Introduction Of New Diet Drug Misses Base Cause Of American Obesity Epidemic

February 27, 2012

Huffington Post

By Mark Hyman. M.D.

This week, in an act of desperation to turn back the tide of the obesity epidemic that now affects almost seven out of every 10 Americans and more than 80 percent of some populations (African-American women), the advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 20 to 2 to recommend approval of Qnexa, a “new” obesity drug that is simply the combination of two older medications, phentermine (the “phen” of phen-fen”) and topiramate (Topamax).

It is a misguided effort at best, and a dangerous one at worst. Mounting evidence proves that the solution to lifestyle and diet-driven obesity-related illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and even cancer won’t be found at the bottom of a prescription bottle.

By 2020, more than 50 percent of the U.S. adult population will have Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, with annual costs approaching $500 billion. By 2030, total annual economic costs of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. are predicted to exceed $1 trillion. By 2030, globally we will spend $47 trillion, yes trillion, to address the effects of chronic lifestyle-driven disease.

Prescription medication for lifestyle disease has failed to bend the obesity and disease curve. Statins have been recently found to increase the risk of diabetes in women by 48 percent. And large data reviews by independent international scientists from the Cochrane Collaborative found that statins only work to prevent second heart attacks, not first heart attacks, which means they are not helpful and most likely harmful for 75 percent of those who take them.

Avandia, the No. 1 blockbuster drug for Type 2 diabetes, has caused nearly 200,000 deaths from heart attacks since it was introduced in 1999. The drug was designed to prevent complications of diabetes, yet heart attacks are the very disease that kills most Type 2 diabetics. In 2011, the FDA issued stricter prescribing guidelines for Avandia, but the drug is still on the market.

The large ACCORD trial found in more than 10,000 diabetics that intensive blood-sugar lowering with medication and insulin actually led to more heart attacks and deaths.

Something is deeply wrong with our medical approach.

The problem of chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, is not a medication deficiency, but a problem with what we put at the end of our fork.

The emperor truly has no clothes. Why would good men and women of science vote to approve a medication for a condition that is a social disease and requires a social cure? The social, environmental, economic, and political conditions of America and increasingly the global community have created an obesogenic environment.

Clearly we need to do something. But it is not better medication or surgery or more angioplasties and stents, which have no proven benefit in more than 90 percent of those who receive them. The data show they work for acute coronary events, but not stable angina or blockages.

We continue to pay for expensive treatments for chronic disease, despite the fact that they don’t work, while insurance does not pay for nutrition counseling unless the patient has kidney failure or diabetes.

Chronic disease is a food-borne illness. We ate our way into this mess and we must eat our way out.

Click here for the full report from the Huffington Post.

Seven Diseases Big Pharma Hopes You Get in 2012

December 9, 2011

AlterNet

By Martha Rosenberg

“Detox, cleanse, Vitamin D3, exercise, eat organic, and you wont even get these diseases to begin with.”  –KTRN

It used to be joked that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is. These days, the opportunist is Big Pharma, which raises your insurance premiums and taxes while providing you “low-priced” drugs that you paid for.

How did Pharma get a good third of the United States taking antidepressants, statins, and Purple Pills, albeit at low prices? By selling the diseases of depression, high cholesterol, and gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. Supply-driven marketing, also known as “Have Drug — Need Disease and Patients,” not only turns the nation into pill-popping hypochondriacs, it distracts from Pharma’s drought of real drugs for real medical problems.

Of course, not all diseases are Wall Street pleasers. To be a true blockbuster disease, a condition must (1) really exist but have huge diagnostic “wiggle room” and no clear-cut test, (2) be potentially serious with “silent symptoms” said to “only get worse” if untreated, (3) be “underrecognized,” “underreported” with “barriers” to treatment, (4) explain hitherto vague health problems a patient has had, (5) have a catchy name — ED, ADHD, RLS, Low T or IBS — and instant medical identity, and (6) need an expensive new drug that has no generic equivalent.

Click here for the full report.

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 8-27-11

Today, Kevin explains where every ailment, every sickness, and every disease can be traced back to and how natural remedies are more effective than drugs and surgery.

Self Help:
Prevent Disease
Alternative To Sunlight
Decrease Your Cancer Risk
Get The Nutrition You Are Lacking
Avoid Processed Commercial Meat

Wealth:
51% of Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax
Americans Becoming Incompetent Due To Welfare System
Feds Oppose Ban On Food Stamps For Sodas In NYC

NWO:
Data Dealing Is A Bigger Scandal Than Phone Hacking
Why Do Feds Want To Keep Tucson Shooting Suspect Medicated?

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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 8-24-11

Today, Kevin gives you an overwhelming amount of evidence proving that nutrients found in food can indeed cure, prevent, and treat a disease.

Self Help:
Prevent Disease
Supplement Your Diet
Alternative To Sunlight

Everything Kevin:
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Support Kevin!
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Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
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Studies Confirm Link Between Cholesterol Drugs and Higher Rates of Diabetes

July 25th, 2011

Natural News

By: Ethan A. Huff

Seven years after the American Diabetes Association urged all diabetics, regardless of whether or not they had high cholesterol, to take statin drugs because they “may have some other qualities that have not been tested,”, a new analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that statin drugs actually cause diabetes.

The findings also confirm the general ineptitude of American disease and medical groups that continually push dangerous drugs on the public that have never been adequately verified for safety or effectiveness.

The study, which includes data from five randomized clinical trials, appears poised to highlight the alleged benefits of statins to lower cholesterol levels, rather than focus on their link to causing diabetes.

But what the study actually proves is that taking statins leads to more disease, especially in light of various recent studies that show statins do not even work effectively to lower cholesterol, let alone treat anything else.

Despite an slight decrease in cardiovascular events among patients taking statins like Lipitor, Pravachol, and Crestor, the data does not indicate whether other factors like dietary and lifestyle changes may have played a role in this outcome. And yet at the same time, the data shows an 8.4 percent rise in diabetes among the statin groups.

Aside from their many serious side effects, which include loss of muscle mass, liver disease, kidney failure, depleted Coenzyme Q10 levels, and heart attacks, statins have never been proven safe or effective for their stated purpose.

Numerous studies, including one published last year in the British Medical Journal, show that statins harm more people than they actually help — and in truth, there is scant evidence that statins do anything beneficial at all for patients.

In other words, patients with high cholesterol levels do not need to take statin drugs for the rest of their lives to manage their “condition” — this is not the only option.

Eliminating processed, chemical-laden foods from your diet, consuming more superfoods like spirulina and chlorella, and getting plenty of daily exercise is a great place to start when trying to lower cholesterol naturally.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 5-2-11

Today, Kevin opens your eyes to the propaganda machine we call the mainstream media! Plus, Law of Attraction expert and star of “The Secret”, Dr. Joe Vitale stops by the show to explain how you can have, be, or do anything and everything you desire!

Self Help:
Your Wish Is Your Command
Cleanse For Vitality
Get Rid Of Diabetes Safely

Health:
Commercially Produced Red Meat Lowers Sperm Count
Common Drugs are NOT safe
ADHD Drugs Are Useless
Statins Increase Your Risk of Cancer

Government:
Controversial YouTube Speech Goes Straight To The White House
Congress Trades Insider Information

Big Brother
The U.S. Government is Spying on You

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Change Diet and Lower Risk of Heart Disease By Over Eighty Percent

December 30th, 2010

Natural News

By: John Phillip

Nearly one million people fall victim to heart disease every year. The vast majority of these people are unaware that this devastating condition can be prevented with a natural approach to diet. Researchers from the European EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) study have developed a plan that can reduce the risk of coronary artery disease by 81%. Medical researchers understand that heart disease begins early in life and progresses to threaten life as we approach our senior years. The good news is that heart disease can be controlled and reversed by making simple changes to lifestyle and diet.

Drugs Can`t Fix Heart Disease
The typical patient diagnosed with heart disease is placed on a low fat diet and given a handful of medications including statins. Statins cause muscle pain in 40% of those who take them, and information from a study published in The Lancet journal confirms that this class of medication causes diabetes. Volumes of research confirm that high cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, yet it remains a popular target of treatment because it`s easy to lower with drugs. Similarly, a low fat diet perpetuates and worsens heart disease as it triggers continual blood sugar surges and high triglycerides.

Correcting the Real Cause of Heart Disease
The results of the EPIC study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine demonstrate that changes in diet could lower the risk of a heart attack by 81% through inflammation reduction and lowering blood pressure. The study highlighted four dietary factors that result in heart disease.

Refined Carbohydrates, Grains and Sugar: Processed foods have become a staple in the typical diet. These foods are loaded with simple carbs that quickly break down to glucose and cause rapid blood sugar spikes. This eventually leads to insulin resistance and damages the delicate inner endothelial lining of the coronary arteries. Cut all breads, pasta, rice, sugary treats and any foods made with wheat (including whole grain) or corn.

Excess Omega-6 Vegetable Oils: Vegetable oils are used in virtually all baked and processed foods to enhance flavor and increase shelf life. Excess amounts of vegetable fats trigger the release of inflammatory chemical messengers that increase oxidative stress and damage the vascular system. Vegetable oils are only stable at room temperature and should not be used for cooking. Avoid all fried foods and corn fed meats.

Omega-3 Fat Deficiency: Our modern diet is virtually void of health-sustaining Omega-3 fats that have been a part of the human diet for countless generations. The proper ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fats is ideally 1:1. Experts agree that many people are closer to a 20:1 ratio. This creates an imbalance and promotes systemic inflammation. Include tuna, salmon, sardines, nuts and seeds to balance your fat ratio or include a high potency fish oil supplement.

Oxidative Stress: The normal course of breathing, eating and moving generates free radicals that can damage our genetic structure and cause LDL cholesterol to become oxidized. We can`t avoid the process entirely but we can include healthy quantities of fresh vegetables, berries and targeted supplements to negate the effects of free radicals on our heart and other organs.

Heart disease is the leading killer of people in western society. Most of these deaths can be prevented by following a natural diet and adopting a healthy lifestyle. Reduce your risk of death from heart disease by making these changes today and live to pass the word to your great grandchildren.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

25% of Kids and Teens Take Prescription Drugs

December 28th, 2010

The Wall Street Journal

By: Anna Wilde Mathews

Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. “I want to be healthy, and I don’t want things in my heart to go wrong,” he says.

And, of course, his mom is always there to check Gage’s blood pressure regularly with a home monitor, and to make sure the second-grader doesn’t skip a dose of his once-a-day enalapril.

These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company’s database figures for 2009.

Doctors and parents warn that prescribing medications to children can be problematic. There is limited research available about many drugs’ effects in kids. And health-care providers and families need to be vigilant to assess the medicines’ impact, both intended and not. Although the effects of some medications, like cholesterol-lowering statins, have been extensively researched in adults, the consequences of using such drugs for the bulk of a patient’s lifespan are little understood.

Many medications kids take on a regular basis are well known, including treatments for asthma and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

But children and teens are also taking a wide variety of other medications once considered only to be for adults, from statins to diabetes pills and sleep drugs, according to figures provided to The Wall Street Journal by IMS Health, a research firm. Prescriptions for antihypertensives in people age 19 and younger could hit 5.5 million this year if the trend though September continues, according to IMS. That would be up 17% from 2007, the earliest year available.

Researchers attribute the wide usage in part to doctors and parents becoming more aware of drugs as an option for kids. Unhealthy diets and lack of exercise among children, which lead to too much weight gain and obesity, also fuel the use of some treatments, such as those for hypertension. And some conditions are likely caught and treated earlier as screening and diagnosis efforts improve.

Gage, who isn’t overweight, has been on hypertension drugs since he had surgery to fix a heart defect as a toddler, says his mother, Stefanie Martindale, a Conway, Ark., marketing-company manager.

Most medications that could be prescribed to children on a chronic basis haven’t been tested specifically in kids, says Danny Benjamin, a Duke University pediatrics professor. And older drugs rarely get examined, since pharmaceutical firms have little incentive to test medicines once they are no longer under patent protection.

Still, a growing number of studies have been done under a Food and Drug Administration program that rewards drug companies for testing medications in children. In more than a third of these studies, there have been surprising side effects, or results that suggested a smaller or larger dose was needed than had been expected, Dr. Benjamin says. Those findings underscore that children’s reactions to medicines can be very different than those of adults. Long-term effects of drugs in kids are almost never known, since pediatric studies, like those in adults, tend to be relatively short.

“We know we’re making errors in dosing and safety,” says Dr. Benjamin, who is leading a new National Institutes of Health initiative to study drugs in children. He suggests that parents should do as much research as they can to understand the evidence for the medicine, confirm the diagnosis, and identify side effects. Among the places to check: drug labels and other resources on the FDA’s website, published research at www.pubmed.gov, and clinical guidelines from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

When a child psychiatrist diagnosed their then 8-year-old daughter with bipolar disorder four years ago, Ken and Joy Lewis, of Chapel Hill, N.C., sought a second opinion from another child psychiatrist.

They also worked with a psychologist. Dr. Lewis, who leads a company that does early-stage drug studies, reads all the available research on each medication suggested for the girl, now 12, who has taken antipsychotics and other psychiatric medications including Risperdal and Haldol.

“If your child has a chronic problem, then you have to invest the time as a parent,” he says.

Parents and doctors also say nondrug alternatives should be explored where possible. Tom Wells, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who sees patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, frequently pushes diet and exercise changes before drugs for hypertensive kids. “Obesity is really the biggest cause I see for high blood pressure in adolescents,” he says. But only about 10% of families adhere to his diet and exercise recommendations, he says.

Beverly Pizzano, a psychologist who lives in Palm Harbor, Fla., spent years struggling with behavioral therapies for her son Steven, 10, who showed symptoms of ADHD at a young age. She worked with a counselor on a system of rewards for good behavior, and even had a research team watch him and suggest interventions. But she turned to medications after he struggled in kindergarten. “We tried everything before I would get to that,” she says.

After a drug is prescribed, children must be closely monitored, doctors say. They may not recognize or communicate a possible side effect, or whether their symptoms are improving. They also don’t always follow prescription instructions.

Robert Lemanske, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, says patients at his pediatric asthma clinic are checked regularly for side effects such as slowed rates of growth. He quizzes parents and young patients on details like where they keep their inhalers to make sure they’re taking their prescribed medicine.

Nichole Ramsey, a preschool teacher whose 9-year-old son Antwone is a patient at the clinic, watches her son’s basketball practices so she can head off any wheezing or other symptoms. She also makes sure she’s around when he gets his regular Advair dose. If Antwone stays at a friend’s house overnight, she asks the parents to watch that he takes steps like rinsing out his mouth to avoid a fungal infection that can be a side effect of the inhaled drug.

“You’re still the best monitor of what’s going on with them,” she says of a parent’s role.

Ms. Ramsey is particularly concerned about Advair, which has been tied to rare instances of asthma-related death, but says it works better than a previous drug he was using. Before he started the medications, Antwone was hospitalized several times for asthma attacks.

As children’s bodies change and grow, they often need different drugs or doses, says Greg Kearns, chairman of medical research at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

Jennifer Flory, a homemaker in Baldwin City, Kan., says that after her daughter Cassandra, now 16, started taking a higher dose of the asthma drug Singulair a few years ago, she became more moody and sad. Ms. Flory didn’t connect the change to the drug, but when she eventually mentioned it to a nurse practitioner at the girl’s asthma clinic, the nurse suggested stopping Singulair, which currently has a precaution in its label about possible psychiatric side effects. Cassandra, who continued taking Advair, became far more cheerful and didn’t have any increase in asthma symptoms, Ms. Flory says.

A spokesman for Merck & Co., which makes Singulair, said in a statement that the company is “confident in the efficacy and safety of Singulair,” which is “an important treatment option for appropriate patients.”

Click here for the full report from the Wall Street Journal

Statin Drugs Are Over Prescribed in Healthy People

November 18th, 2010

Natural News

By: S.L. Baker

Mainstream medicine has been calling for more and more people to be placed on “miracle” drugs known as statins that lower cholesterol. There have even been suggestions that statins should be sold over the counter or given out free when people buy junk, fat-loaded fast food. After all, the rationale goes, by lowering cholesterol, arteries won’t clog and heart attacks and strokes can be prevented.

However, there have long been two obvious flaws in that theory. For starters, high cholesterol along with most other cardiovascular risk factors can be lowered in most people naturally by lifestyle changes such as exercise, a healthy diet and keeping weight under control. Secondly, statins come with a host of dangerous and even deadly side effects, including liver damage, impaired brain function, sometimes irreversible muscle damage and eye disorders.

And now there’s a third reason not to jump on Big Pharma’s money making band wagon known as statin therapy. Johns Hopkins research just presented November 16th at the American Heart Association’s (AHA) annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago, gives clear evidence these drugs are over-prescribed. In fact, pushing these drugs as “preventive therapy” for future heart attacks in healthy men and women who don’t already have artery clogging calcium deposits is just plain bad medicine.

The new findings are from the Johns Hopkins-led Multi-Ethnic Study on Atherosclerosis, or MESA. The research was designed to be the first to pinpoint exactly who among the more than 6 million healthy American adults with normal blood cholesterol levels should be candidates for so-called preventive statin therapy.

According to results of the JUPITER trial (short for the Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: An Interventional Tool Evaluating Rosuvastin) published in 2008, the statin drug rosuvastatin (sold and widely advertised on television as Crestor), was effective in preventing heart attack and stroke in some individuals, all of whom had high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP). But when the Johns Hopkins team checked these findings with a new investigation — they came up with a dramatically different conclusion.

They selected MESA study participants, who met the same criteria used for the JUPITER study, from a pool of 7,000 ethnically diverse adults, including African Americans, Chinese Americans, Caucasians and Hispanics. All the 950 volunteers were monitored at Johns Hopkins and five other medical centers in North America.

The results showed that only the people with measurable buildup of artery-hardening calcium in their blood vessels had a high rate of heart emergencies over the course of the six year study. But almost half of the study participants had no detectable levels of calcium in their blood vessels and those people had a very low rate (about 5 percent ) of heart-disease related events — meaning that taking daily statin drugs as a “preventive measure” wouldn’t have offered any coronary protection. But taking the drugs would have exposed them to potentially serious side effects.

So, despite all the cholesterol measuring near-hysteria of past decades, the Johns Hopkins researchers are now calling for an emphasis on measuring coronary artery calcium deposits to find out who is really at risk of suffering a heart attack “It certainly is not the case that all adults should be taking it (statin therapy) to prevent heart attack and stroke, because half are at negligible risk of a sudden coronary event in the next five to 10 years,” lead investigator Michael Blaha, M.D., a cardiology fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, said in a media statement.

And remember all the media hype claiming that high levels of CRP in the blood are predictive of a future heart attack? Participants in the Johns Hopkins study were found to have varying blood levels of the inflammatory byproduct, which has been called a predictor of all kinds of coronary disease. But it turns out, according to the new research, that’s not true either. In fact, an elevated CRP score at or above 2 milligrams per liter offered no predictive value after established risk factors were taken into account, including age, gender, ethnicity, hypertension, blood cholesterol levels, obesity, diabetes, smoking and a family history of heart disease.

Bottom line: the new statistical comparison of results showed that few if any heart attacks or strokes would have been prevented within five years had anyone in the study taken statin drugs, unless there was already some calcium buildup in their blood vessels. But even in people with moderate calcium buildup, only one heart attack would have been averted in every 94 people treated, and one stroke in every 54.

“Statin therapy should not be approached like diet and exercise as a broadly based solution for preventing coronary heart disease. These are lifelong medications with potential, although rare side effects, and physicians should only consider their use for those patients at greatest risk, especially those with high coronary calcium scores,” study co-investigator and cardiologist Roger Blumenthal, M.D., a professor and director of the Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center at Johns Hopkins, emphasized in a press statement.

He also pointed out that as many as 5 percent of people on statins develop serious side effects, such as muscle pain. In addition, one in 255 will develop diabetes because of the drugs.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 10-6-10

Today, Kevin finally reveals the REAL reason why he disappears to Europe every year! You don’t have to look or feel as old as you are. Kevin knows where to find the Fountain of Youth.

Self Help:
The Royal Treatment
Reverse Aging
Become a Member!
Water Purification
Truth About 2012
Law of Attraction

Health:
FTC Goes After POM’s Health Claims
FDA’s Big Drug Problem
Americans Drowning In Prescription Drugs
Meet Big Pharma’s Newest Scam
Ben & Jerry’s to Finally Remove ‘All Natural’ From Labels
China’s Study Of Vegetarianism May Not Be So Accurate
Judges Ask FDA For Clarification Over What Is ‘Natural’
Germany Bans Cultivation of GM Corn
FDA Calls Lung Drug Misleading
Osteoporosis Drug Likely To Cause Cancer
Plastics Are Making You Fat
FDA May Approve Genetically Modified Salmon
Would You Like Statins With That?
Swine Flu Vaccine Safety Probed
Don’t Fall For The Latest Water Fad

Government:
CIA’s Secret Payments To Karzai Administration

NWO:
DC Uses GPS to Monitor Young Criminals
Massive Solar Storms To Hit Earth in 2012
The Wikileaks Saga Continues…

Wealth:
No End in Sight For Failing Banks

Everything Kevin:
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Kevin is on YouTube!
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