I've been listening to Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" on BBC Radio 4.

Gosh! It was so good! See http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/saturday_play.shtml You can listen to it for seven days after the broadcast. - The characters I liked best were Septimus and Thomasina. - I warmed to Thomasina partly because she liked maths and was so good at it. - She made me think of Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, Byron's daughter - see http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/WOMEN/love.htm

I was surprised to hear a character use the word 'undoubtably' - surprised that Stoppard had not used the more usually used 'undoubtedly'. - But maybe I misheard...



Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

I listened to Humphrey Hawksley on BBC Radio 4 this morning. He was one of the contributors to the excellent "From Our Own Correspondent".

This is the webpage about today's programme: From Our Own Correspondent and this Humphrey Hawksley's talk on From Our Own Correspondent in fact is Humphrey Hawksley's talk, which I found very interesting.

In the discussion about statins there was no mention of their adverse effects, to which Dr James Le Fanu has been drawing attention in recent months. - See Dr James LeFanu's findings about the bad effects of statins

High cholesterol levels are not, of course, caused by lack of statins...(o: - Nor, in fact, by eating foods containing high cholesterol or saturated fats. High cholesterol and also high blood pressure are mainly caused by sodium/salt sensitivity and can be significantly lowered by eating less salt and salty food. - This costs nothing and is completely safe, unlike taking statins...

Heart disease is also best treated or avoided by cutting out salt and salty food.

Lose weight, lower your high cholesterol level, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See Sodium in foods

Visit my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

I see that Humphrey Hawksley has a website: http://www.hhawksley.co.uk/

Aricept is to be available on the NHS

Alzheimer's drugs to be available on NHS - Telegraph

Extract:

"Victims of a mild form of Alzheimer's disease are to be given access to anti-dementia drugs on the NHS.

Campaigners yesterday hailed the "dramatic concession", which came after a five-day legal hearing.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) triggered a High Court action when it decided the drugs were not cost effective in relation to the benefits they offered to sufferers in the early stages of the disease.

Yesterday a QC for Nice, which is responsible for providing national guidance on treatments available on the NHS, clarified the official position of the watchdog.

Nigel Giffin QC said doctors did have discretion, in certain circumstances, to prescribe the drugs to patients with mild symptoms. The statement came after Mrs Justice Dobbs, sitting in London, had closely questioned Mr Giffin on the issue before she reserved judgment on the case.

Mr Giffin said there were circumstances in which doctors, provided they took into account the Nice guidance, could exercise clinical judgment and decide that an individual patient was entitled to the drugs."

Obesity is the biggest avoidable factor in developing Alzheimer's disease, and obesity is caused by fluid retention/salt sensitivity, so you can reduce your risk of developing Alzeimer's disease by eating less salt/sodium and salty food.

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! - How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

The tragic death of Gareth Myatt, a teenager who choked and died while being restrained by three guards at a privately-run youth prison.

Use of restraint blamed for prison death of boy, 15 - Guardian

Extract:

"The death of Gareth Myatt, a teenager who choked and died while being restrained by three guards at a privately-run youth prison, could have been prevented, an inquest jury found yesterday.

Jurors criticised officials at the Youth Justice Board for failing to review the safety of the restraints used on teenagers in custody, which they said was one of the causes of his death. The verdict came just days after a political row over the Ministry of Justice's plans to clarify the rules governing the use of restraints in privately-run children's jails to allow staff to use them to enforce discipline and good order.

The 15-year-old, from Stoke-on-Trent, was the first child to die while being restrained in custody when he choked to death at Rainsbrook secure training centre in Northamptonshire in April 2004. He was three days into a six-month sentence when staff followed him to his room when he refused to clean a sandwich toaster in the communal area. The inquest heard that while he was being restrained the teenager, who was 1.47 metres (4ft 10in) tall and weighed less than 45kg (7st), tried to warn staff he could not breathe but was ignored.

The jury took a day and a half to reach a verdict of accidental death. It found that the lack of an adequate safety assessment of the restraint and staff's lack of knowledge about its dangers contributed to his death. The coroner, retired judge Richard Pollard, had given it the option of a verdict of unlawful killing, which could have opened the way for legal proceedings against individuals and organisations involved, but the high court dismissed appeals for it to be given an option of corporate manslaughter."

Personally, I find it difficult to regard this as other than deliberate and wholly unwarranted cruelty against a child.

Obese people more likely to get Alzeimer's. - What a pity the public is not being told that to reduce weight they need only to eat less salt...

Obese people twice as likely to get Alzheimer's - Independent

Extract:

"Britain's obesity explosion could trigger a second even more serious epidemic - of dementia. Experts warned yesterday that our fondness for fast food and resistance to exercise was not only causing waistlines to bulge - it is also damaging our brains.

An estimated 700,000 people have dementia in the UK and the number is forecast to rise to as many as 1.5 million over the next 50 years, according to the Alzheimer's Society.

But if the population goes on getting fatter, the total could rise to 2.5 million, said Clive Ballard, director of research at the society. "Obesity is a huge risk factor," he said. "People who are overweight at 60 are twice as likely to get dementia at 75. We have a public health epidemic of dementia given the ageing of the population, and it is essential to reduce the risks. If these factors are not controlled, it may not be 1.5 million but 2 or 2.5 million people affected.""

Exercise has nothing to do with preventing obesity - Forget about it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating or by inactivity. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)

Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups

Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and harmful.

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

The Co-op is the greenest supermarket

Co-op named as greenest supermarket - Telegraph

Extract:

"The Co-op has finished top of a survey to find the High Street retailer with the best green credentials.

Ten big-name stores were looked at by the BBC's Money Programme to see how environmentally responsible they are.

They were assessed for the amount of carbon and waste they produce for every £1m of their turnover.

The Co-op emerged as the best of the bunch releasing £324 of carbon and waste and Somerfield finished bottom with £1,194.

Marks & Spencer came second followed by Tesco in third place and Boots in fourth.

The tests were carried out by the environmental research organisation Trucost which works with companies to help them understand their impact on the environment."


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

I came across this denunciation of the NHS today and thought it should be known about more widely.

http://www.nhs-whocares.com/who_cares.html

Extract:

"Inexperienced doctors, overworked nurses, filthy wards, inadequate care - all of these were guilty for Paul Steane’s death.

Hospital management denied all responsibility, claiming key parts of Paul’s medical records had been ‘lost’. But a nurse, outraged at what was happening, sent Amanda copies of the ‘missing’ records and the police began to investigate. "

Breathing exercises can help with asthma

Breathing exercises can cut asthma symptoms by a third - Independent

Extract:

"A breathing technique for asthma sufferers developed 40 years ago has been proved for the first time to cut symptoms of breathlessness by a third.

The Papworth method is a sequence of breathing and relaxation exercises devised at Papworth hospital, Cambridgeshire, in the 1960s.

Patients and physiotherapists believed it worked, but it fell out of favour among Britain's five million asthma sufferers who came to rely on medication. Now, researchers have demonstrated its effectiveness in what is believed to be the first randomised, controlled trial of the method - the gold standard in medical research.

The technique is aimed at curbing "over-breathing" - the rapid shallow breaths at the top of the chest taken by people when they are under stress. The aim is to encourage gentler, more relaxed breathing, using the abdomen and diaphragm rather than the chest.

Elizabeth Holloway, a research physiotherapist with more than 30 years' clinical experience, who led the study, said: "It is about breathing like Richard Burton [the Welsh actor] who delivered his lines from deep down in his abdomen. It is not just psychological, it is physical - patients need to learn to drop their shoulders, relax their tummies and breathe calmly and appropriately. They gain greater control and confidence.""

You can reduce asthma problems and make breathing easier by cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Patricia Hewitt's resignation from the government.

Hewitt leads exit of women from Brown cabinet - Guardian

There will surely be few who will mourn Hewitt's resignation...

Extract:

"Patricia Hewitt resigned from the government last night after six years in cabinet and a tumultuous two years as health secretary. She thanked Gordon Brown for an offer to stay in a top post, although she had been certain to be moved from health.

The leader of the Lords, Lady Amos, the first black woman cabinet minister, also left the government, nominated by Mr Brown for the new post of EU representative to the African Union."


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Diet pill to put you off eating - and make you malnourished and ill...

Diet pill 'is as filling as a plate of pasta' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Italian scientists have invented a new diet pill that swells inside the stomach, giving its users the impression that they have already eaten.

"The sensation is like eating a nice plate of spaghetti," said Prof Luigi Ambrosio, who led the research.

The pill contains an extremely absorbent powder that expands to more than 1,000 times its initial size when combined with water.

Prof Ambrosio said a 500mg pill, washed down with two glasses of water, would create a tennis ball-sized lump in the stomach, making dieters feel full.

"We had one extremely important investor come to visit and he wanted to try the pill," he said. "He got very excited because he took one at 11 o'clock in the morning and at six o'clock in the afternoon he still couldn't finish an ice cream."

The pill was tested on 20 people for a month last year, and is being tested on a further 90 people at the Policlinico Gemelli hospital in Rome."

Sadly, when you are overweight/obese, you are vulnerable to foolish ideas like this. - But there is no need at all to harm yourself by not eating much in order to lose weight. - You can lose weight FAST and completely SAFELY by avoiding salt and salty food, eating plenty of good meals with plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - Don't diet! - It is harmful and it doesn't work. - Cutting down on salt/sodium DOES WORK...(o:

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Do you suffer from PMT - Pre-Menstrual Tension, aka Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS)? - Your problem is fluid retention.

Read here for how to lessen your problem/reduce your symptoms: reduce your salt/sodium intake during the week or so before your period is due to start. - See
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pmt.html

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

The government has agreed to provide £220m a year from the NHS budget to resolve a row over long-term care costs

NHS cash to tackle row over long-term care - Guardian

Extract:

"The government has agreed to provide £220m a year from the NHS budget to resolve a long-running row about who pays for the continuing care of patients transferred from hospital to nursing homes.

Ivan Lewis, the care services minister, said yesterday that the decision would help up to 10,000 people with severe dementia or other incapacitating conditions, who were liable to pay for intensive support to carry out the basic routines of daily life.

Mr Lewis said the aim was to eliminate a postcode lottery whereby older people in some parts of England were provided with free care, while others who might be in greater need were denied it."


Lose weight, lower your risk of vascular dementia and stroke, lower your high cholesterol level and your high blood pressure, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

A catalogue of failures in the care and treatment of epilepsy is leading to wasted lives and wasted money

Epileptics' lives lost in care shambles - Guardian

Extract:

"Nearly 400 lives and £189m are wasted every year in England through a catalogue of failures in the care and treatment of epilepsy, according to a report published today by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Epilepsy.

The report - Wasted Money, Wasted Lives - concludes that, despite effective treatments, there are 365 avoidable deaths a year from epilepsy, 69,000 people are living with unnecessary seizures, and 74,000 people are taking anti-epilepsy drugs they do not need.

Baroness Gould, chair of the APPG, says the report identifies a national scandal: "Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the report is the fact that better services would result in savings for the NHS ... and around £189m could be saved every year. This would more than cover the cost of improved services."

Supported by the Joint Epilepsy Council of the UK and Ireland (JEC), the report also condemns what it calls the continued government failure to meet the needs of people living with the condition. "Government guidelines for major changes to the treatment of epilepsy do exist," says Karen Deacon, chair of the JEC. "But, without targets or powers, these are little more than wish lists and are of little use to patients facing critical service failures." The JEC says the government should accept responsibility for the shortfall in services and increase the numbers of doctors and nurses specialising in epilepsy as a "matter of urgency".

The claim is made that blueberries help to keep the brain young

How blueberries help to keep the brain young - Telegraph

Extract:

"Blueberries could hold the key to fighting illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, scientists claimed yesterday.

The discovery affects other degenerative conditions that come with old age.

While it is unlikely to cure the disease, it may provide a way to prevent, slow down or reduce the impact of such illnesses which affect the mental abilities but not the physical health of sufferers."

I am sure that blueberries and other fruits are good for warding off degenerative diseases, but the MOST important preventive measure is to avoid eating salt/sodium and salty food.

Lose weight, lower your risk of Alzeimer's disease and stroke, lower your high cholesterol level and your high blood pressure, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Britain is in the grip of a binge drinking epidemic...

Epidemic of drunk teenagers in hospital - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Britain is in the grip of a binge drinking epidemic, according to two official studies yesterday that showed alcohol-related hospital admissions have doubled in a decade while a third of teenagers regularly drink to excess.

The number of drunk teenagers admitted to hospital in England increased by more than a third in the past 10 years, from 3,870 in 1995/96 to 5,280 in 2005/06.

In the same period, the number of adults admitted to hospital after drinking excessively more than doubled -from 89,280 to 187,640.

The statistics, from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, which collates data for the Department of Health, also showed that alcohol consumption among children aged between 11 and 13 has reached a record high."

"The figures came as doctors called for action on binge drinking. Delegates at the British Medical Association's conference in Torquay, voted for a ban on consuming alcohol in the street.

They also backed a call for a reduction in the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

Alcohol abuse is estimated to cost the country £20 billion a year through crime and damage to health.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of ethics at the BMA, said that too many children did not understand that alcohol was "an acute poison" when consumed excessively.

"We are not just talking about liver disease," she said. "People become violent, fall unconscious and become seriously dehydrated.

"We are seeing dehydrated people in their twenties who have had major strokes because they have drunk too much."

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, accused the Government of ignoring the dangers of binge drinking."


Lose weight, lower your risk of stroke, lower your high cholesterol level, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Oh dear! - More risk of being prescribed statins...

GPs to screen every patient for heart risk - Telegraph

Extract:

"Millions of people could be prescribed cholesterol-reducing statins under guidelines published today by the Government's drug-rationing watchdog.

GPs will be told to draw up a "systematic strategy" to identify which patients on their books are most at risk of developing heart disease.

These patients will then be called to their local clinic or health centre for blood tests to measure their cholesterol levels, the guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will say.

People who are found to have a 20 per cent or greater chance of developing cardiovascular disease over the next decade will be prescribed statins to try to reduce their cholesterol."

The usefulness and safety of statins is debatable. - Click on the statins tab at the end of this entry and read the evidence.

High cholesterol is caused by salt sensitivity and can be lowered by eating less salt and salty food. - This costs nothing and is completely safe, unlike taking statins...

Heart disease is also best treated or avoided by cutting out salt and salty food.

Lose weight, lower your high cholesterol level, reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack, and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Doctors vote to make abortions easier to obtain

Doctors 'make abortions easier' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors have voted to make it easier for women to have an abortion in the very early stages of pregnancy.

In a move that infuriated pro-life campaigners, they voted to scrap laws requiring two doctors to sign consent forms.

They said that women should be able to have a termination during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy on the basis of “informed consent”, making abortion as easy to access as any other treatment.

But delegates at the British Medical Association’s conference in Torquay rejected by a narrow majority proposals to allow nurses and midwives to carry out terminations. "


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Swollen breasts? Painful breasts? Sagging breasts? Pendulous? Droopy? Heavy? Visible veins in breasts? Mastitis? Gynaecomastia?

Your main problem is fluid retention - and you may have tried dieting, which makes fluid retention worse. - It is excess blood volume that is causing the veins to be visible and the weight of this excess blood volume is causing the breasts to be heavy and to sag. - When you try to lose weight by dieting and calorie counting, all of your skin, including the skin of your breasts, becomes weaker and thinner, and so this makes the sagging worse, and the skin itself becomes thinner still because of the pull of the weight downwards. - It is a vicious circle. - But there is a way to reverse this process...(o: - It is sensitivity to salt that is causing the fluid retention, and so if you avoid eating salt and salty food the fluid retention will lessen, the breasts will become less heavy and less painful, the visible veins will become less noticeable, and you will lose weight because you will lose excess fluid from your bloodstream.

(I believe that vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) can also help with this problem. Bananas are a good food source of vitamin B6. Some prescription drugs cause shortage of vitamin B6, e.g. isoniazid, which is used to treat tuberculosis. Alcohol abuse can also result in the need for extra vitamin B6.)

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Heavy periods? Irregular periods? Painful periods? Menstrual problems? Bruise easily? Dysmenorrhea?

Do you have difficult times with menstruation? - Obviously, there are many possible causes for these problems and it may be that you need to see a gynaecologist or other specialist, but there are also very common causes which do not need specialist help.

A very common cause of bleeding problems and menstrual problems like this is dieting/'slimming'. - When you are not eating enough for your body's needs, your body has to feed on itself and so your skin gets thinner, your muscles and bones lose mass and get weaker, you lose some of your hair/eyebrows/eyelashes, nails get weaker AND THE WALLS OF YOUR BLOOD VESSELS GET THINNER/WEAKER and overstretched. - With weaker, more fragile blood vessel walls, bleeding and bruising will occur more readily and will be worse than they would otherwise be. Wounds will take longer to heal.

So if you have any of these bleeding/menstrual/period problems, and if you are dieting, please stop dieting right now! - If you want to lose excess weight, dieting is not necessary anyway: it doesn't work and is potentially dangerous. Do eat good meals; don't eat dieting junk. - Your body needs food - real food! You will not lose your excess weight by 'slimming'; you will only lose your health!

All that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and good food. Eating less salt will help a lot with the bleeding problems. - Good luck!

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! - Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

UK scientists are developing artificial skin which may be of help in healing wounds and treating burns victims.

UK scientists in artificial skin breakthrough - Telegraph

Extract:

"A long-lasting artificial skin has been developed by British researchers.

The Cambridge-based Intercytex Group Plc has announced that tests had produced promising results in healing wounds in early clinical trials.

Scientists said that the successful tests, in which laboratory-made living human skin was fully and consistently integrated into the human body for the first time, marked a clinical breakthrough in regenerative medicine.

Writing in the journal Regenerative Medicine, Intercytex said the new skin - called ICX-SKN - appeared to incorporate itself much better with real tissue than any other skin substitutes tried in the past, which biodegrade in situ after a few weeks.

The researchers hope it might provide an alternative to skin grafts, which are often used for victims of serious burns and large wounds.

ICX-SKN is created from a matrix produced by the same skin cells that are responsible for synthesising new tissue in the body. Results show that the new skin had produced a closed and healed wound site after just 28 days. "

"Intercytex founder Paul Kemp hopes to develop a range of cell-based implants that can regenerate lost tissue."


Dieting/'Slimming' does not work and harms your skin by making it weaker and thinner. - Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Cold potatoes strengthen your immune system - but don't put salt on them!

Cold spuds strengthen immune system - Telegraph

"The general decrease of leucocytes in the pigs suggests an overall beneficial effect, says the immunology expert Lena Ohman at the Department of Internal Medicine, Göteborg University, Sweden."

Extract:

"New scientific research has discovered that the potato is especially effective in boosting the immune system when eaten cold or in a salad.

A three-month study on the health of pigs, fed largely on potatoes, discovered that they had significantly decreased levels of white blood cells, produced as a result of inflammation or disease.

Spanish researchers observing the animals observed a 15 per cent reduction in leucocyte levels, a common chemical in the blood which can signify the presence of disease."

It's good to hear of research about good nutrition rather than funded by drug companies...

Reducing salt intake also strengthens your immune system, so don't put salt on them or you will undo the good the cold potatoes can do you!

Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

NHS problems have left thousands of doctor training posts unfilled

NHS fiasco leaves 4,000 jobs unfilled - Telegraph

Extract:

"The full extent of the junior doctor recruitment crisis was laid bare yesterday after figures showed that thousands of training posts have not yet been filled.

A leaked document from the Department of Health showed that almost a quarter of specialist training positions for young medics - the equivalent of more than 4,000 jobs - were still empty.

With only five weeks to the Aug 1 deadline for doctors to take up their new jobs, experts warned that patients' lives could be put at risk if posts were not filled. The recruitment fiasco was brought to light by The Daily Telegraph in March after it was inundated with letters and emails from despairing doctors. The Government has repeatedly said that no doctor would be unemployed by the time the entire recruitment process comes to an end in October. But the British Medical Association estimates that 12,000 doctors will not get a post as a result of Labour's botched online recruitment system.

In a passionate appeal to Gordon Brown to "end the misery" of junior doctors, Dr Sam Everington, the BMA's acting chairman, said it was a scandal that many doctors were facing uncertainty about their future medical careers."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Coins have been found to harbour the MRSA superbug

Coins found to harbour MRSA superbug - Independent

Extract:

"Coins can harbour the superbug MRSA, researchers have discovered. Health workers have been urged to be extra careful to wash their hands thoroughly after handling change.

"This study indicates that contaminated coins may serve as a potential source for MRSA," say researchers from the Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory, Belfast City Hospital.
The researchers tested whether MRSA could survive on one-pence coins. Results show that when the coins were contaminated with blood or pus, organisms were able to survive for some time.

The report says that coins are widely used in hospitals, at mobile ward shops, restaurants, pay phones, car-parking payment machines, TV/phone pay card machines and for paying taxis.

"Given that hands are a major source of contamination of MRSA organisms, it may be postulated that money may thus become contaminated with MRSA in a MRSA-positive hospital environment as it is handled or, alternatively, it may become cross-contaminated because of its cohabitation of pockets with MRSA-positive handkerchiefs," say the researchers. "Given that there are approximately 26,359 million coins currently in circulation in the UK, an examination of the survival dynamics of MRSA on money is warranted."

They say that hands are among the most important way of spreading infection: "Because money may provide an indirect route for hand-to-hand contamination, it is important to prevent such cross-infection by washing hands after handling money if a clinical procedure is to be carried out.""

Years ago I went as a volunteer - human guinea pig - to the Common Cold Research Centre (it closed down some years ago) at Harvard Hospital, near Salisbury. This was unpaid - just expenses. The virologists there taught us quite a bit about the common cold and their discoveries about it. Apparently more colds are caught on New Year's Day than any other day because of people going to New Year's Eve parties, which tend to be inside in the warmth, with lots of people crowded together and some will have colds and be coughing, etc. Germs may be transferred to, say, a door handle and then transferred to your hand when you touch the handle. Then if you rub your eye, say, you can by doing that introduce germs into your body through the eye. Alcohol at the party will have opened the pores of your skin and warmed you up a lot. - When you leave to go home, even if you have wrapped up well, you still encounter the shock of the cold air and you get chilled - and when you are chilled, that is when your body's defences are low and so the germs that have entered your system can now get a foothold.

They advised us to try not to rub our eyes, as this was such an efficient and common way of transferring germs from the hand into the body.


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Supermarket meat 'could be MRSA infected'

Supermarket meat 'could be MRSA infected' - Telegraph - It would be advisable to read the whole article.

Extract:

"Pork, beef and chicken in supermarkets could be infected with a strain of MRSA, according to a report today by organic campaigners which warns that the issue could become "a new monster".

The bacterium is sweeping northern Europe and has already infected one in five of all pork products on sale in Holland, from where Britain imports almost two thirds of all its pork, the report claims.

The strain found in Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Germany is different from MRSA found in British hospitals, which was a contributory factor in 3,800 deaths in 2005.

However, the report by the Soil Association, the organic pressure group, claims that the bug found in European meat is just as deadly and infectious. It is resistant to tetracycline antibiotics, the most common drugs used to cure hospital MRSA.

So far no meat or farm animals in this country have been found to be infected with the European strain. However, no testing for the microbe in pork or chicken is done.

Only cattle are tested - the least likely animal to be infected - and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) does not test any imported meat.

The Soil Association is calling on the Government to start testing for the superbug in meat as a matter of urgency."


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent blindness

Fish oil may help prevent blindness - Telegraph

Extract:

"In the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, mice were fed diets rich in either omega-3 fatty acids (comparable to a Japanese diet) or omega-6 fatty acids (comparable to a Western diet).

Mice on the omega-3 diet, rich in DHA had less blood vessel loss in the retina than the omega-6-fed mice. The blood vessel loss was also cut by up to a half."

You can reduce your risk of developing cataracts and also lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Huge weight gains reported by patients on prescription drugs

So! - Researchers are beginning to catch up with what I have been explaining for years!


Huge weight gains reported by patients on prescription drugs - Independent on Sunday

I have been writing and talking to medics, scientists, journalists, broadcasters, MPs, etc etc for many years about this. I wrote at great length and with great effort to Professor Graham MacGregor, of St George's Hospital, London, described in his book about Salt, Diet and Health as 'an international authority on high blood pressure and actively involved in research on salt and high blood pressure', in 1999, having tried in vain to speak to him about it when I travelled to St George's in the hope of seeing him. He failed to act on the information I had sent him.

I shall write further about the newspaper report and about the failure of any of the many important and influential people whom I have contacted over these many years to do a damned thing about the needless destruction of people's lives and health by the reckless prescribing of ill-informed and negligent doctors. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html
groups vulnerable to salt
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lose_weight.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

If you are a frequent flyer you may be interested to read here about poisons in the air supply on planes

Christopher Booker's notebook - Sunday Telegraph

See the first part: "Pilots disabled by poisoned air"

Extract:

"The essence of the problem is that the air supply to the cockpits and cabins of many modern airliners is bled off from their engines, where it becomes contaminated with carcinogens, immunosuppressants and highly toxic organo-phosphorus (OP) chemicals, especially a compound known as tricresyl phosphate (TCP) used as an anti-wear additive. Both crew and passengers are thus exposed to small amounts of OPs and a cocktail of other nasties. OPs, more commonly used as pesticides, cumulatively attack the nervous system, causing disorders ranging from nausea, headaches and dizziness to, eventually, serious mental and physical breakdown.

Although this problem was first identified 30 years ago, following a near-fatal incident in the US, it was kept so quiet that when hundreds of pilots in the 1980s began to experience adverse reactions they had no idea why. One of the first to track down the cause was Susan Michaelis, flying BA146s in Australia, when in 1997 she was permanently grounded by severe illness. Two years later, at her instigation, an official inquiry by the Australian Senate heard enough expert evidence to confirm that the cause of so many pilots and cabin crew suffering ill-health was contamination of cabin air by TCP and other chemicals.

In 2001 the cause was taken up in Britain by Captain Loraine, a senior member of the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA), who flew Boeing 757s. But from the industry and regulators, such as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), they met with a wall of denials. Although more pilots were suffering from "aerotoxic syndrome" every year, there began a cover-up which uncannily parallelled the methods used by government in the 1990s when the health of thousands of farmers was destroyed by OPs in sheep dip.

Robert Mitchum, the former film star, was also a poet and a musician.

I've just been listening to a radio talk about Robert Mitchum, the former film star. It was extremely interesting hearing that he had been a poet from an early age and that he was also an accomplished musician. On page http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/ae3fm/ it says that the programme will be repeated on Saturday 30 June 2007 23:30-0:00 (Radio 4 FM) - so if you are interested, you may like to listen. You can hear him reading some poetry.

NHS jobs: - big bonuses for some, job cuts for others

Bureaucrats' bonuses rise as NHS jobs cut - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Bonuses awarded to NHS bureaucrats have soared by nearly a third as thousands of health workers have lost their jobs.

Nearly £1.5 million was paid in bonuses to 231 "senior" civil servants in the Department of Health and related agencies last financial year, a rise of 29 per cent.

NHS trade unions criticised the bonuses, worth an average £6,300 - half a year's pay for many health staff. During the same year, 27,000 NHS posts were cut, with widespread redundancies.

On Friday, Unison, the biggest NHS union, followed the Royal College of Nursing by agreeing to ballot members on industrial action if the Government fails to improve its annual pay offer of 1.9 per cent for most front-line workers.

Karen Jennings, the head of health at Unison, said the bonuses were "totally unfair" and left front-line staff "feeling like second-class citizens". Peter Carter, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said he was "stunned" that the Government could behave with such "crass insensitivity"."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Waitrose, one of Britain's supermarket is going to start selling milk in plastic pouches to cut down on the amount of plastic used in milk containers.

Milk moves from bottles to the bag - Observer

Extract:

"One of Britain's leading supermarket chains is to start selling milk in plastic bags after green campaigners said the sale of millions of plastic milk cartons was threatening the environment.

Waitrose will start selling pouches of milk, alongside special jugs to use them with, from tomorrow. Campaigners hope the scheme will be the first step to abolishing plastic milk bottles, thereby reducing landfill and saving the energy used in their manufacture.

Britons consumes around 180 million pints of milk a week, of which at least two-thirds is sold in plastic bottles, which began to replace 'Tetra Pak' cardboard containers in the Nineties. It has recently been estimated that only one in four plastic bottles is recycled."

Pros and cons of the scheme are examined here: Is the plastic pouch really so eco-friendly? - also in The Observer.

Me - I still get buy my milk in glass bottles, which I wash and return to the milk lady. (I also buy my eggs - free range - from her and return the egg-boxes to her to be re-used.)

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Electronic tags to use on patients' tissue samples to avoid mix ups

The electronic tags that can save lives on wards - Observer

Extract:

"Scientists claim to have found a way to stop hospitals losing or mixing up patients' tissue samples, a problem that can have fatal consequences.

North Middlesex Hospital in London will next month become the first hospital in Britain to trial Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a tracking system in which tiny tags respond with a unique identity when scanned, much like a barcode."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Population growth - Food supplies - Global markets - Prices...

The fight for the world's food - Independent - It's quite a long article.

Extracts:

"Most people in Britain won't have noticed. On the supermarket shelves the signs are still subtle. But the onset of a major change will be sitting in front of many people this morning in their breakfast bowl. The price of cereals in this country has jumped by 12 per cent in the past year. And the cost of milk on the global market has leapt by nearly 60 per cent. In short we may be reaching the end of cheap food.

For those of us who have grown up in post-war Britain food prices have gone only one way, and that is down. Sixty years ago an average British family spent more than one-third of its income on food. Today, that figure has dropped to one-tenth. But for the first time in generations agricultural commodity prices are surging with what analysts warn will be unpredictable consequences.

Like any other self-respecting trend this one now has its own name: agflation. Beneath this harmless-sounding piece of jargon - the conflation of agriculture and inflation - lie two main drivers that suggest that cheap food is about to become a thing of the past. Agflation, to those that believe that it is really happening, is an increase in the price of food that occurs as a result of increased demand from human consumption and the diversion of crops into usage as an alternative energy resource. "

"In the past 12 months the global corn price has doubled. The constant aim of agriculture is to produce enough food to carry us over to the next harvest. In six of the past seven years, we have used more grain worldwide than we have produced. As a result world grain reserves - or carryover stocks - have dwindled to 57 days. This is the lowest level of grain reserves in 34 years.

The reason for the price surge is the wholesale diversion of grain crops into the production of ethanol. Thirty per cent of next year's grain harvest in the US will go straight to an ethanol distillery. As the US supplies more than two-thirds of the world's grain imports this unprecedented move will affect food prices everywhere. In Europe farmers are switching en masse to fuel crops to meet the EU requirement that bio-fuels account for 20 per cent of the energy mix.

Ethanol is almost universally popular with politicians as it allows them to tell voters to keep on motoring, while bio-fuels will fix the problem of harmful greenhouse gas emissions. But bio-fuels are not a green panacea, as the influential economist Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute explained in a briefing to the US Senate last week. He said: "The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's 2 billion poorest people."

Already there are signs that the food economy is merging with the fuel economy. The ethanol boom has seen sugar prices track oil prices and now the same is set to happen with grain, Mr Brown argues. "As the price of oil climbs so will the price of food," he says. "If oil jumps from $60 a barrel to $80, you can bet that your supermarket bills will also go up."

In the developed world this could mean a change of lifestyle. Elsewhere it could cost lives. Soaring food prices have already sparked riots in poor countries that depend on grain imports. More will follow. After decades of decline in the number of starving people worldwide the numbers are starting to rise. The UN lists 34 countries as needing food aid. Since feeding programmes tend to have fixed budgets, a doubling in the price of grain halves food aid."


Improve your health by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

£4 million settlement over alleged price-fixing of medicines has been agreed by Goldshield plc and the Dept of Health

Cartel case drugs firm agrees £4m settlement - Telegraph

Extract:

"A £4 million settlement over alleged price-fixing of medicines has been agreed by a British drugs firm and the Department of Health, it was announced yesterday.

Goldshield Group Plc made the offer, without admission of liability, after a civil claim by the Government which accused a number of firms of operating a cartel.

A criminal trial against nine individuals and five companies, including Goldshield, on charges of conspiracy to defraud the NHS, is scheduled for January.

Yesterday's settlement follows allegations that Goldshield was involved in price-fixing of the blood-thinning drug warfarin.

Next year's court case, brought by the Serious Fraud Office, relates to allegations concerning warfarin, another branded blood-thinning drug Marevan, and penicillin-based antibiotics, supplied to the NHS between January 1996 and December 2000."

Let's hope that eventually somebody is sent to prison for this! - Unlikely, though, I guess...)o:


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Doctors call for measures to reduce heavy drinking.

Doctors call for ban on drinking in street - Telegraph

Extract:

"A national ban on drinking in the street should be introduced to help defeat the binge-drinking culture, senior doctors will say next week.

Laws to increase the legal age for buying alcohol to 21 - except in pubs and hotels - and increases in tax on alcohol and advertising restrictions will also be proposed.

Delegates at the British Medical Association's annual conference will debate the suggestions on Tuesday.

There are already restrictions on drinking in the street in some parts of the country after councils were given powers in 2001 to designate public areas in which it is an offence to consume alcohol if asked not to do so by a police officer.

The BMA motion calls for total national prohibition.

This follows growing concern about the impact of binge drinking on the nation's health and the financial implications for the NHS and the taxpayer of alcohol-related disease.

A Government report this month to accompany its new alcohol strategy suggested that Britain has eight million problem drinkers. Liver disease is the fastest growing illness and hospital admissions have doubled in the past decade."

Alcohol is not the only, and not the main, cause of liver disease. - Prescribed drugs, frequently prescribed inappropriately, in far too high a dose and for far too long a period, cause massive damage to the liver and other organs of the body. The most harmful tend to be those which cause sodium and water retention - that is steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, most notably amitriptyline, other psychotropic drugs and, to a much smaller extent, many painkillers and other drugs. The most dangerous of these sodium retentive drugs - the steroids, HRT and tricyclic antidepressants - should never be prescribed without a warning to avoid eating salt/sodium while on the medication. This warning is seldom, if ever, given...)o: The effect of the sodium retention is to turn sodium in food (usually encountered as salt) into a very slow poison for the unfortunate victims/patients of the negligent prescribing. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

You can protect your liver by only taking drugs if they are absolutely necessary, taking them at the lowest dose necessary, and taking them for the shortest period of time necessary, and by avoiding salt and salty food. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Stem-cell injections may help heart attack victims

Stem-cell trial for heart attack victims - Independent

Extract:

"Heart attack victims are to be injected with stem cells from their own bone marrow in a groundbreaking trial which could improve patient survival rates.

Doctors hope the injections will repair cell scarring caused during heart attacks, giving patients an improved quality of life.

Britain has one of the worst heart attack rates in the world, with someone having a heart attack every two minutes. Heart attacks are responsible for one in four deaths in men and one in six deaths in women.

During a heart attack, cells in part of the heart die, leaving areas of scarring. The scarred areas are less effective at pumping blood, which can lead to patients suffering heart failure."

The best way to protect yourself from having a heart attack is to avoid eating salt and salty food. This would benefit your health in many other ways too. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a Caesarean section

Boy, 15, filmed carrying out surgery - Telegraph

Extract:

"The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a Caesarean section in an apparent bid to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest surgeon.

Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges, officials said.

Dr K Murugesan showed a recording of his son, Dhileepan Raj, performing the Caesarean to an Indian Medical Association (IMA) chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month.

Dr Venkatesh Prasad, the association's secretary, said: "We were shocked to see the recording."

He added that the IMA told Dr Murugesan that his act was an ethical and legal violation and had reported the surgery to the state's top medical association in the state capital Chennai."

At the very least, the two doctors were highly irresponsible...


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Babies kept out of the sun may be at risk of developing rickets.

Keeping babies sun-free increasing rickets risk - Telegraph

Extract:

"Protecting babies against skin cancer by keeping them out of the sun is putting them at risk of the crippling bone disease rickets, doctors have warned.

Breastfed infants need a top-up of vitamin D because they are no longer exposed to sufficient sunlight to generate the daily requirement themselves."


Also safeguard your children's health by feeding them meals low in salt. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

DNA pioneer predicts future for gene-screening

Gene-screening will be norm in 10 years, says DNA pioneer - Guardian

Extract:

"Personal DNA sequences will become a routine tool in the diagnosis of diseases within 10 years, according to the father of genetics, James Watson. He said that, as the costs of the sequencing technology tumble, doctors will be able to use the information to plan more effective treatments for conditions including mental illness, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

Professor Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA in 1953 with his Cambridge University colleague Francis Crick, was speaking yesterday at the launch of the Wellcome Collection, a new national museum based in London that will examine the scientific and artistic connections between people and biomedicine.

Using current technology sequencing a single person's DNA takes 20 technicians around nine months. "In five years the hope is that you could reduce that to a week with just two or three people," said Michael Jones, head of the genomics core lab at Imperial College London. "New technologies are trying to eliminate the technicians you need. The idea is you can take someone's DNA and plug it into a machine and the data will come out.""

Well, as far as "cancer, obesity and diabetes" are concerned, the main contributory cause is fluid retention/sodium retention/salt sensitivity, which in turn is caused by misinformation from the medical profession about the causes and treatment of obesity, coupled with their reckless prescribing, often in high dose, of drugs like steroids, HRT and certain antidepressants and other drugs which cause sodium and water retention, and inadequate or non-existent monitoring of patients taking the drugs. - The high-tech stuff detailed in the article would come very low indeed in any list of desirable expenditure I were to compile...

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Tiredness a big problem for you? Insomnia? - Here are some some suggestions...

I spend my life in a fug of tiredness - Guardian

Extract:

"I have always had trouble getting to sleep but it has become much worse since I had glandular fever. I've tried everything from exercise and diet to taking sleeping pills. Now I'm at the end of my tether ."

The article contains various suggestions to help with this problem. - My own suggestion is to avoid eating salt and salty food. This helps with a surprisingly numerous set of health problems. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html

Abortion time limit to be investigated

Abortion time limit to be investigated by MPs - Telegraph

Extract:

"An inquiry into whether the upper time limit for abortions should be reduced is to be carried out by MPs.

The Commons' science and technology committee will examine whether scientific evidence supports a drop in the present 24-week maximum.

It will also look at whether the requirement for two doctors' signatures should be abolished, and whether nurses and midwives should be allowed to carry out abortions during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.

At present only doctors can carry out surgical abortions and prescribe the pills for a medical abortion.

Advances in the survival rates of premature babies have led to calls for a reduction in the 24-week limit.

The committee will examine scientific and medical evidence but will not look at ethical and moral issues of the time limit. Dr Evan Harris, a Lib Dem member of the committee, said: "Given that the Government has failed to conduct any sort of review, it is good that a cross-party group on both sides of the ethical argument is now doing so."

Abortions are allowed beyond 24 weeks only if a serious abnormality with the foetus or a serious risk to mother's health is discovered."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Chemicals in make-up are absorbed by the skin and can be harmful to you - and to your baby if you are pregnant.

Body absorbs 5lb of make-up chemicals a year - Telegraph

Extract:

"Women who use make-up on a daily basis are absorbing almost 5lb of chemicals a year into their bodies, it is claimed.

Many use more than 20 different beauty products a day striving to look their best while nine out of 10 apply make-up which is past its use by date.

Dependence on cosmetics and toiletries means that a cocktail of 4lb 6oz of chemicals a year is absorbed into the body through the skin.

Some synthetic compounds involved have been linked to side effects ranging from skin irritation to premature ageing and cancer.

Richard Bence, a biochemist who has spent three years researching conventional products, said: "We really need to start questioning the products we are putting on our skin and not just assume that the chemicals in them are safe."

If a woman is pregnant, any harmful chemicals from make-up, etc is likely to harm her unborn baby too. - See http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2002/Sexy-Baby-Phthalate-Poison.htm


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

In praise of eggs... - But don't add salt or Marmite (it's very salty) if you are trying to lose weight.

They must be cracked . . . - Fay Weldon, writing in The Telegraph

Well worth reading the full article! - But if you are wanting to lose or to avoid gaining weight, don't sprinkle salt onto your delicious, nutritious egg! (You may like to try pepper instead...)

Extract:

"Nanny State can lie back and put her feet up. Others are doing her work for her. The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) has taken to acting like Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four by altering history in accordance with Big Mother's whim. It has just forbidden the Egg Information Service to re-run a batch of 40-year-old egg commercials starring Tony Hancock, great comedian of blessed memory.

No, says the BACC, no one may see these advertisements, which encouraged Britons to go to work on an egg, as they're too dangerous. The more eggs the audience eats, it argues, the less varied their diet will be. So the ads can't be seen to have happened at all. We must be protected from them.

Common sense tells us that eggs are good for us, being cheap, natural, wholesome, nutritious and additive-free; also that good parents are the ones who make sure their children have a proper breakfast, while the bad are the ones who let them go hungry to school.

Eggs got a bad press once, when they were accused of putting up cholesterol levels, but they were cleared of that: it turned out to be the ''good'' cholesterol, not the ''bad''. Now common sense is being turned on its head because the state's latest whim is ''a varied diet'', and the BACC trots obediently behind.

How exactly we are meant to vary our diet we are not told. Eat more of the sugar, salt and additive-enriched cereals advertised so plentifully on television? Persuade the children to choose a different kind of chocolate bar while running to school?"


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Release of thousands of convicts to ease prison crisis

Thousands of convicts freed to ease prison crisis - Independent

Extract:

"Thousands of non-violent inmates will be released early and an extra 1,500 jail spaces will be built in an emergency package of measures to tackle the overcrowding crisis.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Justice Secretary, has been forced to take the drastic action after the prison population rose to a record 81,016 in England and Wales, with further sharp increases predicted over the summer.

He has won reluctant approval for the release plans from Tony Blair and secured more than £200m from Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to pay for the extra places. Prison reform groups said the moves would only temporarily ease the strain on overcrowded jails, while police protested that the releases would put too much pressure on them.

Lord Falconer told peers he had decided to authorise the release on licence up to 18 days early of prisoners serving sentences of between four weeks and four years. The move is expected to result in between 1,500 and 1,800 inmates being let out early in the first weeks after the scheme comes into effect on 29 June.

Its eventual effect will be to reduce the numbers behind bars by about 1,200, buying the Government breathing space as it races to build extra prisons. Over the course of a year, 25,500 offenders could be affected by the scheme."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Care homes 'can evict elderly residents' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Hundreds of thousands of elderly people in private care homes are vulnerable to eviction, abuse and neglect after a House of Lords ruling that they are not covered by human rights laws, according to campaigners.

In a bitterly-fought landmark case five deeply divided Law Lords ruled by a majority of 3-2, that an 84-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease threatened with eviction from her care home, did not enjoy the protection of the Human Rights Act given to residents of local authority run care homes.

The decision could affect up to 300,000 residents throughout the country who have been placed in private homes by their local authorities.

Nine out of ten care homes in England and Wales are now run by private firms.

Lawyers for the unnamed woman had argued that her threatened eviction from a private home, because of an alleged "irreconcilable breakdown" between her family and its management, was a violation of her right to family life.

But, the Law Lords ruled that a private home was not exercising a public function when it care for people referred to it by a council, and therefore was not bound by the Act.

The civil rights group Liberty condemned the ruling saying urgent legislation was now needed to change the Act to prevent local authorities from "contracting out of dignity for Britain's elderly".
Help the Aged said it was "a sickening blow to older people and their families everywhere" and that it left "vulnerable older people open to neglect, abuse and eviction, without redress through the Human Rights Act"."

You can reduce your own and your family's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and many other chronic illnesses, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones, stroke and cancer, by cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Do you often feel faint? dizzy? disorientated? whoozy? confused? muddled? weak? fragile? tired? sleepy? in pain? - Are you sure you are eating enough?

If you are dieting/'slimming'/calorie counting/eating low fat meals/low calorie meals or other restrictive food regimes, then any of these could be causing your symptoms. - They could also be causing you to be anaemic, depressed, to have heavy periods and other menstrual problems, to have acne, eczema, swollen hands/feet, fluid retention, and a host of other unpleasant, difficult, tiring problems of ill-health.

But if you are wanting to lose excess weight, it is not necessary to restrict how much food you eat in any way at all! - EXCEPT - YOU NEED TO CUT DOWN ON SALT/SODIUM AND JUNK FOOD. - EAT LESS SALT AND SALTY MEALS. - Other than that, you need to eat plenty of REAL food, including plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables, and plenty of calcium. There is much more detail and much more information on my website:

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
and see Sodium in Foods.
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

New warning on risks of smoking near babies

Researchers issue new warning on risks of smoking near babies - Guardian

Abortion rate on the rise because of teenage terminations.

Teenage terminations raise abortion rate - Guardian

Extract:

"The number of abortions in England and Wales rose 3.9% to 193,700 in 2006, the department of health reported today.

The previous year had seen just a 0.4% increase .

The figure for teenagers - among the highest in Europe - was also up last year. The abortion rate per 1,000 women was 3.9 among under 16s and 18.2 among under 18s. The rate was highest at 35 per 1,000 for women aged 19.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which provides contraception and abortion services, said the increase came as no surprise.

"A rise in numbers of this scale does not surprise us, as BPAS' doctors saw around 55,000 women for abortion care in 2006," said Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS. "We also know that conceptions are up overall in England and Wales.

"A rise in the number of abortions is not the problem in itself - the real problem is the number of women experiencing unintended pregnancy. For some of these, abortion will be the solution to the very serious problem of being faced with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy."

The health minister, Caroline Flint, welcomed the fact that a higher percentage of abortions were taking place at an early stage, with almost two-thirds occurring before 10 weeks' gestation and most under 13 weeks.

"It is important that women have early access to abortion services as the earlier the abortion, the lower the risk of complications," she said.

"We have invested £8m to improve early access and set a standard of a maximum waiting time of three weeks. However, the NHS needs to work harder to reduce the demand for abortions by improving access to contraception.""


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Hewitt launches new NHS website

NHS launches one-stop-shop website - Telegraph

Extract:

"A new NHS website for patients will be launched by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt today.
NHS Choices will act as a "one stop shop" for the public, offering details on conditions and access to treatments as well as ratings on hospital waiting times, cleanliness and re-admission rates.

Patients will be able to book hospital appointments from their own home and give online feedback on their treatment and experiences, which will allow others to see "reviews" of NHS service providers.

Multi-media guides on the 40 most common NHS procedures are also expected to feature.
The site is designed to help the public live healthier lives."


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Problems with your eyelids? - Are they red? purple? swollen? veined? hooded? heavy? painful? sore? - It's fluid retention...

Here's what to do: eat less salt/sodium. Avoid food that has had salt added to it: - that's most processed food and ready meals and fast food. Don't add salt to your cooking. Eat plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables.

DON'T TRY 'SLIMMING' OR DIETING OR FASTING! - These increase fluid retention/water retention.

Read further about this on my website, starting with pages http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html
(The website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

You will be amazed at how quickly your eyelids and the rest of your health problems improve for you! - You will feel sooooo much better!

Good luck!

Legal dance drug faces ban because of fears about its side-effects

Legal dance drug faces ban amid fears over side-effects - Guardian

Extract:

"A legal dance drug known as legal XTC, Jax, Pep Twisted or Pep Love could be banned across Europe following a report from the EU's drugs monitor calling for tighter controls because of the substance's side-effects.

A joint report from Europol and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) warns that the substance, benzylpiperazine, which is available from websites and "head candy" shops, can cause a series of negative side-effects. Its authors say: "Users have reported a range of adverse reactions such as vomiting, headache, palpitations, poor appetite, stomach pains/nausea, anxiety, insomnia, strange thoughts, mood swings, confusion, irritability and tremors. Some of these occurred in the 'comedown' period, and some persisted for 24 hours after use."

The report says that due to its "stimulant properties, risk to health and lack of medical benefits" benzylpiperazine, or BZP, should be a controlled substance.

At present, it is not illegal in Europe to take BZP, a drug sometimes marketed as a "safe" alternative to ecstasy. A loophole in the law also allows retailers to sell the drug as a soil fertiliser, marked "not for consumption". It can be bought from websites, many operating from New Zealand, where "herbal highs" are a multimillion-dollar industry and 20% of the population has taken the drug."

If only there could be as much interest and concern over the much more prevalent and damaging side-effects from drugs prescribed by doctors who know too little about them to prescribe them safely! I'm thinking of steroids, HRT, antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs, etc. These are the main cause of morbid obesity and avoidable chronic illness in adults in this country.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

The British Medical Association (BMA) recommends the provision of more trained bra-fitters and claims this would reduce requests for breast surgery.

Better bras: the way to cut breast surgery - The Times

More trained bra-fitters sounds a very good idea. I'm sure that many women would find them very helpful and could be made more comfortable in a better fitting bra.


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)