Dr Le Fanu draws attention to problems with regard to drugs prescribed for elderly hospital patients

Dr Le Fanu draws attention to problems with regard to drugs prescribed for elderly hospital patients to take when they leave hospital, particularly if they have memory or cognitive impairment, which, he reminds us, "can be caused or exacerbated by medication, particularly the cholesterol-lowering statins."

How can eating salt and salty food when you are on certain medications cause weight gain?

Table salt is a chemical compound. Its chemical name is sodium chloride. It is present in the bloodstream in solution as sodium ions and chloride ions. It is the sodium ions that are involved in the fluid retention that causes weight gain. This webpage tells you more about sodium in food.

Amitriptyline does not contain salt. But amitriptyline weakens the walls of the blood vessels so that extra sodium ions and the water associated with them can distend the blood vessels so that they hold a greater blood volume than before. - The blood has been diluted a bit with the sodium ions and water. This is an example of fluid retention and an example of one of the many medications that cause it by weakening the walls of the blood vessels.

If you want to get the hang of it better, I suggest you read http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lose_weight.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/obesity_and_the_salt_connection.html

Thousands of Americans die from an overdose of prescription painkillers

U.S. deaths from painkiller overdose surge
Nearly 15,000 Americans died from an overdose of prescription painkillers in 2008, a record rate that has outstripped fatalities from illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin combined, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday.
Read article in the Montreal Gazette (Canada)

Painkillers are not harmless. And many of them are addictive. And just because a drug is prescribed by a doctor, it doesn't mean it's safe.

Commonly prescribed medicines can destroy lives

Experts have called for increased awareness about the issue of adverse drug reactions after hearing how everyday prescription medicines are destroying the lives of some patients.
Read article at medicalxpress.com

Is your body trying to tell you something? And are you taking its message seriously?

Is your body trying to tell you something? And are you taking its message seriously? I'll tell you about some of my own experiences of this.

As someone who gets migraines sometimes, I did what is sensibly advised: I thought about the food I had eaten before getting the migraines in case any particular foods were triggering the attacks. I found that if I ate more than just a few slices of cucumber that usually brought on a migraine, and I also found that another trigger was if I went more than about 5 waking hours without food at all. Non-food triggers for me turned out to be rapidly flashing lights in general or the bright, low-on-the-horizon winter sunshine. So I do what you too, no doubt, would do if you had those same messages from your body, namely, I avoid those triggers if I possibly can.

Unfortunately, I wasn't as lucky about some other messages from my body. When I experienced a lot of health problems starting very roughly at the same time as each other and all getting worse pretty fast, it was rather a long time before I was able confidently and correctly to attribute all of them to the prescribed medication I was taking, and this was, I am sure, partly because I became so desperately tired and so very ill, but mainly because my GP and other health professionals I encountered so firmly assured me that I was wrong - absolutely wrong - and that I should continue with the medication.

Some of these body messages were weight gain and getting fatter, face becoming red and puffy, breasts becoming swollen and extremely painful, with visible veins, aching, swollen reddening agonisingly painful hands and feet, painful, distended veins in the legs that made bending the knees a particularly difficult and painful problem, excruciating headaches that no painkillers could extinguish, desperately painful genital area, increasing fatigue, tiredness and breathlessness, hair loss, and many more. I later discovered that all of these signs and symptoms had resulted from the prescription drugs I was taking - because these drugs had weakened my blood vessels and made me sensitive to salt/sodium. - Because of the web of lies, evasions, deliberate ambiguities, prejudiced viewpoints, false beliefs, ignorance and cover-ups of the health professionals to whom I turned or was directed, my proper understanding of what had been done to me was delayed by many anguished years. See story so far and my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection.

If you are getting a cluster of body messages that may or may not appear to be connected except that they all have followed some time after starting to take prescribed medication, I urge you to give thought to whether the drug/s could be the cause of the symptoms you are experiencing. Check stuff up for yourself: your doctors may be as uninformed and unhelpful as mine were. Here's some drug information you may find helpful: HRT and Steroids, etc and Amitriptyline and Other Antidepressants.

Chantix, Prescription Drugs and Acts of Violence

"For years, there were contentious debates about links between certain prescription meds, notably antidepressants, and suicidal behavior. Now, the focus is turning to violent behavior directed toward others. And a new study is linking 31 widely prescribed drugs - most notably, the Chantix anti-smoking pill - with 1,527 serious acts of violence, such as physical abuse, physical assault and homicide."
Read article at pharmalot.com

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France

Prescribed medications are responsible for more than 3% of road traffic crashes in France.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims takes place on the third Sunday of November every year as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by RoadPeace in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.
Read article at physorg.com

Did you know that there are many pharmaceutical drugs that deplete the body of nutrients?

If you take or intend to take prescription drugs you may find it's a good idea to check out which nutrients you may need to supplement while taking the medication.

My first encounter with this sort of nutrient depletion was when I was taking isoniazid for TB when I was a teenager. I suffered greatly from insomnia but did not know why. It was not until many years later that I discovered that it was because of vitamin B6 depletion. B6 is also known as pyridoxine. If I had known at the time, and if I had been able to take supplements of pyridoxine at the time, I would have been saved from those dreadful sleepless years and from the anaemia that is also caused by lack of this vitamin.

Statins, so widely and notoriously over-prescribed, cause the body to be depleted of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), so if you are taking them you may like to consider taking tablets of CoQ10 so as to reduce some of the harm the statins may be causing you.

Steroid drugs such as prednisone have been shown to deplete the body of calcium, magnesium, folic acid, potassium, selenium, vitamin C, and vitamin D.

Antibiotics deplete the body of several nutrients as well as adversely affecting the balance of the gut flora. Thiazide diuretics (water tablets) such as Bendrofluazide (aka Bendroflumethiazide or lots of other names) remove some potassium and magnesium from the body. The resultant shortage of potassium and magnesium may well cause you night cramps. Often all you need to do about the shortage of potassium is to make sure you eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and your doctor will usually tell you about this and suggest eating bananas for extra potassium.

Depletion of nutrients could affect you in many ways and may well result in lower energy levels and lowered immunity to infection. So check it out. You may find it's a case for nutritional supplements to the rescue!

Prescription Drugs Can Seriously Damage Your Health

Adverse side-effects from prescription drugs are not at all rare. In fact, many drugs routinely cause very serious adverse side-effects, often very much more serious than the health problems for which they are taken. Only take them if they are really necessary and take them in the lowest effective dose.

Get informed about the harm drugs do. – For a start you could read about tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline here:

Amitriptyline

and about steroids like prednisolone or HRT here:

Steroids and HRT.

Which prescription drug/s caused your weight gain? - Steroids? HRT? Anti-depressants? Anti-psychotics? Anti-epilepsy medication? Painkillers? Or what?

Which prescription drug/s caused your weight gain? - Steroids? HRT? Anti-depressants? Anti-psychotics? Anti-epilepsy medication? Painkillers? Or what?

The weight gain is from fluid retention: extra blood volume. It's also known as sodium retention, water weight, sensitivity to salt, oedema, bloating, and some other names. It can be reduced by avoiding salt and salty food.

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

advice for pregnant mothers

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Associated health conditions

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

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

NHS prescriptions for obesity drugs have increased by 21% in three years

The Telegraph reports that NHS prescriptions for obesity drugs have increased by 21% in three years, and an ill-informed Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman, is claiming that increased levels of exercise would reduce the weight of obese people. - Sorry, Mr Foster - you're wrong.

It's incredible that otherwise intelligent people persist in flogging the same dead horses over and over again and fail to recognise that these dead horses - 'eating too much' and 'not taking enough exercise' - are not only dead, but stinking dead, and spreading corruption.

NHS staff should not be prescribing dodgy pharmaceutical drugs to reduce obesity; they should be telling the truth about how obesity is caused and advising obese people to abandon dieting (dieting is ineffective, unnecessary and often harmful) and instead concentrate on cutting down on salt and salty food.

The fact is that obesity is caused by fluid retention, not by overeating or by not taking enough exercise. Almost everyone who is overweight is sensitive to salt and this means that for them, eating salt leads to some salt retention and thirst and a lot of the water in whatever they drink tends to get retained by the body. Slim people haven't got this salt sensitivity problem. Their bodies excrete any excess salt and excess water in the urine. This is why they remain slim. The overweight people have excess salt/sodium and water in their blood stream. If they substantially reduce their intake of salt and salty food they will lose weight fast and safely, without dieting or going hungry, and will feel much better and have more energy.

Prescription drugs including many steroids, many antidepressants, anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals, are a major cause of fluid retention/obesity and especially of morbid obesity. - Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, the fluid retention problem often leads on to fat retention - which, surprisingly, is not caused by eating too much fat, but by mineral deficiencies, principally calcium deficiency. - Read on:

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

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.

I used to think I was sort-of addicted to coffee

I used to think I was sort-of addicted to coffee because I so often felt the need of a mug of it, but years later I came to realise that I had simply been abnormally thirsty. - It was prescribed medication that had made me so very thirsty.

Sometimes you are prescribed a drug and told that it may cause 'dry mouth' as a side-effect. Sometimes neither 'dry mouth' nor thirst gets a mention. - Anyway, if you are finding yourself drinking a lot more, feeling a lot more thirsty day after day than you used to, wondering, as I did, whether you are becoming addicted to coffee or tea or some other beverage, maybe you too are actually experiencing a side-effect of some medication you are taking. - If that is the case, there is a strong chance that you are gaining weight, and gaining weight quite quickly.

The weight gain is from extra fluid (salt plus the water that accompanies salt/sodium). This extra fluid is held in your blood stream, causing the veins to be a bit/lot more swollen/dilated/distended than previously. - You have become 'sensitive to salt'.

The good news is that if you avoid eating salt and salty food, you will not only lose a lot of that excess fluid and so lose weight and have more energy, and improve your health in countless other ways, but you will also find you are not feeling compelled to think about food and drink all the time, and you may stop being 'addicted to coffee'.

Doctors who prescribe statins do not always warn patients of the adverse side-effects they may suffer.

Dr James LeFanu gives a further warning against the potential harm from taking statin medication.

Adverse side-effects from pharmaceutical drugs are very common. If, for instance, you gain a lot of weight after starting to take a pharmaceutical drug, it is most likely that it is the result of taking the drug, and the weight gain would be reduced by reducing salt intake, since the weight that is gained is mainly salt and water. My website explains all about this.

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

And see Sodium in foods

New report on cancer but it still avoids telling the whole truth about obesity and cancer.

Thousands of cancer cases caused by diet, alcohol and obesity, experts warn
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Cancer is not 'an act of God' in most cases and individuals can take action to dramatically reduce their chances of developing the disease, worldwide experts said.

After smoking, obesity, diet and physical activity are major causes of cancer and 39 per cent of the top 12 cancers in the UK could be prevented, the World Cancer Research Fund report said.

This equates to around 79,000 cases that could be prevented each year in the UK out of a total of around 289,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

If nothing is done to reduce cancer rates then 'this tide will engulf us', Prof Sir Michael Marmot, chairman of the expert panel said."

The experts are still not telling the truth about obesity and cancer. The main reason that both of these and many other related illnesses are on the increase is the misinformation about the causes of obesity and how to reduce/prevent it.

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.)

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, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

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

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

Millions more people could be put on statins to prevent heart attack experts said as research shows they are more effective than previously thought.

Statins cut risk of death even in healthy people, research finds
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"There have been calls for everyone over the age of 50 to be given drugs to lower the risk of a heart attack but this is controversial as many see it as needlessly medicalising healthy people.

Prof Roger Boyle, national director for heart disease and stroke, said the public was against a blanket approach to prescribe statins to everyone over 50 and so instead GPs will this year begin to assess the risk of a heart attack for all over 40s this year. He said the only constraint to the programme was how fast the assessments could be carried out and 'whether the public will accept the change from being a person to being a patient and taking medication long-term’.

“The research confirms the benefits of statins throughout the stages of heart disease and it is a powerful indicator of the safety of this kind of treatment,” he said."

I am, I STRESS, not a doctor and not medically qualified in any way. I do, however, have a brain and I use it. - To aim for everyone over the age of 50 to be taking statins - drugs with highly unpleasant side-effects for many people - every day for the rest of their lives is dangerous lunacy, calculated to benefit the drug companies and add to the power of the medical profession.

There is a drug-free and COST-FREE way to reduce high cholesterol levels and to reduce heart disease and heart attacks, stroke, high blood pressure and a myriad other degenerative diseases, and this way has no unpleasant side-effects; it is completely safe. - But the advisers to the government and the members of the medical profession who, like me, know the facts about salt sensitivity/fluid retention/obesity, etc, but unlike me, do not have the courage/honesty to tell the truth about it, do not dare to to do what is necessary. - The Food Industry needs to have legal sanctions put on the amount of salt/sodium it adds to its pernicious processed food and ready meals, and the public needs to be told the truth. The aim should be, within a reasonable time-frame, to eliminate added salt completely from most processed food. The Medical Profession needs to have legal curbs put on its ever-growing reckless prescribing of the many drugs that cause salt sensitivity/fluid retention/obesity, etc. The lies/misinformation about the causes of obesity, etc need to be forsworn. They are the main cause of suffering and early death in this country (and in America and some other countries).

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger 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 and

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

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

Study Confirms Antipsychotics Pose Heart Risk

Latest Generation of Drugs Provides No Safety Advantage; Warning on Children, Elderly
Patients taking the latest generation of antipsychotic drugs are twice as likely to suffer sudden cardiac failure and death as nonusers, according to a new study that found such medicines are no safer than the older ones they have largely replaced. Though the health risks of antipsychotic drugs for elderly patients have been previously documented, the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, was one of the largest to date, and it found dangers for younger adults, too. The study's findings add to a growing body of research questioning the safety, cost and effectiveness of so-called atypical antipsychotic drugs.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)

New pharmaceutical industry guidelines to try to restore public confidence in doctors' drug prescribing

New pharmaceutical industry guidelines should stop most drug companies from distributing a wide range of trinkets and office supplies designed to keep their brand names before doctors as a subliminal inducement to prescribe high-priced drugs. The new code, which kicked in on New Year’s Day, bars the free distribution of everything from pens to coffee mugs and staplers by some 40 drug companies that have agreed to the restrictions. That may seem like small potatoes, but in the aggregate the promotional products probably cost about $1 billion a year, as Natasha Singer reported in The Times. The updated rules are the industry’s latest attempt to restore public confidence that doctors are prescribing medicines in the patient’s interest. The code still has too many loopholes.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)

There are thousands of miles of blood vessels in the human body and every inch becomes a little swollen if they become weakened by dieting/'slimming'

There are many thousands of miles of blood vessels in the human body and every inch becomes a little swollen/distended/dilated if the blood vessels become weakened by dieting/'slimming'/fasting or relaxed by certain prescription drugs, e.g. tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, cortico-steroids, oestrogen-rich medications, anti-psychotics, certain painkillers, etc. - This means in effect that because of fluid retention with sodium and the water it attracts to itself, increased blood volume will cause you to gain excess weight.

When I googled to find how many miles I found different estimates - 60,000, 62,000 and 100,ooo miles. - You may possibly find other estimates; but it's clearly a helluva lot!

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.

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
Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in food

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Kevin P. Miller's Film "Generation RX" Reveals Widespread Ethical Conflicts, Risks of Psychiatric Drugs to Children

I have copied and pasted this post, from November 11th, and the comment that follows it, from Dr Rath's newsletter, as I have also done with some other posts. - See http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/

International award-winning filmmaker Kevin P. Miller announced today that his new film, "Generation RX" will be released on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 through the film's website at www.GenerationRxFilm.com. "Generation RX" addresses many of the alarming issues surrounding the growing use of ADHD drugs, antidepressants, and anti-psychotic medications among children and teenagers worldwide. "For decades, scores of doctors, government officials, journalists, and others have extolled the benefits of psychiatric medicines for children," said Miller, the film's writer and producer. "Generation RX unveils 'the rest of the story' and explains how this era of unprecedented change in Western culture really occurred -- and what price has been paid by society."
Read press release at prweb.com
Comment: "Generation RX" documents how an entire era of children have been caught in the middle of an unprecedented change in Western culture: that of drugging children with psychiatric medications earlier and more often than ever before. Kevin P. Miller's dynamic film has already garnered the support of some of the most respected names in Hollywood, including writer/director Paul Haggis, who won back-to-back Academy Awards for "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash." "Generation RX is a powerful and often chilling eye-opener. Weeks after viewing, the stories continue to haunt me," said Haggis.

J&J Paid $68 Million to Settle Birth-Control Cases

I found this webpage with lots of useful information about Orth Evra birth-control patches - http://www.birthcontrolpatchsideeffects.com/

Johnson & Johnson has spent at least $68.7 million to settle hundreds of lawsuits filed by women who suffered blood clots, heart attacks or strokes after using the company's Ortho Evra birth-control patch, court records show. J&J, the world's largest maker of health-care products, avoided trials through the confidential settlements and hasn't released the financial details to investors. Of 562 complaints reviewed by Bloomberg News, the vast majority of users alleged the patch caused deep-vein thrombosis, or blood clots in the legs, and pulmonary embolisms, or blood clots in the lungs. Some blamed it for heart attacks or strokes. The complaints blamed Ortho Evra for the deaths of 20 women.
Read article at bloomberg.com