Transplanted organs are likely to be less safe now because more donors are 'risky'

BBC News reported that the organs used in transplants are now, because of the shortage of donors, more likely to come from patients with a history of cancer or drug abuse, drinkers and heavy smokers, elderly donors and those with serious illnesses.

Extract from the article: “One patient who was given a kidney, which turned out to be cancerous and had to be removed, told File on 4 she had been so traumatised by the experience she had refused to put her name back on the transplant waiting list.

The woman said: “I felt as though my life had been ruined. I felt destroyed, my family was destroyed… my husband has to care for me now. When I was on dialysis before I was coping, now dialysis is worse.” “

My personal opinion is that transplanting organs that have a high likelihood of transmitting serious disease to the recipient is irresponsible in the extreme and should not be contemplated.

The way to deal with the problem of insufficient organs available for donations is to prevent so much illness occurring in the first place. – This would be very easily and rapidly achieved by telling the truth about prescription drugs, obesity and the salt connection.

Obesity is the main underlying cause of most chronic illness and a lot of frailty. It is therefore increasingly desirable to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity because this would reduce chronic illness, frailty and human suffering to a small fraction of what it is now. But this CANNOT be achieved by continuing to give the wrong information about the causes of obesity and about how best to reduce obesity.

Obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true. – The hypothesis has never been put to the test scientifically and there is certainly not a shred of valid evidence to back it up.

There is, however, a wealth of evidence to show that it is NOT true. – Millions upon millions of innocent overweight people have tried over decades to reduce their excess weight by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise. – Overwhelmingly they fail to lose weight this way. – They get tired; they feel cold and ill and hungry. – But they do not lose weight (or if they do it is only temporary). – The ‘experts’ then tell them that they have done it wrong; they haven’t tried hard enough or long enough; they are lying; they are mistaken, etc. – The ‘experts’ cannot get their heads around the fact that it is THEY who are wrong; THEY who are lying; THEY who are mistaken…

Obesity is largely caused/exacerbated by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Amitriptyline is also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, and is present in some combination drugs, e.g. Limbitrol is a drug which combines amitriptyline and chlordiazepoxide.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking Lexapro, Prozac, Fontex, Celexa and Paxil. These are not tricyclic antidepressants; they are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone and SK-Prednisone), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair – a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – amitriptyline and some other anti-depressants, some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

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, 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

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

The organs of nearly 700 British donors have been given to foreign patients, new figures reveal.

Hundreds of British transplant organs given to foreign patients
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"The controversial practice has seen patients from as far afield as China fly in for operations at NHS hospitals around the country.

The procedures have taken place despite a severe shortage of organs for transplant in the UK, putting British patients' lives at risk.

Nearly 8,000 people are currently on NHS waiting lists for a transplant, with 305 waiting for a liver and 226 for a lung.

Patient groups and politicians condemned the practice of making organs available to foreigners while so many British patients remain on waiting lists.

The Conservative shadow minister for health, Stephen O'Brien MP, said: "This is not about being xenophobic, but when there is such a shortage of available organs we first need to ensure that we can provide for British patients.

"Ministers must answer the serious questions at stake here. Why, when their organ donation policies are failing, have they presided over so many organs going to people living outside the UK?"

The figures, obtained by Mr O'Brien through a Parliamentary question, show that between 1998 and 2008, around 70 British organs have been transplanted into foreign nationals every year.

A total of that 603 livers have been given to foreigners over the ten year period, as well as 57 corneas, five kidneys and four hearts.

At the same time, only 140 foreign organs were imported into the UK to be transplanted into British patients.

Britain is obliged by European Union rules to make British organs available to all EU nationals. Non-EU nationals are only entitled to an organ if there are no suitable British or EU patients."

Proposal that law should be changed with regard to organ donation

Donation of organs 'should be automatic' - Telegraph

Extract:

"People should automatically have their organs removed for transplant after they die unless they opted out while alive, Britain's most senior doctor is expected to say tomorrow in his annual report.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, is expected to call for a change in the law amid fears that people are dying needlessly due to a shortage of donors.

Latest figures show that more than 7,300 Britons are on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant, a rise of about 30 per cent in the past 10 years.

Britain operates a system where organs can be removed only from people who have joined the donor register or carried a donor card.

Under a new system of presumed consent, which is supported by the British Medical Association, everyone would be treated as an organ donor unless they explicitly opted-out of the scheme while alive."

There wouldn't be all this organ failure if steps were taken to protect people from salt sensitivity by curbing reckless prescribing by doctors: corticosteroids, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants and other drugs which cause sodium and water retention, obesity and multiple organ damage are widely overprescribed, often in high dose, and the hapless victims taking them are usually inadequately monitored, if monitored at all, by doctors who have little or no knowledge of the practical consequences of taking them...)o: - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

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/.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

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

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

Transplants for slipped discs?

Patients with a slipped disc could be cured by transplant

Extract:

"Surgeons have pioneered a radical cure for the slipped disc, a common cause of back pain, by using transplants from donors.

In the first operation of its kind, orthopaedic specialists in Hong Kong replaced slipped discs in five patients, who had suffered long-standing pain, with discs removed from three women aged between 20 and 30 who had died in accidents.

The operations were performed between March 2000 and January 2001 and the five patients - four men and a woman then aged between 41 and 56 - were followed up for five years. The results, reported in The Lancet today, show the transplants were still functioning well in all the patients and their pain had improved. None of the patients needed immunosuppressant drugs normally given to transplant recipients for life.

A slipped disc occurs when the jelly-like disc of cartilage that acts as a cushion between two vertebrae in the spine, slips or prolapses so it is pressing on the nerves causing the muscles of the back to go into spasm."


Obesity is caused by fluid retention, not by overeating. - The usual cause of fluid retention is sensitivity to salt.
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)