Healthy Bytes

The aspirin a day recommendation

read time: 214 words, less than two minutes

Why aspirin? It thins the blood which reduces the risk of clots.

Let’s start off with the BIG deal:
Aspirin can cause internal bleeding.

Studies have shown this. In fact, there was a study that lasted 10 years. Close to 20,000 women over 45 took 100mg of aspirin every other day. There was a similarly sized placebo group.

The results showed women over 65 reduced the RISK of heart attack and stroke by about a third. Sounds good right?
The study also showed 40% increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, in some cases severe enough to require transfusions.

I’ve seen a few comments from doctors in the media following the release of the recommendations. In every case, they expressed some hesitation over this blanket recommendation.

I have no doubt women have already started adding aspirin to their daily regimen.
After all, it’s just an over-the-counter thing.
Yep, so is Tylenol and there are plenty of deaths a year from that as well as untold liver damage. And cigarettes are over-the-counter.

While it may be over-the-counter, that does not guarantee it’s safe. If you’re considering aspirin, I strongly recommend you do your research, talk to a good doctor and very carefully consider the risks.

I would also recommend your first defense is nutrition and exercise.

The AHA and Folic Acid

read time: 129 words, just a minute

Folic acid is a B vitamin… B-6.

What you’ve heard for a long time is cholesterol, cholesterol, cholesterol.
Funny (not really) thing is, statin drugs are the most prescribed drugs and heart disease is still the number 1 killer.

There is another view of heart disease cause. Not one a pharmaceutical company has been able to capitalized on. And that is the inflammation view.

Homocysteine is a toxic amino acid that irritates the blood vessel lining and causes inflammation. Too much homocysteine and your blood vessels can’t dilate adequately… not enough blood flow to heart… heart attack. (Also, not enough blood to the brain… stroke).

Folic acid (as well as B-12) help break down homocysteine.

Folic acid is in leafy greens, beans, grains.

New American Heart Association recommendations for women

read time: 412 words, about two minutes

The American Heart Association came out with new guidelines for women last week.

A good bit of it stayed the same – eat better, exercise, maintain a healthy weight.
But there were two areas of controversy.

First has to do with specific vitamins / supplements:
Antioxidant supplements (such as vitamin E, C and beta-carotene) should not be used for primary or secondary prevention of CVD.
Folic acid should not be used to prevent CVD – a change from the 2004 guidelines that did recommend it be considered for use in certain high-risk women.

Second is about the use of aspirin:
Routine low dose aspirin therapy may be considered in women age 65 or older regardless of CVD risk status, if benefits are likely to outweigh other risks. (Previous guidelines did not recommend aspirin in lower risk or healthy women.)
The upper dosage of aspirin for high-risk women increases to 325 mg per day rather than 162 mg.

Let’s talk about antioxidants first.

There have been numerous studies with Vitamins E, C and beta-carotene. And they’ve produced some conflicting results.

You need to be aware that vitamins in “pill” form and vitamins in natural form are not one and the same.
Vitamins are not isolated little molecules. They’re generally a complex. Additionally, when in food form, they come along with enzymes need to digest and assimilate.

While Scientists can synthesized chemical structures, the resulting “pill” isn’t interchangeable with the natural form.

A dandy example is Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is one part of Vitamin C and what you generally find when you buy “Vitamin C”. But since it is not the full Vitamin C complex, you won’t experience the full Vitamin C benefits.

Free radicals in the body contribute to atherosclerosis. Anti-oxidants neutralize free radicals. Vitamins A, C and E are anti-oxidants.

The problem with most of the studies the AHA is basing their conclusions on is that they’ve used synthetic forms of these vitamins. They might not cost much… but since they are worth little if anything from a nutritional aspect, they’re a waste all the same.

There are supplements of high quality that can be worth taking. Many of them derive the vitamins from food sources.

Great food sources of anti-oxidants…

Vitamin E:
Green leafy vegetables, legumes, nuts

Vitamin C:
Sweet peppers, broccoli, guava, cherry, kiwi, citrus

Beta carotene:
Dark orange, red and dark green vegetables and fruits.

In the next post we’ll discuss folic acid. And then the “aspirin a day” recommendation

People protest – Merck backs down… a little

read time: 808 words, about 4 minutes

Merck announced that it would suspend lobbying states to require girls – as young as 11 – to submit to Gardasil, the HPV “vaccine”. Yes, Merck was actively lobbying States to require girls as young as 9 to buy their product.

Gov. Perry of Texas has already single handedly and against the wishes of the Texas Legislature and folks of Texas made the vaccine mandatory. Somewhere around 20 states are considering it.

What’s the rush, what’s the push?

Let’s exercise our minds a bit…

• HPV – Human Papilloma Virus – is primarily a sexually transmitted virus.
• There are more than 100 types of HPV, 15 are associated with cervical cancer. Gardasil protects against TWO (Types 16 & 18) that are associated with 70% of cervical cancer cases. And also two (Types 6 & 11) that are associated with genital warts.
• Most women clear the virus, but for some women with certain risk factors and weakened immune system, it can lead to infection.
  Chronic infection can – but is not guaranteed to - lead to cervical cancer IF undiagnosed and untreated.
• Death due to cervical cancer dropped 74% between 1955 and 1992. Why?… the pap smear.
• Cervical cancer is slow moving, thus if you regularly get a pap smear, you’ll likely catch any abnormalities early. Survival rate is 92% with early treatment.
• There are estimated to be 3,670 cervical cancer deaths a year.¹ This is in primarily older women (chronic infection, slow moving cancer).

Onto pharmaconomics…

• Gardasil was rushed, er, “fast tracked” by the FDA.
• Clinical trails were with 9 to 26 year olds… there is no study on effectiveness for anyone older.
• Sample size was a MERE 2,000 (1,200 under age 16).
• There were 102 SERIOUS adverse reactions, oh – including 17 deaths.²
• Research shows effectiveness for only 5 years.
• Gardasil came out in June, 2006. Through December, 2006 there were 385 adverse event reports made to Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Additionally, the number of reports per month has increased every month. (Reporting is voluntary and generally only a minority of cases are reported). ³
• Adverse reactions include: numbness and loss of sensation, facial paralysis or Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
• Merck is quoting costs of $360 for the vaccine. This of course does not include the Doctor visit. I’ve read Docs are charging more or not offering it because their reimbursement does not cover their cost.
• Ok, I hippidy hopped over to the 2000 census. Between the ages of 10 and 24 (Gardasil is being recommended for 9-26 year olds), there are 59,711,963 folks. ⁴ I’m going to assume half are female (because I don’t feel like hunting for the exact number). That makes 29,855,982 females. At $360 each… $10,748,153,340. Yup, $10.7 Billion.
  Ohhhh Butttttt, that’s just the U.S. You see because of pap smears, cervical cancer in the US is around 1%. But WORLDWIDE it’s MUCH higher - pap smears aren’t well used in developing countries. (worldwide deaths estimated at 273,500/year; diagnoses 493,000).⁵
• For the quarter ending 31.Dec.2006, Merck had sales of $155 Million for Gardasil alone.⁶
• The estimated number of cervical cancer deaths for 2007 is 3,670 in the US. HPV is associated with 70%… that makes 2,569.
  Gardisil acts against 2 of the 15 types of HPV associated with cervical cancer (13.3%). Therefore, assuming women had been receiving this “vaccine” every 5 years for the past 60 years, that would statistically have prevented 342 deaths. (I say every 5 years, because the vaccine is shown effective for only 5 years. I say 60 years because that would cover women who are currently 70 years old and started receiving the vaccine at age 10).
  Keep in mind that there was a 74% reduction in cervical cancer deaths attributed to pap smears. Oh yea, there aren’t any adverse side effects with pap smears. Oh yea, they don’t cost as much.

OK, let’s chain a few things together…

-> Cervical cancer is largely positively effected by pap smears.
-> Keeping a strong immune system through good nutrition and lifestyle choices dramatically decreases susceptibility to infections of all kinds as well as numerous diseases.
-> The trial sample group for Gardasil was tiny and short term. The REAL “experiment” is happening now with the people voluntarily taking it.
-> There were adverse effects in the trial and there are adverse effects being reported now “in the field”.
-> Whether or not you want (or want your daughter to) become part of Merck’s experiment is your choice. BUT, do inform yourself. I’ve seen the commercial for the product. It exaggerates the situation and then exploits fear.
-> WOMEN: get smeared regularly… maybe we should make pap smears mandatory.

For all those parents and concerned citizens that held up a big red STOP sign – I salute you. It pushed Merck back.

Here are a few more balanced resources:

• National Vaccine Information Center
• Kaiser Network
• National Cancer Institute

________________________________________________________

1. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_are_the_key_statistics_for_cervical_cancer_8.asp [↩]
2. http://www.909shot.com/PressReleases/pr62706gardasil.htm [↩]
3. http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/HPV/pr022107HPV.htm [↩]
4. http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/briefs.html [↩]
5. http://www.nccc-online.org/ [↩]
6. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B7B0D6192-6F1F-42F7-8883-5345514BD348%7D&dist=rss [↩]

This is your heart on ADHD drugs

read time: 170 words, about a minute

The FDA has directed manufacturers of the 15 ADHD drugs including Ritalin, Adderall and Strattera to include guides with the drug warning about the risks of increased blood pressure, heart rate and even sudden death for kids with heart problems and heart defects. The guides must also warn about the psychiatric problems such as manic behavior and hearing voices.

The directive comes a year after TWO panels of FDA advisors recommended such guides. Bet it takes less time to approve the drugs.

According to the CDC (latest data from 2003), 7.8% of school-aged kids are “diagnosed” with ADHD. No doubt there may be some kids with a true issue, but I believe most of them have NDD… Nutrition Deficit Disorder.

Remember the commercial “This is your brain”… “This is your brain on drugs”. Well HEY, processed foods, sugar, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup and the myriad of other chemicals in attention-captivating packaging promoted by desire-creating, psycho-advertising are the equivalent of drugs.

Eat real food, get real nutrition.

An open letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding “Universal Health Care”

read time: 1,225 words, (yes, very wordy today) about 6 minutes

As a California citizen and tax payer, I appreciate your desire to improve the health and welfare of California residents.
And I even agree with the logic in your argument – basically, the people who pay for health insurance also pay for the uninsured.

But I completely disagree with your question – “how can we get everyone insured?”

Let’s take the top of the chart health “issues”…
-> Heart disease
-> Cancer
-> Diabetes
-> Obesity

Even the CDC publicly states these are all primarily diet and lifestyle diseases.

What are doctors trained to do?
They’re trained to TREAT NOT PREVENT.

In 2003 the Princeton Review surveyed every US accredited medical school (122) and accredited osteopathic school (19) about nutrition education in their curriculum.
40% of the schools had a nutrition requirement. The average amount of nutritional training at the schools that required any was 2.5 credit units – about 38 hours.

What that means is, if your doctor went to one of the 4 in 10 medical schools that actually had a nutritional requirement in the curriculum, she probably got a total of 38 hours of nutritional training. But if your doctor went to one of the 6 in 10 medical schools that had no nutritional requirement, he could have as little as zero hours of nutritional training.

In their book “The Real Age Diet”, Drs. Michael F. Roizen and John La Puma revealed, “The two of us combined received fewer than eight hours of education on nutrition in more than six thousand lecture hours in medical schools.”

Dr. Michael A. Klaper, Director of the Institute of Nutritional Education and Research:

“What’s really tragic about this is that we were so busy learning how to fix broken arms, deliver babies and do all of those ‘doctor’ things in medical school that we considered nutrition to be boring. But after we get into practice, we spend most of the day treating people with diseases that have huge nutritional components that have long been essentially ignored.”

It’s not my intention to bash doctors. If I was suffering from a trauma such as (ahem) breaking my leg on the ski slopes, I’d be immensely grateful for their training and skill… because I would need TREATMENT.

But if I were on the path to diabetes… or coronary heart disease… or obesity, I’m simply not likely to get steered off that path by a typical doctor… if I could get an appointment and more than an 8 minute visit.

Nope. Now once I’ve arrived and meet the “criteria” of the disease… they’ll treat me with drugs and medical procedures (read $$$). Again, they’re trained to treat, not to prevent. We should not put the responsibility of prevention entirely on their shoulders.

“Stitch in time, saves nine”…
Specifically, current data reveals that $1 spent on prevention = $3 of health care cost saved.¹

So if I spend a single dollar on “preventive” options, I’ll save $3 in medical costs.
That’s a pretty compelling ROI don’t you think?

Corporate America does. There are more than a few corporations that have moved past lamenting about the rising cost of health care; past “studying” how to lower the cost. They’re implementing “wellness” plans that focus on prevention through education, better eating and exercise. They’re spending money on not needing medical care.

CNN House Call ran a clip over the weekend about knee replacements. There’s about 400,000 of those a year at $31,000/knee. That’s projected to increase 8 fold to 3.5 million by 2030. ²

Why… weight. 1 pound of weight results in 4 pounds of pressure on the knee… with every step taken. Reduce the need for knee replacements by reducing weight. Prevention.

You want universal health insurance.
That solves the problem of not everyone having health insurance.
But how well does it solve the goal of improving health?

While it might be wonderful to have “some insurance company” pay for your diabetes testing strips and prescription drugs and doctor visits and hospital visits, wouldn’t it be so much more elegant,
so much more delightful,
so much more cost effective to prevent diabetes?

Oh, by the way, the annual costs of diabetes – per person – was estimated at $13,243 in 2002. This per the American Diabetes Association. ³ I’m sure it’s quite a bit higher now.

Here are just a couple things to look at:
When did we cut phys ed in schools… when did childhood obesity start rising.
When did we stop learning to cook … when did ‘take out fast food’ become “normal”.

Schools in this country that are doing something about BMI are seeing results.
I bet most, if not all the kids that have taken home “BMI Report cards” had health insurance. All the while their weight was climbing.
The schools that are measuring BMI, that have implemented more phys ed and exercise and that have improved the food available at school are seeing results. And mind you, these programs have only been introduced over the last 2 years.

Again, having health insurance has made little difference. Getting exercise and eating a healthy diet is what’s making a difference.
A much better ROI for whoever is paying the bill and for the individual kid.

And yes, there is controversy about BMI, and controversy about “BMI Report Cards”, but the results from these programs seem to be better than the results from having health insurance relative to obesity and all it portends.

The State coffers fetched somewhere in the vicinity of $400 million in capital gains tax just from Google employees cashing in some of their stock options last year. ⁴,⁵

Why not use that to fund preventive programs in schools?
I’ll bet Sergey Brin and Larry Paig would be delighted their tax dollars were invested so intelligently.

If you want a better answer, ask a better question.
How can we improve the health of Californians?

Because climbing, climbing, climbing to the top of a ladder really doesn’t matter much when….
you’ve leaned it up against the wrong building.

Health care costs are absurd.

The Federal government quants just released a report that states health care costs will nearly DOUBLE in the next 10 years. This well outpaces any projected rise in overall economic growth. It’s a fast moving target. ⁶

Finding a way to throw money at it today is just opening the gate to an escalating financial commitment. And how well will that improve the health of Californians?

Further, a report by private economic think tank, McKinsey Global Institute claims:
“Most components of the U.S. health-care system are economically distorted, no single factor is … the silver bullet for reform.”

So - health care is (and has been) outpacing the cost of inflation, and, it’s not reasonably “reformable”.

I don’t disagree that having health insurance is a good thing just in case you suffer a trauma.

But I don’t agree that having health insurance is the most cost effective way to improve the health of Californians… not by a long shot.

Further, I believe the best way to deal with out of control health care cost is not to need it, i.e., practice prevention.

I sure don’t feel like I get much for my health insurance dollars. The insurance company’s version of a birthday card is to increase my premium every year… and I’ve never even made a claim.

Could I please get more for my tax dollars???
_______________________________________________________________

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/22/eveningnews/main2386130.shtml [↩]
2. http://CNN.com/HEALTH [↩]
3. http://www.diabetes.org/for-media/2003-press-releases/02-27-03.jsp [↩]
4. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/09/MNGSVIO7NG1.DTL [↩]
5. http://www.latimes.com/business/taxes/la-fi-google12jan12,1,4854417.story?coll=la-headlines-business-taxes [↩]
6. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.26.2.w242 [↩]

What you kneed

read time: 192 words, about a minute

I’ve noticed a new commercial pop up a few weeks ago about some brand of women’s replacement knees. The commercial emphasizes these knees are made for women and implies other knees are made for men and don’t work as well.

The first thought I had was…
Are there so many knee replacement that paying to produce and air this commercial is cost effective. Is this really going to drive a swarm of women to their docs requesting the “fem knee”?

CNN House Call ran a piece on the increase in knee replacements over the weekend…

1 pound of weight = 4 pounds of pressure on the knee
There are 400,000 knee replacements a year – projected to 8 fold increase to 3.5 million by 2030
A replacement knee lasts 15-20 years and cost $31,000
The average age for a knee replacement is decreasing – which means, the replacement may need to “replaced” before the person dies

The reason for the increase in the number of replacements and the decrease in average age… excess weight according to the orthopedic surgeon.

Excess weight and obesity aren’t self contained problems. They trigger one health issue after another.

A no-cost way to improve your heart health… and a whole lot more

read time: 246 words, about two minutes

How can you…
-> Lower your blood pressure
-> Lower your heart rate
-> Strengthen your immune system
-> Decrease the risk of heart attack
-> Decrease muscle tension, pain and joint pain
-> Increase blood flow and oxygen to the muscles, organs and brain
-> Improve digestion
-> Decrease stress
-> Improve depression and mental health
-> Improve memory, focus and brain functioning

… no pills, no hospital stay, no gimmicks…

Forgive.

Uh huh, forgive. That and those whom you hold a grudge against.

There have been many studies done over the past decade on the power of forgiveness.
You can read about 26 of them on A Campaign for Forgiveness Research

It’s a misconception that the forgiven/transgressor receives all the benefits.
Actually, the person forgiving is the true beneficiary.

Holding onto anger, bitterness, hate and resentment eats away at your energy and health. And it has power over you.
Letting go of those toxic emotions gives you control.

Forgiveness is a process. It starts with a decision. A choice only you can make for yourself. No can force you to do it… and no one can prevent you from doing it.
The decision is manifested in action.

You don’t have to make it public. You don’t have to reconcile with the person. You don’t have to forget. Forgiveness is about letting go and moving on.

Forgiveness won’t change the past.
But it will change the present… and the future.

“If you devote your life to seeking revenge, first dig two graves.”
- Confucious

Gung hay fat choy

Today is the Chinese New Year…
the year of the pig.

Don’t take that as a license to “eat like a pig” for the next 12 months.

Nap time – not just child’s play

read time: 137 words, about a minute

Maybe you think they were bribed.
Maybe you think they were ruled by pure self interest.
But Harvard researchers recently released the results of a large, six year study:
Napping can reduce death by heart disease 37%… yep, more than a third.
This was for the group that napped at least 3 times a week.

The occasional nappers showed a 12% reduction.

Lest you think this was a fluke:

• NASA researchers showed a 26 minute nap can yield a 34% boost in performance
• Stanford researchers showed napping improves mood and increases performance and alertness in doctors and nurses
• Salk Institute researcher Dr. Sara C. Mednick found napping keeps blood flow in the memory area of the brain constant through day; whereas, nonnappers have deceasing blood flow during the day.

Sleep on it and get back to me.