Supports Chapter Five - Fats: from tonic to toxic
I have been extolling the virtues of butter over margarines made with linoleic acid-rich vegetable oils ever since 1971. Now, the medical fraternity is finally getting the message - and, more importantly, publishing it!
This week, not only the BMJ but many UK Newspapers have published articles which vindicate my stance. But, as you will read, there are some who really don't want to know.
Swapping butter for margarine and vegetable oils could trigger a heart attack, scientists have warned.
Decades of dietary advice has been turned on its head after experts uncovered startling new evidence about the dangers of eating “healthy” spreads.
A study revealed an ingredient in vegetable fats triggers inflammation – which plays a major role in chronic illnesses from heart disease and cancer to arthritis and Alzheimer’s.
The findings will have major implications for millions of Britons who have stopped using butter in favour of trendy, and less fatty, spreads and oils following healthy-living guidance.
Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Our understanding of the effect of different fats on the heart develops all the time as research into this complex issue is published. Replacing saturated fats with unsaturated alternatives is a well-known recommendation for your heart which is based on many large and in-depth studies.
“However, this research highlights the need for us to further understand how different unsaturated fats affect our risk of heart disease.
“Whichever fats you use it’s important to be sparing with them. Try to grill, bake, or steam your food, rather than frying. Measuring out oils instead of pouring straight from the bottle is another good way of making sure you’re not overdoing it.”
The new research, published online in the British Medical Journal, was carried out by experts from the US Government’s National Institutes of Health in Maryland. They recovered missing data from a study in the 1960s involving 458 men aged 30-59 who had suffered a heart attack or angina.
Using modern statistical methods to compare death rates, they found there was no evidence of the benefit of replacing saturated fats with omega-6 linoleic acid, found in vegetable fats.
In fact, they said replacing the animal fats with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) from vegetable fats increased risk of death in those patients with cardiovascular disease.
Those who increased their intake of the “healthy” fats over three years were almost twice as likely to die.
The omega-6 linoleic acid group in the study had a higher risk of death from all causes (62 per cent), as well as from cardiovascular disease (70 per cent) and coronary heart disease (74 per cent), compared to others.
Linoleic acid is present in high amounts in some commonly used vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, safflower and soya bean.
Once in the body, it is converted into a chemical called arachidonic acid which can trigger the release of other chemicals leading to inflammation, a leading cause of a host of chronic diseases.
In the UK, people consume on average of 10g per day of linoleic acid, found in about nine level teaspoons of polyunsaturated margarine or three teaspoons of sunflower oil. Coronary heart disease is the UK’s biggest killer with about one in five men and one in seven women dying from the disease.
It causes around 94,000 deaths each year. There are also at least 2.6 million people living with the condition.
Angina, the most common symptom of coronary heart disease, affects two million in Britain.
Dr Christopher Ramsden, for the NIH study, said: “Advice to substitute vegetable oils rich in PUFAs for animal fats rich in saturated fats has been a cornerstone of dietary guidelines for the past half century.
“These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega-6 linoleic acid, or polyunsaturated fats in general, for saturated fats.”
Professor Philip Calder, a nutritional immunologist at Southampton University, said the study provided “important information” on a health issue causing “considerable debate”.
It's about time that 'debate' reached its conclusion. We have evidence from over 50 years of study into fats and heart disease. The only fats that have shown harm are the 'healthy' vegetable oils and products made from them. No study has ever found statistically convincing evidence that butter is anything other than beneficial.
Caveat emptor
Although UK law requires food labels to warn of saturated fat content, it is 'high in polyunsaturates' that the buyer should beware of.
Source
Christopher E Ramsden, Daisy Zamora , Boonseng Leelarthaepin, et al. Use of dietary linoleic acid for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death: evaluation of recovered data from the Sydney Diet Heart Study and updated meta-analysis. BMJ. 2013 Feb 4;346:e8707. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e8707.
Support for "Trick and Treat": How 'healthy eating' is making us ill
Studies and other evidence published since Trick and Treat went to press
07 February 2013
29 January 2013
Sugar Tax Proposed - Misleading Comment from Industry
As you will see from the report below, there has been a proposition to impose a 20p per litre tax on sugary drinks. Well, I am not in favour of such taxes but, if anything should be taxed, this is probably a good one, in my view. But there are several parts of this report which show that proponents of both sides are trying to mislead.I have added comments as we go.
REPORT CALLS FOR SUGARY DRINKS TAX
By Andrew Woodcock, Press Association Political Editor
Sugary drinks should be subject to a new tax, which could
add 20p a litre to their price, with the proceeds going towards child health,
a report said today.
The report by food and farming charity Sustain said that
the Government could raise #1 billion a year from a sugary drinks duty to pay
for free school meals and measures to encourage children to eat fruit and
vegetables.
The levy would also help save lives by cutting consumption
of sugar-laden drinks, said the report, which has been backed by more than
60 organisations including the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Friends of
the Earth, the National Heart Forum and the Royal Society for Public
Health.
Diet-related illness is now costing the NHS £6 billion
every year, said the report.
Sustain urged Chancellor George Osborne to introduce a
sugary drinks duty in his March 20 Budget and to channel most of the cash raised
into a Children's Future Fund for programmes to improve children's health and
future well-being.
The group's campaigns manager Charlie Powell said:
"Sugar-laden drinks are mini-health timebombs, contributing to dental diseases,
obesity and a host of life-threatening illnesses which cost the NHS billions each
year.
"We are delighted that so many organisations want to
challenge the Government to show it has a public health backbone by including a
sugary drinks duty in Budget 2013.
"It's a simple and easy-to-understand measure which will
help save lives by reducing sugar in our diets and raising much-needed money
to protect children's health."
Sustain chairman Mike Rayner, of Oxford University's
Department of Public Health, added: "Just as we use fiscal measures to
discourage drinking and smoking and help prevent people from dying early, there is
now lots of evidence that the same approach would work for food.
"This modest proposal goes some way towards making the
price of food reflect its true costs to society.
"Our obesity epidemic causes debilitating illness,
life-threatening diseases and misery for millions of people. It is high time
Government did something effective about this problem." (Couldn't agree more. But I doubt they will. When the Obesity Steering Group reports on 25 February, I'll bet they advocate more of the same old, same old . . .)
Where this has gone wrong, in my view, is that Sustain is saying tax sugar (which is a 50-50 mix of glucose and fructose) in soft drinks but encourage children to eat more fructose in fruit and glucose in starchy vegetables, or to put it another way: Discourage children to eat sugar which contains fructose and glucose, but encourage children to eat foods that contains fructose and glucose!
The director general of the British Soft Drinks
Association, Gavin Partington, said: "Obesity is a serious and complex problem (He's right), but a tax
on soft drinks, which contribute just 2% of the total calories in the
average diet, will not help address it. (Right again. Lots of other carbohydrate-rich foods also contribute. Why just select one?)
"Over the last 10 years, the consumption of soft drinks
containing added sugar has fallen by 9% while the incidence of obesity has
increased by 15%. (Wouldn't surprise me. 'Healthy eating' is also fattening.)
"We all recognise our industry has a role to play in the
fight against obesity, which is why soft drinks companies have already
taken action to ensure they are playing their part. Sixty-one per cent of soft
drinks now contain no added sugar (True, but they contain even more harmful artificial sweeteners) and we have seen soft drinks companies lead the
way in committing to further, voluntary action as part of the Government's
Responsibility Deal
Calorie Reduction Pledge.
"These commitments include, for example, reducing the sugar
content in their products and introducing smaller packs. (But at the same price so children buy more of them and increase profit margins! - I suspect)
"At present, 10p out of every 60p can of drink already goes
to the Government thanks to VAT. Putting up taxes even further will put
pressure on people's purses at a time when they can ill afford it. (Not really. Who needs sodas?) It's worth
noting that Denmark recently scrapped such a tax." (No, they didn't! The Danish government taxed saturated fats which are beneficial and tend to reduce obesity and associated diseases. They repealed the tax when - surprise, surprise - they found it didn't work.)
22 January 2013
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
It all started with 'high cholesterol', then came the 'good' and the 'bad' cholesterols. Now we have the last member of the notorious trio: the 'ugly cholesterol'.
The risk of ischaemic heart disease -- the leading cause of death worldwide -- is three times higher in persons with high levels of the so-called 'ugly' cholesterol. This is the finding of a new study of 73,000 Danes, which is shedding light on a long debate on this topic. The results have just been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Most individuals believe that high cholesterol is life-threatening (despite all the evidence to the contrary). And many 'know' which type of cholesterol is the most frequent killer -- the 'bad' one, LDL -- or is it just the small, dense LDL and not the fluffy stuff.
Up until now, cholesterol has been divided into 'the good' HDL cholesterol, 'the bad' LDL cholesterol, with all the other sub-fractions, IDL, VLDL, etc, not getting a look in.
But now another 'cholesterol' has turned up in the mix: 'the ugly' cholesterol AKA 'remnant cholesterol'. And this one, it seems, is the really bad guy.
Professor Børge Nordestgaard, Chief Physician at Copenhagen University Hospital and Clinical Professor at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at University of Copenhagen says:
"LDL cholesterol or 'the bad' cholesterol' is of course bad, but our new study reveals that the ugly cholesterol likewise is the direct cause of atherosclerosis resulting in ischemic heart disease and early death. By examining 73,000 persons, we found that an increase in the ugly cholesterol triples the risk of ischemic heart disease, which is caused by lack of oxygen to the heart muscle due to narrowing or blocking of the coronary arteries"
"I hope that this new knowledge will lead to better preventive treatment including lifestyle changes, as more than one in five individuals in affluent countries suffers from high ugly cholesterol. We also hope that the pharmaceutical industry will develop new drugs targeted specifically at raised ugly cholesterol levels"
So, what is ugly cholesterol?
"Ugly cholesterol is the result of high blood levels of normal fat (triglycerides)," says Børge Nordestgaard. "The most important cause of high ugly cholesterol is overweight and obesity. Persons with high ugly cholesterol should therefore be advised to lose weight, but drugs such as statins and fibrates may also lower levels of ugly cholesterol in the blood."
Samples from 73,000 Danes with mutations
Anette Varbo, physician and PhD student at Copenhagen University Hospital, Was part of the research team behind the new findings. She says that the findings shed light on a long-standing debate among researchers on the so-called triglycerides, atherosclerosis and cholesterol. She says:
"To be able to examine the relationship between ugly cholesterol and heart disease, we have used blood samples from persons having a mutation which means that they suffer from high ugly cholesterol their entire life. The research findings do therefore not depend on their lifestyle patterns in general. Unhealthy lifestyle factors such as smoking, fatty foods and overweight all increase the risk of heart disease, and the blood samples from persons having these mutations thus give the most accurate results"
So, another good reason to watch your weight, it seems. And the best way to do that is with a low-carb, high-fat diet.
Patents on statins are running out. What's the betting that BigPharma will now search for new drugs, or revamp existing ones for this 'new' use. And when those patents run out, no doubt there will be another 'cholesterol' discovered, and then another, and so on . . . until we have The Magnificent Seven.
Journal Reference:
1. Anette Varbo, Marianne Benn, Anne Tybjærg-Hansen, Anders B. Jørgensen, Ruth Frikke-Schmidt, Børge G. Nordestgaard. Remnant Cholesterol as a Causal Risk Factor for Ischemic Heart Disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2012.08.1026
02 January 2013
Study Finds Eating Fructose May Stimulate Overeating
Supports Chapter 8: Why ‘five portions’?
Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.
After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.
It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role.
The sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity.
A third of US children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.
All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolised differently in the body.
Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose, while high-fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim.
Doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.
For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.
Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food", said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr Robert Sherwin.
With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said.
"As a result, the desire to eat continues - it isn't turned off."
What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health and Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.
"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell.
He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers are now testing obese people to determine if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in the study.
But there is one other source of fructose which the study neglected — fruit. While many already know that high-fructose corn syrup is not healthy, we are told by the 'experts' that fruit is healthy. Yet the sugar that makes fruit sweet is pure fructose! Go figure, as our American cousins say.
Source
Page KA et al. Effects of Fructose vs Glucose on Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Brain Regions Involved With Appetite and Reward Pathways. JAMA. 2013;309(1):63-70
After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.
It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role.
The sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity.
A third of US children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.
All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolised differently in the body.
Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose, while high-fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim.
Doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.
For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.
Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food", said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr Robert Sherwin.
With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said.
"As a result, the desire to eat continues - it isn't turned off."
What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health and Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.
"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell.
He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers are now testing obese people to determine if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in the study.
But there is one other source of fructose which the study neglected — fruit. While many already know that high-fructose corn syrup is not healthy, we are told by the 'experts' that fruit is healthy. Yet the sugar that makes fruit sweet is pure fructose! Go figure, as our American cousins say.
Source
Page KA et al. Effects of Fructose vs Glucose on Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Brain Regions Involved With Appetite and Reward Pathways. JAMA. 2013;309(1):63-70
21 December 2012
Was the mother right to refuse treatment?
Supports Chapters One and Two?
Everyone (in the UK at least) must know of Neon, the seven-year-old boy who has a brain tumour, medulloblastoma, and of Neon's mother, Sally Roberts, who is fighting for her son not to have radiotherapy and chemotherapy because of the danger, she says, of adverse side effects which could damage his brain and destroy his quality of life.
The Daily Mail, today, put it this way:
I don't intend to take sides on this issue (although you can probably guess which side I might be on). But if you are wondering if Mrs Roberts has a case, here is the abstract from a 2003 study about the long-term effects on survivors of exactly the treatment a judge has decided her son must have:
So is Mrs Roberts right to be worried about her son's having conventional treatment? Has her judgement 'gone awry'? You decide.
Everyone (in the UK at least) must know of Neon, the seven-year-old boy who has a brain tumour, medulloblastoma, and of Neon's mother, Sally Roberts, who is fighting for her son not to have radiotherapy and chemotherapy because of the danger, she says, of adverse side effects which could damage his brain and destroy his quality of life.
The Daily Mail, today, put it this way:
Cancer boy Neon WILL have radiotherapy against his mother's wishes after High Court ruling.
- Mr Justice Bodey said he was worried Sally Roberts judgement had 'gone awry'
- Mrs Roberts had tried to claim her son should have alternative treatment to radiotherapy
- Experts brand her alternatives 'completely unethical'
- She conceded that her argument is 'weak' under questioning
I don't intend to take sides on this issue (although you can probably guess which side I might be on). But if you are wondering if Mrs Roberts has a case, here is the abstract from a 2003 study about the long-term effects on survivors of exactly the treatment a judge has decided her son must have:
Macedoni-Luksic M, Jereb B, Todorovski L. Long-term sequelae in children treated for brain tumors: impairments, disability, and handicap. Pediatr Hematol Oncol. 2003; 20: 89-101.
Abstract
Sixty-one long-term survivors, treated for brain tumors in childhood, were evaluated in term of neurological impairments, disability, and handicap.
Thirty-eight patients (pts) (62%) had at least one impairment.
Visual impairment was detected in 14 pts (24%), associated with recurrence (p = .012).
34r pts (56%) had motor impairment, associated with sex (female) in irradiated patients;
13 (21%) had epilepsy, associated with supratentorial tumor site (p = .001).
The same number of patients had brain atrophy; risk factors were hydrocephalus at diagnosis and perioperative complications.
16 pts (30%) had IQ score < 80, associated with young age at first treatment (p = .006) and recurrence (p = .043).
27 out of 61 of our patients (44%) were disabled: 12 mildly, 14 moderately, and 1 severely.
Epilepsy was the most important risk factor for disability.
Cognitive impairment, motor impairment, and epilepsy were associated with employment (43%);
Cognitive impairment was also associated with education.
So is Mrs Roberts right to be worried about her son's having conventional treatment? Has her judgement 'gone awry'? You decide.
15 December 2012
Fluoride drugs and violent deaths
This week and last week saw the violent deaths of many people including young children, at the hands of young men on the rampage in the USA. Understandably, there are calls for changes in the gun laws. But the fact that American can carry guns is not the cause of the problem.
It isn't guns that kill people; it is people who kill people.
The US has a long history of such outrages. And is pretty much alone as a country to suffer in this way, despite the fact that guns are carried, legally, in other countries - whose citizens don't go around on killing sprees.
So, instead of blaming the weapons, wouldn't it be more profitable to research the cause? To ask why some people feel the need to go kill a bunch of others and then (usually) themselves?
In the 1990s I was researching fluoridation of water supplies. But as I did my research, I came across examples of the harm that fluoridated drugs could do. Just like the killings in last two weeks, there have been examples of children going on a killing sprees and shooting their parents, school friends, teachers, other people and then themselves for decades.
I don't know whether the recent perpetrators of these outrages were on drugs but back in the last century, I found that many, if not all, of them appeared to be taking the SSRI drug, Prozac.
Below is an extract from my book, Fluoride: Drinking ourselves to death? I wrote this in 1999; it is still relevant today. Searching PubMed today, I could find no medical research that addresses the problem. Perhaps it is about time there was some!
It isn't guns that kill people; it is people who kill people.
The US has a long history of such outrages. And is pretty much alone as a country to suffer in this way, despite the fact that guns are carried, legally, in other countries - whose citizens don't go around on killing sprees.
So, instead of blaming the weapons, wouldn't it be more profitable to research the cause? To ask why some people feel the need to go kill a bunch of others and then (usually) themselves?
In the 1990s I was researching fluoridation of water supplies. But as I did my research, I came across examples of the harm that fluoridated drugs could do. Just like the killings in last two weeks, there have been examples of children going on a killing sprees and shooting their parents, school friends, teachers, other people and then themselves for decades.
I don't know whether the recent perpetrators of these outrages were on drugs but back in the last century, I found that many, if not all, of them appeared to be taking the SSRI drug, Prozac.
Below is an extract from my book, Fluoride: Drinking ourselves to death? I wrote this in 1999; it is still relevant today. Searching PubMed today, I could find no medical research that addresses the problem. Perhaps it is about time there was some!
Fluoride
drugs and violent deaths
Many
antidepressive drugs contain fluoride because of its profound effect on mood.
Fluanxol, Motipress, Motival, Parstelin and the biggest seller, Prozac, are all
highly fluorinated. Hypothyroidism, which they produce, can induce almost any
psychiatric symptom or syndrome, including rage, fear ranging from mild anxiety
to frank paranoia, mood swings and aggression.
Recently the USA has seen an alarming rise
in apparently motiveless killings where individuals - usually men, but also
children - have taken a gun and shot several people before shooting themselves.
The number of people, including preschool
children, prescribed antidepressants and stimulants rose in the mid-1990s
despite limited knowledge about the effects of such drugs on young children.
The reasons for prescribing such medications in young children include pain
relief, anxiety associated with medical, pre-surgery and dental procedures, bed
wetting and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children aged three
years and older. Yet, 'Unresolved questions involve the long-term safety of
psychotropic medications, particularly in light of earlier ages of initiation
and longer durations of treatment'.1
In an early case, a young defendant was
found not guilty because he committed a murder 'in the course of a hypothyroid
psychosis'. . . 'He was later judged to be not guilty by reason of insanity,
although he was clearly sane at the time of his trial.'2
The University of Maryland looked at
200,000 patients in three areas of the country. It found that use of stimulants
and antidepressants rose in all the areas between 1991 and 1995. Julie Zito,
principal author of the study, said that some of the drugs' uses are not
included in warnings on drug packages. While this is not uncommon with some
drugs for adults, there is no information on how these psychotropic drugs work
for children.
In a recent rampage that has become
frighteningly familiar in the USA, a fifteen-year-old Springfield, Oregon,
student, Kip Kinkel, dressed in a trench coat, ran through a crowded school
cafeteria firing his rifle from the hip. He killed a classmate and critically
wounding several others. The Associated Press headline read:
OREGON
SHOOTING: YET ANOTHER WARNING OF THE DANGERS OF PROZAC AND ITS CLONES.3
This
was frighteningly similar to a violent episode which took place in Louisville,
Kentucky in 1989. Joseph Wesbecker stepped out of an elevator at work firing an
AK47 semiautomatic assault rifle. Twelve people were wounded and eight killed
before Joseph Wesbecker took his own life. One victim described him as 'totally
devoid of human element and human soul.'
Kip Kinkel was restrained before he could
take his life, but begged others to shoot him when they tackled him. Both men
were taking Prozac at the time.
Prozac's manufacturer, Eli Lilly has
repeatedly claimed that Prozac is safe. The International Coalition For Drug
Awareness (ICFDA), a non profit group that warns of potential serious adverse
reactions to prescription medications, reports that there is abundant evidence
in medical literature showing a link between Prozac and violence, as well as
suicide.
Dr.
Ann Blake Tracy, director of ICFDA, and author of Prozac: Panacea Or
Pandora?, has testified as an expert witness since 1992 in Prozac and
other antidepressant related criminal cases. Dr. Tracy poses the question, 'How
many patients have ever been warned that even something as simple as mixing
most major cough syrups with their use of these medications can produce PCP
(Angel Dust) like reactions?' 'We are sitting in the middle of this nation's
most dangerous drug problem and have not yet awakened to the seriousness of
this situation.'
Wesbecker
and Kinkel are only two of a growing number of violent cases committed by
people taking Prozac or one of its clones:
- A mother on Prozac in San Francisco smothered her three small daughters by wrapping their hands and faces with duct tape and attempted to take her own life
- A man in Los Angeles on Prozac committed suicide in front of TV cameras.
- A lottery employee taking Luvox (a Prozac clone) in Connecticut shot and killed four fellow workers before taking his own life
- A man in Wyoming taking Paxil (another Prozac clone) shot and killed his wife, daughter and baby grand-daughter before he took his own life.
Now four more are dead and Kinkel is
facing a life without his parents and several classmates. He also faces
spending the rest of his life in prison while he slowly comes to a realization
of what he did in this drug-induced stupor.
According to internal company documents
made public in court cases filed against Eli Lilly, in 1990 they attempted to
protect their 'golden goose' (Prozac was bringing in over $6 million a day). Dr
Leigh Thompson went 'against the advice of his staff' and told the board of
directors that suicide and hostile acts committed by Prozac users were, in all
probability, caused by the patients' underlying disorders rather than Prozac.
On 7 November 1990 he asked, 'What are our priorities?'
Of course priority number one for Eli
Lilly was to protect Prozac.
In December 1993 the world heard that
Prozac had been found 'not guilty' in the murderous rampage and suicide of
Joseph Wesbecker. But, in fact, Eli Lilly had paid millions of dollars to settle
out of court. The judge was so upset about the secrecy and deception
surrounding the case that he called for an additional hearing to force Lilly to
admit this publicly. He succeeded, and Lilly and the plaintiffs were forced to
admit that this was indeed a settlement and not a 'not guilty' verdict for
Prozac.
In another Prozac case against Lilly
(Forsyth v. Lilly) currently being tried in Federal District Court in Hawaii,
Judge Alan C. Kay ruled:
- 'Lilly falsified reports of side effects of suicide attempts by reporting them as overdoses.'
- 'material issues of fact exist as to whether Lilly deliberately suppressed adverse studies.'
- 'The Court finds that Plaintiffs have presented sufficient evidence to show that Lilly may have acted wantonly, oppressively, or with such malice as implies a spirit of mischief or criminal indifference.'
References
1.
Julie Magno Zito; Daniel J.
Safer; Susan dosReis; James F. Gardner; Myde Boles; Frances Lynch. Trends in
the Prescribing of Psychotropic Medications to Preschoolers. JAMA.
2000;283:1025-1030.
2.
Easson WM. Myxedema psychosis – insanity defense in homicide. J Clin
Psychiatry 1980; 41: 316-8.
3. http://www.drugawareness.org/oregon.html. Accessed 15
April 2000
08 December 2012
Link Between Vitamin D And Women's Cognitive Performance
Supports Chapter 11: Our irrational fear of sunlight
As part of the concept of a 'healthy' lifestyle foisted on us in the 1980s, sunbathing became a no-no, unless you were fully clothed, or slathered in sunscreen, or the sun wasn't shining, or preferably all three!
Not long after, the numbers of cases of Alzheimer's dementia began to rise. Today, in the UK at least, dementia has become the number one health concern, not just for the misery it causes to sufferers and their families, but the sheer cost in terms of both money and health resources needed to look after the growing number of people with dementia.
And so to December 2012:
Two new studies have just been published in the Journals of Gerontology Series A:
Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences which show that vitamin D may be a vital component for the
cognitive health of women as they age.
Higher vitamin D dietary intake is associated with a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's, according to research conducted by a team led by Cedric Annweiler, MD, PhD, at the Angers University Hospital in France.
Similarly, investigators led by Yelena Slinin, MD, MS, at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis found that low vitamin D levels among older women are associated with higher odds of global cognitive impairment and a higher risk of global cognitive decline.
Slinin's group based its analysis on 6,257 community-dwelling older women who had vitamin D levels measured during the Study of Osteopathic Fractures and whose cognitive function was tested by the Mini-Mental State Examination and/or Trail Making Test Part B.
Very low levels of vitamin D (less than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood serum) among older women were associated with higher odds of global cognitive impairment at baseline, and low vitamin D levels (less than 20 nanograms per milliliter) among cognitively-impaired women were associated with a higher risk of incident global cognitive decline, as measured by performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination.
Annweieler's team's findings were based on data from 498 community-dwelling women who participated in the Toulouse cohort of the Epidemiology of Osteoporosis study.
Among this population, women who developed Alzheimer's disease had lower baseline vitamin D intakes (an average of 50.3 micrograms per week) than those who developed other dementias (an average of 63.6 micrograms per week) or no dementia at all (an average of 59.0 micrograms per week).
Higher vitamin D dietary intake is associated with a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's, according to research conducted by a team led by Cedric Annweiler, MD, PhD, at the Angers University Hospital in France.
Similarly, investigators led by Yelena Slinin, MD, MS, at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis found that low vitamin D levels among older women are associated with higher odds of global cognitive impairment and a higher risk of global cognitive decline.
Slinin's group based its analysis on 6,257 community-dwelling older women who had vitamin D levels measured during the Study of Osteopathic Fractures and whose cognitive function was tested by the Mini-Mental State Examination and/or Trail Making Test Part B.
Very low levels of vitamin D (less than 10 nanograms per milliliter of blood serum) among older women were associated with higher odds of global cognitive impairment at baseline, and low vitamin D levels (less than 20 nanograms per milliliter) among cognitively-impaired women were associated with a higher risk of incident global cognitive decline, as measured by performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination.
Annweieler's team's findings were based on data from 498 community-dwelling women who participated in the Toulouse cohort of the Epidemiology of Osteoporosis study.
Among this population, women who developed Alzheimer's disease had lower baseline vitamin D intakes (an average of 50.3 micrograms per week) than those who developed other dementias (an average of 63.6 micrograms per week) or no dementia at all (an average of 59.0 micrograms per week).
Another case of 'cause and effect', as a result of incompetent health advisers.
Source
n.p. (2012, December 4). "Link Between Vitamin D And Women's Cognitive Performance." Medical News Today. Retrieved from
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253481.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/253481.php
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