Millions of people 'waste their time by jogging'

Supports Chapter Twelve: Exercise care

When I wrote my first book, The Calorie Fallacy, in 1993, I included a chapter about the lack of weight loss benefit from such exercises as jogging. Apart from my Fluoride book, all of my books since then have included a chapter about the lack of evidence that exercising has much significant benefit to health. Even though I like to think of myself as an athlete, I recognise the difference between being 'fit' and being 'healthy'. Many people seem to think of the two words are synonymous, but they aren't. You can be fit enough to run a marathon, but drop dead of a heart attack walking to the start. The classic example is Jim Fixx, who started the jogging craze with his book, The Complete Book of Running, in 1977. He died of a heart attack while jogging!

Now, according to a study reported in the Daily Telegraph, the secret is out: "millions of people who strive to keep fit by jogging, swimming or going to the gym are wasting their time."

The article says: Researchers have discovered that the health benefits of aerobic exercise are determined by our genes - and can vary substantially between individuals.

Around 20 per cent of the population do not get any significant aerobic fitness benefit from regular exercise, according to an international study led by scientists at the University of London.

For these people, regular jogging and gym work will do little to ward off conditions like heart disease and diabetes which aerobic exercise is generally thought to resist.

Researchers say they would be better off abandoning their exercise regime and focusing on other ways of staying healthy - such as improving their diet or taking medication.

Read the rest of the story here

EU Health Chief calls swine flu pandemic scare 'one of greatest medical scandals of century'

Supports Chapter One: Trick to Treat

In the first chapter of Trick and Treat, I talked about how the ‘health industry’, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, invented scares and ‘diseases’ so that they could capitalise on selling 'treatments' for those conditions.

The latest scam,‘The Swine Flu Pandemic’ scare, was one of the greatest medical scandals of the century, and was engineered to increase the profits of the drug companies, says the European Council's health chief, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg.

The council is to begin an investigation into the role of the drug companies, and how they influence ‘independent’ authorities such as the World Health Organization, after they passed a resolution from Wodarg, chairman of the Council’s health committee. Dr Wodarg, who is an epidemiologist and former health director in Germany, has followed the swine flu (H1N1 virus) pandemic story unfold. “It is one of the greatest health scandals of the century,” he says. “We have had a mild flu – and a false pandemic.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a pandemic last year, and health authorities around the world ordered in huge stocks of vaccines. The UK's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, predicted 65,000 deaths in the UK, and convinced the government to place a £1bn order for swine flu vaccine. In the event, a mere 251 people in the UK have died from the virus, and the government is now desperately trying to offload vast stocks of the redundant vaccine.

Wodarg claims that governments have sealed contracts with drug companies that are triggered when a virus is classified as pandemic. “In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks. So they just wait until the WHO says ‘pandemic’ and activates the contracts.” As things stand with the contracts with the drugs companies, governments have no choice but to pay up.

And what do we do with all the unwanted, useless, vaccines? We give them to third-world countries - who are very unlikely to have a need for them!
(Source: www.wodarg.de/english/3013320.html)

Ban butter ? No, we should ban processed margarines!

Supports Chapter One: Trick to Treat

The UK media have been full of a story which illustrates well how we are put in fear unnecessarily - and irresponsibly.

Shyam Kolvekar, a consultant heart surgeon at University College London Hospitals has said that butter should be banned to protect the nation's health. Warning of the dangers of other foods high in saturated fat, he advises people to eat less red meat, take low-fat milk and switch to olive and sunflower oil. He went on to warn that:

"Saturated fat is blamed for a third of the 200,000 premature deaths from heart disease a year. . . By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat-fat intake would be reduced by eight grams."

BUT: That's not what the evidence shows!

Mr Kolvekar may be a good heart surgeon, but he is obviously not an expert in nutrition and its effects on health. In its report of this story, the BBC shows Mr Kolvekar operating on an Indian Hindu - in the UK. Indians have been using ghee (clarified butter) for centuries - without getting blocked arteries. Mr Kolvekar said when he became a consultant cardiac surgeon eight years ago the bulk of bypass operations he did were on older people. Now he is seeing people in their 40s and 50s needing triple bypasses. So are Indians eating more ghee than they did just eight years ago? Of course not!

In 1967 Dr S. L. Malhotra, reported that in Madras, the population was vegetarian, living mainly on rice.[1] The principal fat in their diet was polyunsaturated peanut oil. Malhotra compared the Madrasis with a population who lived near Udaipur in the north. Their religion allowed them to eat meat and their fat intake was almost entirely from animal sources. They cooked with ghee and had probably the highest butterfat consumption in the world.

Present-day wisdom would predict that the vegetarians would have the lower rate of heart disease, but Malhotra found the opposite: the vegetarian Madrasis had 15 times the death rate from heart attacks compared with the northern Indians even though those in Udaipur ate 9 times as much fat - and that fat was animal fat.

Twenty years later, a paper in the Lancet noted an increase in heart-attack deaths amongst the latter group.[2] By this time their diet had been made 'healthier' by replacing the traditional ghee in their diets with margarine and refined vegetable oils. This was confirmed 10 years later by a third study which found that reducing saturated fat did not reduce heart disease risk.[3]

The truth is that arteries are not blocked by eating ghee, but by adopting our 'healthy' western diet. This is backed up by many studies showing that south Asians in the UK have higher heart disease rates than they do in India.[4-5]

People who have had one heart attack are invariably told by their doctors to cut out butter and use polyunsaturated margarines instead. But there is no evidence that this will prolong their lives. Quite the opposite. As long ago as 1965 survival rates were studied in patients eating different fats and oils.[6]

In this study, patients who had already had one heart attack were assigned to one of three groups, who were given polyunsatu­rated corn oil, mono­unsaturated olive oil or saturated animal fats respectively. Blood cholesterol levels were lowered by an average of 30% in the polyunsaturated group, while there was no change in the other two groups. At first sight, therefore, it seemed that men in the polyunsaturated group had the best chance of survival. However, at the end of the two-year trial only 52% of the polyunsaturated group were still alive and free of a fresh heart attack. Those on the monounsaturated olive oil fared little better: 57% survived and had no further attack. But those eating the saturated animal fats fared the best with 75% surviving and without a further attack.

The hypothesis that saturated fats raise cholesterol and clog arteries was proposed in the 1950s, but has never been verified and confirmed - and it isn't for want of trying. There is not now, and there never has been any evidence that saturated fats are harmful in any way. In fact all the evidence points the other way. If any fats should be banned, it's the processed vegetable margarines and cooking oils.

References
1. Malhotra SL. Serum lipids, dietary factors and ischemic heart disease. Am J Clin Nutr 1967; 20: 462-475.
2. (No authors listed.) Ghee, cholesterol, and heart disease. Lancet 1987; 2: 1144-1145.
3. Singh RB, et al. Low fat intake and coronary artery disease in a population with higher prevalence of coronary artery disease: The Indian paradox. J Am Coll Nutr 1998; 17: 342-350.
4. McKeigne P M, Marmot M G, Adelstein A M, et al. Diet and risk factors for
coronary heart disease in Asians in Northeast London. Lancet 1985; ii: 1086.
5. Raheja BS. Obesity and coronary risk factors among South Asians. Lancet 1991; 337: 971.
6. Rose GA, et al. Corn oil in treatment of ischaemic heart disease. Br Med J 1965; 1: 1531-33.

Good Health Begins With a Good Breakfast - of Fried Eggs and Bacon

Supports Chapter 18: Prevention is better - and more

The Daily Mirror published an article on 6 January 2010 about a new study showing that, for an expectant mother, the traditional English breakfast of fried eggs and bacon was the best for supplying the choline necessary for her fetus's proper brain development. But, when I looked into it, higher levels of choline are beneficial for everyone. For example, it turns out that a fried English breakfast is even good for the heart!

With blankets of snow all around, and drifts to dig out, it made my day! My article is here

Compliments of the Season

Best wishes for the holidays and for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010

With greetings at this time of the year - and so many religions, it can be difficult to get the wording right. For example:

In the old days, it was not called the 'Holiday Season'.
The Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church.
The Jews called it 'Hanukah' and went to synagogue.
The atheists went to parties and drank.

People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!", "Happy Hanukah!" or they would shout to the atheists "Look out for that wall!"

There are three poems for the season which you will like here. Written by members of THINCS, these are both appropriate to the season and to my websites.

And, as you will want to be with the family rather than reading lots of stuff, I'll just leave you with this:

HUNDREDS GATHER TO PROTEST GLOBAL WARMING

Best wishes

Barry

The reporting of a new study illustrates how the public are misinformed

Supports Chapter One: Trick to Treat and Chapter 5: Fats - From Tonic to Toxic

A new study, published in the December 2009 edition of the medical journal, Gut, shows that linoleic acid, the major fatty acid in all 'healthy' vegetable margarines and cooking oils increases the risk of some serious intestinal conditions.

But that's only half the story. The other half is the way this study has been reported, not just in the news media, but also on 'health' websites.

Linoleic acid is found in the largest quantities in polyunsaturated vegetable margarines and cooking oils. But we have been told these are 'healthy', so this new study is proving to be a bit embarrassing. So what do they do? Easy, blame it on what 'we all know' is unhealthy: red meat - even though red meat contains very little linoleic acid!

Read the article here.

New Chapter for Trick and Treat

When I was researching Trick and Treat, I came across a new scientific theory called 'Epigenetics'.

It had always been taught that our DNA, which is fixed at conception, determined all our physical characteristics, and that these could not be changed throughout our lives, and would in turn, be passed on to our children. But then several observations were made in the middle of the last century which questioned this 'truth'. And so Epigenetics was born.

As it now seems that life experiences - including what we eat (or don't eat) - can have a profound effect on not just us but our offspring, and for several generations.

I wrote a chapter about Epigenetics for Trick and Treat. But then, as the book was getting a bit too big already, it was decided to leave it out.

But it seems a shame to leave it on my computer; it is an important subject in that the incorrect diet we are all being forced to eat, could have serious unforeseen effects for generations to come. It's a year late, but here it is.