more freedom to carry guns, since the killings happened within a gun-free campus. If the kids and teachers were armed, the killer would have been shot before he killed too many is the argument. Sure, this might possibly reduce mass killings; but I don't buy that argument for a moment. What it would mean is more killings overall - just think of a typical road rage incident if the drivers were armed to the teeth! Guns kill - We just pull the triggers.

Here in New Zealand we have more than our fair share of murderous nutters. The difference is they are most unlikely to run amok with an automatic weapon with thousands of rounds of lethal dum-dum bullets. The weapons most likely to be used are knives or single shot rifles, thus limiting the carnage.

If Americans want to retain their God-given constitutional right to bear arms, perhaps they should do so in the spirit of the technology when that right was first written into their constitution Centuries ago. Those who demand to retain the right to bear arms should be restricted to good old fashioned muskets that are difficult to load and prone to misfiring - and difficult to conceal.

Noodle King and inventor of the instant noodle, Momofuku Ando, died recently at the good age of 96 years. I have no doubt that he would have had fresh and nutritious foods lavishingly topping his daily meal of noodles.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Depression link with chronic cough

"Among people suffering from chronic cough, more than half have symptoms of depression, new research shows. The good news is that the depression seems to lift as the cough improves."
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Gary Moller comments:
Duuh? Did we miss something? Ok, so I am looking awful and coughing all over the place, grossing other people out. That's depressing.

So, what do we do? Place the person on antidepressants and antibiotics - one or both? Do we take a cough suppressant? This is leading medicine down the wrong path of treating the symptoms and not the cause. Symptoms are being treated to treat symptoms.

While a course of antibiotics may be necessary to get on top of any infection; to really get to the heart of the matter of conditions like chronic chest infections and depression, we need to investigate and deal with the real underlying causes. In doing so, we might find any of the following at work:

  • Vitamin D deficient which is linked with chronic respirattory infections and depression
  • Malnutrition related to a junk diet that usually goes hand in hand with feeling depressed
  • Poor living conditions
  • Abuse of drugs including cigarettes, marijuana, prescription drugs and alcohol
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Chronic stress - financial problems, a lousy marriage or job, no job, no goals, too many committments, out of control kids etc

To not deal with these by means other than drugging is to leave the wolf at the door waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Vitamin D deficiency among patients attending a central New Zealand rheumatology outpatient clinic

Abstract
Aims
To measure the Vitamin D status in patients attending a rheumatology outpatient clinic because of the known musculoskeletal and immunosuppressive effects of Vitamin D deficiency.
Methods 66 consecutive patients at a private rheumatology clinic in central New Zealand were recruited at the beginning of winter.
Results Of 66 patients, 55 patients were included in the analysis. 43 (78%) had 25OH cholecalciferol levels that were below the reference range (50–150 nmol/L), and of these 12 (22%) had levels classified as moderate to severe deficiency (<25>
Disease/condition
Number of patients
Rheumatoid arthritis
Inflammatory arthritis
Psoriatic arthritis
Polymyalgia rheumatica
Backpain and muscle pain
Arthralgia
Osteoarthritis
CREST syndrome
Enthesopathy
Exercise induced urticaria
Juvenile RA
Oligoarthritis
Post viral fatigue
Reactive arthritis
Sarcoidosis
SLE
Spondyloarthropathy
Tendinitis
Undifferentiated CTD
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Gary Moller comments:
This study, published in the NZ Medical Journal by Dr Chiu of Wellington reflects very much my own findings when dealing with people with chronic health conditions. One of the most difficult things to get done in these cases is to get a blood test for vitamin D. Doctors rarely test for it despite the wealth of research evidence about the link between vitamin D and health.

For those of you who are athletically inclined, consider this: low vitamin D is associated with joint and muscle pain and muscle weakness. And it is no concidence that more babies are conceived over summer months than any other time of year!

As Dr Chiu points out in the Discussion Section of his paper, the optimum level for vitamin D is around 120 nmol/l. The fact that his results are at the end of summer is of great concern because it can be expected that D levels will plummet over the winter months.

Building up vitamin D levels is not an easy task, as I have found out personally. Despite a change of occupation that took me out from under flourescent lighting all day and into natural lighting surroundings and plenty of sunlight, my levels have been low. Last winter we holidayed a couple of weeks in sunny North Queensland. Despite this, my own vitamin D levels coming into spring were a low 68 nmol/l. This really shocked me and confirmed the need to really work on building levels over summer by a mix of vitamin D rich foods and careful sunbathing.

Roll on the 120-160nmol goal!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill

Sunday 17 December 2006
The drug maker Eli Lilly has engaged in a decade-long effort to play down the health risks of Zyprexa, its best-selling medication for schizophrenia, according to hundreds of internal Lilly documents and e-mail messages among top company managers.

The documents, given to The Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, show that Lilly executives kept important information from doctors about Zyprexa's links to obesity and its tendency to raise blood sugar - both known risk factors for diabetes.

Lilly's own published data, which it told its sales representatives to play down in conversations with doctors, has shown that 30 percent of patients taking Zyprexa gain 22 pounds or more after a year on the drug, and some patients have reported gaining 100 pounds or more. But Lilly was concerned that Zyprexa's sales would be hurt if the company was more forthright about the fact that the drug might cause unmanageable weight gain or diabetes, according to the documents, which cover the period 1995 to 2004.

Zyprexa has become by far Lilly's best-selling product, with sales of $4.2 billion last year, when about two million people worldwide took the drug.

Critics, including the American Diabetes Association, have argued that Zyprexa, introduced in 1996, is more likely to cause diabetes than other widely used schizophrenia drugs. Lilly has consistently denied such a link, and did so again on Friday in a written response to questions about the documents. The company defended Zyprexa's safety, and said the documents had been taken out of context.... Last year, Lilly agreed to pay $750 million to settle suits by 8,000 people who claimed they developed diabetes or other medical problems after taking Zyprexa. Thousands more suits against the company are pending. (Read the whole article by clicking on the linked headline).
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Gary Moller comments:
Now, let's see, $4 billion+ per year over 10 years = $40 billion. The cost of suppressing this health information = only $750 million - so far. If I was the CEO of this company, I think the maths is very much in favour of that decision to suppress, rather than disclose. Similar to pill-popping this behaviour is becoming a bit of a bad habit.

Do you think the US politicians are ever going to get tough on these guys with stiffer penalties that make non-disclosure uneconomic? No way! They will not do anything to hurt their buddies any further than a token slap on the hands with a wet bus ticket.

Politicians have allowed themselves to be compromised on this and other issues. For evidence of the millions of $$$ that are pumped into the political coffers of the USA political parties and individual electorates by pharmaceutical interests go here.

While we are at it; if you want evidence that the Iraq war is very good for business and benefiting politicians at the same time - and to see just how compromised both Republicans and Democrats are on these issues - then take a look at these charts. (Now that the balance of power has shifted in the US, it will be interesting to come back in several months from now and see if the "balance of payments" has shifted during that time).