Obesity and the Salt Connection

Monty Don recommends that we should grow our own food

The paradigm of food security has shifted back to self-sufficiency and local food production; celebrated organic gardener Monty Don says we must grow our own food to save us from the global economic and food crisis that no governments can fix.
Read article on the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) website (UK)

A bit more info about the high salt/sodium content of bread.

Warburtons warned over salty loaf
from an article in The Independent

Extract:

Salt in bread: How brands compare

Average salt content per 100g bread. Loaves surveyed October 2008. Recommended daily salt intake is 6g

Warburtons 1.08g

Hovis 1.07g

Asda 1.05g

Kingsmill 1.03g

Tesco 0.96g

Waitrose 0.94g

M&S 0.92g

Sainsbury 0.86g

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Raw broccoli is better than cooked broccoli for anti-cancer potential a new study suggests

Consuming cooked or processed broccoli may result in less of the potential anti-cancer compounds being available for absorption, suggests a new study from TNO Quality of Life. Consumption of the cooked vegetable led to lower levels of a compound called sulforaphane being measured in the blood and urine, compared to consuming raw broccoli, according to findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The bioavailability of sulforaphane was calculated to be 37 per cent from the raw vegetable, and only 3.4 per cent from cooked broccoli, reported Martijn Vermeulen and co-workers from TNO Quality of Life.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

Britain's biggest dog goes on crash diet..

Britain's biggest dog goes on crash diet
Telegraph article

Overweight Pets

If you have an overweight pet dog or cat it is because they have been eating food containing added salt. This is bad for them. Give them unsalted food instead. They will lose weight, have more energy and live longer.

See Sodium in foods

Europe's secret plan to boost GM crop production: - absolutely disgraceful in my opinion!

Gordon Brown and other EU leaders in campaign to promote modified foods
Gordon Brown and other European leaders are secretly preparing an unprecedented campaign to spread GM crops and foods in Britain and throughout the continent, confidential documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal. The documents – minutes of a series of private meetings of representatives of 27 governments – disclose plans to "speed up" the introduction of the modified crops and foods and to "deal with" public resistance to them. And they show that the leaders want "agricultural representatives" and "industry" – presumably including giant biotech firms such as Monsanto – to be more vocal to counteract the "vested interests" of environmentalists.
Read article in The Independent (UK)

Chantix Tops New Report On Serious Side Effects

The number of serious problems and deaths linked to medications reported to the FDA set a record in the first three months of this year, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices reports. The FDA received nearly 21,000 reports of serious drug reactions, including over 4,800 deaths, according to ISMP’s an analysis of federal data dating to 2004. Yearly totals went back to the 1990s. Two drugs accounted for a disproportionately large share of the latest reports. One was heparin, the tainted blood thinner from China that caused an international safety scandal. The other was Chantix, a new kind of anti-smoking drug from Pfizer, which refuted the findings. The drug accounted for more reported serious injuries than any other prescription drug for a second quarter, a total of 1001 new cases, including 50 additional deaths. Earlier this year, the FDA warned that Chantix may be linked to psychiatric problems, including suicidal behavior and vivid dreams, and the government banned it for pilots.
Read article at pharmalot.com

The European drugs watchdog is recommending doctors do not prescribe the anti-obesity drug rimonabant, also known as Acomplia.

The European drugs watchdog is recommending doctors do not prescribe the anti-obesity drug rimonabant, also known as Acomplia. The European Medicines Agency has said the risk of serious psychiatric problems and even suicide are too high.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)

Further melamine contaminated food: Japan finds melamine in Chinese-made pumpkin steam buns

Japan finds melamine in Chinese-made pumpkin steam buns
Telegraph article

Extract:

"An investigation was launched after traces of the chemical were detected in buns which were made in China and served in Japan by the buffet restaurant company Nilax Inc.

Milk tainted with melamine, a substance commonly used to make plastics and tan leather, has been linked to the death of four babies in China and sickness among tens of thousands of children.

While there were no reports of illness among Japanese consumers, the nation's confidence in the food industry has been severely dented by a raft of scandals, ranging from tainted rice to faked best before labels."

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Hands up anyone who can see the slightest rational connection this pettifogging ban has with health and safety?

Poetry group banned from pub by council on health and safety grounds
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The Royal Standard in Ely, Cambs, has been threatened with a £5,000 fine because it only has an entertainment licence for singing and not speaking.

The threat forced landlord Richard Whitmore to call time on the poetry group, called Turning Point, which has been drawing in customers on quiet Tuesday evenings.

Playwright Paola Trimarco, 46, who heads the group, accused East Cambridgeshire District Council of being petty.

He said: "The council are being ridiculously bureaucratic and looking to pick on someone.

"It seems absurd to go to all this trouble for a show which is only half an hour long.

"There isn't a lot going on in Ely on week nights. Do they want Ely to be another boring little market town? It seems the council say they want to support new events and then contradict themselves."

Mr Whitmore, 43, said: "It's trivial and pathetic. We've got a licence for 200 burly men to bounce around to whatever music they want, but not for a small number of quiet people to have a talk.

"When they give recitals it's not even amplified. They just get up and speak."

Like many rural pubs, he said the Royal Standard was struggling to survive.

"When you are on the back foot, you want a bit more support," he said.

Turning Point even has official backing, having received a £1,800 National Lottery grant after being set up eight months ago."

Should the pettifoggers be encouraged to find a job more suited to their talents?...(o:

Britain's biggest baker, Warburtons, is selling bread with up to 20 per cent more salt than rivals.

Warburtons bread 'has highest salt content'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract 1

"An investigation revealed that some loaves made by Warburtons, – the UK's biggest food brand after Coca-Cola – contain half a gram of salt per slice, meaning that a five-year-old child would reach their safe limit from eating three sandwiches.

Salt raises heart pressure which is the biggest cause of heart attacks and strokes. Campaigners say lowering levels would save 16,500 lives a year – a third of the deaths from smoking. A further 16,500 people would be prevented from having debilitating non-fatal heart attacks and strokes, according to the pressure group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash)."

Extract 2

"Overall, Warburtons had an average of 1.08g salt, 5 per cent more than Kingsmill, 12 per cent more than Tesco, and 20 per cent saltier than Sainsbury's, which has been praised for improving cardiovascular health.

Warburtons, a privately-owned brand from Bolton, Lancashire, promotes itself as a wholesome, family-run baker. Warburtons defended its record, saying it had cut salt by "over 30 per cent in recent years" and would hit targets by their deadline in 2010."

I don't think it's completely accurate for Warburton's to say that they have cut salt by "over 30 per cent in recent years" because a few years ago some of the loaves they used to sell were called, if I remember correctly, Healthy White loaves, and they definitely contained a much lower amount of salt than other loaves - about 0.3g sodium (equal to 0.75g salt) per 100g, because they used LoSalt in the making of the bread, rather than ordinary salt. - I was very sorry that they discontinued this loaf, because it was so much less harmful than other shop-bought bread. Most bread at that time contained about 0.5g (or more) sodium per 100g.

Remember, you can make your own bread easily in a breadmaker and then you could keep the salt content down. Bread manufacturers often claim that salt is necessary to the bread-making process. - I find this hard to believe because I don't put any salt at all into the bread I make and the 'process' doesn't seem to be affected...(o: - However, this is purely my own experience; I know nothing at all about salt in bread-making other than my own experience so I may well be wrong about whether salt affects bread-making.

Extract 3

"The campaign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) urged it to immediately make steeper cuts to improve its customers' health. Three million people eat Warburtons bread every day. "Bread is the major source of salt in the diet," said Cash's chairman, Professor Graham MacGregor, an NHS doctor who treats heart patients at St George's Hospital, south London. "It is vital that bread manufacturers take a really responsible role."

Manufacturers use salt to improve taste and disguise the use of cheap ingredients. 75 per cent of sodium in the diet comes from processed food."

I do wish Professor MacGregor would tell people the most important information about salt, namely that obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention/sodium retention and is reduced by eating less salt. It is inconceivable that he does not know it. I wrote him a long letter about obesity and the salt connection years ago. I politely pointed out that there were some serious errors in his book about salt.

The longer he delays telling the truth about obesity, the greater the harm done to millions of people. The risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, while correct to attribute (in part) to salt intake, does not have the impact that telling the truth about obesity would have. Whilever most people, including the Government's Health Ministers, the Department of Health, doctors, dieticians and the Food Standards Agency, continue to promulgate the lie that obesity is caused by eating too many calories and is reduced by eating fewer calories than the body requires, obesity and its attendant illnesses and ill-health will almost certainly continue to increase, because, as we have just read, the food companies are dragging their feet in reducing the amount of salt they ladle into their harmful products without a lot of censure from their customers, who are being misinformed by the medical profession and Government agencies and the dieting industry.

They all need to confess that they have been misleading the public. - The misinformation is causing terrible, needless suffering, because dieting/calorie restriction leads to inadequate nutrition/malnutrition and so increases the harm done by the salt sensitivity and does not reduce obesity at all. And of course they need to tell the public about the huge rôle prescription drugs play in making people sensitive to salt.

(Addendum: according to my hitcounter, it looks as though someone from Rank Hovis has been reading this blog entry today, October 31st. - Let's hope it will do some good!)

See Extract 4:

"In general, branded breads had more salt than those made by supermarkets. Hovis' white granary bread had 1.4g of salt per 100g – the highest in the survey.")

vulnerable groups

See amitriptyline

How to limit weight gain and some other adverse side-effects when taking prescribed medications like steroids, HRT and amitriptyline. - Cut out salt.

See amitriptyline

Associated health conditions

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

A family doctor, Nigel Palmer, and his practice manager have admitted hiding a document which forced a coroner to stop an inquest, a court heard.

GP and practice manager face jail for obstructing coroner
Article in the Telegraph

A fit teenager, Shaun Jones, died when he suffered a suspected allergic reaction after taking acne medication for the first time, it has emerged.

Talented rugby player dies after 'reaction to acne medication'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"An inquest into the death of talented rugby player Shaun Jones, 14, of Rhydyfelin, Pontypridd, south Wales, has been opened and adjourned.

Shaun's father Graeme Jones said: "He was popular with the girls and had a couple of spots, so the doctor gave him some antibiotic acne tablets. A lot of his friends are taking them.

"It was the first time he'd taken them and he developed breathing difficulties. We called 999 and he went to hospital – but it was too late. The doctors couldn't save him.""

What a tragedy for a 14 year old to lose his life in this way! - And, in my opinion, how deplorable! - We read that he had "a couple of spots" and that "a lot of his friends" are taking the tablets. - To prescribe antibiotic tablets for "a couple of spots"! - We repeatedly read that the prescribing of antibiotics should be restricted because of increasing problems of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics and then there is nothing with which to treat more serious infections. - In my opinion, if Shaun was indeed treated with antibiotics for "a couple of spots", he shouldn't have been. And if it is correct that "a lot of his friends" are too, then this is reprehensible, reckless prescribing.

You may say to me that acne can cause great emotional distress, especially to young people, and I would agree with you. - But I also have an effective, completely safe, drug-free therapy to recommend for reducing acne. Avoid eating salt and salty food. - This does work.

See Sodium in foods

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

At least seven children have been placed in care over fears they were too fat, it has been disclosed, by the use of Freedom of Information laws

Seven obese children placed in care
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Recent figures suggest a third of 13-year-olds are obese or overweight, and that a million children in England will be obese within five years.

Earlier this month, Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum's board, told a conference that youngster over-fed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, as happens with malnourished children.

Mr Fry said: "It is drastic but it's a long-term therapy. For the sake of the children it does need to be done because we have got children who are horrendously fat.""

Tam Fry is uninformed and is wrong when he says that obese children are obese because they are overfed by their parents. They are obese because of decades of misinformation from doctors and dieticians about what causes obesity.

It is, of course, wholly unnecessary to take fat children into care, and in my opinion, it is also cruel and damaging to the children and to their families to remove them from their homes.

WHEN is the truth going to be told about obesity?

Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. 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 often harmful.

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.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

Seems like some really good news about reducing superbugs on hospital wards, by using copper fittings.

Copper fittings 'all but eliminate superbugs'
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"The study, funded by the copper industry, found copper fittings rapidly killed bugs such as MRSA and C difficile - bugs which claim thousands of lives a year.

Trials at Selly Oak hospital, in Birmingham, found copper taps and toilet seats helped significantly reduce the presence of the bug.

Copper is a common constituent in medicines including antiseptic and antifungal creams."

"Professor Tom Elliott, lead researcher and a consultant microbiologist at the hospital, said: "The findings of 90 to 95 per cent killing of those organisms, even after a busy day on a medical ward with items being touched by numerous people, is remarkable.

"I have been a consultant microbiologist for several decades. This is the first time I have seen anything like copper in terms of the effect it will have in the environment.

"It may well offer us another mechanism for trying to defeat the spread of infection.'"

Sometimes comparatively simple measures are the most effective, as may prove to be the case with this. The simple measure that I know about personally is that the simplest, most reliable, safest, fastest way to reduce excess weight is to cut down drastically on salt and salty food. You can read about it here:

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

If it were not so tragic and doing such catastrophic harm, the ignorance that Dawn Primarolo displays about what causes obesity would be hilarious.

Fast food restaurants should have to advertise calorie counts, says Minister
Article in the Telegraph

Fast food restaurants should have to advertise how many calories are in their meals, the public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, has said.

Extract:

""I know good diet isn't just about calorie content, and I know there will be difficulties for independent restaurants, but we have to start somewhere. Why can't we have calorie content on menus in all chain restaurants?"

She also called for soft drinks manufacturers to produce their products in smaller sizes.

She praised drinks companies for the range of low sugar drinks on the market.

But she called for greater numbers of soft drinks to come in "snack" sizes.""

"The minister was speaking at a conference on food and health organised by the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency."

They're all as bad as each, it appears...)o: - The calorie content is the least important bit of information that is provided for food. It would not be going too far really to assert that the calorie content is completely irrelevant! - It's totally irrelevant for obesity reduction anyway, and, in my opinion, should not be included in the nutritional information on food wrappers, etc. The most important information needed is the salt content.

Until the truth is told - and nothing BUT the truth - about how to prevent/reduce obesity, then the increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes and all the other illnesses attendant on obesity, aka fluid retention, will continue inexorably to rise. - It is FLUID RETENTION that needs to be addressed - the real cause of obesity - not over-eating, the completely imaginary cause that doctors and the other ill-informed diet bullies have invented.

Obesity is not caused by eating to excess or by insufficient exercise. There has never been a scrap of reproducible scientific research or evidence to support the theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity, nor that calorie deficit reduces obesity. The theory and the advice it spawns should be abandoned forthwith. They cause great harm and suffering.

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

You know that flagship £12billion NHS IT system that didn't work? - It still doesn't work, four years later...

NHS IT system 'at a standstill'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Ministers want the computer programme, one of the largest in the world, to eventually contain the medical records of every patient in the country.

But NHS bosses in London have decided to halt the roll-out of the electronic care records to hospitals indefinitely, to sort out technical problems.

Across the south of the country no new hospitals are due to start implementing the system, because the NHS is still trying a replacement to Fujitsu, the Japanese computer giant, which pulled out of a contract to provide the programme earlier this year.

Problems have dogged the ambitious project, which is already four years late, from the start.

Last month NHS bosses attempted to resolve a damaging row over the confidentiality of medical records by agreeing that patients would have to "opt in" rather than "opt out" of the system, as had been originally planned.

In recent month managers at the Royal Free Hospital Trust in London have struggled with technical problems with the new software, prompting NHS London to call an indefinite halt to the project.

The organisation had hoped to introduce the system to three new hospital trusts in London by the end of this year, bringing the total number in the capital to seven, but those plans have now been shelved.

A spokesman for NHS London said: "Because of the general problems and in particular the problems at the Royal Free we have decided to stop any further roll out in other London trusts until these have been sorted out."

Monday, October 27, 2008

Fat people keep dieting, counting calories, cutting out fat, going hungry - yet obesity is increasing. - These measures do not work! - Read on...

Obesity is not caused by over-eating. - You know you see lots of slim people eating like there's no tomorrow and they don't put weight on so clearly eating too much is not the cause of the 'obesity epidemic'.

Obesity is caused by a combination of salt sensitivity and salt intake. - Only people who are sensitive to salt become fat/overweight/obese. This happens because for them, salt is very harmful: it holds excess water in their bodies. This is often called fluid retention or oedema. The veins swell and the skin gets thinner as it stretches to accommodate the swollen veins.

Reducing calories does not help with these problems. It is irrelevant to them. - Reducing salt is what helps. - By eating less salt and salty food you can easily and swiftly lose some of the excess water and thus lose weight - a lot of weight, since water is heavy. - Remember the mnemonic:

'A pint of pure water
Weighs a pound and a quarter.'

Lose weight 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 and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

High levels of melamine, the chemical in the China milk scandal, have been discovered in Hong Kong in eggs from the mainland.

China milk scandal spreads to eggs
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"The authorities on the island said that the eggs contained twice the legal limit of melamine, an industrial chemical which made over 50,000 infants ill and killed four when it was discovered in powdered baby milk over the summer.

Melamine, which is more commonly found in plastics, was added by unscrupulous traders to "bulk up" milk and make it appear richer in protein.

However, the chemical triggers the formation of kidney stones."

"Hong Kong has started testing meat and vegetables coming from the mainland. One theory is that the chickens may have eaten feed contaminated with the chemical.

It has also emerged that cyromazine, a derivative of melamine, is widely used in pesticides and animal feed. This could have been absorbed and pass upwards through the food chain.

"As we have found melamine in eggs, we shall also test chicken meat and we shall also look at offal, for example chicken kidneys and pig kidneys," said Mr Chow."

"In Japan, a major food producer announced a recall of 2.7 million pizzas and packs of sausages after it discovered three times the government limit of cyanide in its water supply. Itoham Foods put advertisements in national newspapers apologising for the contamination. Last Friday, the country's largest maker of instant noodles, Nissin, recalled its Cup Noodle line after a woman was taken ill with insecticide poisoning."

Bush Rule Changes Could Block Product-Safety Law Suits

The following paragraph and the comment that accompanies it are copied and pasted from the Dr Rath Foundation's Newsletter, as are some other posts in this blog. - His newsletter is here http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/Newsletter/archive/newsletter_2008_10_oct_27.html and I heartily recommend it.

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states. The administration has written language aimed at pre-empting product-liability litigation into 50 rules governing everything from motorcycle brakes to pain medicine.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
Comment: Bush’s parting gift to the guys that got him the job, in other words…

Pfizer: $900M To Settle Bextra and Celebrex Law Suits

The drugmaker reached agreements in principle to resolve “substantially all” of the personal injury cases, consumer fraud cases and state attorneys general claims involving its two Cox-2 inhibitor painkillers. Bextra was withdrawn three years ago, while Celebrex remains available. Here’s the breakdown: $745 million applicable to personal injury claims, $60 million for state attorneys general settlements and $89 million to resolve consumer fraud class action claims. Total: $894 million. Pfizer maintains the deals will tackle more than 90 percent of the known personal injury claims alleging the painkillers caused a heart attack, stroke or other injury. The settlement also covers third-party payor class action consumer fraud cases in which plaintiffs alleged economic loss related to the promotion of the meds.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Wisconsin Medical Society Bans Gifts from the Pharmaceutical Industry

The doctors’ group, which boasts 12,000 members, has joined a growing number of academic medical centers, professional societies and legislators that have decided gifts from the pharmaceutical industry are questionable, if not unacceptable forms of influence. The Wisconsin Medical Society adopted a policy on October 11 that says: “Physicians shall accept no gifts from any provider of products that they prescribe to their patients such as personal items, office supplies, food, travel and time costs, or payment for participation in online continuing medical education. A complete ban eases the burdens of compliance, biased decision making, and patient distrust.”
Read article at pharmalot.com

Strattera adverse effects: UK Medicines Agency refuses to act

Janne Larsson, an investigator and reporter in Sweden, has obtained information about adverse event reports on Eli Lilly's ADHD drug Strattera, using the Swedish freedom of information laws. The data, coming from both the FDA's adverse reaction database and from reports to the UK's Medicines agency, shows numerous adverse effects and scores of deaths by suicide. Yet the agency, even after repeated prodding by Larsson to initiate action, has refused to budge or even acknowledge that there is a problem. MHRA apparently accepts the drug's producer Eli Lilly's data rather than its own and the FDA's adverse event reports.
Read article on Sepp Hasslberger's Health Supreme website

Beta-blockers linked to heart attacks after surgery

Patients who were taking drugs to lower their blood pressure before, during, and after operations unrelated to their hearts had higher rates of heart attacks and death than similar patients who were not taking the drugs, a study shows.
Read article in The Boston Globe (USA)

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Have you gained weight since going onto birth control pills? - Do you want to know how to lose it?

The weight gain is because the hormone content is causing you to be sensitive to salt. - When you are sensitive to salt, you need to cut down on your intake of salt and salty food, e.g. ready meals and takeaways, because excess salt is being held in your body (sodium retention) and it is holding extra water in your body (fluid retention). - When you cut down on salt you will lose some of this excess salt and water by excreting it in the urine and so you will lose weight- safely, naturally, easily, without hunger or dieting. - Dieting is unnecessary, usually ineffective, and always harmful.

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 http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1515455,00.html 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.

See Sodium in foods and

Friday, October 24, 2008

A new obesity wonder drug can cause twice as much weight loss as current treatments, a new study claims. - Don't fall for it! - Just eat less salt!

New obesity drug 'can double weight loss'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract: - the claim:

"The new drug works by restricting feelings of hunger in the brain.

As a result, patients eat less and their bodies start to burn off reserves of fat.

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen tested the drug, called tesofensine, on 203 patients, who each weighed an average of 15 stone.

Taking the drug at a dose of 0.5 mg just once a day for six months, at the same time as eating a healthy diet, produced an average weight loss of 11.3 kg, or 1 st 10 lb, around twice that of standard weight loss drugs."

Extract: - the warning:

"Prof Steve O’Rahilly, an expert in obesity at the University of Cambridge, said: “The results with this new drug demonstrate that, over a 6 month period, it is quite effective. However as the drug is likely to have actions on parts of the brain not involved in weight control, the risk of serious side effects on longer term administration will need to be watched very carefully.”"

The facts:

All that is necessary to reduce obesity is to give up dieting and to avoid salt and salty food in order to reduce the fluid retention which is the cause of obesity. - HUNGER AND CALORIE REDUCTION ARE ARE HARMFUL, UNNECESSARY AND INEFFECTIVE - BECAUSE CALORIES ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. - DON'T FALL FOR THE CALORIE CON!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

FAT RETENTION

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pregnant women who are depressed are twice as likely to have a premature baby compared with those who have no symptoms of depression, say scientists.

Depression can double risk of premature baby, scientists say
Report in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The most severely depressed women have the highest chance of giving birth early. The study also suggests that other risk factors, such as obesity and stress, can make the link between depression and premature labour even stronger.

Researchers interviewed 791 women in San Francisco around their 10th week of pregnancy and found that 41 per cent of the women reported significant or severe depressive symptoms.

The women with less severe depressive symptoms had a 60 per cent higher risk of a premature baby compared with women without significant depressive symptoms. Women with severe depressive symptoms had more than twice the risk."

Reducing salt intake reduces all these risk factors - obesity, depression and stress, so pregnant mothers should be strongly advised to avoid salt and salty food during their pregnancy.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Have you ever wondered what the word 'BLOATED' actually means?

Here are some definitions:

Swollen or distended beyond normal size by fluid or gaseous material.

Bloating is any abnormal general swelling, or increase in diameter of the abdominal area. As a symptom, the patient feels a full and tight abdomen.

Well I'd like to suggest to you that all overweight/obesity is caused by distension/swelling because of fluid retention - rather than by eating too many calories.

Dieting, by which I mean eating less food/fewer calories than the body requires in the mistaken belief that this will reduce obesity, is EXTREMELY HARMFUL. - The skin gets very much thinner very much faster, and the blood vessel walls get very much thinner very much faster too. - This obviously causes the blood vessel walls to be overstretched and stressed and much weaker, which results in them becoming distended (fluid retention) with extra fluid, so causing WEIGHT GAIN, NOT WEIGHT LOSS.

To reduce excess weight you need to reduce the fluid retention that has caused the weight gain. - So you need to avoid dieting/'slimming' and instead concentrate on avoiding salt and salty food, because that extra fluid in the veins is extra sodium and water, and to lose some of it you need to reduce your sodium intake.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I found David Craig's book, Squandered, very well worth reading. - It's about how the government wastes taxpayers' money.

I recently bought "Squandered" by David Craig, real name Neil Glass, and I finished it a week or two ago. I recommend this excellent, very detailed and well-researched book.

I hope it will be more widely read. The appalling waste, the fraud and hypocrisy, the cruel, casual unconcern for the have-nots in every sphere is horrifying and shameful.

We need urgently to halt the abuse of power and the insidious change from democracy to bureaucracy as the mode of government in the UK and the EU.

My personal bête noire is the NHS and the abuse of power by the system and by many health professionals.

In the light of the current financial scandals that are precipitating us to Hell in a handcart I expect David Craig is busy writing another book!

You can read what Jeff Randell thinks of the book in this article in the Telegraph - When our devious ministers inhale their own exhaust

And Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph, writes:
"...David Craig's chilling audit of government spending for the last 10 years - a book much more readable and entertaining than it sounds...a genuinely important book. It is no exaggeration to say that if the right people read it, take it seriously, and take appropriate action, this book could not only save the taxpayer billions, it could save lives....This is a terrifying book, but a brilliant and necessary one. Please read it."

Some of the examples of wasteful departments, etc are

Health
Education
Police/Public Order
Welfare
Quangos
The EU
The 2012 Olympics

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Lack Of Vitamin D Linked To Parkinson's Disease

A majority of Parkinson's disease patients had insufficient levels of vitamin D in a new study from Emory University School of Medicine. The fraction of Parkinson's patients with vitamin D insufficiency, 55 percent, was significantly more than patients with Alzheimer's disease (41 percent) or healthy elderly people (36 percent). The finding adds to evidence that low vitamin D is associated with Parkinson's, says first author Marian Evatt, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Emory.
Read article at sciencedaily.com

Thirty patients are suing Barnsley hospital claiming that a consultant botched their breast surgery operations.

Surgery patients sue hospital
This is a BBC News webpage.

There is a video interview with one of the victims of the consultant's poor surgery. She has had to have repeated surgery and still requires reconstructive surgery. She has lost her job and is living on Incapacity Benefit.

That as many as thirty patients are involved in this inclines me to think that their complaints were not being taken seriously until the numbers became too big to continue to ignore.

Patients should be able to refer themselves for treatment with physiotherapists, speech therapists and dieticians without seeing a doctor first.

Patients should bypass GPs and refer themselves to specialists, says Alan Johnson
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Alan Johnson will tell the Chief Health Professions Officers conference in London that self-referral means more flexibility for patients, quicker treatment and less time off work.

He will say: "I am giving the green light to physiotherapists, podiatrists and all Allied Health Professionals that they can accept patients who self-refer.

"Services provided by Allied Health Professionals play a vital part in building a society that's fair and inclusive.

"Podiatry, for example, is a vital service for older people as it improves their mobility ensuring that they are not unnecessarily confined to their homes.

"Self-referral will help both vulnerable members of society and those with busy lives by providing quicker access without the unnecessary hoop jumping of going to see a doctor first."

Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) include physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, dieticians and podiatrists, who treat problems with the feet and lower legs."

Delaying a baby vaccination by two months could dramatically reduce the risk of child asthma, new research has found.

Delaying baby vaccine could cut asthma
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP) jab is given to babies by the age of two months.

Although the triple vaccination is commonplace, experts now believe that it might provoke an immune system response which predisposes the body to the lung condition.

However they now believe that delaying the jab by only two months could halve the likelihood of a child developing asthma by the age of seven.

Researchers at Manitoba Institute for Child Health and the University of Manitoba, in Canada, gave 11,531 children four doses of the combined DTP vaccine.

Of the 5,000 babies studied who had the jab at the scheduled age, 13.8 per cent developed asthma.

However only 5.9 per cent of babies who were four months or older at their first immunisation went on to develop the lung condition.

The second, third and fourth doses were given at four months, six months and 18 months.

The study also found a decreased likelihood of asthma if the other doses were delayed, but the strongest evidence was seen in relation to the delay of the first dose."

You can also reduce the risk of children developing asthma by providing them with meals low in salt/sodium.

A woman who smells of rotting fish has been diagnosed with a rare genetic condition after 30 years of being dismissed as a hypochondriac.

Rotting fish woman diagnosed with genetic condition
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The 41-year-old suffered decades of bullying and low self-esteem because of her pungent odour, but doctors refused to take her complaints seriously, believing she was a hygiene neurotic.

She has now been diagnosed with trimethylaminuria, a genetic condition that affects the smell of sweat, breath and urine.

The condition – also known as fish malodour syndrome – is incurable, but the patient from Perth, Australia has been able to seek counselling and support from fellow sufferers.

Professor John Burnett, head of pharmacology at the University of Western Australia, said that the case was a warning to doctors not to dismiss conditions that appear minor but have a great impact on the psychological health of patients."

Did you see last night on Channel 4 that tiny, tiny baby kangaroo/joey emerge from its mother and make its difficult way to the teat in her pouch?

Extraordinary Animals in the Womb

As I write, there are 30 days in which you can catch up with viewing it here - http://www.channel4.com/video/brandless-catchup.jsp?vodBrand=extraordinary-animals-in-the-womb

More details of the programme are here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/15/nosplit/bvtvanimalwomb15.xml and here:

http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=27454&subject=Extraordinary+Animals+in+The+Womb+showing+on+Channel+4

and on many other webpages.

Extract:

""In Extraordinary Animals in the Womb, the embryonic journeys of four very remarkable animals are brought to life as they develop from conception to birth. The shark, whose cannibalistic embryos will eat their own siblings to survive; the emperor penguin, whose egg-bound chicks must battle the coldest weather on the planet; the kangaroo, whose underdeveloped foetus will undergo an exceptionally premature birth; and the parasitic wasp - whose larvae must hijack and exploit the body of another creature.

Filming across three continents, and making use of the latest HD camera technology, the Animals in the Womb team swam with pregnant sharks and witnessed up close the torment of parasitised caterpillars. Groundbreaking photography takes us inside the pouch of a kangaroo, and remarkable scans and special effects reveal 14 half-metre young inside the womb of a wild shark."

The miniscule joey interested me the most - blind, so tiny, so red, so delicate, so vulnerable and dependent. - You may wonder why it is red. - This is because its skin is extremely thin and what you are really seeing is its blood vessels through the transparent window of the ultra-thin skin. - It so obviously needs a safe place in which to feed and grow (the mother's pouch with the teat) till its skin, etc are strong enough to be exposed to the 'outside' world and its hazards and stresses.

There are some similarities, you may be surprised to learn, between the joey and a morbidly obese steroid victim! - The fatter anyone becomes, the thinner their skin becomes and so the closer to the surface are the blood vessels and so the redder their skin appears - red face, red hands, red arms, red-skinned legs, red or purple feet, etc - swollen with distended veins, swollen with pain, vulnerable to knocks, harmed by pressure, easily bruised and further damaged...

But unlike the joey, obese people have no chance of building up the strength and thickness/firmness of their skin: - once depleted, the skin's thickness cannot return. - These problems are worsened by dieting. - Dieting, by which I mean eating less food/fewer calories than the body requires in the mistaken belief that this will reduce obesity, is EXTREMELY HARMFUL. - The skin gets very much thinner very much faster, and the blood vessel walls get very much thinner very much faster too. - This obviously causes the blood vessel walls to be overstretched and stressed and much weaker, which results in them becoming distended (fluid retention) with extra fluid, so causing WEIGHT GAIN, NOT WEIGHT LOSS.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Monday, October 20, 2008

Britain's diabetes population has risen by more than 167,000 since last year, figures show.

UK's diabetes population rises by thousands
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The total number of sufferers is now almost 2.5 million with the latest increase more than double the 2006 to 2007 rise of 83,000.

In England, an almost seven per cent increase means the number of people with diabetes has passed two million for the first time, the charity Diabetes UK said.

Over the same period the proportion of people with diabetes rose by 6.8 per cent in Northern Ireland and six per cent in Wales.

Scotland experienced the biggest rise in the UK - 16.7 per cent - partly due to improved recording of cases.

Almost nine in 10 diabetes sufferers have the type 2 form of the disease which is strongly associated with obesity and lifestyle.

There are around five million obese people in the UK, compared with almost 4.8 million last year.

Douglas Smallwood, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: "These are truly alarming figures.

"Part of why we have seen such a huge increase can be attributed to improved screening from healthcare services and greater awareness amongst those at high risk of type 2 diabetes.

"However, there is no getting away from the fact that this large increase is linked to the obesity crisis."

He added: "Diabetes is one of the biggest health challenges facing the UK today.

"It causes heart disease, stroke, amputations, kidney failure and blindness, and more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined.

"The NHS already spends one million pounds an hour on diabetes. The soaring diabetes prevalence will continue to put a massive strain on an already struggling NHS and unless it can respond, people's health could spiral downwards."

The reasons for the continued rise in the incidence of type 2 obesity are, of course,

decades of misinformation from doctors, nutritionists, dieticians and other 'obesity experts' about what causes obesity and how best to prevent/reduce it

decades of reckless endangerment of the population's health by food manufacturers who have ladled shockingly high amounts of salt into their appallingly unhealthy processed junk/ready meals/cornflakes/crisps/bacon/sausages and a myriad other ghastly products purporting to be food

the perversion of children's taste by 1) the marketing of salty snacks to children, when children are the largest of the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt and 2) the horrifyingly unsuitable muck that for years was served up to them as 'school dinners' - e.g. the notorious, salty 'turkey twizzlers', for which successive governments surely must shoulder most of the responsibility/blame

over 50 years of inappropriate/reckless prescribing, often in high dose, of drugs like steroids, antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc which compromise the walls of the blood vessels, thus leading to increased blood volume/fluid retention/salt sensitivity/weight gain/obesity and the malign and painful retinue of other degenerative illnesses that obesity causes

There have been so many dreadful years of dieting, hunger, unhappiness, dangerous drugs and accelerated harm because the diet industry has relentlessly barked up the wrong tree, insisting that overweight people must cut down on calories/food/fat/carbohydrates, etc and try ridiculously unnatural and inadequate diets.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and