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Archive for January, 2015

Stop Doing This With Aluminum Foil

Posted in Jan-June 2015, tagged on January 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Aluminum Accumulates in the Bones and in the Brain

By Vivian Goldschmidt, MAaluminum-foil-osteoporosis

The researchers found dangerously high levels of aluminum in foods after being cooked, reheated, and even cooled on aluminum foil. The cause for alarm is that when aluminum accumulates in the body, it can lead to osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s.

What’s more, Dr. Zubaidy, one of the study authors, comments that:

“The higher the temperature, the more the leaching. Foil is not suitable for cooking and is not suitable for using with vegetables like tomatoes, citrus juice or spices.”2

On the other hand, the researchers also noted that foil can be considered safe to wrap cold foods, since no leaching was observed without heating. They also did not find a difference if the shiny or dull side were in contact with food.

Aluminum Competes With Calcium, Weakening Bones

High aluminum levels in the body alter bone mineralization, matrix formation, as well as parathyroid and bone cell activity.3 Ironically, one of the most common signs of excessive aluminum accumulation is hypercalcemia or high calcium levels in the blood.

This happens because the presence of aluminum impedes calcium deposition in bone, thus leading to elevated blood calcium levels.3 As a result, PTH secretion, the hormone secreted by the parathyroid hormone, is greatly depressed.3 Additionally, chronic aluminum toxicity greatly reduces osteoblast population and inhibits bone mineralization, resulting in osteoporosis.3

Mounting Evidence Links Aluminum to Alzheimer’s

While the study is less adamant about the link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s than it is about the osteoporosis connection, it does point to evidence that aluminum is deposited in brain tissue. The researchers note that previous studies have found an aluminum build-up in autopsies performed on Alzheimer’s sufferers.

Protect Your Bones and Your Brain

In view of this, you really should avoid using aluminum foil or aluminum utensils for cooking. So here are a few simple steps you can take right away:

> Never cook, heat up, or place hot food on aluminium foil. Use foil only to store cold food in the refrigerator, or to wrap cold sandwiches. I use tempered glass pans. They are easily available in just about every supermarket or hardware store.
> Avoid storing tomatoes, citrus fruits, or spices in foil.
> Replace foil with wax paper if you wish to store food while still hot. Or use glass food storage containers. I keep a variety of sizes handy in my kitchen.
> Never use aluminium pots or cooking utensils. Instead, invest in stainless steel pots and pans.

As you can see, it’s easy to avoid aluminum in the kitchen.

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Eggs Don’t Cause Heart Attacks — Sugar Does

Posted in Jan-June 2015, tagged , on January 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

It’s over. The debate is settled.

It’s sugar, not fat, that causes heart attacks.

Oops. Fifty years of doctors’ advice and government eating guidelines have been wrong. We’ve been told to swap eggs for Cheerios. But that recommendation is dead wrong. In fact, it’s very likely that this bad advice has killed millions of Americans.

A rigorously done new study shows that those with the highest sugar intake had a four-fold increase in their risk of heart attacks compared to those with the lowest intakes. That’s 400%! Just one 20-ounce soda increases your risk of a heart attack by about 30%.

This study of more than 40,000 people, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, accounted for all other potential risk factors including total calories, overall diet quality, smoking, cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and alcohol.

This follows on the heels of decades of research that has been mostly ignored by the medical establishment and policy makers. In fact, the Institute of Medicine recommends getting no more than 25% of your total calories from added sugar. Really?? This study showed that your risk of heart attacks doubles if sugar makes up 20% of your calories.

Yet more than 70% of Americans consume 10% of their daily calories from sugar. And about 10% of Americans consume one in every four of their calories from sugar.

Failed Dietary Guidelines

U.S. Dietary Guidelines provide no limit for added sugar, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still lists sugar as a “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS) substance. That classification lets the food industry add unlimited amounts of sugar to our food. At least the American Heart Association recommends that our daily diet contain no more than 5% to 7.5% added sugar. Yet most of us are eating a lot more. Most of us don’t know that a serving of tomato sauce has more sugar than a serving of Oreo cookies, or that fruit yogurt has more sugar than a Coke, or that most breakfast cereals — even those made with whole grain — are 75% sugar. That’s not breakfast, it’s dessert!

This is a major paradigm shift. For years, we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that fat causes heart attacks and raises cholesterol, and that sugar is harmless except as a source of empty calories. They are not empty calories. As it turns out, sugar calories are deadly calories. Sugar causes heart attacks, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia, and is the leading cause of liver failure in America.

The biggest culprit is sugar-sweetened beverages including sodas, juices, sports drinks, teas and coffees. They are by far the single biggest source of sugar calories in our diet. In fact, more than 37% of our sugar calories come from soda. The average teenage boy consumes 34 teaspoons of sugar a day, or about 544 calories from sugar. Even more troubling, this isn’t just putting kids at risk for heart attacks at some remote later date in their lives. It’s killing them before their 20th birthday.

This new research syncs with decades of data on how sugar causes insulin resistance, high triglycerides, lower HDL (good) cholesterol and dangerous small LDL (bad) cholesterol. It also triggers the inflammation we now know is at the root of heart disease.

And fats, including saturated fats, have been unfairly blamed. With the exception of trans fats, fats are actually protective. This includes omega-3 fats, nuts and olive oil, which was proven to reduce heart attack risk by more than 30% in a recent large randomized controlled study.

Here’s the simple fact: Sugar calories are worse than other calories. All calories are not created equal. A recent study of more than 175 countries found that increasing overall calories didn’t increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, but increasing sugar calories did — dramatically.

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Finally: A missing link between vitamin D and prostate cancer

Posted in Jan-June 2015, Uncategorized, tagged , on January 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Vitamin D upregulates a gene called GDF-15, which suppresses inflammation and appears to protect against prostate cancer. Vitamin D3 is a an anti-cancer powerhouse. Most of us do not get enough sunshine, make sure you are taking vitamin D3!

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the journal Prostate offers compelling evidence that inflammation may be the link between Vitamin D and prostate cancer. Specifically, the study shows that the gene GDF-15, known to be upregulated by Vitamin D, is notably absent in samples of human prostate cancer driven by inflammation.

“When you take Vitamin D and put it on prostate cancer cells, it inhibits their growth. But it hasn’t been proven as an anti-cancer agent. We wanted to understand what genes Vitamin D is turning on or off in prostate cancer to offer new targets,” says James R. Lambert, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and associate research professor in the CU School of Medicine Department of Pathology.

Since demonstrating that Vitamin D upregulates the expression of GDF-15, Lambert and colleagues, including Scott Lucia, MD, wondered if this gene might be a mechanism through which Vitamin D works in prostate cancer. Initially it seemed as if the answer was no.

“We thought there might be high levels of GDF-15 in normal tissue and low levels in prostate cancer, but we found that in a large cohort of human prostate tissue samples, expression of GDF-15 did not track with either normal or cancerous prostate tissue,” Lambert says.

But then the team noticed an interesting pattern: GDF-15 was uniformly low in samples of prostate tissue that contained inflammation.

“Inflammation is thought to drive many cancers including prostate, gastric and colon. Therefore, GDF-15 may be a good thing in keeping prostate tissue healthy – it suppresses inflammation, which is a bad actor potentially driving prostate cancer,” Lambert says.

The study used a sophisticated computer algorithm to analyze immunohistochemical (IHC) data, a task that in previous studies had been done somewhat subjectively by pathologists. With this new technique, Lambert, Lucia and colleagues were able to quantify the expression of the GDF-15 protein and inflammatory cells by IHC staining on slides taken from these human prostate samples.

Additionally encouraging is that the gene GDF-15 was shown to suppress inflammation by inhibiting another target, NFkB. This target, NFkB, has been the focus of many previous studies in which it has been shown to promote inflammation and contribute to tumor formation and growth; however, researchers have previously been unable to drug NFkB to decrease its tumor-promoting behavior.

“There’s been a lot of work on inhibiting NFkB,” says Lambert. “Now from this starting point of Vitamin D in prostate cancer, we’ve come a long way toward understanding how we might use GDF-15 to target NFkB, which may have implications in cancer types far beyond prostate.”

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Health chief slams statins: Millions face terrible side effects as prescription escalates

Posted in Jan-June 2015, tagged on January 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

LEADING doctors are demanding an end to the widespread prescription of statins, warning that one in four Britons will soon be at risk of terrible side effects from the controversial heart drugs.

Published: By LUCY JOHNSTON

lipitor-box
Statins can lead to a 20 per cent chance of patients developing heart disease

Statins can lead to a 20 per cent chance of patients developing heart disease [GETTY]

“Statins might alter what is written on your death certificate but they are extremely unlikely to change the date”
Dr Kendrick

Those sounding the alarm include Dr Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, who suffered “awful” muscle pains while taking statins and claims that plans to prescribe them to millions more adults will “only benefit drug companies”.

The drugs are currently offered to patients with a 20 per cent risk of developing heart disease to help keep their cholesterol levels in check.

Around seven million adults take the drugs. Under guidance to be published later this month by Government drug watchdog the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE), the threshold will be cut to a 10 per cent risk.

This will see millions more adults routinely prescribed the drugs. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiology specialist registrar, and Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP and cholesterol expert, will write to Nice next week, urging it to reconsider the move.

They will ask the watchdog not to rely on evidence from drug company sponsored trials, which have been shown to play down the risk of side effects including diabetes, impotence, cataracts, muscle pains, mental impairment, fatigue and liver dysfunction.

Dr Chand last night warned that giving the drugs to low-risk patients was “a commercialisation device” and not in their interests. Many experts say it is unnecessary to “medicalise” a problem which could be controlled with simple dietary changes, pointing to a study showing that eating an apple a day cuts cholesterol levels as effectively as taking statins.

Dr Kendrick, who has written a book called The Great Cholesterol Con, said: “I can stop people dying from heart disease by pushing them off the edge of a cliff. They might not like the end result.

“Statins might alter what is written on your death certificate but they are extremely unlikely to change the date.”

Dr Malhotra said while patients with established heart disease can benefit from statins, the “mass medicalisation” of a healthier group is likely to do more harm than good.

He added: “Widespread prescription of these drugs to low-risk groups will contribute to immeasurable extra health care costs.”

Dr Malhotra pointed to the “huge discrepancy” between reports of side effects from drug company-sponsored trials and from independent research.

Company-funded studies show side effects in less than one per cent of patients. Independent studies show them in at least 20 per cent.

Inquiries have suggested adverse effects can be minimised in drug company trials by excluding patients if they fail to tolerate statins during “run-in” periods or if they have certain pre-existing health problems.

Opponents of statins also claim some side effects such as muscle pain or confusion are not included in drug company reports. Claims of widespread side effects are borne out by the fact that up to half of patients voluntarily stop taking statins within a year of prescription.

In some parts of the country, hospital clinics have been set up to ensure patients continue to take the drugs despite the problems. Dr Malhotra said: “It is time to practise medicine according to what is best for patients, not to feed drug company profits.”

Dr Chand, speaking to the Sunday Express in a personal capacity rather than in his official BMA role, told how he suffered debilitating side effects after he was prescribed statins five years ago.

The 60-year-old GP from Tameside, Greater Manchester, said: “After a few weeks I started getting awful muscle aches which were almost everywhere and which would wake me up at night.

“Initially I didn’t know what was wrong and put the symptoms down to stress. The drug companies were saying this drug was the best thing since sliced bread and should be given to everyone. I didn’t blame them.”

However, Dr Chand, a father-of-one, carried out his own research and discovered concerns about side effects including muscle pain. After a year he took himself off the drugs.

“The only way to find out was to stop taking the pills, irrespective of any medical advice,” he said. “Things started to improve within two to three weeks. Now I have no symptoms at all.

“I am hugely concerned about the new advice on statins. The only people who will benefit are drug companies.

“I do not undermine the role of statins in those people who have heart disease but for healthy people this is nothing but a commercialisation device.”

Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of the British Medical Journal, said: “The decision to increase use of statins is based on trial data only a few chosen people have seen. We need to demand greater transparency about the research on these drugs. Why aren’t we looking at changes in lifestyle that reduce heart disease risk instead of medicalising vast numbers of people?”

A spokesman for Nice said: “Drug therapy plays a key role in the management of people with high cholesterol levels and this is properly reflected in the draft guideline which provides clear advice on the most cost-effective drugs, based on the best available research evidence.

“However, and just as importantly, the guideline also recommends that standard models of care should include advice and support in lifestyle changes for both primary and secondary prevention of heart disease.”

He said Nice had no concerns that industry-sponsored research “need necessarily be of lower quality or relevance than independent research”.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said it could not comment.

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Coconut Oil Is Better Than Any Toothpaste

Posted in Jan-June 2015, tagged , on January 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Did you know that coconut is very powerful plant which can kill bacteria responsible for teeth damaging?

Irish scientists have tested coconut oil samples on steptococcus mutans. This is bacteria that glues to our teeth and causes dental erosion. Coconut oil became the best tool for killing bacteria.

Scientists consider that coconut oil should be the main ingredient in tooth pastes and mouth rinsing liquids. This way, our teeth will be more protected than before.

Dental caries (tooth decay) does not get the attention it should get. It occurs in 60 to 90 percent in children and it can occur in grownups as well. A guide research claim that if coconut oil, modified with chemical additives, is put into dental hygiene products it can be the most powerful tool against bacteria and other harmful substances that attack our teeth.

 

 

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Statin Scam: People with Higher Cholesterol Live Longer than People with Low Cholesterol

Posted in Jan-June 2015, tagged , on January 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The link here: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/statin-scam-people-with-higher-cholesterol-live-longer-than-people-with-low-cholesterol/

 

Here is a fact that has been known for quite a long time, but it is still news to many people:

People with higher cholesterol levels live longer than people with lower cholesterol levels.

Read that again, slowly, and no, it is not a typo.

The reason why this fact is not well-known in the general public is because it would put a huge dent into a $100 BILLION drug market for statin drugs – drugs that lower your cholesterol. With approximately one out every four Americans over the age of 50 currently prescribed a statin drug, a drug with very serious side effects, this is certainly one issue you should investigate yourself. Please don’t take my word on it, nor anybody else’s.

What the Research Says Concerning Cholesterol Levels and Mortality Rates

This is but a sampling of the research on the fact that low cholesterol is dangerous, while high cholesterol is beneficial.

Study: Low total cholesterol is associated with high total mortality in patients with coronary heart disease, European Heart Journal, January 1997

Quote:

The relative risk of non-cardiac death was 2.27 times higher in the low cholesterol group than in the controls (95% CI: 1.49-3.45), whereas the risk of cardiac death was the same in both groups relative risk 1.09; 95% CI: 0.76-1.56). The most frequent cause of non-cardiac death associated with low total cholesterol was cancer. These results in patients with coronary heart disease add weight to previous studies associating low total cholesterol with an increased risk of non-cardiac death.
———–

Study: Low Serum Cholesterol and Mortality, American Heart Association, June 1994

Quote:

Falling TC (total cholesterol) level was accompanied by a subsequent increased risk of death caused by some cancers (hemopoietic, esophageal, and prostate), noncardiovascular noncancer causes (particularly liver disease), and all causes. The risk-factor–adjusted rate of all-cause mortality was 30% higher (relative risk, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.59) among persons with a decline from middle (180 to 239 mg/dL) to low (<180 mg/dL) TC than in persons remaining at a stable middle level.
Comment: The American Heart Association has known since at least 1994 that low cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of death. Of course, they theorize that the diseases the people died from caused the low cholesterol – something this study did not prove (because it cannot – it can only show associations or links). But the AHA does not deny that low cholesterol is associated with increased death.

———–

Study: Low Serum Cholesterol: Hazardous to Health?, Elaine N. Meilahn, MD, American Heart Association, 1995

Quote:

Is having very low cholesterol levels hazardous to health? There is evidence to suggest that it might be.
———–

Study: Relation between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and survival to age 85 years in men (from the VA normative aging study). The American Journal of Cardiology, April 2011

Quote:

In conclusion, after adjusting for other factors associated with longevity, higher HDL cholesterol levels were significantly associated with survival to 85 years of age.
———–

Study: The statin-low cholesterol-cancer conundrum. QJM, Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, December 2011

Quote:

Several cohort studies of healthy people have shown that low cholesterol is a risk marker for future cancer.
Study: Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, February 2012

Quote:

Our study provides an updated epidemiological indication of possible errors in the CVD risk algorithms of many clinical guidelines. If our findings are generalizable, clinical and public health recommendations regarding the ‘dangers’ of cholesterol should be revised. This is especially true for women, for whom moderately elevated cholesterol (by current standards) may prove to be not only harmless but even beneficial.
———–

Study: PLANT STEROLS LOWER CHOLESTEROL, BUT INCREASE RISK FOR CORONARY HEART DISEASE, OnLine Journal of Biological Sciences, 2014

Quote:

It is widely accepted that cholesterol lowering is healthful per se. We challenge this view, with particular reference to plant sterols. Cholesterol lowering should not be an end in itself. The objective must be to reduce health outcomes, such as incidence of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). We hypothesised that plant sterols may lower cholesterol, but not CHD. We found the outcome on CHD in fact to be detrimental.
———–

As noted above, this list is a sampling of the research showing the benefits of high cholesterol, and the problems with low cholesterol, and is certainly not a comprehensive list.

The Myth of “Good” and “Bad” Cholesterol

When a medical belief has been used to support a $100 BILLION drug industry, one can imagine the difficulty of confronting science that shows your basic premise, that high cholesterol is a hazard to your health, is flawed and lacking serious data.

One of the ways in which the medical industry has tried to deal with the data on cholesterol, is to reclassify it as either “good” or “bad.” So the prevailing medical thinking today is now that “high density lipoproteins” cholesterol (HDL) is “good,” while “low density lipoproteins” cholesterol is “bad.”

There’s just one problem with this kind of thinking: there is only one kind of cholesterol.

“Lipoproteins,” which can be measured in terms of their density, are what carry the cholesterol through our blood stream. There are studies showing that cholesterol with lower density lipoproteins have a positive association with clogged arteries leading to heart disease. But is this association a causative factor in heart disease?

First, it is important to know that there is only one kind of cholesterol, and it is essential to life. Remove all the cholesterol in your body, and you die! 25% of your body’s cholesterol is in your brain, and it is in the walls of every cell in your body.

In terms of cholesterol linked to low lipid proteins, Professor Fred Kummerow, who is a 99-year-old emeritus professor of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois, states:

“LDL is not a marker of heart disease,” Kummerow said. “It’s a marker of ApoB.” And ApoB is a marker of a lack of tryptophan, he said. (Source.)
Professor Kummerow is not the only researcher to question the condemnation of LDL. Scientists at Tufts University looked at 201 cancer patients and 402 cancer-free patients. They found that cancer patients who never took cholesterol-lowering drugs on average had lower LDL cholesterol levels for an average of about 19 years prior to their cancer diagnosis. (Source.)

Statin Drugs have Serious Side Effects

The serious side effects of statin drugs have been known for quite some time now, but the FDA did not issue any warnings until 2012. Yet statins had already been in the market for over a decade. Why did it take the FDA so long?

Could it be it is because statin drugs are the most successful class of drugs of all time in terms of sales? Lipitor is by far the most profitable drug in the history of mankind among all pharmaceutical products, let alone being the most profitable cholesterol drug before its patent expired at the end of 2011. Sales to date from this one particular cholesterol-lowering statin drug have exceeded $140 billion.

Lipitor benefited from the change in marketing laws in 1997 that allowed pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. to advertise their products directly to consumers. Pfizer convinced an entire generation of Americans that they needed a pill to lower their cholesterol in order to prevent heart disease, in what will go down as one of the most brilliant and unethical marketing schemes of all time.

In late 2011, Pfizer’s patent on Lipitor expired. A couple of months later the FDA issued its first warnings against statin drugs, which include: liver injury, memory loss, diabetes, and muscle damage.

Soon after issuing these warnings, the lawsuits started trickling in. Today, they have become a tidal wave. Since April this year (2014), over 1200 lawsuits have been filed by women against Pfizer claiming Lipitor caused them to become diabetics, and lawyers believe it could well exceed 10,000 cases against Lipitor.

And type 2 diabetes is just one of the many side effects of statin drugs. For years, professional athletes have been warned to stay off statins because it is well known they cause muscle damage.

A recent study shows women taking statin drugs double their risk of breast cancer.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff has linked statin use to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological diseases.

A study just published in the international journal Drug Safety found a positive association between regular statin drug use and Bell’s palsy, a neurologic disorder.

The Statin Scam: Don’t Let it Ruin Your Health!

The statin scam has been exposed, but there are powerful sources at work in the medical system to keep it going.

One of the best documentaries exposing the statin scam and interviewing doctors in the industry who have exposed it, was published last year on ABC in Australia. The medical authorities were not successful in preventing it from being aired on TV, but they have removed almost all copies from YouTube now, and forced ABC to remove them from their website.

We currently are using copies by Dr. Eades posted on his Vimeo account. Take some time to watch these important documentaries produced by medical doctors on the statin drug scam, and be informed!

HEART OF THE MATTER Part 1: The Cholesterol Myth: Dietary Villains

HEART OF THE MATTER Part 2: The Cholesterol Drug War

Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!
What REALLY Causes Heart Disease
by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

fat and cholesterol are good for you Forget Cholesterol, Inflammations the Real Enemy
Published on September 22, 2014
– See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/statin-scam-people-with-higher-cholesterol-live-longer-than-people-with-low-cholesterol/#sthash.iCv0AaPi.dpuf

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