Low fat milk may be making people fat!

For years, people have swapped creamy whole milk for a watery bottle of trim to help boost their weight loss efforts.
But new research has discovered that drinking skinny versions could be making people bigger, not smaller.
Government guidelines currently recommend that people consume "moderate amounts of milk and dairy, choosing reduced fat versions or eating smaller amounts of full fat versions or eating them less often."
It is generally thought that by drinking trim milk you can get whole milk's benefits - Vitamin D, calcium and protein amongst others - without the fat and calories.
By reducing the fat, the trim milk is certainly lower in calories, but the authors of a new study - David Ludwig, of Boston's Children Hospital, and Dr Walter Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health - believe lower calorie beverages do not necessarily mean lower calorie intake.
They say there is very little data to back up the idea that skimmed milk promotes weight loss or management and that because reduced fat foods might not be as filling, they could lead consumers to compensate by eating and drinking more.
Rest of article here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10895452
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Gary:
This really is a case of "I told you so!"  And I have no hesitation in saying so.  For at least ten years I have been waging a campaign against the 99% fat free message, stating that low fat processed foods, including low fat milk will make you fat.  I am not alone by the way: Thousands of experienced nutritionists and natural health practitioners have been saying the same for decades; but their concerns have been blithely dismissed as "quackery" by those in control of mainstream nutrition which I believe has sold out to the food industry giants.  An apology is in order but I am not about to hold my breath waiting!

The mechanism for weight gain is simple:
A feed that has fat and protein will take about four hours to digest; whereas a low fat - low protein meal will take no more than an hour.  This means that people on low fat diets will be low in energy and on junk food snacking within the hour; whereas the one with the fat diet will remain satiated for and bubbling with energy for hours.

This also explains why babies that are breast fed by women who are on these depleted diets seldom sleep for longer than an hour and tend to become over weight.  These babies suck and suck and suck and risk being plagued with "wind", reflux and lactose overload (lactose is a milk sugar and disproportionately high in the milk of women on low fat diets). 

By contrast, the breast fed baby of a mother on a high fat diet with plenty of protein will tend to be thinner, more contented and will tend to give its parents the blessing of four hours of unbroken sleep between feeds - Yeeha!

When an obese person switches from low fat processed foods to foods that have been prepared from their raw beginnings, with there being about 30% natural fats and 30% protein, they invariably lose weight and generally look and feel so much healthier than before.

This video below, about full cream milk, was made several years ago.  I can report that my son, Alama, remains thin, well-muscled and in excellent health despite being raised on full cream milk straight from the cow's udder.

When you read articles like this one by the NZ Herald, you really have to wonder just how out of touch with the real world the health experts are who develop health policy in New Zealand?  Or is it a case of having blatantly sold their souls to huge commercial interests?

Basically, the more that raw foods can be processed with the individual constituents isolated, repackaged and then sold to you as separate items, the more money they can make.  There is little to be made from selling raw ingredients.  Another factor is that industrially produced grains like, rice, corn, wheat and soy are extremely cheap to produce and can be sold to you in many, many forms at a very high added value.  Low fat equals highly processed grains and dairy.

The obesity epidemic almost perfectly coincides with the introduction of the low fat message.

Gosh - what a health disaster!  

About this website 

The advice in these articles is given freely without promise or obligation. Its all about giving you and your family the tools and information to take control of your health and fitness.

Candida and Fungal Infections? Gary Moller recommends you explore this programme: Click Here!

Tamiflu - You would have to be nuts to give this to your baby

Whereas the flu is self-limiting, the FDA's capacity for bad decisions is not...

The recent decision by the FDA to approve the use of the antiviral drug Tamiflu for treating influenza in infants as young as two weeks old, belies an underlying trajectory within our regulatory agencies towards sheer insanity.

Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, has already drawn international concern over its link with suicide deaths in children given the drug 

Article here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/fda-approves-neurotoxic-flu-drug-infants-less-one?utm_source=GreenMedInfo+Weekly&utm_campaign=53ed57292c-Greenmedinfo&utm_medium=email

About this website
 The advice in these articles is given freely without promise or obligation. Its all about giving you and your family the tools and information to take control of your health and fitness.

How beta blockers and drugs for anxiety ruin lives and kill

"Like surgeries, drugs are extremely valuable when used correctly. Unfortunately this is NOT how drugs are used in today's "modern" medicine! In fact, most doctors confuse "practicing medicine" with "automatic prescription writing." This hurts everyone except the drug companies.
Even in cases when drugs are beneficial, alternative drug-free treatments should alwaysbe considered first. Because along with chemical drugs come many harmful side effects that can often take years to surface. In fact, since many drugs cause more harm than good...patients wind up with even more prescriptions than what they started out with. It's a perpetual life threatening cycle that needs to stop!" W C Douglas MD

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Gary Moller comments:

The most common reason for going to the doctor in Wellington City is anxiety and depression. The standard treatment is drugs like beta blockers and various other drugs that variously to lower the blood pressure and reduce anxiety. Most of these drugs work by depressing the chemicals that regulate signaling between nerve cells. This means varying degress of brain fog, dry mouth and slowing of the digestive processes including gut peristalsis.
I have written previously about these drugs and soaring dementia rates. Let's talk about peristalsis, the rhythmic contractions of the smooth muscle of the digestive tract that steadily propels through the the digestive process and into the bowel where it is eliminated once or twice daily. Many drugs slow this process and the consequences can be dire. But, first a little about dry mouth.

Many drugs slow the production of digestive juices and this may be show as dry mouth. Have you seen the movie "Me, Myself & Irene"? In the movie, Jim Carrey plays a man with a split personality named Hank. In one really hilarious scene he takes his medication and suffers an excessive dry mouth reaction. While it was totally over the top, it served well to illustrate what millions of people must put up with daily. Interfere with the digestive juices, including saliva and the person tends towards sweet junk foods and what food is eaten is poorly digested.

Poor digestion along with slowed peristalsis leads to chronic malnutrition and diseases associated with putrid partially digested food accumulating in the lower tracts of the digestive system. Diverticulitis, Chrohn's disease, constipation Chronic obstructive bowel disease, bowel cancer and other ailments develop.

These diseases of the digestive tract may take 20 or more years to develop and the association with the offending medication may never be made.

The consequence is many years of ongoing surgery, more and more powerful drugs, chronic infections, colostomy bags, days, weeks and months in hospital and a gradual slide into disability that ends with a slow and undignified death well before time. The cost to the health system is measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost to the family is immeasurable.

What often blows me away is that the offending medication - the anti-depressant or the blood pressure medication continues to prescribed although the need for it may be long gone!

Modern drugs do have their place; but not when dealing with issues that are mostly to do with our lifestyles and the natural processes of ageing.

Is your blood pressure medication really working?  If you have been prescribed blood pressure medication then you should be monitoring your blood pressure daily with an Omron Blood Pressure Monitor.

Flawed study linking vitamins with death shown to be dishonest falsification

It seems that some people will do just about anything to get ahead, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise when a mostly falsified study is released to put down what is primarily known as a fundamentally healthy and intelligent choice. Unfortunately, people still will try to spread discord amongst their fellow man in an apparent attempt to get ahead; sacrificing the good of the people is unfortunately a small price to pay for an insurmountably large personal gain, in many cases. This dishonest act can be seen in one such case of misinformation – a ‘study’ performed in order to bring the market for multivitamins and other very respectable health supplements down a notch. In the article Iowa Women’s Health Study, much of the piece takes many things that are widely known as beneficial within a large number of vitamin supplements, and links some of these to various deaths in which people with diseases would essentially overdose themselves on vitamins in a desperate grab to fight off the disease. The article then discounts the fact that many people do not even use vitamins except for when they are sick, wrongfully linking an absurd amount of deaths directly to the use of vitamins and other supplements. As an example, a person was diagnosed with a life threatening disease, and in a sense of sheer panic began using as much as 40 supplements all at once, going up from using literally nothing the previous day. This example was then taken out of context and used as a source of evidence that supplements are in fact potentially deadly – a completely biased and ridiculous claim! Read: Why nearly ALL vitamin studies are worthless.  More specifically, the amount of iron within these vitamins was under heavy fire, being dubbed the major culprit behind the high mortality rates associated with the use of supplements – not an entirely wrong accusation, but nonetheless blown vastly out of proportion compared to other very real causes of death. The article essentially throws out the fact that a great many people will attempt to reverse any disease or ailment – ranging from a common cold to stage 4 cancer – with copious amounts of supplements and vitamins and other pills that serve little purpose in the users. There are no doubts about it, using supplements and vitamins in this method is not the best or even smartest way to reap the benefits, and it is at the users fault when they misuse the vitamins themselves. There are many discrepancies within the article itself: Many of the studied patients also used unnatural amounts of hormones found in doctor recommended supplements, as well as supplements found to have a copious amount of iron and copper in them. The study also discredited other known beneficial substances such as omega-3 fatty acids, and would instead take an absurd amount of vitamin C over just about everything else as a basis of information. This kind of bias and misinformation is what leads the public to believe in mostly anything that major ‘scientific’ studies continue to propagate.  SOURCE:  http://www.infowars.com/flawed-pharma-study-demonizing-vitamins-and-minerals-debunked/

_______________________________________

About this website

The advice in these articles is given freely without promise or obligation.  Its all about giving you and your family the tools and information to take control of your health and fitness.

Causes of Statin Adverse Effects

"After years of studying this subject I now have research documentation for the hundreds of case reports of unusual behavioral manifestations associated with statin use. There are now compelling explanations for the many reports of aggressiveness, hostility, sensitivity, paranoia, homicidal ideation, road rage like reactions, profound depression, suicidal ideation and even suicides associated with the use of statin drugs. And there is no doubt in my mind that many more statin associated problems may be involved with this dolichol function as we gain more knowledge."

Duane Graveline MD MPH
Former USAF Flight Surgeon
Former NASA Astronaut
Retired Family Doctor

__________________________________

Statins are one of the most widely prescribed class of drugs for the reduction of cholesterol.  I have written several articles about the adverse effects of these drugs.  I consider them to be dangerous and best not taken. There are safe and effective alternatives.

Here is an article that explains the disturbing litany of adverse effects of statins.  This was sent to me some time ago by M J Hope Cawdrey, a respected and widely published researcher (I am not quite sure how to describe him other than as a "Bioclimatologist").  His additions and comments are in blue.

Thanks, Mike, for allowing me to reproduce your contribution to this most important health issue.

Gary

Swimmers expelled from NZ team for 'inappropriate behaviour'

"BEIJING - Olympic swimmers Dean Kent, Corney Swanepoel and Cameron Gibson were expelled from the New Zealand team following an unsavoury incident which embarrassed a teammate.

The three experienced Olympians took a photograph of the drunk teammate sitting on the toilet in a prank at a social function late last week before circulating it to other teammates.

.....New Zealand were rocked in the closing stages of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games by an alcohol-fuelled incident involving cyclists Tim Gudsell, Marc Ryan and Liz Williams.

Gudsell and Ryan were later found to have breached their Cycling New Zealand athlete's agreement and ordered to seek professional help to avoid a repeat."
For the full story, please go here
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Gary comments:
What a difference when the athletes are no longer needed! Contrast this firm action with the other incident that is referred to in the article above.

I was with the Cook Islands Team at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and learned first hand from the Games Village Police what happened that night by the Duck Pond between the two male cyclists and their unfortunate female team mate. It was disgusting to say the least. Everybody in the Games Village knew the truth; but the public showcase was carefully stage managed. Damage control ruled and no charges were laid.

What was even more disgusting was the actions of the management upon return to New Zealand who, it appears, concluded the male cyclists more essential for future campaigns than the female. While Liz Williams stayed relatively quiet, her mother sure was not; but was quickly put in her place and she shut up. Having a couple of daughters about Liz's age and seriously into cycling I was very interested to see how this business was going to be handled.

Gudsell and Ryan were sent to some counselling course and have continued their international cycling with various successes. Liz? We have no idea what was offered to help this young woman.

Did she get any support?

"Silly question, Gary - She's a girl and she was probably asking for it!"

As predicted at the time of the incident, she has disappeared off the NZ cycling scene.

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Are your vitamins really killing you?

"Rather than making you healthier, you might be surprised to know that the vitamins you take every day are actually killing you.

This recent story has been running in the media based on a meta-analysis by Goran Bjelakovic published in JAMA 2007.

The problem is that this JAMA article was a flawed hatchet job not worth the paper it was written on. Out of 748 vitamin studies, the researchers selected only 67 focusing on high dose synthetic vitamins, and excluded all the others showing benefit. This called selective sampling...."
"Negative articles on vitamins are seen in the mass media. Usually, these are funded directly or indirectly by drug companies, and the researchers are paid to come up with negative findings in order to discredit vitamins so people will take more drugs. It is a simple matter of follow the money trail."
For the full article by Dr Dach, please go here.
_____________________________
Gary Moller comments:
Dr Dach is not the first expert to rubbish recent reports that vitamins kill people. What has been predictably disappointing is the fact that huge media fanfare has been given to these flawed, if not fraudulent reports while the reports and voices to the contrary have been largely ignored.

This is in common with the ignoring of the truth about other health lies . Do you hear that keeping out of the sun increases your risk of developing at least 28 different forms of cancer? Do you hear that fat free diets are among the root causes of the obesity epidemic? Do you hear that lowering cholesterol can kill off your sexual performance? Do you hear that calcium fortified low fat milk may be adding to your risk of developing osteoporosis? Do you hear that more runners die from drinking too much water nowadays, then from drinking too little? And so on and so on.

What is common to all of these is big bucks industry benefiting from promoting health myths and compromised health advocacy organisations failing to advocate for the consumer-patient. Health has been hijacked by commercial interests, as has much of our food production and their huge financial muscle has skewed the advice and information that is delivered to the public.


Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.

Is Aspartame really as safe as they say it is?

“In any such study of even a few hundred test animals, it takes no more than a dozen or so of them to exhibit a particular lesion… to associate with the test agent, i.e., aspartame or its related chemicals.”
Dr. Adrian Gross, FDA toxicologist in a letter to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Oct. 30, 1986.

When Victoria Inness-Brown contacted me about “explosive information” concerning aspartame (Equal,NutraSweet) the controversial, artificial, chemical sweetener, I didn’t know what to expect. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence of aspartame’s danger to human health (tires have been recalled for less) it remains in 6,000 food, drink and medicinal products.

Who could imagine a private citizen would do an aspartame experiment with 108 rats for 2 years and 8 months?
The late Dr. Adrian Gross explained that rodent experiments are the means to find out what a particular substance will do to human beings.
Look at Victoria’s pictures of her animals that ingested the equivalent amount of aspartame (in human terms) of less than one diet coke a day, until their spontaneous death. Importantly, the control groups, those fed no aspartame were free from visible effects.
Please read on by going here.

Ghost Authors Common in Medical Research Papers: Study

Drug companies initiating clinical trials often use ghost authors and medical writers whose contributions are not credited in the research papers, Danish scientists said on Tuesday.
This practice could be reduced by greater transparency and stricter rules that insist everyone who has worked on or contributed to a medical trial is named.
"Ghost authorship is common but it is often kept secret because it is in the interest of both the industry and the academic authors who lend their names to papers they have had very little or, in some cases, nothing to do with," Peter Gotzsche, of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, said in an interview.
The names of authors and researchers are omitted from the published research papers because this may serve the commercial interests of the company sponsoring the trial.
"We have seen again and again that the conclusions in trial reports and other types of articles are given a spin by industry so that the conclusions are too positive compared to the data presented," Gotzsche said.
"It is very important for the industry to get messages out that are useful for their marketing departments," he added.
Lending their name to a study can be beneficial for researchers because it raises their profile and the number of published studies they are linked to. Gotzsche and a team of international researchers believe that unless the role of all the authors is set out in the research paper, people reading the study will not be able accurately to judge or trust its conclusions.
The scientists analysed 44 trials approved by Danish ethics committees in 1994-1995 in the first systematic examination of ghost authorship. One of the studies had been initiated by a local company and 43 by one of 26 multinational drug companies.
The researchers identified 33 trials with ghost authors. In 31 of them the ghost writer was a statistician -- the person who analysed the trial data.
__________________________
Gary Moller comments:
These sorts of appalling practices help to explain why "research" that shows favourable results for commercial products always seem to be far more numerous than those reports that are less than favourable. Coupled with massive publicity machines behind them these reports of questionable repute then receive incredible publicity in the media - propaganda dressed up as news!

Menawhile, the free or cheap, self-help methods for keeping healthy, or regaining health are largely ignored. For example, if a drug was discovered that was shown to reduce cancer risk by as much as 50% it would be a news sensation. The discoverers would not only become incredibly wealthy, they would also be Nobel Prize winners. Or would they?

Well there is a drug that has been discovered that does just that - sunlight. Sadly, because sun is free it receives little in the way of recognition for its cancer preventing qualities. In fact, we are taught by the establishment to fear the sun. Some might think there is some kind of conspiracy going on here. Or is it just a case of willful neglect aided and abetted by powerful commercial interests?

American Diabetes Association "Bought off"?

After the American Diabetes Association received a large gift from a major manufacturer of sugar-sweetened beverages, its top medical official is claiming that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes.

In an interview published on 16 May in Corporate Crime Reporter, Richard Kahn, the chief scientific and medical officer with the American Diabetes Association, said: "What is the evidence that sugar itself has anything to do with diabetes? There is no evidence."
On 21 April, the ADA announced a "three-year, multimillion-dollar alliance" with Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, which produces sweetened soft drinks that are implicated in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United State. Its parent company Cadbury Schweppes, is the third-largest soft-drink manufacturer in the world, after Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

"Saying that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes is like saying that tobacco has nothing to do with emphysema," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert.
"The American Diabetes Association has been so corrupted that they have sunk to the mentality of tobacco scientists who denied the link between tobacco and lung cancer."
(Source: Corporate Crime Reporter press release, 16 May 2005, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/diabetes051605.htm)

The complete report above is a very interesting read. I will soon be writing an article about the situation here in New Zealand about how I believe some advocacy organisations appear to have compromnised themselves to the point of selling their supporters short.

Are you searching for the solar panels pages?

If you are looking for the latest about the solar water heating issues, including the latest on the Consumer's Institute "Product Alert" and the TVOne Closeup programme about "Dud Panels", here is the link to the Latest Updates, including the videos.

Spontaneous fractures and Fossy Jaw

Bisphosphonate drugs for Osteoporosis,

like Fosamax and Actonel, are taken up by osteoclasts with resulting loss of osteoclast activity and inhibition of bone resorption, and bone remodeling. Although DEXA scanning confirms increased bone density and studies such as the FIT suggest reduced fracture rate, Susan Ott, MD raises questions about the long term safety of bisphosphonates. Although the bisphosphonates appear to have short term benefits, she speculates that after 5 years of use, there is severe suppression of bone formation with negative effects such as microdamage and brittleness.

Spontaneous Fractures of the Mid-Femur

Jennifer P. Schneider, MD, PhD reports a 59-year old previously healthy woman on long-term alendronate. While on a subway train in New York City one morning, the train jolted, and the woman shifted all her weight to one leg, felt a bone snap, and fell to the floor, suffering a spontaneous mid -femur fracture. This is not an isolated report.Avacular Necrosis of the Jaw.

Fossy Jaw

Dimitrakopoulos reports on 11 patients presenting with necrosis of the jaw, claiming this to be a new complication of bisphosphonate therapy administration, i.e. osteonecrosis of jaws. He advised clinicians to reconsider the merits of the rampant use of bisphosphonates. Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a common finding in pycnodysostosis. The bisphosphonates recreate the same clinical profile of spontaneous mid femur fractures, failure of bone healing and jaw necrosis which tormented the famous French artist, Toulouse Lautrec.

For links to references and more information see my newsletter:Fosamax, Actonel, Osteoporosis and Toulouse Lautrec's Disease

Jeffrey Dach MD

__________________________________________

Gary Moller comments:

I am dismayed at the wholesale prescription of these drugs to people as early as in their 40's. With a half life estimated to be about 10 years, these drugs may continue to wreak damage for as long as 20 years after stopping taking them.

Why are doctors prescribing these drugs in ever-increasing quantities? One can only speculate: Is it sheer ignorance? Is it because they buy the drug industry propaganda? And, for the industry; is it because the profits today far outweigh the future costs of any law suits?

The consequences of dead bone are straight out of a horror movie: Dead bone and bone rot; fractures that do not heal and loss of jaw bone (Fossy Jaw).

It is good to know that some doctors like Dr Dach are speaking out.

MLM USANA - is it really all that cheap or better quality?

I have written previously about the rip-offs of multi level markeing schemes (MLM). I am constantly being asked about one in particular, USANA.

Have a listen to this, bearing in mind we are talking about cheap synthetic rubbish duking it out among themselves. Stick to the natural vitamins please!

Diabetes drug increases the most serious complication of diabetes

Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline Plc's widely used drug for treating type 2 diabetes, raises the risk of heart death by 64 per cent and the risk of heart attack by 43 per cent, US researchers have said.

The news about Avandia, a US$3 billion ($4.1 billion) a year drug also known as rosiglitazone, triggered a free fall in GSK's shares, which closed off more than 5 per cent on the London Stock Exchange. The slide continued on the New York Stock Exchange, with shares closing down nearly 8 per cent.

Glaxo said it strongly disagreed with the conclusions of the report, based on an analysis of other studies.

"Unfortunately, rosiglitazone appears to increase, rather than decrease, the most serious complication of diabetes, heart disease," Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement.

"The whole reason you want to treat diabetes is to prevent the complications of diabetes," Nissen added in a telephone interview.<
Go here for the full story

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Gary Moller comments:

Is this a joke? Sadly, it is not. Let me expalin why these dangerous drugs keep rolling out into the market place and keep being promoted and prescribed by doctors despite known health risks. The answer is simple: It is very, very good business. Take this diabetes drug for example.

This drug brings in over $4 billion a year with, say a profit of $1 billion. Let's say they get sued for a billion. That's a lot of money. But is it really? Not really.

First they know that they can sell the drug for 4-5 years before any real concerns are collated and red flaged. Then they delay, delay, delay and obfuscate like crazy, hiring the best lawyers on the planet. They know from past expereince that many of the suers will die, others will get too sick and tired to continue and even more simply run out of money to pursue the case. After 5 years, the first cases are being heard with judgements being made. If they do this really well and get lucky, as has been the case with the Agent Orange scandal of the Vietnam War, they will manage to drag this process out over decades.

Sure, it might be a billion dollars; but they have been able to pocket at least $10 billion in profits in the meantime, all the while developing their next wonder drug to foist on the ever swelling ranks of passive "sick" consumers and to replace the drug that has run its course in the market place.

This also explains why natural therapies for conditions like diabetes get little more than lip service. There's no money to be made from helping people stay healthy.

Commissioner slams Wellington Hospital over man's death

"The Health and Disability Commissioner has slammed Wellington Hospital over the standard of care given to a 50-year-old man who died of pneumonia.

Ron Paterson was investigating a complaint from the man’s family after he was found dead, 40 hours after being admitted to hospital in September 2004.

The patient's chest X-ray and blood tests were not reviewed for almost 30 hours.

Mr Paterson says what happened was inexcusable, that staff provided a poor standard of care and the man was deprived of simple interventions that may have saved his life."
______________________________________________
Gary Moller comments:
This report hardly comes as a surprise and is yet another of a string of awful cases over the years at Wellington Hospital causing unnecessary death and disability.

Reading between the lines of this case, it would appear that this man's bipolar disorder, chronic addiction to smoking and serious chest condition made him a difficult and stroppy patient from the momeent he arrived and the hospital staff took a collective dislike to him. The result was grossly inadequate treatment, bordering on deliberate neglect, that saw him dead in next to no time. It reminds me of a case in Dunedin Hospital many years ago that was never reported:

She was elderly, overweight and demented. She was admitted to hospital to lose weight. Her diet consisted of a glass of water and a piece of white bread with a dollop of Marmite. When she objected to her treatment and peed in her bed, she was isolated in a private room with no sensory stimulation. She did not eat or drink. Within a few days of sensory deprivation, starvation and dehydration she was going ga-ga. The treatment and the isolation continued. By the fifth day, she was dead.

Now this was homicide by willful neglect. Nobody intervened. Everybody just did what they were told and that was to administer the treatment and to do nothing else. The fact the patient died was irrelevant and nobody within the medical team felt responsible - or guilty for that matter. They all knew what was going on and nobody cared a damn about her or the horrific way she died.

I have written about this sort of thing in the past and the advice that I always come back to is this: You must ensure that you always have a strong, informed advocate by your side when you enter hospital; especially if you are elderly, cantankerous by nature or have a mental health condition that affects your behaviour. If the hospital staff take a dislike for you, your life may be at risk.

Swimmer Ian Thorpe Doping Test 'Abnormal'

Five-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ian Thorpe showed "abnormal levels" of two banned substances in a doping test last year, the French sports daily L'Equipe reported on its Web site Friday.

Anti-doping officials in Australia threw out the case for lack of scientific proof, but the sport's governing body FINA wants the investigation reopened, the paper said.

Thorpe retired in November at age 24. He did not compete in another major international meet after the 2004 Olympics.L'Equipe said Thorpe turned up irregular levels of testosterone and luteinizing hormone in a test on May 2006.
Synthetic versions of testosterone, the male hormone, can act like steroids to improve performance. Luteinizing hormone is released by the pituitary gland and produces testosterone in men.

FINA has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the highest tribunal in the sports world, to overturn a decision by Australia's anti-doping agency to close the case, L'Equipe said.
__________________________________
Gary Moller comments:
Thorpe is innocent until proven guilty; but there are some worrying signs that not all is right, including his unexplained loss of form last year and sudden retirement, just weeks after returning a dodgy test result. And why on Earth would the case be reopened by the international body (FINA), overriding the Australian Drugs Agency, at this late stage? We will just have to wait and see what happens and to find out why.

Let's talk about some of the background to this, in general. First of all, these kinds of reports make me feel sad; but they do not surprise me at all.

If 90% of triathletes use caffeine to boost performance, it should be of no surprise that some athletes progress or resort to using more powerful forms of enhancement. And it can be a surprise and a disappointment who is exposed as a cheat. A good example is sprinting great, Carl Lewis who just happened to be one of the most outspoken critics of drugs abuse. Lewis never let his arch rival, Ben Johnson, forget that he was a drugs cheat. Talk about the jettle calling the pot black!

Leutenising hormone is essential for male and female reproduction. In the male, it stimulates the production of testosterone. For sport, testosterone augementation increases muscle development, aggression and energy to train. It is usually combined with a mix of other drugs and hormones, including growth hormone. The end result is freakish musclularity and even skeletal growth. Good examples of chemically enhanced bodies can be be seen just about nightly on the wrestling programmes that grace the little screen.

The body responds to externally boosted testosterone by reducing its own natural production with the consequence that the male user's nuts shrivel. When the external source is later withdrawn, the user may suffer rapid loss of muscle and physical form, depression, lack of sex drive and infertility. A bit like what happens to the neutered tom cat.

Athletes get around drugs tests in all sorts of way, beginning with enlisting the aid of a good chemist. The first way is to have access to the latest drugs for which there is presently no test. This is what many sports stars had via Balco and Victor Conte a few years back.

Another tactic is to cycle drugs use out of season so that the athlete is clean during competition. If an athlete is called up for a random drugs test out of season then they ensure that they have a person on the inside to tip them off that a registered letter is about to be delivered to their home and they quickly disappear on holiday. They finally reappear to take delivery of the letter and to do the test once the diuretics and masking drugs have done their work. NZ decathlete, Simon Poelman was once exposed using this ploy (Poelman was later convicted of drug trafficking).

Another ploy, which is used with testosterone, is to carefully dribble the hormone into the body 24 hours a day, using rub-on gels। Done carefully, there is an ergogenic effect while keeping blood levels just below the threshold that might trigger a positive drugs test.

I get really angry when an athlete is exposed for sure as being a drugs cheat. Athletes do not do this cheating all alone. Taking drugs is the easy part; evading the doping tests is the hard part. Professional athletes are disposable gladiators and it is the team behind them that I despise - the squad of sports scientists, trainers, doctors and coaches who are knowingly in on the deal - The professionals that not only supply the knowledge and the drugs; but also the means of getting it into their bodies. They are the ones that know the intricate tricks for evading drugs tests and how to get the best benefits. The moment the athlete is exposed, they scuttle off into the darkness, leaving the cheat alone to hang out to dry in the media spotlight.

These psychopaths have no conscience about their part in this sorry business and are already busy working on the next young, impressionable future champion who is willing to do anything to please. The stakes for all are huge and the temptation to cheat is always present.

Thermogenics - the latest fad leading athletes off track

"Put simply a thermogenic is any product that increases thermogenesis (heat production) in the human body. Heat is a by product of metabolism so when more heat is being produced this means that more calories are being used. This is in isolation from activity. Obviously this has had big implications for the fitness industry because if you are using more calories for no greater input of activity the result should be greater fat loss. Added to this is the fact that most thermogenic compounds are very stimulatory giving greater energy and decreased rates of perceived exertion and also have nutrient partitioning effects (greater utilization of fat over other fuels). The impact thermos have had on the industry is profound at it’s easy to see why.

Picture: Once on the slippery slope of substance abuse, where does it end?

There has always been a running battle between the supplement formulators and regulatory bodies and it seems that there are always compounds being banned only for others to take their place."

(The author goes on to list and explain the various substances that are banned and those that are still legal and how they work - Gary)

"For performance benefits I would suggest sticking with caffeine as a stimulant but be careful to not exceed allowable levels if you are subject to drug testing. Neurotransmitter formulas may prove VERY effective and would provide focus and decreased RPE without a stimulatory action and I theorise that in conjunction with certain adaptogenic compounds and caffeine with tyrosine would kick ass (watch this space ;) ! )

If you are needing to lose bodyfat……sort your diet out! Once you have sorted that out with the help of a good consultant you could look at one of the synephrine and caffeine, green tea formulas to speed things up. Also drink tea frequently, I really can’t see a down side to drinking tea, it’s thermogenic, increases insulin sensitivity and is a potent antioxidant! Only use dedicated thermogenic formulas for a set defined goal, don’t just take them in the hope that without changing anything else you’ll develop a lean physique…it just ain’t gonna happen!"
For the full article by Cliff Harvey, go here.
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Gary Moller comments:
Articles like these by supposed conditioning experts leave me with feelings of deep dismay for the future of sport - and weight loss!

Performance that is derived from a stimulatory substance - be it green tea extract or ephidrine, is a really dumb conditioning strategy. The same goes for using the same "thermogenic" substances for weight loss.

Encouraging the use of substances that artificially stimulate the senses and the metabolism to either increase physical performance or to burn fat go completely against the spirit of natural health and fair sport. Even if small amounts are considered safe to use, we all know that there are plenty of young and desperate people out there who will take many, many times more than that if they think it will give them an advantage. The abuse of "soft" drugs often leads on to harder substances. In sport, using stimulants may progress to the dangerous abuse of anabolic steriods. View my Power Point Presentation about Drug Cheats in Sport here.

Athletes who seek an artificial edge (cheating) by using chemicals might win spectacularly for a while; but they quickly disappear off the scenes. While clean athletes last longer career-wide they suffer financially and they miss out on their rightful share of the Gold medals and the Records.

I do not know of any chemical stimulants that do not quickly addict the user chemically and psychologically. When these substances are pumped into the body, the body responds by reducing its own production of the equivalent chemicals. This is the basis of addiction and once a person is in its grasp, wrestling free is much easier said than done. The downside of addiction to stimulants is inconsistent performances, poor decision-making, bad temper, bouts of fatigue and depression and the need to take more and more for the same effect. Oh - and I almost forgot: Weight gain! Please read my article about caffeine addiction here.

Conditioning experts who encourage such dubious practices do not impress me at all. They give my profession a bad name.

How much do drugs companies influence your doctor's treatment decisions?

"Approximately US$19 billion is spent annually by drug companies for marketing to doctors. Tens of thousands of sales representatives descend on doctors' offices every day. Patients in doctors' waiting rooms are often outnumbered by drug reps (typically young, female, attractive).

Drug companies write the package inserts of all drugs, carefully including the information they choose and omitting information they want to avoid.

Drug companies underwrite a large percentage of continuing education courses for doctors. In doing so, they make sure that the speakers represent the company view.

Drug companies design studies that are meant to produce favorable results and then publish the studies in medical journals. Studies with unfavorable results are not published.

Drug reps typically bring stacks of studies, all favorable, which impress doctors, who no longer have the time or motivation to search the medical literature themselves.

Drug reps do not include independent studies with less favorable conclusions. Many doctors never see these."
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Gary Moller comments:
What this article did not mention is the fact that drugs companies also invest millions in successfully influencing politicians and bureaucrats. For shocking evidence of the extent of this political lobbying in the USA, go here.

Back in the days when I hired physical education graduates straight from university to work in our rehabilitation programmes it was common for the attractive ones to be recruited within a year or so by our opposition: the drugs companies. Their new job over on the Dark Side was to promote drugs to doctors like blood pressure and cholesterol lowering pills. What is described that happens in the USA happens in NZ. Sadly, NZ allows the advertising of pharmaceutical drugs direct to the consumer using media like television.

Side effects of drugs medication is always underplayed, as is the reporting of any ill effects which consequently distorts official statistics to give the impression of a drug appearing to be much safer than it really is.

If a doctor is even aware of effective alternative treatments for conditions like weak bones, arthritis and high blood pressure these usually receive very low priority treatment that is little more than lip service, or else completely dismissed as a waste of a patient's time and money. I am still astonished at how often a doctor dismisses out of hand a therapy like glucosamine for arthritis despite the wealth of research evidence in its favour.

When a drug is prescribed for a condition like blood pressure this may be done on the basis of a handful of potentially flawed tests of blood pressure done in the artificial envirnoment of a medical clinic. The drug is then dished out with advice along the lines of; "Try this and we will see how it goes". Unless the medication is being closely monitored through the person's day, such as with a blood pressure machine, then the prescribing of this potentially harmful medication sure is a hazardous hit and miss exercise! Would you run a business without having accurate measures of key performance indicators? Of course not and why should your health be any different when ingesting potentially hazardous drugs?

Maybe it is not in the interests of the prescriber or the manufacturer to monitor these drugs properly because it might be discovered more often than not that they are not very good at doing what they are supposed to do and may even be doing more harm than good!

Should I allow my injured child to have an Xray or a CT Scan?

"Let's play a new game: Its called Fry Teddy"

Fact: Repeated doses of x-rays from x-ray imaging do increase your risk of developing cancer. The most potent is CT scans, one session of which carries a 1/1,000 risk of developing cancer. The risk is greatest by far with children who have rapidly dividing cells (DNA is most vulnerable to damage during the process of cell division - mitosis).

If your child is injured, such as from a fall, a CT Scan may be ordered as a matter of course to assist with making an accurate diagnosis. An accurate diagnosis is most important, especially if internal injury to the abdomen or brain is suspected. However; those regions of the body are the last places one would ever want to irradiate, especially of a child.

I have written about this before and am writing about it again because the use of the CT Scan continues to be routine in this country and my questioning of doctors and radiologists shows an appalling level of ignorance and lack of any concern about the known health risks of CT Scans. This continues despite the facts and the availability of excellent alternatives.

You can curb the risk from excessive radiation by insisting on using other imaging methods that do not involve radiation these include MRI and ultrasound.

If you are asked to consent to your child undergoing a CT SCan, my advice to you is to refuse to allow it. Insist on readily available alternatives and do not allow yourself to be fobbed off by excuses about availability or extra cost, or flippant comments about how miniscule the risks are - this is your child's long term health that you are dealing with here!

Please read my earlier articles about this most important health issue.
Here and
Here is the original.

Ribena-maker fined $217,500 for misleading vitamin C ads

"GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Ribena, has been fined $217,500 after admitting it mislead customers about the vitamin C content of the blackcurrant drink.
The company appeared in Auckland District Court to face charges alleging 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.
It admitted that its cartoned Ready To Drink Ribena, which it claimed had 7mg of Vitamin C per 100ml, in fact had no detectable Vitamin C content.
The company also admitted it may have misled customers in advertisements saying the blackcurrants in Ribena syrup had four times the Vitamin C of oranges."
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Gary Moller comments:
Read the whole story - it is a wonderful one about how a couple of school girls doing a school science experiment outed a dishonest pharmaceutical giant.
The Advertising Standards Authority and Brandpower deserve no accolades in this affair by showing no interest in the girls' findings. Action only happened after the story aried on a television consumer programme.
All is not lost for Ribena with regards to being able to make health claims: It can climb onto the "99% fat-free" bandwagon because it is all sugar and no fat - more sugar than Coca Cola in fact. How about that!