NETKING

For a very long time I have, on my web sites and in this blog as well as in other articles I write for different publications, been alerting people to the extreme risks associated with statin drugs. 

I recently wrote an article for my column with Sinclair News on this topic. 

What is so alarming is the fact the the Big PhRMA firms that have been manufacturing these drugs for more than 20 years knew the risks.  What's worse in my mind is that they also probably knew the effects on health would be serious and there was really no long term benefit other than their own bank account and shareholder dividends.

Is it worth it to you to trade in your health?  After reading this new report you might begin to wonder if you already haven't.

Statin drugs can accelerate cardiovascular problems, a new report has discovered. The drugs harden the major arteries, they are a main cause of type 2 diabetes in healthy people  and accelerate the major health problems in those who already have diabetes, say researchers from the Phoenix Veterans Affairs' Healthcare System in Arizona. 

Researchers monitored the health of 197 patients with type 2 diabetes and their use of stains. Coronary artery rigidity, or calcification, was far more accelerated in the patients who were regular statin users. Patients who weren't initially taking a statin soon developed hardening of the coronary arteries once they started using the drug regularly. The researchers fear their latest discoveries are just he tip of the iceberg of statin-associated adverse effects. Their database lists 300 different adverse side-effects, including weakening of the heart muscle and increases in the risk of type 2 diabetes by 48% especially in post-menopausal women.

(Diabetes Care, 2012 Aug 8; Epub ahead of print: PMID: 22875226.)

SELECTIONS FROM OVER 30 POSTS @ NATURAL HEALTH NEWS 

Kedar N. Prasad, PhD

This time the change may be back to the past, and to tell you the truth it really annoys me.

Not that it is a personal annoyance, its more like one huge road block put in your path  because other people's ignorance can really harm your health.

I think it is strange in a Jim Morrison kind of way that some get turned into celebrities by the media  not really based on out come but because they are on TV or they get interviewed by someone else in the TV spotlight.

Just because someone is on TV really does not mean they are an expert in what they plie on their show. Remember that every show has sponsors and producers.  If the recommend something it does not really mean it is effective or effective for you.  All it is is mass marketing.  And where are you when that suggestion fails you?

Its also like aggregator web sites.  They fill their pages with info taken from other sources, make it look as if this was original material, and never give you and thing to assure you it might be bogus while trying to make it look like the latest hot new discovery or cure.

Thinking of something Dannion Brinkley said not too long ago about how he believes that the it is through healthcare that the globalists will find the key to controlling the world.

If you accept Dannion's premise then it won't surprise you when I suggest how crazy it is to find too loud Jillian Michaels on "Everyday Health" as one of their 'talking heads'.

And to me it is even crazier to think she has an interview with David Agus MD about cancer.

Now mind you, I do have to agree with him on the failure of the establishment on the issue of prevention.

Agus states:  " ... we can win the war on cancer — but not the way we’re fighting it now.“We’ve made almost no impact on making people live longer with cancer,” he says in an interview ... noting that the death rate is down only 8 percent over the past six decades.Part of the problem, ..., is the way we think about the disease. “Instead of just trying to shrink the cancer, which buys a little bit of time, I want to change the entire state of your body. But I know, as a cancer doctor, I’m not that good. And I know that I lose two or three patients a week — and I don’t want to do that anymore.”The solution, he explains, is not to treat the disease but to stop it from happening in the first place. “Most cancers are preventable. We’ve got to take aggressive stances in that regard.”He goes on to tell you however, to ditch your vitamins and get your nutrients from food.

And this is where we part ways.  The parting is of course because clearly Agus has failed to do the research that proves, even if it is organic, the nutrient level in food has diminished over the years.  It  is worse for products grown in commercial agriculture.

I of course support organic and buying local but I also know that not everyone can afford this.  And so what does Agus offer you if you fall in the less affluent part of our culture?

Not much.

But our Food Cleansing Healthy Handout does and it is an inexpensive way to make food healthier.

And being that we believe in supplements, the correct choices of supplements so that it isn't a one size fits all, but a targeted approach to regaining your health.  The science on supplements supports my position, even for cancer.  Maybe something will change some day for Agus and he will see the light.

Let's hope, and work to prove Dannion wrong.

If you are looking for conscientious help in the area of supplements for health consider Health Forensics.

Read more: confusion about supplements here.

  

Not too many days ago I wrote an article for my column on Health & Politics at Sinclair News.  I had been waiting for the results of Andrew Breitbart's autopsy because an earlier commenter claimed that no one dies at age 43 from heart disease.

Certainly this is well known to be untrue.

Drugs cause problems, and now it seems that my concern over lack of training in the last decade or so for doctors and specialists has found support.

You can learn a lot more about prevention from material posted on my website to help you and perhaps some of these doctors in training learn more about this most important sector of health care.

The 2012 edition of my 2005 book, Blood Pressure Care Naturally, is now available.  This little book, the first in my Road To Health Natural Care Series, has been useful to hundreds, patients and providers alike.

One of the key areas is the section on vitamins and minerals.  This point is more pronounced today coming from a new scientific study on magnesium proving it work for hypertension.  These reports always encourage me because I know that at least some one is side stepping the propaganda you read all the time in mainstream media about how you must not take vitamins and minerals or other supplements.  And yes, even AARP promotes this non sense too.

The real proof is that when you become your own best health advocate you will be healthier and you will be better able to question that authority with MD or DO or NP etc following their name.

Tue, Apr 24 2012  Prevention a low priority in heart docs' training
By Kerry Grens
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new survey of training programs for future cardiologists suggests that only a fraction are getting the minimum level of education in heart disease prevention that professional guidelines recommend.
"Prevention and management of risk factors (for heart disease) is not an emphasized -- and almost neglected -- portion of the curriculum," said Dr. Quinn Pack, the lead author of the study. "We don't know how it affects (doctors') knowledge."
To become a cardiologist, physicians who have trained in internal medicine go through a cardiology fellowship lasting several years.
In 2008, leading organizations including the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF), American Heart Association and American College of Physicians published recommendations that cardiologists in training get at least a month's worth of experience in settings devoted to prevention.
These could include clinics specializing in cardiac rehabilitation after a heart attack, diabetes treatment, weight loss, smoking cessation and other related topics.
Accreditation criteria for graduate medical training programs also require cardiology fellows to have training and experience in prevention-related issues.
Pack, who is a preventive cardiology fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said he had noticed that some of the fellowship programs where he had applied seemed to emphasize prevention more than others.
To find out whether the fellowships are adhering to the training guidelines, Pack and his colleagues sent a survey to the directors and chief fellows of about 200 programs.
Less than a third responded, and among those who did, 24 percent of their programs met the guidelines for training in prevention.
Another 24 percent had no part of the curriculum formally dedicated to prevention.
While some prevention topics -- such as the use of heart medications -- were nearly always part of a formal lecture to fellows, other topics were overlooked.
The doctors who responded to the survey reported that nutrition, obesity, smoking cessation and managing chronic diseases each earned a place in a formal lecture less than half the time.
Dr. Roger Blumenthal, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who chaired the task force that wrote the ACCF training guidelines, said it was "very disappointing" that only a quarter of the programs set aside time in their fellowships for a rotation in prevention.
"What we would hope is that they're applying the basic preventive cardiology principles for the rest of their cardiology time," he told Reuters Health.
Pack said that in general the training recommendations have more of an emphasis on diagnosis and the management of acute heart conditions, and that fellows end up spending more time learning how to read stress tests and insert stents, for example.
Not only are these skills more technical than, say, helping people quit smoking, they can also earn doctors more money, Pack said.
"There tends to be more focus on the reimbursable procedures," Pack told Reuters Health, "as opposed to the things that, in my opinion, make a real difference to patients -- the medications, the diet, the smoking cessation and lifestyle changes."
Pack's study did not measure whether doctors whose fellowships followed the training recommendations were more knowledgeable in prevention than doctors who didn't get a dedicated prevention rotation.
The survey respondents often said that a lack of time to devote to prevention training was the biggest obstacle to meeting the guidelines.
Another problem was a lack of faculty members with expertise in prevention. Twenty fellowship programs had no faculty who specialized in the subject.
Blumenthal said the lesson learned from Pack's study is that program directors need to make sure their fellows properly understand all the fine points of prevention in cardiology.
Pack said getting prevention experts on staff and reconfiguring the fellowship program to include time for prevention could help programs meet the training recommendations.
"There's time," he said. "It's just given to other priorities."
SOURCE: bit.ly/K4162o The American Journal of Cardiology, online April 4, 2012.

Natural Health News: Heart Health Month is here

Feb 03, 2012

Preventing heart disease requires much more than simply screening for high cholesterol in the blood. "Although this approach has been useful, it fails to identify almost one-half of the 1.3 million individuals who develop MI ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Helpers for Your Failing Heart

Sep 13, 2011

A group of people with heart failure was studied to see how well they responded to COQ10 and other antioxidants. Patients had a 40% or lower ejection rate and had been diagnosed for at least six months. Daily dose of ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Diet soda linked to heart risks

Apr 19, 2010

People who drank more than one diet soda each day developed the same risks for heart disease as those who downed sugary regular soda, a large but inconclusive study found. The results surprised the researchers who ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: For Your Healthy Heart

Feb 02, 2011

Cordless Phones, like WIFI, Boost Heart Risk. Cordless Phone EMFs Trigger Heart Rhythm Abnormalities. By Erik Goldman / Editor in Chief - Vol. 11, No. 4. Winter, 2010. The controversy continues over the possibility that ...

I write a new column on health and politics for Sinclair News.  I am pleased to have this venue because it allows me more freedom to write about things that need to be uncensored and where the fear factor is not an issue.

While Larry Sinclair is, and has been, controversial, I have often found myself in that same class for decades.

In my article about Big PhRMA published on 28 January, I mentioned a new drug, Bydureon (exenatide extended release), manufactured by Amylin Pharmaceuticals.  This is their new version of Byetta.

"This long-acting form is a version of their diabetes drug Byetta, that can be used weekly. Byetta is a synthetic exenatide formulation with risk for severe allergic reactions affecting the skin and respiratory system as well as pancreatitis and kidney disease.
Now approved by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) this newer drug comes with a label warning that the drug caused certain thyroid tumors in rats.
There has been no information provided by the manufacturer whether the drug causes these tumors in people. The warning does state that the drug should not be used by people with history of medullary thyroid carcinoma (cancer). And to think, it was the early pioneers in endocrinology that believed strongly that diabetes was a thyroid disorder.
In 2010 the FDA denied approval of Bydureon and requested additional studies and clinical data.
There is much to be seen from yet another synthetic and potentially risky drug. All drugs in this class have potential interaction issues with other prescriptions you may be taking. Make sure your prescriber and/or your pharmacist provides you with this information, and you clearly understand it." SOURCE

Byetta costs about $250 each month.  Bydureon costs about $600 each month.

A site I follow is Health News Review. This effort tries to educate you about news reports on health topics and how to judge their value.  It also promotes good journalism practices.  Some things they do not like are the press release and advertising reports often relied on in media and by TV news outlets.

Today I was slapped with a real pie in the face example of just this; the Medscape Special Report – February 3, 2012, from Medscape Diabetes.

Bydureon From Medscape Diabetes

Expert Commentary Bydureon: An Easy, Effective New Treatment for Type 2 Diabetes Anne Peters, MD on Diabetes Bydureon vs Victoza: It's On! Matthew Mintz, MD: The Diabetes Beat Latest News Once-Weekly Exenatide Okayed by FDA for T2DM Medscape Medical News 2012 Diabetes Drug Bydureon Gets EU Approval Medscape Medical News 2011 From the Literature Effects of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists on Weight Loss BMJ January 2012 Short-term Exenatide Treatment Leads to Significant Weight Loss Diabetes Care January 2012

With all this media glitz what is someone with diabetes to do to try an determine if this is really the best drug for them, especially with unknown cancer risks?