Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.

Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs. - Here is a report I read the other day: Doctors 'failing patients' over prescriptions from Netdoctor.co.uk
and here are extracts from it:

"The study's authors, from the University of California, Los Angeles (Ucla), say that taking prescriptions as they are intended is "essential in ensuring their effectiveness".

If individual drug specifications are not followed then the patient in question could suffer from a worsening of the disease, a failure of treatment, a range of adverse side-effects and a potential overdose, the research team write.

...only one-third discussed potential side effects and about half explained how many doses should be taken and how often."

This, of course, is an American report. I live in England. I doubt that research such as this would be conducted in England, where the cover-up culture with regard to poor medical practice has a long and ignoble tradition. But I am confident that the medical negligence that fails to give, along with the prescription for a drug, necessary information about the drug and how it should be taken and what its possible side-effects are, is at least as prevalent in Britain as in the States. - And to the best of my knowledge - and that is informed knowledge, because I write as a steroid victim - doctors in Britain never warn their patients that when taking prescribed steroids like prednisone or HRT, or prescribed antidepressants like amitriptyline, or quite a lot of other drugs, they should not eat salt or food containing salt, because these drugs potentially cause severe sodium retention and consequent water retention, followed by massive obesity.

An example of a patient damaged in this way is Jerry Lewis, who became severely obese because of taking prednisone. - He clearly was not warned of the harm that eating salty food while taking the prednisone would cause him. I read today that he has lost a lot of the weight he gained because he has come off the prednisone. - He would not have gained the weight if he had avoided sodium while taking he drug. - If even famous, wealthy people like Jerry Lewis are not told of the dangers of combining prescribed steroids and salty food intake, then it is highly unlikely that 'ordinary' people ever get the necessary warning. - I regard this as criminal negligence on the part of medical practitioners. - If this failure to inform were to be punished with severe sanctions doctors would give the information. - Though goodness knows they should give it anyway! - What good does it do to turn patients into steroid victims, with a host of attendant morbidity and unhappiness and a shortened lifespan?

See helpful advice and information for steroid victims.

Are you depressed? - Maybe you are depressed because you are overweight?

Are you depressed? - Maybe you are depressed because you are overweight? (There is a significant positive correlation between depression and obesity.) - Maybe you are overweight because of taking anti-depressants?

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful info.)

Are you in constant pain 'because you are depressed'? Are you 'depressed' because you are in constant pain? A drug-free, cost-free course of action that might help is to cut down on salt! - Surprising perhaps, but worth a try. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

DOCTORS ON STRIKE. - DEATH RATES GO DOWN!

DOCTORS ON STRIKE. - DEATH RATES GO DOWN!

Whenever medical doctors go on strike, death rates go down! - I'm not making this up. - Type any suitable words or phrases into the search engines and view the evidence for yourself.

The biggest threat to health in the developed world is currently obesity. - Doctors and their retinues are certainly responsible for most cases of obesity and many of the health problems (and consequent premature deaths) that obesity brings in its wake - high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many, many more. This is because of their constantly reiterated, incorrect, counter-productive and damaging insistence that obesity is caused by over-eating and/or taking too little exercise and that the way to reduce obesity is to eat fewer calories than your body requires.

Obesity is, in the main, an iatrogenic disease.

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Read further about this on my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ - in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html and other pages on my website.

Sleepy kids at greater risk of obesity

Sleepy kids at greater risk of obesity

This was the title of an article published on the internet and dated 17th March 2006. Here is the article http://news.netdoctor.co.uk/news_detail.php?id=17071351 - And here is an extract from the article:

"Kids who get less sleep are at a higher risk of becoming overweight or obese, researchers have claimed.

Experts from Laval University in Quebec, Canada, said that busy parents and a lack of strict bedtimes could be a major factor in rising levels of childhood obesity.

In a study of 422 children aged between five and ten years old they found that those who slept for just a couple of hours less each night were 40 per cent more likely to be overweight.

Of the children taking part in the study, one in five of the boys was overweight or obese compared to a quarter of the girls."

The researchers clearly believe that lack of sufficient sleep is a major factor in the causation of childhood obesity.

In my opinion they have confused cause with effect. Obesity causes a host of adverse physical and emotional health outcomes, and it is these adverse health outcomes that lead to reduced sleep.

In any case, obesity, whether of children or adults, is caused by sensitivity to salt, so to reduce obesity AND improve sleep, the most effective and reliable measure is to reduce salt/sodium intake. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and other pages on the website.

Morbid Obesity - You could find it helpful to eat less salt.

Are you morbidly obese? - You have my great sympathy; I am so sorry that you have this affliction. I hope this blog entry will help you.

No doubt many people have added to the many difficulties of your life by blaming you for your condition. - How wrong they are!

Unless you ate a great deal of salt or salty food when you were a small child or you have the great misfortune to be a sufferer from Cushing's Disease, or some other rare disease which causes great obesity, then the most likely responsibility for your obesity lies with prescribed steroids, like prednisolone, or prescribed HRT or certain other prescribed drugs, possibly prescribed in too high a dose and possibly prescribed for too long a time and almost certainly inadequately monitored by the prescriber. - And I'll bet you were not warned that these drugs commonly cause sodium and water retention (the cause of your overweight) and that while taking them you should not eat salt or food containing salt, were you?

Your excess weight is largely water (extra water in your bloodstream) and is definitely NOT caused by eating too much. But you obviously need more food than slim people, because you have more weight to carry round all the time. - Don't let anyone stop you eating when you are hungry! - You need that food and those calories.

Have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.

You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.

Good luck!