Obesity and the Salt Connection

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

A five-year-old boy, Fabio Nunes, died from a severe reaction to chickenpox after he was sent home from hospital.

Chickenpox kills boy sent home by doctors

Extract from the Telegraph:

"An investigation has been launched into the case of Fabio Nunes, who suffered multiple organ failure two weeks after he was seen by a doctor.

His parents, Ricardo and Anna, of Redhill, Surrey, claim that their son was not examined properly and should never have been allowed to leave East Surrey Hospital.

Mr Nunes, 35, said yesterday: "I strongly believe that if East Surrey Hospital had just checked him over properly he would be alive today.""

Thursday, May 15, 2008

A cancer patient returned home just two days after having his prostate removed thanks to pioneering surgery performed by a robot.

'Matilda the robot' performs prostate operation

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"The 'Robo Doc’ - or Matilda as the machine in more personally called by surgeons - carried out the procedure on 55-year-old surveyor David Roughly with greater precision than a human hand.

Mr Roughly was up and about within 24 hours after undergoing the operation at Manchester’s Christie Hospital thanks to the less invasive nature of the surgery.

Lower doses of anaesthetic are needed for the keyhole surgery under the robot’s steady hand, patients lose less blood and the chances of infection are lower."

"Surgeon Vijay Ramani said: “The robot is very sophisticated. With practice you can achieve the same or better levels or control as if you held the instrument yourself, rather than traditional keyhole surgery which is more like using chopsticks.

“This is the future of surgery because it radically reduces most of the risks associated with operations, but the technology enables us to see inside the body as well as performing an open operation and manipulate the instruments with high precision.

“David’s operation went well and his recovery was remarkable. As well as bringing benefits for patients, the machines will be cost effective because patients recover so much quicker - they can be discharged after one or two days and return to work after just a few weeks.”"

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

More than three million NHS patients are still being admitted to mixed-sex wards each year despite repeated promises by ministers to end this.

Mixed-sex NHS wards for 3m patients

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"A study published by the Healthcare Commission has also found that hospitals were getting dirtier, fewer staff were always washing their hands before touching patients and a fifth of people who needed help with meals were still not getting it.

Its survey of 76,000 inpatients in England – the largest of its kind – measured hospitals on factors that included quality of care, dignity and respect, privacy, waiting times, complaints and quality and availability of information."

"Last year, almost 13 million people stayed at least one night in hospitals in England, meaning that up to 3.2 million were admitted to a mixed-sex ward.

Nearly a third of patients also reported having to use a bathroom shared with members of the opposite sex.

Medway NHS Trust in Kent was the worst in the country for mixed-sex wards, with a score of 54.83. The Cardiothoracic Centre in Liverpool rated highest on 97.45.

Labour first promised to abolish mixed-sex wards in 2002 but after arguments over what constituted a ward or a sleeping area, Lord Darzi, the health minister and a practising surgeon, said single-sex wards were "an aspiration that cannot be met". "

At least 800,000 deaths worldwide have been caused by betablockers used to cut the risk of a heart attack after surgery, experts have claimed.

Betablockers 'have caused 800,000 deaths'

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Patients taking beta blockers, the cornerstone of treatment for heart disease since the 1970s, are a third more likely to die within a month of surgery and twice as likely to suffer a stroke, a study found.

Dr PJ Devereaux, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who led the research, which was published in the Lancet, said the drugs had cost more lives than they had saved and their use in surgery patients was based on inadequate research.

Guidelines established in 1996 by the American College of Cardiology recommend that beta blockers be used in all operations, except those on the heart. The advice was adopted worldwide but Dr Devereaux claimed that the guidelines were based on the findings of two small studies.

He said: "On a conservative estimate, if 10 per cent of physicians acted on the guidelines in the last decade, it would suggest that 800,000 people died unnecessarily and half a million had major strokes."

Worldwide, about 100 million adults undergo non-cardiac surgery every year and one million suffer major complications.

The use of beta blockers in these circumstances in British hospitals is not thought to be widespread."

Avoiding salt and salty food reduces the risk of heart disease and strokes.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Desk-bound office workers at double DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) risk

Desk-bound workers at double DVT risk

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"Office workers who sit at a desk for eight hours a day and spend more than three hours without stretching double their risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), scientists have warned.

A study has confirmed that sitting for long periods is as dangerous as flying for raising the risk of potentially fatal blood clots.

Researchers in Southampton and New Zealand questioned 200 patients who were admitted to hospital for either blood clots or heart problems and compared how long each group had remained sitting, both in total and in one period without getting up.

Prof Richard Beasley, from Wellington Hospital, New Zealand, said: "The risk of developing blood clots with prolonged seated immobility is largely unrecognised. However, this study has shown that it is at least as important a factor as long-distance air travel."

"He said more research should be carried out to establish how the workplace environment affects rates of deep vein thrombosis and whether chairs could be designed to encourage a healthy blood flow in the lower limbs.

It is estimated that about one in 2,000 people develop DVT each year in Britain.

Hospital patients who have recently had surgery are at greatest risk. Pregnancy and obesity also increases the risk."

Since obesity is a factor in developing DVT, you can reduce your risk of DVT by eating less salt and salty food because this reduces obesity.

Women can halve their chance of rheumatoid arthritis by breast-feeding their children for more than a year, researchers have said.

Breast is best to fight rheumatoid arthritis

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"Scientists compared 136 women with rheumatoid arthritis with 544 of a similar age who were free from the disease. They found that those who breast-fed for 13 months or more were 54 per cent less likely to develop the condition as women who had not.

Even women who breast-fed for between one and 12 months were 26 per cent less likely to suffer the disease."

"The study was published on the day that the singer Charlotte Church backed a Welsh Assembly campaign to encourage young mothers to breast-feed. Miss Church, 21, who breast-fed her eight-month-old daughter Ruby for six months, said she enjoyed bonding with her baby.

"Everybody knows mother's milk is best," she said."

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

Monday, May 12, 2008

Gordon Brown today pledged fundamental reform to social care of the elderly and disabled in England

Brown pledges shake-up of social care

Extract from the Guardian

"Gordon Brown today pledged fundamental reform to social care of the elderly and disabled in England as the Government warned that the system is facing a £6bn funding gap within 20 years.

The Prime Minister said it was "essential" that those people who worked hard and saved for their retirement were treated fairly in the provision of social care but he warned there was "no easy solution" to the problem.

"Of course, helping relatives is a challenge that most families rise to - however difficult it becomes," he told a breakfast meeting of leaders in the social care field, held at the King's Fund in central London.

"But that doesn't make it any easier. Nor does it remove family worries about providing physical care that is needed - or take away people's concerns that at some point in the future they may have to sell a treasured home to pay for their own care.""

Gordon Brown is mistaken. - There IS an easy solution to the problem.

1) Tell the truth about obesity and the salt connection

2) Greatly reduce the amount of salt/sodium allowed in processed foods and allow NO SALT AT ALL in food intended for children.

4) Tax salt very, very heavily.

5) Impose strict curbs on doctors' prescribing. Ban prescriptions for antidepressants as these have caused such great harm to vast numbers of people. Ban so-called 'slimming drugs'. Allow only certain appointed doctors to prescribe steroids - and ensure that these doctors have thorough knowledge of the side-effects of these dangerous, powerful drugs and that they keep strictly to the prescribing protocols for these drugs and that they warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while taking these drugs.

6) Criminalise and severely punish pharmaceutical companies that lie and conceal information about the harmful effects of their products. Imprison the personnel responsible for the lies and cover-ups, even if they are no longer in the company's employ.

7) Get the food companies to manufacture some convenience foods that contain no added salt at all for the benefit of steroid victims and others who need to avoid salt but are not well enough to do much cooking.

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

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

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

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug. Can GSK be trusted?

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug

Extract from The Independent

"The multinational drugs company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) downplayed an early warning about the rising number of people who have suffered heart attacks after using one of its drugs, abacavir. An anti-Aids medication, abacavir is taken by tens of thousands of people worldwide.

GSK was officially told of the possible risk in May 2005, three years before it issued a statement to its investors saying that the findings of an even stronger potential link between heart attacks and abacavir are "unexpected" and "unconfirmed". The company also said that it could find no association between abacavir use and heart attacks following a trawl through its internal data. However, it failed to mention that its own summary of product characteristics issued when the drug was launched in the late 1990s had described "mild myocardial degeneration" in mice and rats given the drug for two years.

Some scientists moni-toring the safety of Aids drugs are privately furious with GSK for downplaying the significance of one of the biggest safety trials of abacavir – one of several anti-virals taken by Aids patients in combined HIV therapy – when the findings were published last month.

"GSK was extraordinarily well prepared in terms of a statement that downplayed the significance of the findings," said a scientist close to the safety study. "As a consequence, people are confused. They think there is something wrong with the study because GSK said it cannot find evidence to support findings of a link with myocardial infarction [heart attack]."

Alastair Benbow, European medical director for GSK, said the company takes information about drug safety seriously but did not want to highlight what may be "spurious observations" about abacavir.

The first public sign that abacavir may be linked with increased heart attack risk emerged this April when The Lancet published the worldwide "DAD" study into adverse reactions to anti-HIV drugs after clinical observations of 33,347 Aids patients across Europe, Australia and the US.

The study found that the risk of having a heart attack in patients taking abacavir was almost double that of HIV patients who did not take the drug."

In fact there are MANY other prescription drugs that also increase the risk of heart attack: - all the drugs that cause weight gain, in fact. That is all tricyclic antidepressants, e.g. amitriptyline, most steroids, e.g. prednisone, prednisolone, HRT and some contraceptives, some anti-psychotics and many other drugs.

For your health's sake, you should avoid prescribed drugs if you possibly can.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, 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

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

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

Sunday, May 11, 2008

You are trying to read but your eyes glaze over and you fall asleep; you are watching TV but wake up when the programme is over...

Maybe you are not sleeping enough at night? - You can improve your sleep by cutting down on salt and salty food. - This would improve your health in many other ways too.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, 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.)

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Have your rings become too tight on your fingers? Do you need to buy larger/wider shoes because your feet have swollen? - The cause is fluid retention

Fluid retention is caused by sensitivity to salt and can be reduced easily and quickly by cutting down your salt intake.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, 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

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions