We all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution.

We have read in the last two days the most recent reports of extreme cruelty to which elderly patients have been subjected in an NHS hospital, the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. See these reports in the Telegraph: Here, Here and Here. Yet we all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution.

 

We all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution. We may wonder why no UK government in all the years since the NHS was founded in 1948 has done anything useful to stop the cruelty and negligence, the damaged health, the pain and suffering, the shattered lives of innocent patients. - Why? When we all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution. 

 

Why the official pretence that there are only a few bad (guilty) apples among a shiningly dedicated workforce? We all know that bad apples spread their rottenness to the other apples unless they are promptly removed. We all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution.

 

Why are the most guilty (and usually the best paid) personnel moved sideways to jobs in other localities? - jobs exactly similar to those at which they have signally failed? And why are they paid golden severance settlements? We all know that NHS cruel negligence would end if the perpetrators were sacked and subject to criminal prosecution.

Weight Loss Ward: what I thought about it

I watched the two episodes of Weight Loss Ward on ITV (see here and here), about some of the work of the obesity unit of Sunderland Royal Hospital. The patients featured were extremely obese and their lives were consequently full of difficulties, ill-health - including High Blood Pressure and Diabetes - and emotional and social problems. Various healthcare staff sought to help them.

 

The main help on offer appeared to be Weight Loss Surgery, aka Bariatric Surgery, and we heard a lot from the chief surgeon in this field. He clearly believed he could help these unfortunate people, and wanted to help them, but his help was contingent on their losing a set amount of weight first, or he would not do the surgery. The patients in question were extremely keen to have this surgery and seemed to regard it as the answer to their weight problems, even though it would bring problems of its own afterwards.

 

Certainly the surgery did in the main appear to help the patients and they were happy about it. But me - I don't think I'd ever go for it, were I in their position. I've read too often about things going wrong after surgery like that, and lives cut short, about huge new problems taking the place of those surmounted.

 

Patients and staff told us about traumatic life events that were thought to have started the obesity, like early loss of a loved one, or sexual abuse, etc. The idea seemed to be to talk about these matters, to confront them and 'deal with' them. Well, maybe that helped, I don't know. They also had meetings with dieticians who tried to help and encourage them with that initial weight loss required by the surgeon in order to be accepted for surgery. - Now that's were I felt really important measures were omitted.

 

Some found it tremendously difficult to lose that initial weight, and honestly it was made more difficult than it need have been. Putting an enormously heavy guy on a low calorie diet and expecting him to be able to stick to it despite great hunger, and pushing temptation into his path every day by way of someone taking a trolley round and selling chocolate bars! He was being set up to fail. And although one of the women succeeded in losing weight by limiting her food to Rice Krispies, skimmed milk and Diet Coke, she should surely not have been encouraged to eat such nutrition-depleted garbage instead of real food! - What on earth were the dieticians thinking of?

 

The easiest, fastest, safest way for obese people to lose a lot of weight is to cut down drastically on salt and salty food, eating real food, raw or cooked from fresh without adding salt. - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I heard any mention of salt. As well as bringing about weight loss, salt reduction is the most effective way of lowering high blood pressure. It also reduces risk of heart attack and stroke, reduces breathing problems, e.g. with asthma, and lessens the pain of arthritis and many other chronic pains.

 

So opportunities were sadly missed. As well as the salt thing, it seemed that not even one of the staff recognised the desirability of improving these patients' vitamin D status. I reckon that the frailty and those falls the fat woman had had which had frightened her relatives and confined her to her bedroom, were in large part caused by low vitamin D levels.

Positive Money has released a new video which explains how banks create money out of nothing

Positive Money has released a new video which explains exactly how banks create money out of nothing. - See eepurl.com/tbqZX

"Do you want to really understand how banks can create money out of nothing? While it may seem like a complicated subject - it's not that difficult. In this new video you can learn how commercial banks can create money through the accounting process they use when they make loans, how banks make payments between each other using specially created central bank money, if the Bank of England really can control how much money is in the economy ...and more."

Thinking of getting a stairlift?

This week, along with my copy of the Radio Times coming through the letterbox, there were also some of those leaflets advertising this and that. There is usually at least one with a photo of a photogenic TV doctor endorsing something or other, and doubtless being very well paid to do so. This time the 'doctor advert' was trying to sell stairlifts. 

 

If you too received one of these leaflets and it has started you wondering whether you should be getting a stairlift - a very expensive purchase - I would just like to invite you to read this blog article I posted earlier this year. You too may well be short of vitamin D. Most people in this country are short of vitamin D because the main source of vitamin D is sunshine, and we don't get a lot of that in the UK. Perhaps you too would benefit more from improving your nutritional status and thus your bone and muscle strength and general health, than by spending thousands of pounds on an expensive stairlift.

Dawn has lost a lot of weight by following my advice

Dawn started trying to lose weight at the beginning of January this year. She used to email me asking me for information and advice. (I can be emailed from my website.)

I told Dawn that for very overweight people like her, the fastest and safest way to lose weight is seriously to cut down on salt and salty food. She lost a lot of weight easily by following that advice.

But Dawn had a big problem that did not involve salt. This problem was her and her family's liking for sweet stuff, especially cakes and suchlike. For years she had been duped by the many misleading suggestions on the internet and elsewhere that by using artificial sweeteners instead of sugar, the lower calorie intake would result in weight loss. I explained to her that this was not true, but she found that hard to remember because of a lifetime's conditioning to believe the lies of the dieting industry.

I became very concerned about Dawn and sent her a particularly firm message about the dangers of eating artificial sweeteners - and indeed artificial additives of all kinds - and that message finally sank in, thank goodness. She gave up eating sweet and sugary foods. She severely cut down on carbs in general and instead ate mostly protein foods and foods high in healthy fat.

I'll bet you're wondering how much weight Dawn has lost since January. - Well she has lost well over 60 pounds in weight and looks set fair to reach a loss of 70 pounds, i.e. 5 stones, by Christmas! - That's a really impressive achievement, you will agree. - She has gone from a size 26 to a size 16! - And she is feeling sooo much better...(o:

Erin Brockovich is on Channel 5 tonight. I recommend it.

In my opinion, Erin Brockovich is a great film. It's on Channel 5 at 9pm tonight. Julia Roberts is exactly right for the eponomous role of 'spirited heroine', as Alan Jones describes it in his review in the Radio Times. And Albert Finney is a perennial favourite of mine - and very likely one of your favourite actors too. Do read the review!

The film's story is based on real-life corporate crime in America, in which toxic industrial waste water contaminated the drinking water of a local community. Erin Brockovich's straight-forward and genuine concern about the devastating harm done to the victims wins her their respect and impels her to fight for them in the courts, there to win financial reparation in a historic legal case. (I have made brief reference to this film in one of my previous posts.)

Fewer people in the 'at risk' groups are taking the free flu jabs

It's really good to read that fewer people are falling for the propaganda urging them to have the flu vaccination. Flu vaccines are pretty ineffective. See this article and this.

 

And why have vaccine injected into your body and take the risk of adverse effects from it, when there are excellent drug-free ways to avoid catching flu? Here are some good precautions to take:

 

Wash your hands frequently to lower the risk of germs being spread.

Avoid dieting.

Eat good, nutritious meals cooked from fresh foods, rather than processed meals which are nutritionally poor and usually contain unhealthy additives.

Make sure you are getting enough Vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin', which builds up immunity to respiratory diseases. Most of us are short of this vitamin, especially in the winter, so you may find that taking a supplement of vitamin D3 capsules or tablets would be helpful for you. Some GPs will get your vitamin D level checked for you - a little blood test.

Cut down on salt and salty food.

Cut down on sugar and wheat/bread.

Avoid synthetic chemicals like artificial sweeteners, colourings, flavours, etc and those ghastly artificial scented room sprays and laundry products.

 

I myself haven't had the flu or a cold since I stopped having the flu jabs many years ago.

Why is adding salt to food more harmful than in former years?

Adding salt to food is more harmful than years ago because in our developed world, a greater proportion of people are now sensitive to salt than used to be the case. There is both a higher incidence of salt sensitivity and the salt sensitivity itself tends to be more severe. - One of the factors contributing to salt sensitivity is the fact that these days, in general, most children- even toddlers -eat a diet that is too high in salt. Salt is especially bad for children. High salt intake, such as from salty snacks like crisps and salted nuts and junk like Cheesestrings, is a major cause of child obesity. - See Children and Salt. And a taste for salt acquired in childhood is not very easy to 'unacquire'. So the habit of eating over-salted food literally feeds a growing number of related health problems including high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, stroke, heart disease, depression, dementia and so many more.

 

But at least as important a causative factor in salt sensitivity as high salt intake in childhood is the ever-growing ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs. Pharmaceutical drugs are being prescribed more and more in the UK (and even more still in United States) and other industrialised countries. Most of the prescriptions are for drugs that cause sodium and water/fluid retention and salt sensitivity. I don't mean that they are prescribed with the intention of causing sodium and water retention, but problems with salt are the most common undesirable side-effects of the most frequently prescribed rugs. These include antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, steroids, birth control medications and many more.

 

When you couple the over-prescribing of these dangerous salt-sensitising drugs with the highly-salted processed food that is the norm for a majority of consumers these days, it is assuredly a recipe for disaster both on a personal scale and in the wider social context. - I suggest that you try to avoid prescription drugs as far as you safely can and cut down on salt and salty food as much as you reasonably can. You'll lose some excess weight and improve your health and you'll feel sooo much better!

Dr Mercola is warning us about the presence of glyphosate in human urine

Dr Mercola is warning us about the presence of glyphosate in human urine and about the many health risks that may result from this toxic component of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller. If you are interested in health and in the safety of food, as surely you are, I urge you to read his article.

The Daily Telegraph investigation exposes corrupt practices in the metal on metal medical devices saga

Journalists from the Telegraph have been investigating the scandal of the faulty 'metal on metal' hip implants. These implants have caused increased pain and disability for patients, some of whose experiences are highlighted in this article. All too often the agencies that the public looks to to safeguard our health and well-being turn out, as in this case, to do the opposite - at great cost in personal suffering to the patients involved and in financial cost to the NHS and the wider economy. In this article we read:

 

"The European system of regulation has prompted widespread concern over whether medical experts are really at the vanguard of deciding which devices can be implanted in patients. 

 The Daily Telegraph and the British Medical Journal therefore decided to investigate the rigour of the licensing process, amid allegations that dozens of private companies are competing with one another to offer licences for medically questionable devices. Was profit being put before patient safety?"

And of course when you read the article you cannot but conclude that profit is indeed being put before patient safety. This is but one of the many undesirable consequences of our present membership of the EU, notorious as it is for corruption and waste. The Telegraph carries an analysis of the flawed regulatory system, written by Carl Heneghan. I urge you to read it, and to put yourself in the place of the innocent victims of this chicanery.

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to EU

It's beyond parody isn't it? - See this report in the Telegraph, where you will read: "The European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize, despite a year marked by riots on streets of many capitals and the looming prospect of an acrimonious break up amid an economic crisis caused by the euro." - Could any other entity possibly have wrought greater damage on the EU's member states than the Gargantuan parasitic bureaucracy itself?

""The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe," said the Nobel prize committee.""- Now would you say that the Nobel prize committee was, in this instance, exhibiting lack of sanity or lack of probity? - I am of the opinion that they are still sane... I have written about the Nobel prize committee before.

Obesity is on the increase in Scotland. Scottish people desperately need to be told the truth about how to reduce obesity.

BBC News reported in November 2009 that two-thirds of men and more than half of women in Scotland are now overweight. Well that's a great shame and much of that increase could have been avoided. It is about eight years since I contacted Bill Gray, who was at the time National Project Officer of the Scottish Community Diet Project, Scottish Consumer Council, and also others working in the same field. We wrote and we spoke on the phone. I sent him lots of material and evidence making clear that to reduce obesity/overweight it is necessary to reduce salt intake and that it is not necessary to diet or to try to lose weight by exercising. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted the blogpost from Sunday 29 November 2009, but since it was important and is still just as relevant, I am reposting it today, 8 October 2012.

This is an extract from what I wrote to him (in late 2001, if I remember correctly):

"As I explained to your female colleague, I am not asking you to endorse my
advice.

I am asking you to tell people that it could be salt and water retention
that has caused their weight gain and that if they reduce their salt intake
they could lose weight. They have only to try it. They will then find for
themselves that they lose weight. Without the information that salt can be
the cause of weight gain they are highly unlikely to discover it for
themselves.

I have quoted to you EXACTLY what Sir Richard Doll wrote to me, but you seem
to have discounted what HE says, as well as what I say.

Why I say you have treated me shabbily is mainly because you are not a man
of your word. You promised, TWICE, to reply to my letters. You did not
reply. Your colleague, stammering and almost incoherent when I spoke to her,
also promised me a response. Again nothing. Good God! You would think I was
asking you to tell people something that might endanger their health rather
that enhance it! Cutting down on salt is entirely safe and completely free.
Just give the additional information that it could also cause weight loss in
the obese.

Why don't you have the courage to believe Sir Richard?

My MP has sent me a photocopy of a letter he has received from Pauline
Jackson, a friend of mine and another of his constituents. In a separate
email, I shall send you a copy of it.

THEN PLEASE COME BACK TO ME ON THIS.

Copying my stuff and passing it on to others in the hope that they will have
the courage to do what you yourself lack the courage for, is just a waste of
time and paper. They will be as cowardly as you have shown them that you
are. They too will be unwilling to put their heads above the parapet and you
will all continue to leave many THOUSANDS of people needlessly suffering all
sorts of health problems and all sorts of emotional and social and
psychological distress. Do you really want that on your conscience?"

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!
See my website 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
Sodium in foods
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Children and Obesity
Associated health conditions
and FAT RETENTION

It's National Poetry Day today

Safely stored in memory, poems reappear to strengthen us in times of trouble and take us back to happier days.

When I was little and it was bedtime, my mother used to read/recite a poem to me about all nature's little ones going to bed. My favourite verse began with the butterfly drowsy. I often used to think about the butterfly drowsy. The words were heady with sleep and mystery.

The butterfly drowsy has folded its wing,
The bees are returning, no more the birds sing;
Their labour is over, their nestlings are fed,
It's time little people were going to bed.

PositiveMoney's generic article: Why Are House Prices So High

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Why Are House Prices So High? (Press Release)

In the ten years up to the start of the financial crisis, house prices rose by over 200%. Why? A common belief is that there are too many people, too much immigration, and too few houses to go around.
Our new 2 minute video addresses the root causes of the housing crisis. It explains that house prices aren’t high because there’s “too many people and too few houses”. And it answers the crucial question: Why are house prices really so high?

INFOGRAPHIC: Why are house prices so high?

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You can find more details on this here:
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/consequences/house-prices/
and
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/consequences/house-prices/in-depth/

Our aim is to raise awareness and start conversations about the causes of the housing crisis and get us thinking more critically and creatively about the solutions.

Positive Money is a not-for-profit research and campaign group. They work to raise awareness of the connections between our current monetary and banking system and the serious social, economic and ecological problems that face the UK and the world today. In particular they focus on the role of banks in creating the nation’s money supply through the accounting process they use when they make loans – an aspect of banking which is poorly understood. Positive Money believe these fundamental flaws are at the root of – or a major contributor to – problems of poverty, excessive debt, growing inequality and environmental degradation. For more information, please visit: http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/

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British Health Foundation warns that severe heart failure can feel like drowning

British Heart Foundation warns that severe heart failure can feel like drowning.

The British Heart Foundation is currently warning that severe heart failure can feel like drowning, as is reported in this BBC News article today. "There is no cure for heart failure, which can lead to extreme exhaustion and breathlessness." The BHF is aiming to raise funds for its Mending Broken Hearts Appeal: ""We aim to raise money to carry out basic research into regenerative medicine. Stem cells could help by offering therapeutic interventions." 

The BHF is primarily a drug-oriented charity (see Health Campaigning Charities), with a heavy emphasis on the controversial drug family of statins. It always seems to me such a pity that they so rarely inform people that cutting down on salt and salty food can bring about dramatic improvements in heart health, e.g. helping with problems of breathlessness, reducing the size of an enlarged heart, reducing the risk of developing high blood pressure, heart disease and heart attack, as well as a host of other degenerative conditions, including being overweight or obese. Salt reduction is particularly appropriate for overweight that involves fluid retention. If you want to help people who suffer from breathlessness, whether caused by heart problems or by asthma, or simply by being overweight, you could do them a big favour by telling them of the benefits that salt reduction can bring. 

(I apologise for my typo in the title of this post. - It should say British Heart Foundation, not British Health Foundation.) 

You can count them on the fingers of one thumb

You can count them on the fingers of one thumb - approximately - the civil servants, the Ministers and Secretaries of State, the MPs, the Select Committees, the Department of Health officials, the agents and agencies of the State, the GMC, the GDC, the powerful, the influential, the appointed ones, they who will rush, fly, speed, drift, dawdle, limp, turn to stone, in their resentful trudge to your aid when you have been harmed by that colossal injustice misnamed the NHS. - Just thought I'd clarify that.

Jeremy Laurance draws attention to vast scale of drug company criminality

Jeremy Laurance draws attention in his detailed article in the Independent to the vast scale of drug company criminality and the failure of multibillion-dollar fines to curb the criminality. What is necessary is for the criminal bosses of these companies to appear in court to be tried and sentenced as individuals. Prison sentences for the people who initiate and sanction the bribery, corruption, fraud, cover-ups, lies, etc that result in great and avoidable suffering and premature deaths for innocent victims would be more likely to curb the criminal behaviour than corporate fines.

Thomas Szasz has died

The Telegraph carries an excellent obituary of this great man. Thomas Szasz was a Professor of Psychiatry who did not 'believe in' mental illness. Many of his books are about what he described as "the myth of mental illness" and about the great harm that is done by a belief in mental illness (or the pretence of believing in it). I read most of his books in the 80's and I found them compelling reading. I regard him as the foremost writer on psychiatry and I have written about him before. (See HERE.) His books display an incisive intelligence and a mordant wit, as he sought to protect the victims of psychiatric labelling from the harm that such labels do in the hands of medically-qualified knaves and fools supported by a misbegotten legal system.

A reminder about the high levels of salt in bacon

A few days ago the Guardian reported that CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) has again warned about the high salt content of bacon, and has described it as "now the second-biggest source of salt in the UK diet after bread." - Me, I sometimes describe it as laden with salt. One of the reasons the food manufacturers make it so salty is so that they can get away with adding more water to it, because salt helps to hold water in a product. This enables salt water to be sold at the same price as the bacon which holds it, and accounts for that off-putting feature, when frying bacon, of seeing water vapour rising from it as some of the water content is driven out by the heat. 

 

If you have high blood pressure, or if you are overweight - particularly if you are overweight as a result of taking anti-depressants or prescribed steroids or anti-epileptics or anti-psychotics - then cutting down on salt-laden food like bacon would benefit your health immensely and you would feel sooo much better. - Go on! - Give it a try!

The Radio 4 Appeal today was presented by Henry Blofeld on behalf of the Macular Disease Society.

The Radio 4 Appeal today was presented by Henry Blofeld on behalf of the Macular Disease Society. I thought it was a pity that the opportunity was not taken to mention that there is evidence of a dietary measure that can help with this condition. See this BBC2 webpage. Eating spinach helps to prevent "age-related macular degeneration", a major cause of poor eyesight and sometimes blindness. It can even repair some damage to the macula that has already occurred! - The nutrient involved is lutein. This nutrient is also contained in kiwifruits, leeks, peas, eggs, broccoli, etc. You can find them easily by using a search engine. Maybe Henry Blofeld would like to try this dietary measure for himself, since he is himself experiencing macular degeneration.

What's the difference between Winifred Robinson, presenter on You and Yours, and David Behan, new CEO of the CQC (Care Quality Commission)?

Well when I listened to Radio 4's You and Yours today, I found the most pertinent difference was one of language. Winifred Robinson is an excellent presenter who always seeks clarity and is really good at winkling it out of her interviewees. The big problem with the interview with David Behan was that she spoke in English, the language of most of her listeners, I guess, and he persisted in speaking in gobbledygook, aka management-speak/jargon, despite all her efforts to get him to engage in a meaningful exchange. It doesn't augur well. When the next ghastly incidences of cruelty and incompetence inevitably occur in a care home or similar place of torture/care of the vulnerable, the relatives and others concerned about the welfare of the innocent victims will all be complaining, writing, speaking or weeping in English, and will be bewildered by his agency's bureaucratic lingo. Except that I'm sure they'll recognise that it's bugger-all to do with Care, in any sense of the word. - Judge for yourself. - You can 'Listen now' from this page.

Clinical Trials of Drugs can cause serious injury and death without compensation to the human guinea pigs and their families

New drugs come at a price: a very great price of suffering to poor people you do not know or even know about. Read what Dr Mercola has to say about this in his new article today.

 

And read what Carolyn Thomas wrote in 2009 - that it is "No longer possible to believe much of clinical research published”

 

So all of that suffering is wasted anyway. - Read about it. Think about it. Do something about it.

Why does every damn thing have to be contaminated by synthetic scents?

Laundry never smells clean any more. It smells of artificial 'freshness' or something - from either the wash stuff or the conditioner stuff or both. - And the smell never seems to wear off! It permanently poisons the air in our homes.

Dry-cleaning these days smells especially vile! - Not from the toxic dry-cleaning fumes themselves so much, as from the disgusting stink that is sprayed on to cover up the cleaning agent odour. - I'm going to have to give some just-cleaned garments to charity because I simply cannot bear the lingering, noxious stink.

Heaven knows why people want to spray Febreze on mucky stuff to pretend it is clean! - I'd rather smell the muck than the ghastly cover-ups!

Bring back CLEAN! - Just plain CLEAN!

Are you taking blood pressure tablets unnecessarily?

See this recent article commenting on a BMJ article about the ineffectiveness of blood pressure tablets.

Here is a quote from Professor Jerome Hoffman of UCLA and an expert in critical appraisal of medical literature, from the BMJ piece:

"We’ve long known that almost all benefit from treating severe hypertension comes with lowering BP [blood pressure] just a little. On the other hand, efforts to lower BP to ‘normal,’ typically requiring multiple drugs, are not only usually unsuccessful but produce more harm than good, since adverse effects of intensive treatment outweigh the minimal marginal benefit of a little more BP ‘control.’ Drug treatment of mild hypertension….may be of great value to drug makers, but it was almost predictable that it would provide little or no benefit for patients."

And another quote:

"David Cundiff, one of the authors of the Cochrane review has said that he “believes that the analysis should lead to dramatic changes in the way doctors treat mild hypertension, allowing patients to throw away their blood pressure pills and focus instead on far more effective as well as evidence based approaches…"

On Inside Health on Radio 4 on 21st August they too were discussing the over-diagnosis and over-treatment of high blood pressure:

 

"Dr Mark Porter asks whether doctors can try too hard in the early detection of disease and investigates the overdiagnosis of hypertension. This week he discovers that as many as 3 million people who have been told they have high blood pressure may not actually have it - could you be one of them?"

 

The programme found that there is indeed a large and growing problem of overdiagnosis and over-treatment for blood pressure. The general opinion was that it is usually better to avoid prescribing the blood pressure drugs, which of course have adverse side-effects, and instead advise patients about life-style changes that reduce high blood pressure. My own very high blood pressure years ago was dramatically and safely lowered by seriously reducing my intake of salt and salty food.

Weight Loss forums? Dieting threads?

Ever had a browse through weight loss forums and dieting threads? Have you noticed there are many people, usually women, who seem desperate? - They explain that they have tried loads of diets, tried many times, been to slimming clubs, taken pills, been to exercise classes, etc. but nothing works. They ask for advice, ideas. They say they are ready to 'try anything'. - But this is seldom true.

 

Occasionally I've been able to post the suggestion that they try cutting down on salt and salty food, explaining that this is the fastest and safest way to reduce weight, and explaining (usually) how it brings about weight loss. Sometimes a person starts a thread to draw attention to one of my webpages or blogposts about losing weight by cutting down on salt, and quite often a moderator will advise the OP and other forum members not to make changes to the diet without seeking their doctor's permission as though this is mandatory! - If you went to a doctor to ask if it was OK to cut down on salt s/he'd think you were crazy. - The health service repeatedly advises people to cut down on salt.

 

Ready to try anything? - Very sadly, all too often they are ready to try any way to lose weight except the fastest, safest, easiest and most effective way to lose weight, namely by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. - Why won't they try it? - Some say it wouldn't work (though they've never tried it), and some say they like salt too much to cut down, and some say "No, that's not my problem 'cos I don't really eat much salt," and others say, "No, I know someone who eats loads of salt and they're not at all fat..." and many say, "It isn't be as simple as that," - but it is. - They believe losing weight should be really difficult and should involve hunger.

 

They often get persuaded to try dieting again - a new diet, that someone or other swears by - and yet the one thing that they know from experience will not work is dieting...

 

If you want to lose excess weight, seriously cut down on salt and salty food and watch the pounds fall off! - You will feel sooo much better.

Animal experimentation and amblyopia: some thoughts about it

Recently there was some publicity about animal experiments performed on kittens by researchers at Cardiff University and people were asked to sign an online petition about it:

"Some kittens were raised in complete darkness while others were deprived of the sight in one eye by having their eyelids sewn shut. The kittens were then anaesthetised, artificially ventilated and paralysed with a drug to prevent eye movements. They were then subjected to highly invasive head surgery during which the skin was cut away, the skull was opened and the brain was exposed for recordings.

After various tests, all the kittens were killed and parts of their brain removed for analysis.

Sophisticated methods of studying vision and the neurologic processes underlying it in human beings already exist. Not only is this experiment inhumane, it is unnecessary for human health.

Ricky Gervais has joined the BUAV in calling for an end to these experiments: “I am appalled that kittens are being deprived of sight in one eye by having their eyelids sewn shut. I thought sickening experiments like these were a thing of the past. I support the BUAV in calling for this research to be stopped.”

I am given to understand that this research at Cardiff University has been discontinued.

To explain why very young kittens have been used for research into the lazy eye condition, and why adults, whether cats or humans - cannot be used for it:

The lazy eye condition: Amblyopia, or "lazy eye", is the loss of an eye's ability to see detail. It is the most common cause of vision problems in children. If it is not tested for and treated early, say before age 5, there is likely to be permanent poor vision in the eye. 

I have amblyopia in my left eye. That eye has scarcely any usable vision and effectively sort of 'switches off' when my right eye is open, and leaves all the work to my right eye. This also means in practice that I cannot judge distance. So I've never learned to drive as I didn't feel it would be safe. 

I have been told that my amblyopia was caused by medical/nursing staff covering up that eye for some days when I was only a few days old, something to do with protecting it from a draught, or treating it for an infection - I don't know. - Anyway, the point is, that amblyopia is a developmental condition. It is caused very early in life when the messages from the eye along the optic nerve to the brain should become established and the brain trained to interpret them correctly. If the messages aren't being sent properly during that vital early developmental period then the brain learns to interpret them in a limited, muddled sort of way. I may be wrong, but I think of it as a problem of the optic nerve, rather than the eye itself. I was treated for it - the treatment was to try to force the lazy eye to work by covering up the other eye with a patch - but the treatment was too late and didn't work for me.

The research I have written about would have caused amblyopia in the kittens by preventing messages from the retina along the optic nerve to the brain in the critical period. Such research has been going on for many years. Professor Colin Blakemore, for example, spent some years on this kind of animal research into amblyopia. I don't understand why they do this animal research. To the best of my knowledge, and I stand to be corrected on this, no good ever comes of the research. Despite many years, loads of suffering, oodles of time and money, I've never heard of anything useful coming from it. Occasionally I have enquired over the years if there is any treatment now for my amblyopia, but there isn't. So who, apart from the researchers who are paid for this barbarism, benefits from it?

I have written about animal experiments before, but in relation to drug testing, which is falsely claimed to result in safer drugs to be used on people. I think that animal experimentation is rarely, if ever, of any use at all, and I'm against it, especially if it involves cruelty, as this does. A good book that gives some insight into cruel animal research is The Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. I recommend it.

Pfizer fined for bribing foreign doctors and health care professionals

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Pfizer with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act after finding various subsidiaries bribed doctors and other health care professionals employed by foreign governments in order to win business.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Tony Nicklinson: cruel decision by the High Court ensures further suffering for Tony Nicklinson

The Telegraph reports that the High Court has rejected Tony Nicklinson's right-to-die plea. I regard this as a very cruel decision. Not one of the people who support the present existing legal position would change places with Mr Nicklinson. In my opinion it is cruel and immoral to will that another person should suffer that which one would not be willing to go along with in the same position as that person.

 

You could add your support for Tony Nicklinson by signing this petition for a change in the law: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/tony-nicklinson-s-right-to-die-change-the-law

Five Minute Friendships

It's very seldom that I am well enough to go out, but I managed a little outing today. And I met a few new people. The first of these was a young man called David, who spent five minutes telling me about about the plants he and his wife grow on the balcony of their apartment, and how he avoids using harmful chemicals on them.

Later on I met a man who assisted me when standing up was proving difficult for me. He told us about the Five Minute Friendships he likes to make, one of which he had just made. He then told us he is 81 and that he has an allotment and that one of the crops he likes to grow is tomatoes. In return I told him and Sandra, his new Five Minute Friend, about how cutting down on salt and salty food benefits health and makes you feel a lot better. - Sandra was doing more listening than talking, and I got the feeling she's a very good, attentive listener.

So: three new Five Minute Friendships today. - What a nice idea!

Dr Mercola warns that the FDA is compromising the safety of drugs

Dr Mercola warns that the FDA is seriously compromising the safety of drugs. See http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/13/drug-safety-whistleblower.aspx

In Praise of File on 4

I often listen to File on 4 and I never find it less than interesting. In fact it's often much more than that. - You feel as you listen that the matter is so serious and so urgent that 'somebody' will take steps to remedy or to ameliorate the situation. Just like with today's subject: dangerous, potentially lethal, levels of harmful oxides of nitrogen in diesel fumes from traffic in some cities, including Sheffield.

 

File on 4 can be relied upon for careful investigations and has excellent presenters to make the issues clear. You'd think after wrapping up the preparation for the programme, matters would be 'all over bar the shouting'. But no. All too often when the presenter puts the case to the person in the best position to effect necessary change and start the process of amending regulations or legislation, instead of being persuaded by the evidence and the importance of the matter, the 'powerful person' recites well-rehearsed ambiguous drivel that translates as, 'Sorry, mate; couldn't really care less.' Anyone who's ever experienced taking in a lungful or two of diesel fumes can have little doubt that the noxious stuff is injurious to health. We were informed of the special danger of babies developing severe breathing problems. Well heaven help those poor babies who live near to roads with busy traffic, 'cos it doesn't look like the powers-that-be have any intention of helping...

 

You can listen to the File on 4 programme from this page. "World health chiefs have branded diesel exhaust emissions a major cause of cancer. Despite the efforts of car-makers to filter out the most noxious substances, these fumes still play a big part in causing air pollution. Britain has the second worst respiratory death rates in Europe and has long been under notice from Brussels to clean up its act. So why are most UK areas in breach of legal limits?  And do ministers have any clear plan to reduce the huge annual total of resulting deaths? "

SALT: it doesn't just kill slugs, it can kill people too

Some people kill slugs by sprinkling salt onto them. This draws the water out of their very watery bodies and produces a sort of slug sludge. It seems a peculiarly cruel death. The internet can supply more kindly ways to divest oneself of unwelcome slugs.

 

When salt kills people it is usually a more long-drawn-out death. Instead of the salt drawing water out of its victim's body as with the slug, it draws more water into the body. Salt's victims tend to be babies/small children, who are vulnerable to salt because of the immaturity of their organs and their blood vessels, or pregnant women, made vulnerable to salt by hormone changes in their bodies, or other groups made sensitive to salt, most notably by taking commonly prescribed drugs, including antidepressants and steroids. All of these groups, because of excess fluid retention (extra salt and water, mainly held in the bloodstream), tend to become overweight/obese/morbidly obese, with the health consequences attendant on that, including high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, cancer (especially stomach cancer), arthritis, insomnia, depression, impaired kidney function, liver problems, type 2 diabetes and many more, as well as emotional distress because of the stigmatising attitudes provoked by obesity in modern-day societies.

 

You could lose weight and reduce your risk of suffering from the unpleasant, unhealthy consequences of salt sensitivity/vulnerability, of early disability and premature death, by simply eating less salt and salty food. - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel sooo much better! - and, dare I say it? - less sluggish!

Did you know that the spice Turmeric can seriously improve your health?

You may like to have a look at this interesting webpage about the health benefits of Turmeric. -- If you  browse the internet using your favourite search engine you will find a multitude of further articles about this ancient spice that retains a worthy place in our modern world and especially in meals like curries. You will find that it has a role to play in cancer prevention, in reducing inflammation and chronic pain, in treating bowel problems and many more. It doesn't have bad side-effects like painkillers and other pharmaceutical drugs do, and that's a huge advantage. But it does have one disadvantage, and that is that it can stain. Indeed, it was first used as a dye. - Now me, I'm really good at spilling stuff, especially now that my hands have been so damaged by the effects of steroid meds, etc. So although I used to add turmeric powder to my meals I got fed up of sometimes getting turmeric stains on my clothes and I stopped using it in cooking. I now buy it in capsule form and I simply swallow a couple of the capsules a day with a meal and a good drink of water. - But there can't be too many people as clumsy as I am, so I'm sure most of you would want to use it in the time-honoured way of simply adding it to your curry/soup/stew or whatever.

Criminal fine for J & J drug company re Risperdal anti-psychotic

"Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay as much as $2.2 billion to resolve an investigation into its marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, according to a published report."
Read article in the Houston Chronicle (USA)

Eat less salt to reduce your risk of cancer

Big 'news' this week is that eating less salt lowers your risk of developing cancer, especially cancer of the stomach. See this BBC News report, where you will read: "Cutting back on salty foods such as bacon, bread and breakfast cereals may reduce people's risk of developing stomach cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)." I put inverted commas round the word 'news' because my website has been informing people of this fact for many years and so it is hardly news. The usual establishment health message about salt reduction is that reducing salt intake reduces your risk of stroke, heart disease and heart attacks, and that it lowers high blood pressure, and while this health message is undoubtedly correct, it omits a multitude of other health benefits that result from eating less salt, most amazingly omitting the information that cutting salt intake is the fastest, safest way to lose excess weight. - In view of all the publicity about the prevalence and dangers of obesity, it's a real shame (I use the word advisedly) that this weight reduction information is not being promulgated by the public health brigade. Indeed, they almost seem to go out of their way to keep us in the dark about it. (The explanation for the weight loss is that salt reduction reduces the fluid retention which contributes to all overweight. Read about the groups of people that are particularly vulnerable to salt.)

The Doorbell and the Painkillers

Decades ago, possibly when I was in my teens, I read a short story about a doorbell and painkillers. It was during my science fiction/science fantasy days, I reckon. I've tried to find it, or some reference to it, on the internet, but without success. Stripped of its gothic atmospheric detail, the story, as I remember it, was this:

Whenever visitors rang the bell at the door of a remote, castle-like edifice, a strange, piercing sound arose, seemingly from far away - the bowels of the castle? - and an uncommunicative man-servant opened the door to them.

I forget the rest of the story, except that we discover the macabre and cruel secret of the working of the bell. - There are other people somewhere in the castle, underground maybe, or housed in a distant wing. They are in great pain. They are being cared for - nursed/doctored/spoken to solicitously - by person or persons who appear to care about their welfare. The treatment for their pain is pills - soothing pills - painstakingly concocted by their carers.

When they take the pills, the pills appear to help a bit; the pain subsides a bit. They perhaps allow themselves to relax a little. There is occasionally talk of becoming well enough to leave the castle, well enough to return home. But however they may appear to improve, and maybe to rest or sleep fitfully, there are terrible, anguished relapses, when, in concert, the patients scream in agony, clutching their stomachs, as though suffering the torments of the damned.

In brief, dear Reader, the pills they are being given contain tiny metal pieces, and the doorbell governs immensely powerful magnets, cunningly positioned. And when visitors ring the doorbell, the magnetism is engaged, and the tiny bits of metal within the innards of the 'patients' are pulled/attracted by that inhuman mechanism, and tear at the delicate, long-troubled tissues and nerves of those doomed victims of ill-conceived medication. And it is the sound of their screams that alerts the man-servant that there is someone at the door, someone waiting to be admitted... 

And the moral of this story is: Put not your trust in painkillers! They may cause you great harm...

Just because a painkiller is available over the counter (otc) it doesn't mean it's harmless, especially if it's paracetamol/acetaminophen/Calpol/Tylenol/

Just because a painkiller is available aver the counter (otc) it doesn't mean it's harmless, especially if it's paracetamol/acetaminophen/Calpol/Tylenol/Panadol. See this abcnews article. And see this Google search page.This drug is particularly dangerous to children. See Philly.com Report. For children especially it can cause asthma, liver damage and even sudden death. - That's apart from starting them on the path of painkiller dependence and painkiller addiction.

It is better to deal with the cause of the pain, rather than trying to eliminate the symptom. Pain is not caused by paracetamol deficiency.

Merck and the Vioxx saga

"The Vioxx saga continues. Nearly eight years after Merck withdrew the controversial painkiller over links to heart attacks and strokes, a new paper indicates the drugmaker hid evidence that Vioxx tripled the risk of cardiovascular death for more than three years before taking the pill off the market in 2004. During the same period, the paper in the American Heart Journal notes, Merck had regularly insisted such an increased did not exist."
Read article at pharmalot.com

On Inside Health on Radio 4 this week: some people are being misdiagnosed as having exercise-induced asthma

On Inside Health this week: some people are being misdiagnosed as having exercise-induced asthma. So if you or someone you know has had this diagnosis, and especially if you are an athlete, more especially if medication has been prescribed, and even more especially if that is steroid medication, then I suggest you visit this BBC webpage. Rather than exercise-induced asthma, the problem may be vocal cord dysfunction, and this problem does not respond to inhalers. I suggest you also have a look at my recent blogpost about asthma.

Dr Mercola today explains about the drug industry's widespread corruption of scientific research

Dr Mercola today explains the widespread corruption of science: that drug companies invent data, fabricate research, falsify results,cover up adverse effects...

The Wind from the East

When I was a child, if we ever had a day out at the seaside it was on the East Coast. The east wind was the stuff of legend: a lazy wind - lazy because it didn't go round you; it went through you. A very cold wind. I used to think of it as coming straight from Russia. I think of it today because July 11th was the birthday of one of my great-aunts, and she once took me to stay for a week in Bridlington.

 

She liked us to go for a walk each day along the promenade to get the fresh sea air and to 'blow away the cobwebs'. On our walk one day we saw a boatman selling tickets to go on a trip on his boat. A notice-board proclaimed the cost of the trip and carried the promise, BACK FOR TEA! - "We could be back for tea without going on the trip," she laughed, but we went on the boat trip all the same.

Roche Must Pay $18 Million to Two Former Accutane Users

Roche Holding AG must pay a total of $18 million in damages to two former users of its Accutane acne drug who blamed the medicine for their bowel disease, a New Jersey jury ruled.
Read article at bloomberg.com

Pfizer involved in deception over new arthritis painkiller drug Celebrex

"A research director for Pfizer was positively buoyant after reading that an important medical conference had just featured a study claiming that the new arthritis drug Celebrex was safer on the stomach than more established drugs. “They swallowed our story, hook, line and sinker,” he wrote in an e-mail to a colleague. The truth was that Celebrex was no better at protecting the stomach from serious complications than other drugs. It appeared that way only because Pfizer and its partner, Pharmacia, presented the results from the first six months of a yearlong study rather than the whole thing."
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

Really I don't think arthritis painkilling drugs are worth the candle. They've done a great deal of harm over the years. See my posts about Vioxx, for example.

You can reduce the pain of osteoarthritis by the simple expedient of seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. This dietary measure also lowers high blood pressure, reduces your risk of heart attack, stroke, depression, fractures, some cancers and many other degenerative illnesses, as well as reducing excess weight caused by fluid retention and helping with breathing problems. - What's not to like? - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

GSK whistleblowers handsomely rewarded for their evidence which helped in the US prosecution of Glaxo for drug mispromotion and fraud

The Telegraph reports that four former GlaxoSmithKline employees will share up to £159 million for their part in the successful prosecution of the drug company. Unfortunately Glaxo's crimes and misdemeanours are regarded with amazing leniency in Britain, as evidenced by the award of a knighthood earlier this year to Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. Drug company profits trump patient safety and corporate ethics.

Do you really think that GSK, the drug company, is interested in helping people to be healthy?

Do you really think that drug companies are interested in helping you to be healthy? - Surely not? - Are you not aware that they repeatedly appear in both the civil and the criminal courts as defendants in cases of fraud, bribery, corruption and the like? - That their only real interest is in profits and their only motivation is greed? - Check it out:

 

See last Monday's article on the BBC News Website, in which we read that "GlaxoSmithKline is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history. The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments.
The case concerns 10 drugs, including Paxil, Wellbutrin, Avandia and Advair."

Did you know that the many well-honed skills of GSK include bribing doctors to prescribe antidepressant drugs off-label for children, knowing that these drugs can and do result in grave harm to children, including death? And did you know that Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours List? - Beggars belief, doesn't it? - It's not as if the fraudulent practices of this firm have only come to light recently. They have been reported and in the public domain for years. Why was the head of this huge criminal business recommended for a knighthood?

I've mentioned Andrew Witty previously in one of my blogposts. - See HERE. Would you feel safe taking drugs made and marketed by this company? -  Well I wouldn't.

An old school-friend rang me today and reminded me of a choral part-song we used to sing as girls

Katharine had been to a concert recently and the song had been on the programme. After our plucking at the strings of memory, I felt a desire to see the sheet music of the song again and have a little sing. - What a pleasure therefore to find it available on this website, www.vsmusicsupplies.com, and furthermore to find, on ringing up, that it is a real human being with a warm friendly voice who answers the phone, not a recorded message, not a daunting menu, not a call-centre slave. - Ruth will be dispatching my music on Monday...(o:

The Blue Bird (by Charles Villiers Stanford)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNdeCzrdnpE

Could any voices sound lovelier than these?

What's the best way to prevent asthma, and by extension, prevent deaths from asthma?

Well it was reported in the Telegraph this week that doctors, by way of Dr Dinesh Saralaya, who runs a specialist clinic in Bradford, are saying that 1,000 Asthma deaths a year could be prevented if patients, even those with only mild asthma, would regularly use "their ‘preventer’ inhaler - which contains a low-dose steroid" rather than relying "solely on the ‘reliever’ inhaler when undergoing an attack. " The evidence for this claim appears to be "a poll of 333 people with severe asthma, conducted by Ipsos MORI and funded by drugs firm Novartis". Personally, I would never give much credence to research funded by companies with a financial interest in the results, and in particular to research funded by drug companies hoping to increase the sales and use of their drugs and consequently their company profits. - Would you?

But I have even stronger reasons to regard this report with scepticism. The newspaper report is illustrated with a photo of a child using an inhaler, so I'll consider in particular child sufferers from asthma. - Now I am not a doctor and I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, so if you are wanting a medical opinion you would be better looking elsewhere than on my blog. But like you I do have a brain and I can read. My personal opinion is that the best way to prevent asthma, and to prevent deaths from asthma, is to protect children from a high intake of salt/sodium. My opinion is based on the following research evidence:

In this Telegraph article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2137775/Too-much-television-is-an-asthma-risk.html, about research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr Giuseppe Corbo, despite its misleading title, the crucial finding is, "The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake of salt were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (My emphasis.) I'll bet your brain comes to the same conclusion as mine does, doesn't it? - Protecting children from a high salt diet is the simplest, safest and most effective way to reduce their risk of developing asthma and also from any necessity to take steroid meds as treatment for asthma. (I'm not a big fan of steroid meds, especially if they can be avoided.)

This article, too, supports the wisdom of a low salt intake for children. "According to a new study published by the American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five times."

Another drug-free and very important measure to protect children from developing asthma is to avoid dosing children with paracetamol/acetaminophen (aka Tylenol and Calpol). A wealth of statistical data on this webpage http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/evidence-mounts-linking-acetaminophen-and-asthma.html?_r=1 suggests a link between acetaminophen and childhood asthma. Also have a read of this article from the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3233550/Delaying-baby-vaccine-could-cut-asthma.html for another simple measure that "could halve the likelihood of a child developing asthma by the age of seven."

As well as reducing the suffering of many thousands, even of millions, of people, these simple measures could also save about £1 billion a year - nearly one per cent of the NHS entire NHS budget - that is spent on asthma. - What it would not do, of course, is boost the profits of the drug company, Novartis...

I've been watching BBC2's The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched Part 1 of The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 last week. I must say it's a refreshing change to have some evidence-supported information about important causes of the dramatic rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and obesity-related ill-health instead of the usual incorrect propaganda.

In Part 1 it was explained how sugar is a major contributor to obesity and how since the second world war the USA's food industry has been ladling sugar, sugar and more sugar, into its processed junk food products, be they sweet or savoury. And another even more-dangerously obesogenic sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is also added to their food junk and their ghastly soft drinks. This corn product use is massively profitable for America's corn farmers and massively damaging to the health and weight of American citizens. - Especially when it is coupled with the ill-conceived (blame Ancel Keys) misinformation that low-fat food is a good way to lose weight (it isn't and it doesn't work) and that low fat intake is good for our health (it isn't).

So those of us who were paying attention learned that although America purports to be a democracy and proclaims, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," these days it's more like, "Government of the people, by the farm industry's political stooges, for the farm industry's profits, and to Hell with the well-being of the 'American people'".

On Thursday night I watched Part 2, in which it was explained that not content with changing America's food to obesogenic mass-manufactured highly-addictive crap, Big Business perverted civilised eating to a fast feeding process, with fast food outlets serving food fast to customers, who ate it fast (it didn't take too much chewing), sloshing it down with over-sweetened soft drinks, having queued for 'counter-service', so much speedier than table service. And furthermore, they increased portion sizes to ludicrous levels. - I found the gargantuan size of the drinks especially horrifying! 

Well America's citizens are now mostly pretty huge - well huge, certainly, but not so pretty... And they are so big that they almost look like another species. - And what does the food industry suggest as a remedy for this gross obesity problem caused in large part by the food industry itself? - Well, blame it on the victims of course! Like rapists used to do. - The victims need to eat less fat and take more exercise! (NOT)

But it is not lack of exercise that causes obesity, so taking more exercise does not and will not reduce obesity. Obesity causes inactivity, not the other way round, as I explain in my Mensa article. And as Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. explained in Thursday's programme. 

Professor Wilkin led a pioneering study into childhood weight gain and found that children do not gain weight because of inactivity and do not lose weight by taking exercise. The study had been commissioned by the government of the time, but the findings were unwelcome, so they were buried and funding stopped, and successive governments, few among them scientists, chose to heed the falsehoods of the food industry, i.e. cut down on fat, especially saturated fat, and take more exercise! - Oh dear! - Do you think it's too much like America's plight? - Government of the people, by Big Business interests, for the profits of the Food Industry and its mates? - What do you reckon? - We've got the Dept of Health being advised about how to tackle obesity by the food and drinks businesses who promote obesity. - Looks like we're gonna be getting more and more obese with all this crap food and crap advice, doesn't it?

And when are they going to get on to SALT? and anti-depressants? and other prescription drugs that cause weight gain?