Was it the medication prescribed by your doctor that made you fat?

Maybe you've sometimes wondered whether it was the medication prescribed by your doctor that made you fat. Check out the prescription drugs mentioned on this page and on this. If you conclude that your weight gain may have been caused by one or more or these drugs, then you can easily reduce that excess weight by cutting down on salt and salty food. - Why not try it? It is a safe, fast, effective way to lose weight, lower high blood pressure, reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, of stroke, of heart attack and heart disease, reduce your risk of most cancers and of depression, cognitive decline/dementia/senility, frailty, falls and fractures, and a host of allied health problems. - What's not to like? - You will feel sooo much better!

Study finds both high and low levels of salt consumption are linked to higher risk of heart attack, stroke and congestive heart failure

Consumption of too much, and too little, salt may be linked to a higher risk of heart-related hospitalisations and deaths, according to a new study.
Read article at foodnavigator-usa.com

But the researchers seem to me to be confusing association with causation. - When consumers know themselves to be sensitive to salt/sodium and/or know themselves to have high blood pressure, for example, they are likely to reduce their salt intake as a sensible precautionary measure. - Thus their low salt intake is not the cause of their increased risk of cardiovascular events, but the intentional consequence of knowing themselves to be vulnerable to adverse consequences if they were to eat more salt. I myself would certainly have died years ago, had I not reduced, and gradually eliminated, my consumption of any food containing added salt, thereby reducing both my extremely high blood pressure back to 'normal', and my obesity due to fluid retention. See my Mensa article about this.

Painkillers linked to increased risk of heart problems

Commonly used painkillers for treating inflammation can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, according to an analysis of the evidence published in the British Medical Journal. The drugs include traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) as well as new generation anti-inflammatory drugs, known as COX-2 inhibitors.
Read article at physorg.com

Clinicians should conform to the recommended protocol when prescribing steroids.

I quote extracts from a standard textbook in the section on steroids: "Electrolyte Balance. – This group of drugs leads to retention of sodium and water and loss of potassium through the kidneys. Oedema of the ankles and eventually hypertension may develop…The correct dose of a steroid is the minimum amount of drug required to produce the desired effect…Patients taking steroids should be seen regularly and the following points noted: General appearance – any evidence of Cushing-like appearance…Blood pressure…Blood electrolytes must be estimated in patients undergoing prolonged therapy with these drugs…A close watch should be kept for undue potassium loss or sodium retention…"

There should be a STATUTORY requirement for health professionals to ABIDE by strict rules with regard to prescribing and monitoring steroids and HRT. Then there would not be new victims created every year, as is presently the case.

When I was initially prescribed oral HRT it included a high (unknown to me) dose of oestrogen and I was kept on that dosage for years before my blood oestrogen levels were measured (at my insistence and privately at my financial cost, my G.P. (now retired) having falsely maintained that he was not allowed to get the levels measured) and were found to be DANGEROUSLY high. There had been NO routine monitoring and care whatsoever. I had been laughed at when I queried the weight gain, explaining that I was definitely not over-eating. - I was routinely assumed to be lying, and my anguished reports of pain, principally in my feet and in my swollen, blood-gorged breasts, were sneered at and I was regarded as a hypochondriac. My increasingly troubling high blood pressure went ignored and largely unrecorded until the intervention of a surgeon whom I consulted prior to having a hysterectomy. He had recognised immediately on seeing me that I had high blood pressure. (Why don't all doctors know about the connection between high blood pressure and a red face?)

My blood electrolytes were not measured until 1998, when I tackled the endocrinologist about her negligence – by which time I had been on HRT for over ten years!

The endocrinologist told me she knew NOTHING AT ALL about Sodium Retention! Well I contend that if a specialist knows nothing, and is content to know nothing, about the principal danger listed as a side-effect of a drug, the prescription of which is her responsibility, then it is a scandalous state of affairs. And if specialists don’t know (and, by implication, don’t care, since she had made no effort over many years to inform herself on the subject), it is unlikely that GPs are any better informed. My own GPs appeared to know nothing about it. And GPs are the main prescribers of HRT and other steroids.

Had I been correctly monitored as detailed in the protocol I would have been spared the nightmare weight gain that was oedema, and the high blood pressure, the intense, sustained pain of overstretched blood vessels and overstretched, ever-thinner skin, etc. If I had even just been given the VITAL information that to avoid/minimise the huge increase in the salt and water content of the bloodstream I needed to avoid salt and salty food, I could have been spared monumental unnecessary suffering and harm.

Even now, obese steroid victims and other obese victims of the injudicious prescribing of drugs that cause sodium and water retention are not being told that to lose some of the excess weight/fluid they carry round with them. they need to minimise their intake of salt and salty food. This critically important information would transform their lives. As well as reducing their overweight it would lower any high blood pressure, lower cholesterol (if anyone is bothered about it), reduce their risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, dementia and cancer, and benefit their health in countless other ways too.

Note: I must STRESS that once a person with a salt problem lowers salt intake and loses weight, there needs to be a lifetime commitment to a lowered salt intake. If the previous salt intake is resumed, the weight will return because of the weakened, over-stretched veins. And it is very much more difficult to lose the weight a second time, because high Blood Volume damages the kidneys, which find it harder to deal with sodium.

Read about weight gain caused by steroids and HRT and

my Mensa article about Obesity and the Salt Connection and

the scandalous politics of the situation.

If you take diabetes drug Avandia and missed Panorama's programme last Monday, I URGE you to watch it via iPlayer.

You can read in this BBC News report about the risks incurred by taking Avandia, a drug manufatcured by GlaxoSmithKline, but I urge you to watch the Panorama programme itself on iPlayer so that you have a fuller understanding of the seriousness of the risks to your health posed by taking this drug.

Drug companies are not in business for your health; they are in business for their profits. Their reassurances about the safety of their products cannot be trusted. They have a long, scandalous history of lies, evasions and corruption.

I have written about this drug before. If you click on the Avandia tag beneath this blogpost you will be able to read my earlier posts about it.

If you have already developed fluid retention/weight gain as a side-effect of taking Avandia or any other prescription drug, you can reduce this by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food.

If you take Avandia for type 2 diabetes, Panorama tonight has a programme about it (A Risk Worth Taking?) on BBC1

As BBC News reports, even though the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said Avandia's use should be suspended, it is still available on the NHS. Avandia is linked to increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure.

"Prof [Edwin] Gale, who chairs the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on diabetes, said Avandia should be withdrawn entirely.

"How long do you wait? How important is it to be absolutely certain and at what point do you start saying - this game isn't worth it, people's lives may be at risk, something should be done about it?" he said.

Clinical pharmacologist Dr Yoon Loke, of the University of East Anglia, said his analysis of the class of drug showed that it doubled the risk of heart failure, regardless of whether or not the patients were considered at high risk before they took the drug."

Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) use in adolescents linked to doubled risk of asthma

New evidence linking the use of acetaminophen to development of asthma and eczema suggests that even monthly use of the drug in adolescents may more than double risk of asthma in adolescents compared to those who used none at all; yearly use was associated with a 50 percent increase in the risk of asthma.
Read article at physorg.com

Comment by Dr Rath Foundation: Based upon research involving more than 300,000 13- and 14 year old children in 113 centers throughout 50 countries, the results of this study follow hot on the heels of independent research that links acetaminophen (Paracetamol) not only to asthma but also to hearing loss and adverse vision events. As such, as the leading cause of liver failure in the United States and carrying a much increased risk of stroke and heart attack, it is becoming increasingly clear that the dangers of acetaminophen are far higher, and more numerous, than the business with disease and its friends in the drug regulatory agencies would have you believe.

Criticism mounts on GSK re Avandia, its diabetes drug widely regarded as unsafe

See the Telegraph article. Incredibly Glaxo's response has been, ""Since 2007 we have seen results from six controlled clinical trials looking at the cardiovascular safety of Avandia. Together they show that this medicine does not increase the overall risk of heart attack, stroke or death."" - And the band played believe it if you like...

Glaxo playing the wide-eyed innocent sits oddly with the ghastly history of the usage of this drug, and the tactics, including intimidation, GSK have employed to try to suppress the facts about its adverse effects. You can read some of that history here: http://wildeaboutobesity.blogspot.com/search/label/Avandia.

Omega 3 fish oil is being recommended to help prevent heart attacks

The Telegraph reports yet another benefit from taking omega 3 fish oil each day: less chance of having a heart attack. This fish oil is already believed to protect against strokes and some forms of cancer. Speaking personally, I take omega 3 fish oil capsules every day and I believe they do me good.

Another safe way to reduce your risk of heart disease/heart attack/stroke is to cut down on salt/sodium intake.

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

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.

Yet Another Plug for Healthy People to Take Statins...

The Telegraph reports that statins are once again in the news, with researchers again advocating that healthy people should take statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs. An extraordinary claim is made in the report:

"Cathy Ross, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "It is well established that most people with heart and circulatory disease benefit from taking statins.

"This study brings together evidence from several clinical trials to highlight that statins can benefit people who don't have symptoms of heart and circulatory disease, termed 'primary prevention'."

I urge you to read about nnt (number needed to treat) here. There you will find that very few people actually do benefit from taking statins. The vast majority of people who take them do not benefit, despite having the bother of taking them every day for years.

Far more people experience unpleasant side-effects from statins than benefit from them. The chief benefit of statins is to the drug companies who manufacture and sell them.

The best, cheapest, and most effective way to lower your risk of heart attack, reduce heart disease, lower high cholesterol levels, lower high blood pressure, reduce excess weight and benefit your health in a host of other ways with no adverse side-effects whatsover is to reduce your intake of salt and salty food as much as you can. Salt/Sodium reduction is of especial benefit to people who already have heart and circulatory disease or high blood pressure, or are overweight, etc. Salt reduction is real 'primary prevention'.

I don't know why the British Heart Foundation persists in banging the drum for statins, instead of stressing the many huge benefits of sodium reduction. - What's in it for them? Why do they want more and more people taking drugs - even when there is nothing the matter with them? - What's in it for them?

Very often it is prescription drugs that cause heart problems, etc. in the first place...)o: - drugs like steroids, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, antipsychotics and many more that are frequently over-prescribed and frequently unmonitored. It's best to avoid prescription drugs unless you feel they are really necessary. As a whole, they do far more harm than good.

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

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

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

Do you wish there was a way to lower blood pressure without taking drugs? - Good news! - There is! - Cut down on 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 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.

Painkillers Double Risk of Second Heart Attack or Death in Study

Heart attack and heart failure patients have a higher risk of a second heart attack or death if they take painkillers including the generic drug ibuprofen and Pfizer Inc.'s Celebrex, a Danish study found. The risk doubled within the first 90 days on the painkillers Celebrex or Merck & Co.'s withdrawn Vioxx in those who had survived a heart attack or heart failure, compared with those who didn't take the medications, according to research presented today at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Other common painkillers, such as the generics diclofenac and ibuprofen, increased the risk between 2.1 and 1.3 times.
Read article at bloomberg.com

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

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

Further study findings about Vioxx adverse side-effects

Study: Vioxx risk lingered after use of painkiller
A doubled risk of heart attack, stroke and death persisted at least a year after people stopped taking withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, according to an analysis of long-term data from the study that led drugmaker Merck & Co. to stop selling the drug.
Read Associated Press news report at google.com

Diabetes sufferers warned aspirin increases bleeding risk.

Diabetes sufferers warned aspirin increases bleeding risk
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Many diabetics take the drug to thin the blood and reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack, the main cause of death from the disease.

But a new study suggests that taking the medication could be doing more harm than good.

Scientists have shown that aspirin does not cut the risk of a heart attack for even high-risk diabetics, unless they previously suffer from heart disease.

But the drug is known to increase the risk of bleeding in the gut.

Scientists at the University of Dundee gave 1,276 diabetics aspirin, an antioxidant or a placebo, and followed their progress over eight years.

They found that neither the aspirin or the antioxidant reduced the risk of suffering a heart attack, even in the groups at high risk.

Professor Jill Belch, who led the study, published on BMJ.com, the website of the British Medical Journal, said that aspirin should be given only to patients who have already been diagnosed with heart disease or suffered a stroke."

It has long been known that aspirin increases the risk of bleeding in the gut. I remember in 1994 when I had a major operation, the surgeon who did the operation warned me to avoid aspirin because I tend to bleed easily, so it was certainly well known all those years ago. - This new research is unambiguous - that aspirin does not reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke, even in groups at high risk, unless the patients have already been diagnosed with heart disease or suffered a stroke. - Why then have people been advised for years that low-dose daily aspirin lowers the risk of having a heart attack or a stroke? - There cannot have been evidence to support the advice because this research shows that the advice was WRONG. - Obviously THE ADVICE WAS GUESSWORK ON THE PART OF SOMEONE IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION...)o: - GUESSWORK THAT MUST HAVE HARMED MANY PATIENTS OVER THE YEARS...)o:

Like the guesswork that was responsible for mothers being advised to lay their babies on their tummies to go to sleep although there was no evidence to support the idea that this was the safest way for babies to sleep. - After Anne Diamond, the former TV presenter, tragically lost a baby to cot death, she instigated research into this and the research showed that this position could cause cot death and that the safest position for a baby to sleep is on its back, and now mothers are given the right advice - "BACK TO SLEEP!"

Anne Diamond's response to her personal tragedy has resulted in babies being safer when sleeping in their cots and she must have saved many families from the grief of avoidable cot deaths.

DOCTORS SHOULD NOT BE GIVING ADVICE THAT IS PURELY GUESSWORK, WHILE IMPLYING THAT THERE IS RELIABLE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT WHAT THEY SAY.

THE MAIN AND MOST IMPORTANT GUESSWORK THEY MADE DECADES AGO AND HAVE STILL NEVER BOTHERED TO TEST FOR ACCURACY - BECAUSE IN THEIR ARROGANCE THEY DECIDED THEY MUST BE RIGHT AND THERE WAS NO NEED TO CHECK - IS THE HIGHLY DANGEROUS AND EXTREMELY HARMFUL ADVICE TO OVERWEIGHT AND OBESE PEOPLE THAT TO LOSE WEIGHT THEY MUST EAT LESS FOOD/FEWER CALORIES/LESS FAT. - THIS ADVICE IS UNTESTED, UNSUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE AND CATEGORICALLY IT DOES NOT WORK!

I wonder which patients, rich enough to go to law, brave enough to take on the over-powerful medical profession, and not too ill and exhausted to cope with the Law's delay and obfuscation, will be the first to sue the members of the medical profession who have done them so much harm with their damaging, useless advice and insults?

Overweight and obesity are caused by fluid retention, and occur only in people who are sensitive to salt/sodium. - To lose excess weight it is necessary to cut down on salt and salty food. - So instead of eating a ready meal you need to cook a meal from fresh ingredients and use little or no salt to flavour it. - You could try using pepper or herbs instead of salt, or if you feel you cannot yet give up salt, then use a little of one of the low sodium salt substitutes, e.g. LoSalt, Solo Low Sodium Sea Salt or AlsoSalt, instead of ordinary salt.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, dieting, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

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

If you need my help, I can be contacted from my website. - My help is free.

A bit more about Inegy, the cholesterol lowering drug that 'increases risk of cancer by 50 per cent'

Cholesterol lowering drug 'increases risk of cancer by 50 per cent'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract 1:

"Researchers found there were 105 cases of cancer in people taking Inegy compared to 70 in those on a dummy drug over a four year period.

The study also suggested that Inegy, which combines a statin called simvastatin and another drug called ezetimibe, has little effect in reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Prof Heinz Drexel, of the University of Innsbruck in Austria and spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, said: "I am not sure that the efficacy is proven and I am not sure that the safety is proven. I wouldn't take the drug myself.

"In patients with an urgent need to reduce cholesterol I would give them the drug but that is they are the exception and that is not consistent with how it is being used currently. "It is being more widely used than I think it should be. We can use something else in patients whose cholesterol is not sky high."

In the last two years 300,000 prescriptions for Inegy were dispensed in England and Wales and between four and five million people are thought to be taking standard statins."

Note well that Prof Heinz Drexel would not take Inegy himself! It's rare for a doctor to speak as forthrightly as that.

Extract 2:

"There was also a higher proportion of deaths from cancer with 39 deaths in the Inegy group and 23 deaths in those on the placebo.

The cancers in both groups were across all major areas of the body including the skin and lungs, according to the findings, which were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine."

The best and the completely safe way to reduce the risk of most cancers is to avoid prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary and rigorously avoid salt and salty food and make sure you eat plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables.

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!

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Scientists believe that one in three of all those at risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the next decade have not been diagnosed.

Four million unaware of heart attack risk, study shows
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Earlier this year ministers announced plans to introduce heart screening checks for people aged 40 to 74 across the country.

Professor Andrew Neil, who led the research team, said: "Our findings reinforce the need for a national CVD risk assessment programme and we welcome the announcement by the Department of Health that plans are being put in place to institute primary care checks.

"Our research found that 75 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women who were over 50 already had CVD or diabetes, were taking cholesterol or blood pressure drugs or were at high risk of developing CVD.""

The common significant causative factor in all these health problems is salt sensitivity. Unfortunately people are very rarely told about this. - You can reduce your risk of all these health problems and many more by cutting down on salt.

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!

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION