nipple rings and breast abscesses

Fortunately, most of my readers are of an age where we never went in for those body piercings: nipple rings, foreskin and all sorts of other unmentionables in polite society. I especially can’t stand the sight of weird metal things in the tongue, lips and over the eyes.

For one thing, I’ve never seen anyone with these metal objects that did not have a festering inflammation at the site of the piercing.

Secondly, I discovered 40 years ago and have been telling people ever since, that metal piercings create allergies. Not just allergies to nickel, in the earrings etc. But this spreads to a generalized metal allergy and that in turn can create sensitivities to foods, chemicals and environmental triggers.

Smoking is bad too. So put both these things together and we have something to fume about, right?

It seems smoking and nipple rings are a major risk factor in developing breast abscesses. The first surprises me somewhat; the second does not.

According to a study at the University of Iowa, nipple piercing is a risk factor for breast abscesses, with the development of abscesses occurring up to seven years after the piercing.

Smoking also greatly increases the risk of breast abscesses. Compared with nonsmokers, smokers were six times more likely to develop breast abscesses, the investigators found. And the condition was 15 times more likely to recur in smokers than nonsmokers, the researchers noted.

Other major risk factors for the condition include obesity and diabetes, the researchers noted.

Breast abscesses are painful inflammatory lesions that are difficult to treat and tend to recur at rates as high as 40 to 50%.

What upsets me is that these girls go out and have their teats mutilated, with never a thought for whether they will be able to perform their natural function later, when she gets pregnant. Scar tissue is inevitable around a piercing and the risk is it will block the milk ducts permanently.

Listen, I’m not against sexy body ornaments. But I prefer the kind you can take off and throw away, once the novelty has worn off! Otherwise it is just mutilation. I feel the same about tattoos, which are basically deliberate lifetime scars (you can’t get them off, once tattooed).

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Surgeons, news release, Aug. 3, 2010

Does Prayer Heal Disease… Really?

In my comprehensive eBook on cancer alternatives (Cancer Confidential), I addressed the question of whether prayer works for healing.

In medicine, we see the touch of God all the time, but it is called “spontaneous remission.” If it happens at a prayer meeting, then God gets the credit! Otherwise it is just said to be one of those inexplicable marvels of the human body.

Is there any science that tells us whether prayer is working or not? You bet!

Dr. Randolph Byrd, a Christian cardiologist, conducted a study in 1984 that has led to a resurgence of scientific evaluation of the effect of prayer on healing. Continue Reading >>

Are People Free To Wreck Themselves And We Should Pay The Price?

Is that a freedom or an entitlement? People who overeat and are obese should contribute to the inevitable extra healthcare costs, according to certain German politicians.

Naturally, there is an outcry, mostly from the opposition who would attack anything on principle. But emotions run high and comparisons with Hitler’s Nazi socialist principles have been used.

But wait a minute. Don’t WE have a freedom too? Don’t people who care about the social machine have freedom too, and a right NOT to pay for gluttonous monsters who overeat, despite all medical advice to the contrary, and then fall on the health care system as a financial burden?

I think we do.

Of course the protagonists in this war of words are chiefly the politicians, who are woefully ignorant of issues. One idiot said chocolate should carry a health warning. What, like this? Warning: chocolate can seriously improve your health and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer?

But there are balanced, reasoned views for the argument: “I think it’s sensible that people who knowingly live unhealthily carry a responsibility for it in a financial respect,” said Marco Wanderwitz, the conservative MP for the state of Saxony and also head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats’s group of young parliamentarians .

“The question must be admitted whether the immense costs that, for example, arise from excessive consumption of food, can be permanently paid out of the consolidated health system.”

“As with tobacco, we should tax the purchase of unhealthy consumer goods at a higher rate and pay that tax into the health system,” Wanderwitz said.

Germany’s health system is funded by a series of mandatory health insurance funds, all of which are reporting serious deficits as the system is overused.

Bild, the German newspaper, estimated that treatment for obesity-related illnesses cost Germany some $25 billion a year.

Well, it’s not just a problem in Germany. So who should pay all the extra costs? The gluttons, or the rest of us that can control our immoderate appetites and have the will to go out for some exercize now and again?

The Nazism comment was made by Drew Kaplan, a good Jew who, I suppose predictably, wants to see everything German as Hitler-oriented. Sorry Drew, I’m not Jewish, or Nazi, and I like to think I’m moderate and sensible, a little to the right of center. But I have rights too. What about me and others like me?

Locked-In Syndrome Paralyzed and Cannot Speak or Move.

Paralyzed and cannot speak or move. What would you do?

Locked-In Syndrome

I recently read an amazing book: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly by Jean-Dominic Bauby. It is very moving indeed. Bauby was the Editor-In-Chief at Elle, the fashion  magazine in Paris, France. He was witty, rich, sought after by women, worldly and handsome. He had it all.

Then, at the age of 42, he had a devastating brain stem stroke which left him totally paralyzed, unable to speak and move, yet fully conscious. We call this “locked-in syndrome”; the person is there, fully aware, but is unable to move and can’t communicate normally. [here's the film trailer from YouTube]:

It is a quite horrifying end for anyone but especially for Bauby, an intellectual and a socialite.

There was just one saving grace. Fate left him with the ability to blink his left eye. Pretty soon he was using this to communicate. He gained a kind of a life. Continue Reading >>

Vitamin D and Cognitive Function

Vitamin D does so much; it goes way beyond preventing rickets. We know it plays a role in cancer prevention, priming immune function, bettering heart disease and has even been suggested as a buffer against autism (when loaded with vitamin D, some children have made remarkable recoveries).

Now there may be a similar role in adult cognitive function.

Katherine Tucker, from Tufts University (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues studied more than 1,000 men and women, ages 65 to 99 years, receiving home care, assessing vitamin D blood levels (measured as 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or 25(OH)D) and conducting neuropsychological tests.

Those with adequate vitamin D scored significantly higher on tests of cognitive performance, particularly on measures of “executive performance,” such as cognitive flexibility, perceptual complexity, and reasoning, as compared to those in the deficient and insufficient categories.

What was perhaps shocking was that only 35% of the patients had adequate healthy  vitamin D blood levels.

[Jennifer S. Buell, Tammy M. Scott, Bess Dawson-Hughes, Gerard E. Dallal, Irwin H. Rosenberg, Marshal F. Folstein, Katherine L. Tucker. "Vitamin D Is Associated With Cognitive Function in Elders Receiving Home Health Services." J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2009 64A(8): 888-895; doi:10.1093/gerona/glp032.]

Be sure to supplement vitamin D (as D3) at a minimum of 2,000 IU daily. Up to 4,000 is quite safe and even then may barely bring a deficient person up to correct nutritional status of this remarkable and versatile vitamin.

Brush Your Teeth, Live Longer

Those of you who have read my book “Virtual Medicine” (if you haven’t, why not!), will have been surprised by my report that teeth can kill. It began as dental infections lodging bacteria in the heart and causing fatal widespread septicemia in the days before antibiotics. But 100 years later, by the end of the 20th Century, it had come around again despite antibiotics, that significant gum disease (periodontal disease) was a major risk factor for death by heart attack.

Now a brand new study (May 27, 2010) has re-inforced what I said. Teeth and gum infections are deadly. Consider this a minor installment on my anti-aging “outside the box” report which is coming up any day now.

Researchers in the UK analyzed data from over 11,000 people who were taking part in a study called the Scottish Health Survey. Patients were asked whether they visited a dentist at least once every six months, every one to two years, rarely, or never. They were also asked how often they brushed their teeth — twice daily, once a day, or less than every day.

The researchers found that 62% of participants said they went to a dentist every six months, 71% said they brushed their teeth twice a day.

After adjusting the data for cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, smoking, social class, and family heart disease history, the researchers found that people who admitted to brushing their teeth less frequently had a 70% extra risk of heart disease.

What’s more, people who reported poor oral hygiene also tested positive for important inflammatory markers such as fibrinogen and C-reactive protein, which themselves are predictors of early death. In other words, if you slouch on cleaning your teeth, you are very significantly more likely to die young. It may seem incredible but the pathways are clear, well demonstrated and the backup science is pretty well irrefutable.

Do you need me to tell you what to do? I think not.

[The study is published in the journal BMJ, published online May 27, 2010].

blood pressure machines fake high readings to sell medications

I received this email from a correspondent in Germany. It raises a provocative question and I think we should debate this. Please post a comment if you have any extra insight into this.

I have been a patient at a small cancer hospital in Germany for four of the last seven months. In Germany they have checked my BP practically every day and it is nearly always normal, with the diastolic pressure between 80-90 mmHg.

However, during this same seven month period, at times when I was not in Germany, and have had my BP checked by an American physician or dentist office they have nearly always found the diastolic pressure between 90-100, or some ten points higher than the Germans.

I have come to suspect that the US sphygmomanometers are intentionally mis-calibrated in order to sell blood pressure drugs. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Gary Clark

Cancer Overdiagnosis

What’s worse than being you’ve got cancer and you are at risk?

Well, possibly being TOLD YOU’VE GOT CANCER WHEN YOU HAVEN’T. That
also puts you at appalling risk. You’ll be given deadly chemo,
which can wipe out the immune system, throw up, diarrhea, lose your
hair… and it was all unnecessary. Just a bit of fast fraud by the
oncologist.

Now they are calling it “overdiagnosis” of cancer. I don’t mince
words: I call it crime.

I have reported several times in my newsletter and blogs that I
have discovered cases of fraudulent diagnosis of cancer. Continue Reading >>

Our skin is our most vital organ and ages fastest

Every thought of that? Our skin is precious because it not only makes us look good, it protects us from the harsh outer environment.

Recently I recommended a great anti-aging skin cream from Dr Al Sears MD. He’s the real deal as a medical expert, not some phoney paid off by a cosmetic company to spout pseudo-science.

I was totally convinced of Al’s “Revive” cream because of the amazing effect it had on my most special person: Vivien my wife.

WELL, I DIDN’T TELL YOU I’VE BEEN TRYING ANOTHER ONE CALLED COQ-TONER. THIS APPEALS TO BOTH MEN AND WOMEN.

As you age, your skin loses the ability to hold water and take in nutrients.  That leads to dry, sagging skin.  Al Sears found a simple and effective way to keep water in your cells and get more of the nutrients you need to give your skin that college-age glow.   This toner with CoQ10, Aloe Vera, Hyaluronic acid and other natural ingredients, will give you:

• A better, brighter complexion
• Reduction in the appearance of blemishes
• Smaller, tighter pores
• Tight, but elastic skin

It works on my manly mug so it will work on yours! I’m 64, feel 35 and look around 50 (except on those downer-days, you know the ones I mean!)

Read more about nutritionally formulated skin toner from Al Sears here…

Link: Pure Radiance

Disastrous Nutritional Advice Is The Real Sickness

The American Dietetic Association has come out with a new position paper. Surprise, surprise—they haven’t the faintest clue about nutrition! Sheesh, as cartoon Yogi Bear used to say!

As worldwide consumption of vitamin and other nutrient supplements soars in the $billions annually, these people are trying to save their own position by pretending it’s all an unnecessary hoax.

Just eat your greens and you’ll get all the nutrients you need is their “new” position.

And what do these dodos think is in the food on your plate these days? Agribusiness today is lethal to the world population masses. Its products are devoid of most natural nutrients. Many products we are almost forced to eat are actually counter-nutrient (like soy, in virtually all manufactured foods).

Then there is the problem that their suggested requirements are tragically, dangerously below needed levels. Take vitamin D: the official requirement here in the USA is 200 IU. The minimum for health and survival is 1500 IU; 2000 is better. I take 4,000. There are no toxic effects, even up to 10,000 IU and beyond.

200 IU is criminally wrong. It stops you having rubber bones and that’s ALL IT DOES. It’s nowhere near enough to fend off cancer and infections. Yet these dodos go on saying you get all you need from food. Thank God for sunshine, is all I can say.

One more: folic acid supplementation has been shown to be vital in preventing major birth defects, notably spina bifida. Across Europe the incidence of spina bifida increases as you travel to the west, reaching a peak in the west of Ireland. It’s so preventable, with simple folate tablets. It’s a crime to infer we get all we need from food. Often the food itself is nutrient deficient, as in this case.

But where these fools fall down so badly and why they are so dangerous in their message is that we are living in a highly stressful, toxic world. The sheer volume of chemicals we are exposed to means that our natural defence mechanisms are completely overwhelmed in struggling to detoxify.

We need, today, AT LEAST 100 times the natural levels of glutathione in our bodies. Glutathione is the #1 detox substance. But for every molecule of toxin removed, we lose a molecule of glutathione. It needs constantly replacing at a higher level than ever before. It’s simply not possible to get enough precursors to necessary substances like glutathione.

Look, let me put this nonsense to you in another way: nutrition is the main requirement, the main pathway to health. The American Dietetic Association is so far removed from any understanding of the real needs of nutrition that their country has now dropped to #35 in the world table of healthy nations.

Nuff said.

[December 2009, Journal of the American Dietetic Association]