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.

Has Christmas excess left you troubled by bloating? - Try cutting down on salt and salty food.

Here are two definitions of bloating:

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

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

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

and see Sodium in foods and

vulnerable groups

Bloating associated with PMT

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

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.

Weight Loss. - What's the quickest, safest method?

Weight Loss. - What's the quickest, safest method?

Just cut down on SALT and salty food. - Honestly! - Don't knock it! - Try it!

Obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention/oedema and can be easily and safely reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium 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!

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

Many more Australians are now obese. - So what's new? Whilever the 'experts' continue to give the wrong advice, obesity will continue to increase.

Telegraph report on obesity in Australia

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

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

Reducing calories does not help with these problems. It is irrelevant to them. - Reducing salt is what helps. - By eating less salt and salty food you can easily and swiftly lose some of the excess water and thus lose weight - a lot of weight, since water is heavy. Unfortunately, dieting, by which I mean eating fewer calories than the body requires, tends to cause weight gain, since it weakens the walls of the veins even more, making them thinner and more accommodatng to extra fluid retention.

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!

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

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

Do you think that bribing overweight people to lose weight is likely to work? - I don't.

The NHS thinks
that paying overweight people to lose weight and keep it off for 6 months will cost less than dealing with the health problems caused by being overweight. I doubt that payment for weight loss will produce any lasting reduction in obesity because in order to lose excess weight people need to be told the truth about how to do it. The present advice that the NHS gives is to cut down on sugar, fat and calories and increase exercise. Following this advice does not reduce weight. - Dieting tends to increase weight, actually.

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

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

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

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

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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

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

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

Suffer from fluid retention? water retention? dropsy? oedema? sodium retention? salt sensitivity? - You will feel so much better if you eat less salt.

Eat less salt!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart 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.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

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