April 25th 2019
Thank you to those of you enquiring after my health. I have had a horrible cough and cold and proper ‘man flu’ for the last couple of weeks, now settling. Before that, skiing, before that lecturing. But enough about me.
Over the last few weeks I have watched a flurry of activity from all directions, as the attacks on red meat and saturated fat intensify. Walter Willett must be writing up a new research paper every five minutes, such is the wealth of material he has cascaded down upon a grateful world in recent weeks (I suspect others may be doing much of the heavy lifting on his behalf).
It also seems that the Lancet has given up any pretence of being an objective seeker of the truth. Instead, the Lancet appears to have become a mouthpiece for the vegan movement. Here is what the Lancet has to say about their new EAT-Lancet project.
‘Food systems have the potential to nurture human health and support environmental sustainability; however, they are currently threatening both. Providing a growing global population with healthy diets from sustainable food systems is an immediate challenge. Although global food production of calories has kept pace with population growth, more than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume low-quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to a substantial rise in the incidence of diet-related obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, including coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. Because much of the world’s population is inadequately nourished and many environmental systems and processes are pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed.’1
Many out there probably agree with much of this statement, especially the parts about environmental sustainability and insufficient food to feed many people. However, even if you do, you have to ask what an investigative medical journal is doing in this space. There is no longer even an attempt to be mildly objective. The Lancet has simply taken sides. Which is the exact opposite of what any scientific journal should ever, ever, do. You may notice that Professor Walter Willett was the lead author of the article quoted above
Here is one statement that I would like to further highlight. Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined.’
At this point I completely part company with Walter Willett. For it is the most complete and absolute nonsense. For a start, how did he calculate the figures? For example, sexually transmitted disease – and death. How many people die of this? How many people suffer, and by how much? Do we have any idea?
Well, we know that many children die from congenital syphilis. How many around the world? I checked the WHO publications on this, and there are only estimates to be had. HIV? Gonorrhoea? Hundreds of millions that are infected, and affected, but how many millions? How many deaths? Unknown really.
We can perhaps be a little clearer on the other things such as cigarette smoking. Just looking at one country, the US:
‘Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.’ 2
The US population is around three hundred million. The population of the world around seven billion. If 480,000 deaths a year occur in the US, this would equate to eleven million deaths a year around the world.
Alcohol?
Around the world, about 1 in 5 adults were estimated to drink heavily in any given 30-day period. The burden of ill health for alcohol was less than for tobacco, but still substantial: 85.0 million DALYs [Disability adjusted life years]. Alcohol-related illness was estimated to cause 33.0 deaths per 100,000 people worldwide.3
Thirty-three deaths per 100,000 people worldwide is two point three million deaths each year from alcohol, worldwide. As for ‘illegal’ drug deaths.
‘Globally, UNODC estimates that there were 190,900 (range: 115,900 to 230,100) drug-related deaths in 2015, or 39.6 (range: 24.0 to 47.7) deaths per million people aged 15-64 years. This is based on the reporting of drug-related deaths by 86 countries.’4
This figure seems low, based on the CDC review of drugs deaths in the US
‘70,237 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in 2017. The age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths increased significantly by 9.6% from 2016 (19.8 per 100,000) to 2017 (21.7 per 100,000). Opioids—mainly synthetic opioids (other than methadone)—are currently the main driver of drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017 (67.8% of all drug overdose deaths).’ 5
70,237 in the US would extrapolate up to 1.623 million deaths a year worldwide. Maybe other countries don’t hand out opiods like sweeties to everyone. Although, in the UK, we are certainly following suit.
So, we have some figures to go on. Somewhere in the fifteen to twenty million per year killed by unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use each year. Who knows what the morbidity might be?
This is a gigantic figure, and we are supposed to believe that unhealthy diets are worse than this? I would challenge Walter Willett to find a single randomised controlled clinical study demonstrating that any dietary substance has significantly increased the risk of death in anyone, ever.
By unhealthy, of course, what the authors mean is animal fats/saturated fat, red meat, bacon, sausages and suchlike. Essentially, anything that is not vegan.
What of saturated fat? The last time it was possible to get an accurate assessment of saturated fat and deaths from CHD in individual countries was in 2008. After that, the figures mysteriously disappeared. Luckily Zoe Harcombe kept a copy and sent it to me.6
From these figures, I present you with a graph. Sorry, it is a bit complicated. So, please take a little time to study it, because it has two axes. The percentage of energy from saturated fat in the diet is the top axis, going from 0% up to 18%. As you can see from this, saturated fat intake is highest in France at 15.5%, and lowest in Georgia at 5.7%. Second lowest Azerbaijan, then Ukraine, then Russia.
The other axis looks at deaths from CHD. With the highest being Russia, then Georgia, then Azerbaijan, then the Ukraine.
The fact that stands out is that the countries with the lowest saturated fat intake had, on average, six times the rate of death from CHD, in comparison to the four countries with the highest saturated fat intake. I like to wave this graph at people who tell me that saturated fat in the diet is the single most important risk factor for CVD. I also like teasing vegans with it. Although they rarely respond well to teasing – as you may imagine.
I would also like to enquire of Walter Willett what he makes of data like this? I presume he would just ignore it, or point to the vegetarians of La Loma California, or suchlike. But, as any scientists know, you cannot just pick and choose populations you like and ignore those that you don’t. Nor would I dream of saying that, from this graph, we can prove that saturated fat intake protects against CVD. However tempting that may be.
But I know that this is what the EAT-Lancet are likely to do, along with all other researchers who simply ignore things they don’t like. In fact, the games played to prove that saturated fat is bad for you, twist the fabric of logic well beyond breaking point.
Which takes to me to favourite paper of all time. ‘Teleoanalysis: combining data from different types of study.’ Published in the BMJ more than fifteen years ago. 7
The paper makes this statement:
‘A meta-analysis of randomised trials suggested that a low dietary fat intake had little effect on the risk of ischaemic heart disease.’ Good, I like that. It seems astonishingly accurate. Randomised trials on dietary fat have had no effect. Which is the point where this paper should really have fallen silent.
But no, the authors decided that we should ignore these pesky studies a.k.a. evidence. Instead we should use teleolanalysis. I shall now quote directly, and heavily from the papers itself.
‘Once a causal link has been established between a risk factor and a disease it is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine directly the dose-response relation. For example, although we know that saturated fat intake increases the risk of ischaemic heart disease, the exact size of the effect cannot be established experimentally because long term trials of major dietary changes are impractical. One way to overcome the problem is to produce a summary estimate of the size of the relation by combining data from different types of study using an underused method that we call teleoanalysis. This summary estimate can be used to determine the extent to which the disease can be prevented and thus the most effective means of prevention. We describe the basis of teleoanalysis, suggest a simple one-step approach, and validate the results with a worked example.
What is teleoanalysis?
Teleoanalysis can be defined as the synthesis of different categories of evidence to obtain a quantitative general summary of (a) the relation between a cause of a disease and the risk of the disease and (b) the extent to which the disease can be prevented. Teleoanalysis is different from meta-analysis because it relies on combining data from different classes of evidence rather than one type of study.
In contrast to meta-analysis, which increases the precision of summary estimates of an effect within a category of study, teleoanalysis combines different categories of study to quantify the relation between a causative factor and the risk of disease. This is helpful in determining medical practice and public health policy. Put simply, meta-analysis is the analysis of many studies that have already been done; teleoanalysis provides the answer to questions that would be obtained from studies that have not been done and often, for ethical and financial reasons, could never be done.’
In so doing we can prove that saturated fat causes heart disease. ‘I say, Bravo. Bravo, sir. You are truly a genius.’
It is upon such foundations as this that the EAT-Lancet authors can say – in all seriousness – Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined.’
Keep saying it and people will end up believing you. Even if you have not a scrap of evidence to support it. A phenomenon first noted by Lewis Carroll in his magical poem the Hunting of the Snark…
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”
Unfortunately for the EAT-Lancet crew, repeating nonsense as many times as you like cannot magically transform it from nonsense to truth. The biggest recent study on the impact of diet and heart health was the PURE study. Which was reported thus, last year:
‘Findings from this large, epidemiological cohort study involving 135,335 individuals aged 35 to 70 years from 18 low-, middle- and high-income countries (across North America, Europe, South America, the Middle East, South Asia, China, South East Asia and Africa) suggest that high carbohydrate intake increases total mortality, while high fat intake is associated with a lower risk of total mortality and has no association with the risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease-related mortality.
Furthermore, a higher saturated fat intake appeared to be associated with a 21% lower risk of stroke. Why might these results be in such contrast with current dietary advice? “The conclusion that low fat intake is protective is based on a few very old studies with questionable methodology,” explains Professor Salim Yusuf (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), senior investigator for the PURE study. “The problem is that poorly designed studies performed 25–30 years ago were accepted and championed by various health organisations when, in fact, there are several recent studies using better methods, which show that a higher fat intake has a neutral effect,” he continues, citing the example of the Women’s Health Initiative trial conducted by the National Institutes of Health in 49,000 women that showed no benefit of a low-fat diet on heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease.’ 8
Anyway, I know that facts are pretty much useless against the diet-heart behemoth. It eats facts, turns them through one hundred and eighty degrees and spits them out again. I just felt the need to let people know that IT IS ALL COMPLETE AND UTTER RUBBISH. Gasp. Thud. I feel my man flu returning.
Refs:
1: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext
2: ‘https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm
3: https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/tobacco-alcohol-and-illegal-drugs-are-global-health-threat/
4: http://www.unodc.org/wdr2017/field/Booklet_2_HEALTH.pdf
5: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html
6: European cardiovascular disease statistics 2008 edition. Steven Allendar et al: Health Economics Research Centre, Dept of Public Health, University of Oxford.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Thank you
The 2008 Euro study is available here:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/…/statistics/european-cardiovascular-disease-statistics-2008nd the 4th (2012) is available here:https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article-pdf/34/39/3007/17898072/eht379.pdf
Well put, as usual.
I would love to know your take on Anthony Williams, Medical Medium…Liver Rescue. He talks about fat being the root cause of all or most of our ails. Fatty liver & EBV. What do you think Malcolm?
fatty liver is, primarily, a result of overconsumption of carbs which leads to excess lipogenesis, raised insulin levels and metabolic mayhem
Particularly fructose I believe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM – There is a great biochemical part of this lecture that explains the pathways of Fructose to Fatty Liver Disease.
Yes, agreed, and furthermore fatty liver and more generally metabolic syndrome (e.g. beer belly) results from the saturation of the subcutaneous adipose capacity to expand and perform the vital function of de novo lipogenesis (DNL). DNL is absolutely critical for metabolism of carb’s in the huge extra-evolutionary quantities consumed in agricultural society. The liver is the only other “organ” with DNL capacity, but much less in total than healthy sub-Q adipose.
I have studied the relatively small body of research investigating whether hyperglucagonemia is already present in metabolic syndrome (MetS), or pre-T2DM. This research indicates that it is, as I would expect. Hepatic IR does not exist (physiologically) — the IR is in the islets in diabetics. Same for MetS, it appears. One hypothesis for the mechanism is IR in the alpha cells, and this would make perfect sense. Indeed, probably a dozen independent research groups have found, by experiment, that the earliest known defect in the progression to T2DM is in the alpha cells (not in the beta cells), using many different methods. Continued excess secretion of glucagon, over time, puts enormous continuous stress on the beta cells due to inter-prandial hyperglycemia, which is why the long tail of hyperinsulinemia after meals in T2DM is produced if the diabetic eats carb’s.
Fatty liver may be common now, but in much of MetS it is not present. It is just a marker of the severity of the MetS condition, at most, IMO. The fundamentals of MetS lie in sub-Q adipose and the endocrine pancreas.
P.S. The US DPP (Diabetes Prevention Program), and many similar studies (with a lifestyle/metformin/control-group format) in many other large countries afterward, as well as countless smaller studies, consistently have illustrated that only a moderate reduction of excess adiposity restores largely normal basal serum-glycemia homeostasis.
This is because the sub-Q adipose comes out of “saturation”, and begins to perform DNL again.
I have chronic recurrent EBV and CMV, which is diagnosed as ME/CFS. My liver may have become fatty while I was eating carbs, but I’m sure the viruses are the reason why I haven’t recovered as I could’ve. There may also be underlying Lyme, but I don’t need another medical mystery show. I have enough of them.
I was very strictly keto for 2 years and 8 months. My fatty liver didn’t resolve in that time. I don’t think it’s as easy as picking just carbs or just viruses or just alcoholism and blaming all liver dysfunction on that. The liver is what keeps us from being poisoned by everyday things, its function is also digestive, and it has a central role in energy recycling during intense exercise. The liver is too diverse to be treated in an oversimplified way.
I’ve developed several habits to prevent liver pain in my life, because even though my NAFLD is in the most early stages, the pain can be crippling. I eat liver regularly, and take choline and Vitamin D supplements, just as a start. There’s nothing wrong with milk thistle, but it didn’t work for this. Unfortunately whenever someone talks about the liver it’s always “detox with sylimarin/milk thistle” and usually not “maybe you should provide the nutrition it needs most.”
There are drugs in development to provide fake vitamin D to the receptors in the liver for treating liver cancer. To me this is the most illogical thing ever suggested. If they’ve thought of possibly using real vitamin D for this purpose, they have buried it deeply: https://www.cell.com/cancer-cell/pdf/S1535-6108(16)30439-1.pdf
My new cure all is fasting. If I were you I would do several medium length water fasts.
Yes, doing that. Thank you for suggesting it though, because if I didn’t know, I would want you to tell me. 5 days a week I intermittently fast for 14-16 hours. For a while I was fasting for 10 day lengths, but I also was having Celiac effects without being aware of it, so it was worse than it should be. It’s been a year and a few months since I fasted longer than 24 hours. And I’m doing it without a gallbladder now. I wanted to give myself time to absorb nutrients for at least a year. Since I have no GB now, I’m concerned about the effects on my liver’s bile system if I fast for too long. If you have advice for that, I’d like to know more. I’ll have to research it much more before I risk it.
If eating fat causes fatty liver it would have been a very common disease in the past when we ate a lot more fat and meat. In fact, fatty liver was rare and almost entirely associated with too much alcohol.
Fatty liver is caused when the body is over loaded with sugar and carbs and starts storing them as fat in places where fat has no place to be. For example, in and around the liver and other organs.
When someone tells me fat causes diabetes and everything else under the sun, I know I’m talking to a vegan or vegetarian.
Stephen T….you are so correct. But getting the anti-fat mind-set to endorse fat into their daily regime is almost too difficult for them to accept. My concern is that they may ultimately interpret the good message of reducing refined carbs with fat, by consuming refined oils, ( not good at all, especially because of the chemicals and damaging methods used in extracting said oils) , because animal based hard fats have been vilified. What should be emphasised is that animal fats contain all sorts of fats, and not merely saturated fats. And the ratios and quality of such animal fats is reliant on what the animals are fed in the first place.
I have gleened much of this info from contributors to this blog, then gone off to research it as best I can for myself. Unfortunately, the bulk of the population are reliant on getting skimpy, biased messages via the press, known to be bad at interpreting actual facts, or by quoting only half the message.
The proper response is ” * liars”
* Use preferred derogatory expletive.
Thank you! I do hope the man flu will go away now you’ve got that out of your system!
I am always grateful when you explain something in a clear way I can share with others.
Flu = eat Garlic!!!
It works for me
If is wasn’t for people like you Dr Kendrick, I wouldn’t be able to argue the toss against the medical profession who are so keen to support the “Eat Badly Plate” and offer me statins as a means of helping me avoid a heart attack. Nuff said and thank you.
Rachel you can add Dr Unwin’s work on the sugar equivalence infographics explaining the glycameic impact of different carbohydrate foods and stating the “Eat Badly Plate” does not meet the 2015 NICE Diabetic guidelines which reference advising ‘low glyceamic foods’ and how NICE now endorses those infographics.
My sister, who has Type 2 diabetes, has been advised by the NHS to follow a diet low in carbohydrates and sugars and high in fats. She is losing weight and her insulin requirement has halved. How does this tie in with the “Eat Badly Plate” promoted for the rest of us by the NHS? I would certainly gain weight if I followed their recommendations!
Sue, that’s excellent! There are more doctors getting onto the low-carb/high-fat bandwagon especially since the Royal College of GPs introduced its online course for GPs. Sadly one friend of mine is given the usual NHS advice and now has had a kidney transplant as his type 2 diabetes consistently got worse. We tried to give him the better information that is around now, but he preferred to take his doctor’s advice…
Thank you for your scientific approach and condensing all your research down to easy to understand facts. I always like to read your assessment of any advice given through the media. I trust you.
Bravo William. Excellent response. Read whilst suffering my 3nd week of woman flu.
Angie, Increase your intake of vitamin C, preferably via food, but there’s no shame in taking supplements.
Vets tell me that Guinea Pigs need around 30mg / kg per day and our primate friends in the zoo – who also share our inability to produce our own C – will find 5 to 6 grams (6,000mg) in their daily green feed.
( Based on the above, it is clear that The Kendrick has not been taking his 3,000mg per day, – we can get by on 1,800 to 2,300…. )
😉
Since I started supplementing (mainly in winter) with a natural form of vitamin D3, along with magnesium and zinc, I haven’t had so much as a cold. Only ever had real flu twice in my life too!
What natural form of Vit D3, may I ask?
My e-mail has changed. Please, send me your articles to juanquiroga53@gmail.com
Very kind of you. Thank you.
________________________________
Juan – I recommend you resubscibe to the email FROM your new address and then click the unsubscrive option at the bottom of a mail sent to your OLD address.
The good news, that I have just read in my weekly newsletter from Rob Verkerk’s ANH-Intl, is this:
“WHO withdraws support for the ‘planetary health diet’
“In a surprise move, the World Health Organization (WHO) withdrew its sponsorship of a recent EAT-Lancet Commission event promoting its global initiative for a move to plant-based diets. The news comes after Italian Ambassador, Gian Lorenzo Comado expressed concern over EAT-Lancet’s scientific rigour and the potential impact on human livelihoods and health if the Commission’s proposals are implemented globally. He warned that moves to adopt the diet could result in the loss of millions of jobs linked to food production and damage traditional food systems. No-one is denying the very real threat to food production systems linked to soil damage, habitat destruction and climate change – as well as the need to adopt truly sustainable systems of agriculture and health care. However, Comado isn’t the first to point out the limitations of the EAT-Lancet report. ANH-Intl’s detailed analysis remains one of the first and most extensive critique’s of the EAT-Lancet report. Rob Verkerk will be presenting on the subject at this coming weekend’s Real Food Gathering in Dorset, UK, organised by the British Holistic Medical Association (BHMA) with which we are collaborating.”
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/news-alerts-week-17-2019/?utm_source=The+Alliance+for+Natural+Health&utm_campaign=284c8975af-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_24_09_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_aea8a87544-284c8975af-85008341
Also appears in the BMJ – although I can’t read the whole article being a non-subscriber…
Finally, ANT-Intl have responded with their own special report:
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/anh-intl-special-report-analysis-of-the-eat-lancet-report/
Forgot to add the link to the BMJ – https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l1700
Thank you. From your link (in the end of BMJ-article):
The BMJ asked WHO several times why it had decided against sponsoring the Geneva event. WHO provided a statement saying only that its director of nutrition, Francesco Branca, who is a commissioner of the EAT-Lancet Commission, participated as a panellist in the 28 March 2019 Geneva event and talked about WHO’s work on sustainable healthy diets.
“[His] views and opinions are expressed in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect official WHO positions,” the statement said. “WHO considers the Geneva launch event and the EAT-Lancet Commission to be relevant to advance WHO’s work on healthy diets.”
Thanks for this information, though I wonder if the WHO would be quite happy to withdraw support for anything that would increase people’s health.
Thanks for this news!
Thanks for this Dr Kendrick. I like your reassuring message. I certainly read between the lines regarding all the stats bombarded to us, the unsuspecting public. I have learned to be careful not to accept at face value even the most diligent-sounding medical ‘advice’. For interest this morning, I spent time re-reading your original blogs from 2012, and found that many of your thoughts and those of your followers, have remained consistent….even the early ones regarding the importance of dietary info, which is close to my heart and my pancreas.
I trust that you are feeling better, and thanks for opening up my mind to such important issues.
“teleoanalysis provides the answer to questions that would be obtained from studies that have not been done” So that’s the BMJ gone for me too now. I may as well consult the Runes.
Reblogged this on Lorraine Cleaver and commented:
“teleoanalysis provides the answer to questions that would be obtained from studies that have not been done.” Wow!
Malcolm
Sorry about your manflu
This is á wonderful blog. My favourite bit is this:
lteleoanalysis provides the answer to questions that would be obtained from studies that have not been done and often, for ethical and financial reasons, could never be done.’
How can one write such nonsense?
Sighs and reached for the Tomatin
Somehow, in my research day job, applications for a crystal ball invariably fail to go through even if I tell the project manager I would need one to answer his questions. Maybe I should call it a teleoanalysis sphere the next time?
Mr Chris: Even worse, get such nonsense published in a major medical journal.
Dr Kendrick I have read your book the Great Cholesterol Con, years ago and have been a bit of a follower of your ideas. Like you I’ve never really thought cholesterol was a big an issue as what everyone makes out to be, but mine was very high, maybe FHC but I was told it’s not really hereditary. I have also read stuff from Gary Taubes, Greger, and those vegan guys you probably hate and others and looked into sugar, refined sugars and carbs, fats etc etc. With having a very high cholesterol level myself(well I did have) and all my family having high cholesterol and a history of heart disease. Father died 42 CVD ,brother has had a heart attack. I went whole food plant based, recommended to me by my gp. So VEGAN. I hate the word vegan as it conjures up hate in carnivore fans and you seem to have a bit of a closed mind on this. My cholesterol dropped considerably and I lost all the love handles around my waist, got more of a v shape rather than a pear shape and I feel fucking great! Why was this? Two professors said to me “get on statins or you will die by the time you are 60”. Professor Gomez and Sampson from Norwich hospitals said this to me and gave me no other advice. Go on statins or piss off was their advice really.
So I follow a whole food plant based diet and not a vegan one. It sure has worked for me.
I would love to talk to you to ask you more on climate change opinion and mega farms, deforestation etc. It’s all tied in. Why do people like to be either pro meat, anti meat, etc when in fact it could be a mixture of a lot of different things. Too many dogmatic views and not enough open mindfulness perhaps
Regards
David Fraser
I recently read Taubes’s book on sugar, not previously knowing that Glucose and Fructose are metabolised differently in the body.
Chapter 9 (titled ‘What they Didn’t Know’) gives a lot of useful information that nicely overlaps with Dr Kendrick’s work.
This is the thing. You brought in the environment. Your position is ideological. Hey, so is mine – I don’t like people cooking the books to try to make me believe a diet is healthy just because they believe it is ethical.
You will feel good to begin with, and the foods you cut out will mean you will do better to begin with, but in the long run you will almost certainly find your diet deficient.
My sister-in-law is now vegan and was raving about how well she felt on it. I suggested that maybe she’s cutting out some foods that aggravated her, which was maybe why she felt so much better, but she’s convinced it’s to do with her plant-based vegan diet. From what I see, she is eating far more processed vegan foods than would probably be good for anyone, and will undoubtedly end up with various nutrient deficiencies in time when her current body stores have become depleted. Seems to happen a lot with women, especially older ones, most likely because although they are following what they think is a diet full of required nutrients, a lot of plant foods rely on an excellent gut biome to convert the foods into the right things…plus we tend to have lower levels of stomach acid as we age.
Hi anglosvizzera: re. vegans and leafy greens. Maybe all meat diet is better.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311427722_Role_of_Epidemiological_factors_in_accumulation_of_oxalates_in_forage_crops
“Oxalates binds with Ca to produce severe effects such as hypocalcaemia and oxalate
nephrosis can occur due to deposition of Ca oxalate crystals in the kidneys. The oxalates are absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and combine with serum Ca and magnesium. The acute hypocalcaemia impairs normal cell membrane function and may lead to muscle tremors, weakness, collapse and death.”
https://bioindividualnutrition.com/oxalates-their-influence-on-chronic-disease/
“Once oxalate gets into cells where it can disrupt mitochondrial function; it can cause all sorts of systemic disturbances. Here are some of the varied effects of high oxalate in the cells and tissues – that we’ll explore through the course of this article:
Disrupt mineral absorption and usage
Impair cellular energy
Deplete nutrients like glutathione and interfering with biotin
Create oxidative stress[1]
Activate the immune system to trigger inflammatory cascades
Interfere with and damage mitochondrial function[2]
Damage cells and tissues
Cause seizures during toxic exposure to oxalate[3],[4],[5]
Cause faulty sulfation
Cause histamine release”
Here’s the problem with what you’ve said. Lowering your cholesterol does not mean you’ve lowered your risk for heart disease (or death by other means). In Framingham, the overall death rate was a “bathtub” curve, high at low cholesterol and high at high cholesterol.
To me, vegans seem ridiculously crazy. I’m sure not all of them are crazy, but there are enough radical ones (go on Twitter if you dare) it makes me question whether vegans are mentally sound or whether mentally deranged people become vegans. Also, they tend to KNOW they are right and you are wrong. Walter Willett is the poster child for everything that’s wrong in epidemiology. As soon as I see a study is from Harvard, I stop reading. It’s going to be garbage. He loves to “prove” he’s right, by reading things his way, ignoring anything not his way, and using studies based on crap food frequency questionnaires and the like.
As for global warming, there’s plenty of evidence that ruminants are actually carbon beneficial and repair the soil, and evidence that growing plants is terrible for the soil. See, for instance:
“The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability”, by Lierre Keith and anything by Allan Savory, eg, https://www.savory.global/
Are there arguments against these? Absolutely. There are arguments for and against everything, and everything has benefits and detriments. As a scientist, I believe only in theories, and a theory is correct only to the extent it can be shown to operate in the way you think it should. Once there’s a single (repeatable) test that shows the theory incorrect, it’s incorrect. Vegans (as pointed out by Dr. Kendrick) tend to just ignore information that does not meet their theories. To the extent that there are people advocating for meat eating who do the same, then they are wrong about those points, too. It’s just my experience is that vegans tend to be the ones doing this more often.
The little dog barks loudest when given powerful backing.
I am curious to read the linked article – I cannot imagine how ruminants can repair the soil when the vast majority (something like 90% of all meat/fowl/fish consumed by humans) are raised in factory farms. If they were on traditional farms or wild, maybe.
And if you’re curious to read about someone who went vegan and felt stronger longterm, read Scott Jurek’s book about becoming an ultrarunner. It’s been a while since I read it so I don’t even remember why he went vegan – just that he noticed over time that his running got better and better. He’s been vegan for years now. Mind you, he eats well – not stuff like toast with fake cheese – he takes the time to prepare himself a rich, balanced diet to get all the nutrients he needs from whole foods.
I am not vegan btw. And my personal experience with diet includes a period when I stopped eating gluten & sugar for 9 months – consuming instead more eggs, cheese, some meat, fish, and lots of veggies. I consumed a LOT of fat, saturated and unsaturated. And my cholesterol went way down. Maybe it had nothing to do with what I was eating but was a result of weight loss – who knows – I did lose 20 pounds. I am a longtime reader of Dr K, so I never worried about my cholesterol being high when it was, but I found it interesting that eating more saturated fat and fewer grains was associated with a drop in cholesterol, since my doctor seemed convinced that eating lots of saturated fats would raise it.
Bob, before the Paleface invaded North America and imposed his ‘advanced’ agricultural practices on the unsuspecting, rich and productive soils, the Bison herds often covered the prairies for as far as the eye could see. Most estimates place the total herd(s) at 50 to 60 million.
Not only but also, their presence created and maintained an ecosystem. – And all of this while providing a sustainable, non-damaging to the environment, food source for the Indians.
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Neal_Smith/wildlife_and_habitat/bison.html
Back in those days, a “Vegan” was an incompetent hunter…
Dear Dr. Malcolm. Thank you for yet another informative discussion.
I have advice for you on how to avoid bothersome secondary cold flu infections. I use to suffer with bronchitis for weeks and months at a time. This until I discovered CAYENNE PEPPER. It dissolves mucus in the body. If you include in your diet on a regular basis or when you are about to get sick, you can remove the mucus that will cause either the nasal or lung congestion later.
You can eat it in foods or as a supplement. I’m not a doctor.
Also found.that HYDROGEN Peroxide sp? Half with WATER gargling with that will kill many or all of the germs in your throat. Killing those germs appears to either cure or lessen the degree to which you will get sick. In addition lots of Vitamin C.
Best of luck and keep on sharing your information with us. I share it with othes.
My wife gargles with cayenne pepper and also H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), at the slightest hint of a cold/throat issue. She has our kids doing this too. (Well, they can’t hack the pepper, just the H2O2.)
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my wife also puts it in her or the kids’ ears.
Thank you Bob for sharing. I believe the proof is in the pudding. Decades of suffering with bronchitis and strong nasal congestion to almost no incidence in the last 15 years.
LOTS of cayenne pepper, as a food condiment and even an addition to the tumeric/coconut oil in your coffee (or tea) will provide sufficient distraction from your man-flu…
James Downunder: I prefer habanero chile; clears the sinuses instantly, even better than raw garlic.
Davidjwinter@live.co.uk Just a thank you for your informative and interesting blog. I can’t explain how appreciative i am.
I forgot … I found the following on Dr. Mercola”s web site regarding killing cold germs. It is to lay on your side and add a capful or less of HYDROGEN PEROXIDE to your ear, full strength. Allow it to remain in the ear for about 5 minutes. If it is killing germs you will feel and hear a lot of phishing. Let drain and do the same to the other ear.
These techniques allowed me to both work and go to school full time. I’ve been using these techniques successfully for over 15 years.
I also monitor how much dairy and sugar I’m including in my diet. Love these items… so around the holidays I include more CAYENNE PEPPER in my diet to avoid the inevitable flu or cold.
To everyones best health.
Sounds implausible to me. Germs do not enter through the ear canal unless you have a perforated tymphanum in which case irrigating it with peroxide isn’t the most brilliant of ideas.
Research and try it before you cancel it out. Mercola.Com has more info. I’ve done this a thousand times without harm and gargled prior to going to bed to wake up no longer feeling sick.
I used to catch colds or flu easily, this appears to reverse and or shorten its course.
I know that we call the fall flu season, but most do not correlate the increased amount of sugar and dairy we consume during this period due to the holidays…Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanika etc. Along with general less physical exercise.
Thank you for your comment. Please research further it might be helpful to you.
There is connection between the ears and the throat.
Yes, the eustachian tube connects the ear to the throat, but is is from BEHIND the eardrum, in the middle ear, So anything outside the eardrum, in the outer ear canal cannot go anywhere else. Unless it can get through an eardrum, in which case you really have problems
Eric: Good for removing impacted earwax, though. I’ve done it and it works well.
@ Anna: Tympanum = eardrum. There is a connection, but the eardrum seals it for liquids.
Why do you need to have a perforation to have an inflamed eardrum?
Sascha: exactly my point. Karen claimed that H2O2 solution applied to the ear canal would kill germs from a cold. I dared point out that there is no way the desinfectant can kill bacteria on the other side of the ear drum unless it was already perforated.
Magical thinking.
It could be possible that H2O2 reduces bacterial load on the external side, allowing the body to reduce the inflammation of the eardrum faster. Otherwise, how do we explain all the anecdotal reports?
I hope you’re not really sticking “full strength” H2O2 in your ear. The stuff the grocery store sells is either 3% or 6% strength. I assume you mean 6%.
That said, “full strength” (whether it’s the commonly-used in research labs 20% or maybe you have a magic source for 100%) would kill anything it touched. Including you, perhaps.
I’ve always understood it to be 3 drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide per ear! Works a treat for us.
Frederica Huxley: Yes. Great for impacted earwax, although the sawbones uses warm water, and kind of fun as it fizzes away.
More and more practices are refusing to syringe ears. My husband had to pay Specsavers £35 last month for the honour.
I have loads of plastic syringes of various sizes, I just use one of those and do a DIY job.
Frederica,
I presume you mean water irrigation when you speak of syringe. Danger!
I syringe-irrigated my own ear regularly until 2011 with the small rubber bulb you can get in any U S pharmacy. Just warm water. I was just a bit too enthusiastic that last time and made a tiny perforation in the drum. It seems that the scar I had from a childhood infection was not as tough as a scar typically is.
The skin of the drum and the ear canal is weird in that it migrates from the drum outward as it grows, carrying (usually) wax and collected detritus with it, dumping it as it reaches the outer world. That’s the typical best case scenario.
If a bit of that skin gets pushed inside the eardrum, it keeps growing in that weird fashion INWARDLY. That’s a cholesteatoma. Given time it can destroy your inner ear and more.
I had to have my whole eardrum removed and replaced – NOT a simple procedure – due to enthusiastic syringing!
I wonder why your husband encountered that reluctance??
JDPatten, an important caution, thank you. I am lucky in that I am unenthuastic and I use syringes, This makes the process long and slow, but I am not in a hurry. It might take 20 minutes per ear. The syringe gives an easy assessment of the feed rate, and the low rushing sound just confirms this.
JDPatten: You certainly have lived!
Gary,
“You might say so but I couldn’t possibly comment.” 🙂
Just lookin’ ’round the bend.
Dear Mr. Notepad, 🙂
It strikes me that if your migrating canal skin isn’t carrying off the old wax and dust bunnies so that you need to syringe, then something “upstream” must be off kilter. That would amount to addressing the symptoms rather than the cause. Know your cause?
In my case, I had a scarred drum, canal, and eustachian tube as a result of an opportunistic infection during measles as a kid. Not much to do about that but syringe. (Can-of-worms: A reason to vaccinate, now that you can.) The other ear has always been fine, left alone.
With my new drum, I now go to the pros at Mass Eye and Ear for my annual tidy-up.
Superb! (Especially from an ailing doctor!)
I find it disappointing that Dr Kendrick has never found any evidence that particular foods – or abstention from particular foods – make any detectable contribution to longevity. (Forgive me if I have got this wrong). But we must accept the truth, when we can get hold of any of that fast-disappearing commodity.
I also find it disappointing – and astonishing – that, after 250 years or so of well-funded nutritional research, most of the fundamental questions about diet and health remain unanswered. Indeed, hardly even the beginnings of what we could properly call “science” have been done.
Although the indescribably complexity of the human body defies easy analysis, one does feel that vested interests have played a large part in this lack of progress. In the 1860s French (and then British) scientists and doctors understood that “saccharine and farinaceous matters” contributed directly to obesity and its attendant ills. Somehow, progress went into reverse by the 1970s – how did that happen?
We all owe an immeasurable amount to the few brave and clever truth-tellers like Dr Kendrick, Dr Harcombe and the rest of the little band. As Robert A. Heinlein remarked 50 years ago in his usual sardonic way,
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded – here and there, now and then – are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
“This is known as ‘bad luck'”.
– Robert A. Heinlein, “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”, in “Time Enough for Love”
[Witness Turing, Semmelweiss, Russell, Ted Nelson, Leibniz, etc. etc.]
Welcome back I was getting a bit worried with the enormous pressure coming from various sectors it requires a stout heart to keep going no wonder you contracted man flu. After having read this post I would like to say I am flabbergasted but you read so much of this tripe and see it on TV what I used to think of serious journalistic programs are full of this no one seems to check anything and while health bodies keep claiming that they have our best interests at heart when none of the information that I have looking into over the years seems to ever become mainstream unless some prominent person writes or speaks about it. In 2010 I read my first article from Joe Mercola about diet, and the human gut and brain connection and how diet affects everything in the human body and if our gut is out of whack we get sick this proved to be a real help for me and started me on a different path I never found information about this here in Australia until a prominent Professor published a book last year. Truly if they want to get stuck into things they should start with sugar and processed fat in all its forms and encourage folk to cut these down and leave the good fat of dairy, eggs and meat alone.
Things are so unbalanced some years ago at the hospital where I am employed much fuss was made about the chocolate frogs staff brought in occasionally to sell for their children’s scouts etc. ‘these must never be in an area where they can be seen by patients as this will encourage an unhealthy lifestyle (I live in an area affected by poverty we are the second poorest suburb in Adelaide we are only beaten by the folk in Indigenous reserves up north so a poor diet is mandatory to be honest a chocolate frog would be a nice treat better than $5 worth of chips they mostly eat.) and as we are a major healthcare facility we must be setting a good example’ so the email stated sent to all staff; what has happened since well the volunteer canteen for patients and visitors which sold simple food has gone with the frogs we have a whiz bang coffee and snack supremo installation near the front entrance selling all sorts of ‘food’ some looks OK but much is just bad fat, sugar etc. and a plethora of soda and chip machines everywhere to assist with the health needs of patients and visitors no doubt.
I understand the Vegan philosophy of not using animals as they feel they should be free but why would anyone breed them, farm them, feed them etc. if we no longer needed them they would cease to exist they would have no life at all like anything else in this world if you cannot make money what good are they.
The diet that should be avoided is the Western Diet which has wreaked havoc on human health over the last 50 plus years but hardly anyone is looking at this there must be a big pot of money and a lot snouts in the trough so lying and hiding the truth and ridiculing anyone who points out the lack of emperors clothing unfortunately is going to continue probably unabated.
Thank you for standing up to the Tsunmani of plainly ill researched medical studies and false information propogated by various self serving bodies.. i will continue to follow you and wish you continued success.
Whatever do you mean Malcolm? “Enough about me!” We have all been suffering from withdrawal symptoms here, so welcome back to the land of the living! Let battle commence! 👍🏻
Oh, I’m a happy bunny and I haven’t even read it yet but I know it will be, as always, brilliant.
Thank you.
Wow. What is a man flu? Better get better quickly…
Walt Willett lost whatever credibility he retained when Gary Taubes’ unpublished chapter became semi-public that revealed that Walt and a lot of his co-conspirators (eehm autors) were unware that sugar is half glucose, half fructose.
Those nice country graphs would be a lot more meaningful if carb, sugar or fructose consumption were included. While it is true that ex-Soviet countries consume a lot more polyunsaturated fats, I suspect that in the Western world, high sat-fat means mostly high fat which means low carb most of the time. I don’t remember food in France, Spain or Portugal being high-sugar. Italy may be a bit of an outlier, because of pasta, risotto, soft drinks, compromised “Italian” olive oil that has been blended with vegetable oils (and too much poor TV).
If it ever can be proved, the culprits might turn out to be (in that order) sugar, vegetable oils, alcohol, cigarettes.
I would also be highly sceptical about the number of deaths attributed to smoking. If somebody dies of lung cancer or COPD, it may be tempting to assume smoking was the cause of death, but in the end, assuming a cause can be correctly attributed, which is a huge IF, lost person years would be a lot more meaningful.
Same for the current debate about NOx Diesel fumes which are supposed to cause so many extra and premature deaths. Last I checked, this amounted to about 1.5 days lost per person. Again, it may be very hard to prove the actual cause of death.
I will gladly accept that NOx will aggravate existing conditions and maybe cause new ones. However, compared with conditions up to the 1970s with smog in the cities, people burning coal, wood and gas and smoking cigarettes in their own homes and getting second hand smoke from neighboring chimneys were A WHOLE LOT worse. NOx may be a dominant problem, but THE dominant problem today are PM2.5 particles that are, among others, emitted from high compression, turbo-charged gasoline engines. Favoring those kind of engines over Diesel engines before making particulate filters mandatory on gasoline engines is case of science, policy and reporting gone mad.
I noticed that those countries (Italy, France and Switzerland) are also big cheese and milk creams consumers… Coincidence?
I understand from my son, who trained as a fuel engineer, is that the secret of low NOx combustion in engines that burn hydrocarbon fuels, is to carefully control the amount and mixing of the combustion air, so that there is just sufficient oxygen to burn all the fuel but not enough to burn the nitrogen in the selfsame air, which has a higher ignition temperature.
The technology to do this efficiently is sophisticated, but has been known for many years. As always, it costs money to prevent air pollution.
I have heart disease: specifically left ventricular hypertrophy, but I do not attribute it to diet or even smoking (which I did do for some time) but to almost certainly stress.
My diet has been LCHF (pretty much) for many years but for a long time I was prescribed beta blocker eyedrops for ‘potential’ glaucoma that ravaged my health; gave me bradycardia; depression and a host of other effects for more than 14 years. When taken off these I then experienced rebound hypertension and panic attacks.
I had a silent MI a few months back and was given very little help except a lot of testing (of course) and eventually an ARB, without any titration, which I had to almost undertake myself until complaints yielded some support. However I wanted to point out that my pulse, is low; my diastolic is too; my cholesterol is normal low; I am a bit underweight but ARB’s do make you spend a lot of time in the loo, depleting your energy input, so I did expect that.
But, I was subjected to a barrage of stress for a large part of my life and at the time of the MI I had been told I was going blind; my wife then nearly died from DKA; I lost my driving licence; my treatment for glaucoma was delayed for 6 months and then did not work and my daughter had a life threatening illness. Oh .. and the dog died (all in less than a year).
My very high BP was diagnosed as the reason for the MI and it is lowering but very high BP over a long period can and I believe did, stress my heart muscle such that it thickened to cope and gave me the problem. Recent studies on stress in which you were involved reinforced my view that stress alone, over long period or very concentrated short periods is as deadly as many other factors in the cause of CHD.
I have not changed my diet but I do take citrulline; DHA and magnesium as well as the ARB and am resisting strongly the suggestion of dual blockage therapy with ACE being added, on the basis that the doctor is an idiot; has not read the research, and has not given things sufficient time to work. But obviously the criteria of lowering the BP as much as possible holds sway despite it only being some six weeks since started.
Good Luck to you in facing your challenges. Thanks for history/information as it is extremely helpful to me personally. I have some of the same conditions you have and you have put me on the alert to do more detailed research on my condition and current treatments
“But, I was subjected to a barrage of stress for a large part of my life and at the time of the MI I had been told I was going blind; my wife then nearly died from DKA; I lost my driving licence; my treatment for glaucoma was delayed for 6 months and then did not work and my daughter had a life threatening illness. Oh .. and the dog died (all in less than a year).”
That’s a very rough ride, man. Best of luck to you.
Thanks both for the kind words. It has been pretty rough but in the UK we have now serious problems in accessing treatment even for what would be assumed to be quite a serious condition. I wait weeks for review appointments; the concept of titrating the ARB dose seemed to be a concept unknown to most at the practice and if I did not know something about human biology and biochemistry I would likely have expired either from incorrect medication (trying to give a patient with mild bradycardia a beta-blocker) or sheer exasperation. Lucky I remembered how magnesium affects heart rhythm if low. So I supplemented with a gentle version. It has improved the arrhythmia and I hope it will stop it completely. So, never forget the simple things in health.
“6: European cardiovascular disease statistics 2008 edition. Steven Allendar et al: Health Economics Research Centre, Dept of Public Health, University of Oxford.”
Accessed today: http://www.trombosi.org/filemanager/cms_alt/files/La_ricerca_scientifica/statistiche_europee/EU_CVD_Statistics_2008.pdf
Hi Dr Kendrick
Thanks for your continuing fight on behalf of the rigours of science, common sense, and us.
New science on CHD just published in case you have not seen it:
Source:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190424153655.htm
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Summary: Researchers have determined how circulating ”bad cholesterol” enters artery walls to cause the plaque that narrows the blood vessels and leads to heart attacks and strokes.
This is apparently possible because of things called:
“The study reveals for the first time how a protein called SR-B1 (short for scavenger receptor class B, type 1) ferries LDL particles into and then across the endothelial cells that line arteries. The study also found that a second protein called dedicator of cytokinesis 4, or DOCK4, partners with SR-B1 and is necessary for the process.”
Elsewhere they say this is not due to endothelial damage.
Ask these geniuses if they have ever heard of the vasa vasorum
Dr. Kendrick: Is the vasa vasorum fenestrated?
Yes
Dr Malcolm. You have previously described to us how impossible it would be for such a large molecule as LDL to enter, much less pass through or between endothelial cells.
Why not investigate this paper in depth and give it its due – or its interment? Whichever.
What are SR-B1 and DOCH4 when they’re at home? Do they have other or primary functions when behaving well?
Mice are not men, and associating raised levels of these things with human plaques is a long way from proving causation.
What does the vasa vasorum have to do with this?? Have you not previously discounted the VV as the back door for LDL deposition?
You, as I recall:
Injury to endothelial cell(s). Clot (scab) formation. Arrival of endothelial progenitor cells to become scavenging macrophages and new endothelial cells covering the “scab”. There’s plenty of cholesterol in red cell membrane and a normal amount of LDL in blood of the scab. There is also a tenacious form of lipoprotein (lipoprotein A is it?) that gets attracted to the injury site and helps bind the clot/scab. So, the “entry” of cholesterol in the arterial wall is explained.
Yes?
JDPattern
Thanks for this reminder of the progression of heart disease (as previously discussed and explained and presented by “our Dr”).
I am again reminded of the far too many aspects raised by Dr K (here and previously) starting with vasa vasorum (above), and no doubt the protection effect of glycocalix, as well as the size of LDL-P, and EPC, and no doubt more. With all of these, I think that we can be confident that no detailed counter is required.
hi robertL: the researchers must have used teleoanalysis to conclude that developing a drug to inactivate the scavenger receptor SR-B1 will somehow prevent plaque in arteries. These receptors are abundant in the liver and macrophages for a purpose (unknown to teleoresearchers).
RobertL….Oh heck! Life is short enough without trying to decipher this🍷
MAN FLU? Is that a new category of flu like swine flu or bird flu? Glad you are feeling better.
Thank you for another excellent post.
Every few months the “paper of record,” the New York Times reports another nonsensical study warning against eating too many eggs. Here is the latest.
Yes agreed.
Am disappointed with certain articles in NYT & will drop my subscription
Brilliant.
I just hope that your forthright manner does not, yet again, lure the subscribing conspiracy theorists back out of the dark.
Welcome back! Glad to hear you’re beating that cold.
I had a chuckle at: “… because long term trials of major dietary changes are impractical”
Yeah, major dietary changes are impractical, period. Ask anyone with intractable epilepsy (keto), diverticulitis (low-fiber), Celiac (gluten free), or any other disease where a person either eats a certain way or loses the ability to function normally.
I would also say that most medical trials aren’t practical either. Look at all the fuss you have to go through.
If we’re going to limit ourselves to practical things, I’m afraid open heart surgery is off the menu. The point of science is to take that complex leap and work out the knotty truth. You can’t appeal to the intuitive and practical and expect to always arrive at the truth. I think what bothers me about such articles in medical journals is the way they treat science as disposable, even optional.
Many thanks for all your efforts. I think you mean Loma Linda California. I’ve been there
Rubbish, indeed. I would say that the majority of what we’ve been spoon-fed all of our lives, in many fields, has been rubbish. The Lancet clearly has become a political tool, sad to say. Quackery thrives and the public gets sicker in the absence of intelligent skepticism and actual thinking. That nasty cold has been going around this household, too. I only got a mild case because my immune system seems always to be in fine fettle.
“teleoanalysis provides the answer to questions that would be obtained from studies that have not been done”
F*&#ing magic! Where the hell has this been all my life?
Dear Dr Kendrick, another brick in the wall to defend against the invading hoardes. Thank you. As for your ailment, you should know it was stress related, everything always is, and with maintaining this blog, writing books, putting up with undetailed legal attacks, skiing, working for a living, and I wonder how much else you are doing, could the stress be exceeding the limit? Stephanie Seneff might say a sulfate (they can’t spell over there, though I don’t know why they don’t write “fizicks” and be consistent), deficiency had to be corrected. The fix is “Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping”. Peterson.
You have kindly councelled us that stress is a major cause of system overload, treat yourself as if you were one of your patients. my wife got a similar sounding ailment a few weeks ago, so I badgered her into taking loads of vitamin C, and took buckets full myself. I didn’t get it at all.
Smug 😊
Having a bit of a debate on Twitter at the moment that relates to this. Here is where I am at. I agree that Sat Fat is probably neutral in terms of HD and in fact any disease but when it comes to meat the balance of evidence suggests that those that avoid it live longer and those that avoid it but eat fish live the longest of all. Now if anybody can direct me to study that shows meat eaters outlive plant based eaters (not even WFPB) then I would be interested to read it.
smartersig: Okinawans eat pork. Don’t know how much, but they live a very long time. I suspect it may be impossible to find enough, or any, good-quality RCT’s about specific foods to say anything meaningful about their effect on longevity. But keep searching! My hunch is that it matters very little, in terms of traditional diets, what specific macronutrient ratios promote longevity. These days, though, very few people eat traditional diets., thus no RCT’s or even Willet-science will be appearing concerning them any time soon.
Gary: I remember reading somewhere that traditionally, close to 80% of Okinawans calories came from sweet potatoes. I never double checked that, though…
I agree with all you say, but being Devil’s advocate for a minute, with reference to your graph comparing sat fat intake with CHD deaths, you wrote some time ago regarding the impact of stress (such as the huge socio-political stresses of the former eastern bloc countries) on CHD deaths in affected populations. Should this be taken into account when reading the graph above?
Just a thought…
1) Re Loma Linda CA. Seventh Day Adventists (SDA)- “Blue Zone” people, their average life expectancy is 10 years longer than the USA average- However, the minor detail left out is that they are not all Vegetarians – Some eat Fish- How many? Enough to skew the data. The pescatarians among the SDA have a life expectancy longer than the Vegetarians, enough to raise the average of the whole group.
2) Re the original study in Minnesota USA re Saturated fat has been re-evaluated. See just one of the many documents indicating the falsification of the results,
Click to access bmj.i1246.full.pdf
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/a-decades-old-study-rediscovered-challenges-advice-on-saturated-fat/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-science-diet-fats-minnesota-edit-0430-jm-20160428-story.html
Obviously, Science not in the Public interest, or perhaps not Science- side note- Minnesota is one of the largest producers of vegetable and seed oils. Poly Unsat – OMega -6
Follow the MONEY
Dr. Kendrick, you, sir, are a gift to the sadly-small-but-growing world of rational medical thought. Take care of yourself. I trust that you are properly vaccinated. Please check and comment, if you will: https://www.the-scientist.com/features/can-the-flu-and-other-viruses-cause-neurodegeneration–65498. Best regards!
William, what is “properly vaccinated”? I would question such a thing for anyone, especially someone recovering from an illness. This might be interesting reading, just one recently published, http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/anti-vaccination-pro-science-pro-health-anti-industry.
I agree completely AhNotepad. This is an excellent link which neatly summarises the sheer scale of vaccine fraud/junk science. The pHARMa cartel and the media however have redoubled their efforts to promote these nasties, as I am sure you are aware. Only today the British Brainwashing Corporation ran a story on their BBC “news”24 channel about the KILLER measles virus; lots of scaremongering about the unvaccinated spreading diseases ( no mention of viral shedding by vaccinees of course ), the UK Health Secretary solemnly stating that “vaccines are safe” which doesn’t quite square with the US Supreme Court’s judgement that they are ” unavoidably unsafe”, blaming the low uptake rates in the UK (another lie) on “misinformation” by “anti-vaxxers” and their social media sites, citing the New York “epidemic” and draconian measures as a warning of things to come…………………………!!!!!!!!!!
The really sad thing is that the SHEEPLE will be taken in by it. What hope for humanity?
The Wizard, I wrote to my MP yesterday and outlined the flaws in the fear generating campaign. I also offered to discuss the matter with the health secretary as he obviously is being given misinformation. It’s easy to get to MPs, just search for “writetothem”. They will probably reply with some platitude, assuring us they are considering all avenues, leaving no stone unturned, exploring every option, but in the interests of protecting those at risk, will then chant the usual mantras. The questions to ask are: in the US (as they find it harder to hide the numbers) 1) how many children have died from certified measles in the last fifteen years? 2) how many children have died from adverse reactions to the MMR vaccine in that period?
Here is a short video with the answers https://youtu.be/gnpT7lJlVxY
To correct jus one of the flaws in the Daily Mail (sorry) article that says Andrew Wakefield had a conflict of interests by having a patent on a vaccine, it was not a vaccine, but was a substance that would allow children, who could not take the vaccine of the time, to be given some protection against measles.
I know this seems off-topic, but with much more of this stress dealing with bad health dogmas caused by health secretaries and Public Health England (a rather oxymoronic name), I will suffer a cardiac event.
AhNotepad: The Lancet is weighing in today in the scare-mongering about measles. 600+ cases in the U.S. this year. In my childhood, 4,000,000 cases a year, but no scare-mongering. Considered a normal childhood infectious disease. The entire Brady Bunch got it, including Alice, and the eldest boy said, “If you’ve got to get sick, can’t beat the measles.” Industry has grabbed all the levers of power by the cojones.
More propaganda this morning on the Victoria Derbyshire programme. A doctor stated that the mumps component in the MMR was “more effective” than the single mumps vaccine. She forgot to mention the two ex Merck employees (who have whistleblower status) revealing that Merck LIED about the efficacy of the mumps component! The legal case continuing. A parent stating that “anti-vaxxers” are akin to flat earthers and that having read the evidence, vaccinating was a ” no brainer”. The usual crucification of Dr Wakefield, ” thoroughly discredited, fraudulent” blah, blah, blah. Totally unbalanced “reporting” and typical of what I have come to expect from the media whores.
The Wizard, they are right, vaccinating is a no brainer. If you started with one, then after enough vaccines, and given time, it is likely you have no brain, or not much of one. Aluminium and Chris Exley’s research showed this.
I wonder if the head of the CDC that went on to be Merck’s vaccine director and received $38million in share options had been suitably vaccinated. All senior employees of vaccine manufacturers should be made to receive all outstanding vaccinations, in public, and in one session. They will need to do this regularly to get the boosters, as it may not work the first time.
The Wizard: Yes, and the Merck attorneys have drug this out for nine years. A verdict against them would be earth-shaking. The U.S. government could no longer legally purchase MMR, which Merck has a very lucrative monopoly on. I suspect the courts will find a way to sabotage justice in this case. I no longer trust the federal courts, any more than Congress (or any president).
Thank you AhNotepad. I recently re-watched a 2018 interview with Dr Wakefield on Del Bigtree’s excellent YouTube channel “The Highwire”. In it the good doctor elucidated that the Royal Free was looking at the feasibility and efficacy of using colostrum to provide therapeutic support to babies under 12 months who could NOT be vaccinated because they were too young. As you correctly stated, this was never going to become a vaccine. It never could. Of course, the lies in the press were intentional and they are now seen as the irrefutable truth.
Like you, every time I read or watch the blatant lies about vaccines I feel my arteries clogging up, an MI event will most likely occur during one of these misinformation scenarios.
Dr K, sorry for being soooo of topic but I would say that it is good for lowering my stress levels and therefore my CVD risk and that dovetails nicely with your blog!
Listen. On this blog, people seem to have sensible discussions about vaccines (or as sensible as appears to be possible). There doesn’t seem to anywhere else for this to happen so… although it has nothing much to do with CVD I quite enjoy it. Perhaps it is annoying a lot of people?
It possibly is annoying a lot of people, the BBC, the health secretary, Dr. Richard Pan, many people in the UK health service, Though when I talk to people and explain the often flawed logic about immunity presented as “settled science” (oxymoron), many seem to have a light-bulb moment, or longer.
This is interesting, especially for those who believe the MSM.
Doc. Listen. What is annoying is that you give the various vaccine factions no clarifying feedback, no carefully researched and thoughtful principles, as you certainly have for CVD. This allows – even encourages – all sorts of extreme accusations to fly back and forth. With no guiding rationale to anchor to or argue, the factions feed off each other; feed on each other. The lack of discipline displayed here taints your primary mission: deep understanding of all aspects of CVD with a hopeful eye to turning the entrenched establishment.
JDPatten: Everything I say in my comments concerning vaccines is based upon verifiable historical and scientific fact. There are no factions on this issue. There are hundreds of thousands of parents of vaccine-injured children in the U.S. (and many other places). Have you not met any of them? The ad hominem “anti-vaxxers” is used against them, but all of them were once pro-vaxxers, until their children were injured. Children’s health in the U.S. (and the UK) is in crisis, and the vaccine schedule, which begins in pregnancy, is unquestionably the major, although not entire, cause. In some states now 25% of the children are in special ed. This is not normal.
JDPatten, lack of dicipline? You will have to be explicit here, as most of what I see written on this blog can be supported by information, in some cases from the CDC, who are mandating vaccines, yet admit to the existence of data which show them to be unsafe. It may come as a shock to readers who previously were only aware of the establishment propaganda, eg Wakefield is a discredited fraud, measles is a killer disease which will make you blind if it doesn’t kill you, 36,000 people die each year in the US because they didn’t get their flu jab, and so on.
Dr Kendrick has shown no bias in these discussions because to do so has been demonstrated to cause severe adverse effects. One thing that may happen is that some posts get “moderated”, but we will not know, and I have no interest in digging to find out. If you want to see “extreme” views, look up interviews with Dr. Pan, or Dr Hotez, or Dr Offit.
I think “turning the entrenched establishment” has been shown to be near impossible if the discussion on statins is an example. The establishment is not for turning.
AhN
Am getting in to more than I bargained for; – anyway was not aware of the following, seems Dr Wakefield has every right to take a case against GMC
In the words of the judge hearing the appeal by Wakefield’s co researcher.
Quoting the independent ;
“The judge criticised the disciplinary panel’s “inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion”.
The judge said: “It would be a misfortune if this were to happen again.”
He urged that in future such cases should be “chaired by someone with judicial experience”.
That is a damning indictment of the GMC and in my books an entitlement for Wakefield to b reinstated.
He doesnt appeal apparently cos his insurance won’t cover it.
Seems like a win win to me.
Jerome Savage: Yes, all charges against Professor Walker-Smith quashed, which truly exonerates everyone. The sole additional charge against Dr. Wakefield concerned taking blood samples at a children’s birthday party, taken with full consent by the parents and children, with a small stipend for them, and drawn by a nurse. Unusual, buy hardly unethical. So why hasn’t the paper (replicated in four countries, and whose findings are now completely uncontroversial) been re-instated? The power of industry. In the video Dr. Wakefield explains how Brian Deer crafted his fraudulent charges of fraud, gaining access to the private medical records of children at the Royal Free, and freely comparing apples with oranges. Not Russian collusion, but collusion with those in authority. Completely shameful; a disgrace, really, perpetrated by the BMJ, its editor, and the Murdoch in charge of the newspaper, can’t remember his name, all for the benefit of SKB /GSK. To hell with the children; the policy is what matters.
With all due respect, Gary and Ah (yes, I have followed your jottings here) I was addressing my comment to the esteemed author of “Doctoring Data”. I’m sure you’ve read that!? And taken it to heart?
JDPatten: Yes. “Doctoring Data” is one of the best.
Have you considered that the established history and science you refer to may have seen some “doctoring” before arrival?
It works both ways.
JDPatten: Certainly we must be skeptical of everything we read, but, taken as a whole, the evidence that something has gone horribly wrong in vaccine policy is overwhelming. According to the CDC 54% of American children have a chronic health condition. This is evidence of harm. It wasn’t even remotely like this in our childhood. There are certainly many other environmental factors involved in this, but giving pregnant women vaccines (now about 50% of them), when almost everything in pregnancy is contra-indicated? This is madness. Giving Hep B to 100% of babies on the day of birth, when only 1% of mothers are positive for it? More madness. Only 29% of the 18-24 cohort are physically and mentally fit for military service. All indications are that the health of Americans, especially children, is continuing to worsen. Medical students training for surgery no longer have the manual dexterity to perform surgery. At some point our social system will simply collapse. I have no dog in this fight. I detest both political parties equally. I think work is good for us, and play, as well. What I value is the honest pursuit of the truth, wherever it leads. Treating with kindness, respect, and dignity all people and other life forms (except snails and slugs), and the Earth. Science, done honorably, I value greatly. What is so amazingly wonderful about this blog is that Dr. Kendrick treats everyone with dignity and respect and he never gets above himself. By the way, if it ever appears I am getting above myself, let me know. I always enjoy reading what you have to say.
Gary, nothing wrong with slugs or snails. It would be better to have them in the right place of course. They are the detritis removal squad, a bit like LDL, you know, that stuff that is bad for us.
AhNotepad: You’re right, of course. I leave them entirely alone except in my garden. I start my summer vegetable seed in the greenhouse in January, and nurture them along until March or April, when they are big enough to transplant. Invariably some of them get immediately gobbled up by the slimy little bastards. That’s when I get out the poison. Gives me no pleasure to murder them, but they are eating my food, when generally they seem to feed on dry leaves. If its green, young and succulent, they devour it.
I have heard the way to reduce the slug problem is to not be too tidy. Leave plenty of detritis, part rotted leaves etc, around as they prefer that to fresh plants. Then you don’t have to poison the slugs which are then picked up by birds and so the birds are poisoned which are picked up by your cat so your cat gets sick. Mind you, if you didn’t poison the slugs the cat wouldn’t be sick so it could catch fresh birds.
Slugs hate copper. If you clean your garden of slugs and lay a copper barrier around it , or the more sensitive areas, the new slugs won’t cross it. Same with mice. Plug cracks and gaps with copper mesh like scouring pads and they won’t enter. I’ve managed to confine mice to the basement of my old farmhouse that way. (Steel wool does not work. Yeah, copper’s expensive! But it lasts.)
No poisons necessary.
It’s my experience that the “informal” garden you describe acts as a comfortable cover for slugs.
Gary
Quick examination of the support mechanisms for the inquisition on Wakefields paper, point towards a heavily loaded vested interest biased assault and as the good judge said in favour of walker Smith and consequently Wakefields denigration,
“inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion”.
WRONG CONCLUSIONS ? Alarming yes.
Anyway, back to familiar territory, all the evidence indicating the benefit of cholestoral and the risks associated with statins are neatly swept aside on the BHF website. That’s my main concern. Failure to learn? maybe the same vested interests at work, sponsors, status quo, reputations ?
Sorry, that should be AGAINST Wakefield’s denigration- ie the Walker Smith judgement!
Gary; AhNotepad,
Food. Right on topic. Slug cuisine: Yum!
https://www.care2.com/greenliving/top-reasons-to-love-garden-slugs-plus-a-recipe-to-eat-them.html
JDPatten: Gutting slugs? I can’t even hold on to them. Recipe must have been from The Onion.
Since learning that 75% of the insects have disappeared, I have taken a conscious decision not to kill anything in my garden, including slugs and snails. They multiply in the grass clippings I have spread as mulch over every square inch of bare soil as a result of water restrictions. And snails unfortunately seem to have a particular fondness for marigolds, which I plant everywhere, being cheap and cheerful and easy to grow from seed.
Recently my garden has been visited by a pair of hadedas, medium-sized birds also known as ‘flying vuvuzelas’ because of their harsh cry. They will spend a good half-hour methodically hunting for earthworms, spiders, geckos, and slugs and snails. I can see the holes in the mulch their probing curved beaks have made.
This would seem to be the perfect solution to the slugs and snails destroying my marigolds. Unfortunately, the hadedas themselves are powerful birds and smash my marigolds in getting at the snails. I see the broken marigold branches lying limply on the ground after their visits.
Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.
Martin Back: You sure can’t! By the way, the 75% figure for insect loss was a wild supposition based upon weak evidence from only a few locations. No doubt many species are having a rough go, but alarmism is not science.
I am not anti-vaccine because. My family is past the age of being affected but there is plenty of rational concerns and knowing like we all know how the pharmaceutical industrial complex and their many partners in government and else ware. Is something to be concern.
The inconvenient truth about vaccines
http://www.renewamerica.com/article/190402
The truth is there are thousands of people who have been injured by, or have even died from, vaccines. This isn’t fringe thinking, it’s fact. Many Americans are unaware that in 1986, Congress created a court called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) in the Department of Health and Human Services. Its sole purpose is to handle vaccine injury claims. The hearings are not open to the public, and Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers are tasked with defending the vaccine(s) in question (this is because Congress made the pharmaceutical companies that create vaccines exempt from litigation for faulty products).
To date, this court has awarded nearly $4 billion to vaccine injury victims.
It turns out, every vaccine administered sets aside a legal fee for anticipated damages. And it should also be pointed out that each vaccine has a disclaimer insert that lists risks and possible complications associated with the vaccine – although most people are never told this.
As we can see, vaccine injury occurs at an astounding rate. In fact, 1 in every 640 children given the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, for example, will suffer a seizure from it, compared to 1 of out every 3,200 children who contract measles itself. To further illustrate, from 2004 to 2015, more people died from MMR and other measles vaccines than died from the actual disease the vaccines are supposed to protect against. During this period, there was one death from measles (a woman in 2015, who was vaccinated). But in this same time interval, the MMR vaccine caused at least 108 (recorded) deaths.
The ramifications are shocking – and nearly hidden from public view. Consider that in a three month period alone, from November 2018 to February 2019, the U.S. government has awarded $110 million to vaccine injury victims. That’s in the VICP’s latest report, dated March 8, 2019 (source).
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RenewAmerica
To everyone whose only tool is a hammer, every idea that looks like a nail is home.
This is for everybody here discussing about vaccines. Please watch Kurzgesagts newest video on youtube, its about vaccines.
You can’t compare deaths caused by measles to deaths caused by vaccines that way because of course children aren’t dying to measles today very often because they are vaccinated.. if we weren’t vaccinating against measles, there would be lots more deaths. And other issues caused by measles.
I also hate the argument that “when I was a kid I and my three friends got measles and none of us died”. Of course not, because it doesn’t kill every fourth child. Most of patients survive without any serious consequences. But it still kills children, it’s a fact. It kills hell lotta more children than vaccines ever.
If you disagree, ok, you have found different facts. It’s pity that even 2019 we can’t know for sure which “facts” are real ones because there is so much perversion in medical and nutritional fields of science. I am sad about that. But. Still. Please continue vaccinating children, even if you disagree about the safety of vaccines. It’s not morally right thing to do, to take the right to decide on that kind of thing, that possibly affects the safety of our whole society. It’s just too serious thing to play with. It’s ok to feed our children what we consider best to them, etc. But this is about our whole society. The decision to not vaccinate my children affects the safety of whole society. Possibly. Maybe not. But possibly yes. And if thats possible, we must consider what could happen if we just erred. “Oh, we got measles back and well, 100 000 children died this year because of that. Oops.” Think about that. And think about if you wanna be in that situation. Better just keep vaccinating and if you have opinions about them, just try to stimulate public discussion. I am not saying that vaccinates are totally safe, i don’t know. And you don’t know either. And because we don’t know for sure, we must trust the scientic community.
It doesn’t even matter what the truth is, it’s not the point here. The point I am trying to make, is that we are not morally justified to decide on something, that POSSIBLY concerns the health of the whole society. If it was only about your own health, then it would be fine, do what you ever want.
Tuuba, the “scientific community” promoting vaccines are missing the “scientific”. They are businessmen and politicians. https://youtu.be/3aks6jLmuAM contains figures which TPTB would rather nobody mentioned as it sheds doubt on the subject. The figures were largely gained from he US “health” agencies.
Measles can be deadly in vulnerable populations.
Since the beginning of the year, 16 246 cases of measles have been reported in the DRC. However, many deaths occur in communities and go unreported… the outbreak comes on top of an extremely precarious humanitarian situation and high malnutrition rates. The mortality rate during a measles outbreak can reach up to 20% among malnourished children.
https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/democratic-republic-congo-drc-measles-outbreak-dg-echo-who-echo
Data from a previous outbreak:
Between week 1 of 2010 and week 45 of 2013, a total of 294,455 cases and 5,045 deaths were reported. The cumulative attack rate (AR) was 0.4%. The Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) was 1.7% among cases reported in health structures through national surveillance. [Many cases and deaths go unreported. See above.] A total of 186,178 cases (63%) were under 5 years old, representing an estimated AR of 1.4% in this age group. Following the first mass vaccination campaigns, weekly reported cases decreased by 21.5%.
https://www.msf.org/description-large-measles-epidemic-democratic-republic-congo-2010-2013
Most children in the developed world aren’t malnourished and therefore will have a completely different response to measles infection.
Thank you Dr. Malcolm. Just ordered your new book. Feel better soon. Keep up the good work.
I have an ancient copy of the late great Barry Grove’s book ‘ Trick or Treat’ which demolishes all this low fat nonsense. It’s good to read articles like this that reiterate his points.
Thank you.
And what of bempedoic acid…? According to the BBC, where I first read about it, it works by “blocking a key enzyme that’s used to produce cholesterol”. So it is finally acknowledged that the body (liver, I presume it’s understood that the liver is responsible for cholesterol production), but what this ignoramus doesn’t understand is why hasn’t someone ever questioned why the liver continually produces cholesterol; i.e. why would a major organ continually produce a substance that has no purpose other than to shorten our lifespan. This is what I’m having problems getting my head around – the medical establishment seems to believe that our bodies are actively attempting to kill us.
So, bempedoic acid; say it gets NICE approval – then what…? Because, once you prevent the liver producing cholesterol, well that’s the first domino isn’t it…? How are they going to prevent the rest from toppling (in other words, deal with the serious adverse events that will inevitably be caused) – more pills…? And yet more pills to counteract the adverse effects of those… saturated fat and cholesterol are necessary for proper neurological function, right…? Well, I can just foresee a situation where we’ve people with early-onset dementia becoming so confused about what pills they’re supposed to take when and dying of overdoses.
And all that notwithstanding, the NHS is chronically short of cash, perhaps one way to save a bit would be to quit prescribing pills that dick around with things that do not need to be dicked around with…?!
One of my father’s friends dropped dead – literally – from liver failure at the age of 72. He’d also been showing signs of early-onset dementia. I can’t help but wonder how big a role statins played in his death… I wonder how many deaths from other causes (including CHD/CVD) could really be attributed to statins…?
Finally, The All England Club has been found to have breached Sadiq Khan’s ban on junk food by advertising strawberries and cream.🙄 Sigh 😔. I’m old enough to remember a time when the ‘healthiness’ of a food was measured by nutritional value, not calories.
I’ve ranted enough (I could go on, but it’d all be profanities).
Gaia, strawberries and cream junk food? i never realised I was eating such evil stuff, which I do almost every day, and I have about 4 level tablespoons (the old big type) of cream, and it’s unpasteurised.
AH notepad
I am á fan of bio yoghourt and un pasteurised milk. When I
think of the years I spent eating low fat this low fat that, I could spit.
Thanks Dr K and all who contribute to broadening My Outlook.
AH notepad: just wondering where you manage to find unpasteurised cream?
If you are in the UK, you can look at http://rawmilk.simkin.co.uk/, though don’t bother if you are in Scotland as they are progressive and have banned it. Full fat milk is also banned in most UK hospitals as all that nasty saturated fat causes clogged arteries.
Gaia
Exactly. We are led to believe that somehow over many epochs of evolution, the human body decides to produce a substance that is somehow bad for its own good. For creationists, God has got it wrong.
The natural /normal of cholestoral production needs to be fought on a world at war scale, cos the pharmaceutical profiteers say so !
Evolution deserves to be defended.
Follow the money. More prescriptions = more revenue = shareholder benefit. One way to fix the monstrous US healthcare spending behemoth (noting that life expectancy in the US has gone DOWN recently…!) would be to stop treating risk of disease as the disease itself. Bodies like the AHA/ACC continually move diagnostic goalposts to create more patients out of those who would have been considered healthy a generation ago. These eminent Americans’ opinions barge their way into NHS and other national schemes, resulting in yet more unnecessary pills, polypharmacy, and decrepitude. For what? To reduce one’s risk of a disease? Sorry, there are plenty of diseases that all of us have, but the question is whether we are actually ILL from them…
If every patient going into his/her doctor’s office were to say “I will not consent to any test, diagnostic, or treatment without knowing the full absolute (not relative!) benefit/harm picture, in particular for any drugs as evidenced by randomized controlled trials” then maybe this nonsense might abate a little. Alternatively, patients should demand of their physicians, “I wish to take the absolute minimum of prescription drugs necessary to make me well [a course of antibiotics to cure a proven bacterial infection would be perfectly reasonable, for instance!]. If the side effects are worse than the illness I am suffering, this is unacceptable.”
But it is SO much easier for GPs and others to scribble out a prescription than to say “Get Off Your Rear End And Exercise. Eat Your Veggies. Don’t Smoke. Laugh. And Stay Away From Us, Because We’re Here To Find Things Wrong With You.”
Depends on the antibiotic . A course of a fluoroquinolone like Ciprofloxacin or Levofloxacin could ruin your life ,put you in a wheelchair . Not really worth it for a bit of sinusitis or bronchitis that would probablyresolve on it’s own. The EMA has recently ruled that this family of antibiotics should have their use restricted. Too late for all those damaged ( of which I am one) by being given this inappropriately for the last 3 decades.
Dr. Kendrick”
Regarding your “man flu”? One word: Lagavulin.
Not Talisker or Ardbeg? One time, I had some specially selected Ardbeg 9 year old, and it was divine, though I like all three of these (and many more). Alas, I’m now down to one drink per week (and none for the past Lent), so I rarely buy a whole bottle of anything anymore.
Agree but Ardbeg Uigeadail is my own favorite today!
Goran
There are not many respectés where I favour the East of Scotland over the west, but Tomatin Speyside is one of them.
I am sue Edinburgh trains good doctors as well
Tomatin…East? Surely not.
Tomatin
Northeast if you want, but I was dividing Scotland between East and West
… Trans:- ‘Single malt’
Good
Teleoanalysis. It’s a religion. You need faith. I don’t have any.
I read recently that there are firm believers in a flat earth.
I guess there are brains wired differently from mine. I think I should write a paper showing that seed oils and lack of DHA cause alteration of brain function; I am sure I could come up with teleoanalysis to prove that.
Malcolm,
I am very glad you are back again. Out of interest, I wonder if you had the flu jab?
It sounds as though The Lancet has been taken over in some way. The parts you quote don’t even resemble a sober scientific discussion – just more of the ranting that we hear on the BBC nowadays about climate destruction in 12 years, people’s right to declare themselves to be of the opposite sex, etc, etc.
When all dissent is stifled – as I fear it will be – will enter a dark age, when (hopefully) the powers like Russia and China leave us alone to decline while they take charge of the world. I used to think that our democracy was stable – but it isn’t once fanatics seize control of too many media outlets.
Just to back up one aspect of my claims above, here is a letter of complaint sent by the Global Warming Foundation to the BBC regarding a recent program on Climate Change:
Click to access BBC-complaint-April2019.pdf
David Bailey: Thank you for that link. Excellent letter. So blatant the propaganda has become.
The news media have become total propaganda arms. I’m horrified more people don’t see it. We’ve reached levels similar to the Soviet Union or prewar Germany.
Hello, Dr. Kendrick, it is good to see you back blogging again.
I have just a word or two to add about the tobacco-caused deaths statistics for the United States. I used to believe the mortality figures, but since the death of my mother and the way her death was listed, I no longer do – especially for people who die in their 80s and beyond.
My mother was a life-long smoker. In her late 60s early 70s she developed COPD and was treated with theophylline for the rest of her life. The drug worked miracles and she had no trouble with her lungs if she took it religiously. After she fell and broke her hip at 80 years old she lived with us. She continued to smoke as she always had (we had an exhaust fan put in her room). She slowly but inexorably aged and eventually died a few months short of her 87th birthday. Her death was clearly one due to “old age” and not to any specific disease. Indeed, the week before she died her physician visited the house and declared that her lungs “were as clear as a bell.” When it came time to write her death certificate he listed the cause as COPD – and specified that the death was tobacco-related. She had smoked constantly from age 16 to age 86. Tobacco certainly takes a long time to kill somebody.
Note, too, that nowadays every time a physician notes that tobacco was instrumental in the death of someone the tobacco industry has to pay extra tax. The incentive is there to link tobacco to every ailment known to man.
Stay well, and continue to educate us all with your excellent writing.
Age doesn’t kill.
It does eventually
Bob, oh yes it does, everybody that has died was some age 🤡
How was he able to determine that her lungs were as clear as a bell?
The stethoscope was brought into play along with some tapping on the chest and back. It was many years ago now, so I don’t remember precisely what he did, just what he said.
The graph is interesting. Probably reflective of income more than anything else. Food with lots of saturated fat typically costs more to purchase, so it could be that the countries consuming more of it have more wealth, lower stress, a better social safety net and better access to better health care.
… and probably a diet in less complex (cheap) carbs.
Frobertl and Chads
I actually took away a much simpler message from the graphs, that is, saturated fat does you no harm and probably does you good, on the basis that we are hard wired to deal with such food and have been doing so for millennia.
During the many ice ages, when Yorkshire was buried under a glacier two kilometres thick, the continentals treated uninhabited England as a vast game reserve and came over to hunt red deer on which they feasted. If you can bear to read a book called “Sapiens” the switch to plant based diet from hunter gathering meant nOt only was your diet not so great, but you had to work considerably harder to get it and we’re at the mercy of droughts crop failures etc.
Georgians and Moldovans have some of the best and most balanced cuisine among ex-Soviet states and I would argue some of the most balanced cuisine in the world. And yet, they’re high on the CVD list. I don’t think it has to do with lack of saturated fat in their diets but other factors, including eating too much of everything for some of them: carbs, fats, and proteins.
Sasha
No such thing as a healthy kind of gluttony – gluttony is gluttony !
I wonder if they use a lot of sunflower and other oils.
Both Moldovans and Georgians use lots of sunflower oil, it’s the only oil available there, certainly in Moldova, as far as I know. I doubt it’s due to sunflower oil though. Good quality, cold pressed, unfiltered sunflower oil is very different from what passes for sunflower oil nowadays. The “badness” of sunflower oil is another one of those dietary myths, I believe.
I DEFINITELY was missing your blogs. We are so smothered in garbage science I feel there NO voice for us except wonderful folks like you. Downright scary how pure science is being burned on the altar of “sustainability” or many other mountains of pure garbage. When they get to my “rib-eye” and attempt to grab it–be careful–the husband has a great system of sharpening knives!!! Have a great day and we look forward to the next piece of “truth”.
Your words are like a cool drink of water on a hot day. Keep the telling us the truth. I will share it. Hope you feel better soon.
If you have not seen this before (I trust that this is not old news)
Something related recently arrived in my inbox from Richard David Feinman
As Hilaire Belloc put it in ‘The Microbe’
‘But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
O! Let us never ever doubt
What nobody is sure about’
I used to like reading that one to my children.
Great to hear you’re still with us. Was a little concerned. It just would’ve given them way too much ammunition if you had died of a heart attack or the like. It comes as no surprise to hear these children rant on again about saturated fat or meats for that matter. Ever since the seventh day Adventist’s got involved however many years ago they’ve been pushing this agenda. Gary Fettkes article and subsequent court case shows it’s ever present ugliness. I’ve personally moved to a diet that involves only saturated fat in its entirety. So has my girlfriend. Unfortunately we’ve never been so healthy and have reversed years of so called healthy diet consequences. I don’t even consider fruit and vegetables a health food anymore. But hey 5 a day maybe eight. Why stop there. Make everyone eat a plant based diet. $$ signs appearing everywhere. Maximum profit for minimal costs. Plus of course the fantastic amount of $ created by a sickening aging population. Happy days!! I’ve become the worlds greatest sceptic. I believe if you’re told to do something by big government big pharmaceutical or pretty much any doctor just do a George Constanza and do the complete opposite and you’ll be far better off. Now to quote the great Malcolm Kendrick “ Dr Willet go away and let the adults speak “. You plonker!!
There is none so blind as those who will not see. It is risible listening to people trying to justify their unprovable, illogical stands. Teleoanalysis, what a wonderful concept!
Sorry that you have been laid low.
Get well soon, Dr Kendrick. Please, please take a look at this movie by John N Ott about light and health. It mentions heart disease and cancer. Don’t let the brass music near the beginning put you off. Smile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUA8UAEAdY
Sorry Jill, i thought the music was great
Thanks Jill, I thoroughly enjoyed this video….entertaining, quick and with no messing around (unlike so many laborious, repetitive and stretched -out documentaries these days). I recommend it to readers of this blog. He explains things that we probably knew instinctively, but have failed to acknowledge, examples being restless young children iincarcerated in school rooms illuminated by artificial light , when they ought to be outdoors in natural light, learning through play. He illustrated what we call ADHD these days, and an abnormally high cluster of the incidence of childhood leukaemia. Fascinating.
Dr Kendrick,
Condolences on your recent ill health. I thought perhaps you were out having fun (and much deserved fun). I’m glad you’re better, and I hope it stays that way.
Theresa May keeps saying the same thing over and over and people are believing her, too
“The UK will leave the EU on the 29th of March” or similar was said 108 thmes by the Treasona May. I don’t believe a word of it.
Oh I do hope you are right.
Brexit and the Yellow Vests in France is the most serious threat against the globalist agenda which explains the massive use of the armed police forces against the protesters. There is no “kidding” here!
More and more it looks as if it is “we” against “them” especially when it comes to food and medicine.
Goran Sjöberg: It is indeed. These are frightening times indeed. Medical fascism is rearing its ugly head all over the U.S. In California, Oregon, and Colorado bills removing the doctor’s role in writing medical exemptions for vaccination, and giving it to the state public health authorities, have all sailed through their first committee votes, and in Colorado, the full Senate. You are fortunate in Sweden that your Parliament re-affirmed informed consent for medical treatment. Vaccine mandates are clearly a violation of the Nuremburg Code. I have a hunch things will be getting ugly over the next decade or so.
It is important to oppose the mandated vaccines on the grounds of lack of safety and not because of personal choice. There is data that shows vaccines cause damage, and fraudulent data that shows something else.
I noticed people commenting about the police using force against yellow vests in Paris.
What about the Extinction rebellion protest in London. Over a thousand arrests?
It seems to only be police brutality when its involves right wing anti semites
I am so pleased that you are feeling a little better Dr. Kendrick after battling the dreaded man flu, and I just want to say how good it is to have you back.
I second that. I’m torn between wanting to read the next installment of your blog, and wanting you to give yourself time to recuperate from a nasty bout of illness. As I’m sure you must often tell your patients, don’t overdo things. So, like many of your readers, I’ll be raising a glass to you speedy recovery and future good health.
Great input as always!
I now feel more confident than ever with my present LCHF life although we are not allowed to mention the word LCHF, e.g. om restaurant menus, according to our official rules in Sweden.
BTW, since I converted to LCHF 10 years ago I haven’t had any serious flu but all previous years I caught any that was around. I attribute this to an improved immune system avoiding the carbs.
Still I was hit by pneumonia for whatever reason a few years ago – tough experience indeed!
Dr. Kendricks since I have eight stents in my heart due to clogged arteries I am looking for alternative ideas in stopping coronary heart disease in myself. I enjoyed your books and I think there is A lot to be said on the your remarks in regard to CHD. My question to you is since the human genome hasn’t changed in over 10,000 years, but what has changed is our diet. Is it safe to look at us as humans eating way too much sugar and carbohydrates and the widespread ingestion of hydrogenated oil‘s and fats along with corn and vegetables oil‘s which causes our arteries to be inflamed. I would like to be reasonably sure that I have a roadmap to a healthier living so that I don’t have more CHD in the future. What’s your feeling on sugars carbohydrates and hydrogenated oil‘s in our diet, please let me know 1800water@Gmail.com. Your friend John Cherup
Well,
Cherup,
My take on this, with severe CHD and having refused a comprehensive bypass now for 20 years, was to first of all to keep away from all polyunsaturated vegetable oils and especially those “partially hydrogenated” (read margarine) but which is part of almost all processed industrial food. The transfats are here viscously lurking.
All sugar also went away at the same time.
And a daily glass of red wine entered.
I am afraid that we are fighting very strong globalist wind mills when we advocate eating unprocessed meat and avoiding carbs. I think they just “hate” the LCHF idea since it is against their business basics; cheap, high profit, long shelf life processed food.
John,
Read this fantastic book “Reversing Heart Disease” https://dancobbdom.com/articles-and-books/
Learn everything you can about Traditional Foods here: https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/principles-of-healthy-diets-2/
“Critics have long contended that nutrition research is plagued by a credibility problem. They argue that an alarming number of food studies are misleading, unscientific or manipulated to draw dubious conclusions.”
I love that chart!! Can’t wait to show it to some people (though I will be careful to say I don’t think it *proves* saturated fat is good for you – for all we know, people in the high CHD countries smoke more, are more stressed, etc.). But the chart does show that saturated fat might not be the killer it’s always made out to be.
I am wondering … is it possible the guy saying diet caused more deaths was referring to a diet of processed junk food rather than real food (including saturated fat)? Not that he could prove that either, but it would seem slightly less irrational since humans evolved eating saturated fat but our bodies were not designed for processed foods.
Btw, don’t be too hard on vegans. I know several who are neither preachy nor unreasonable – just worried about our planet (having studied environmental science in depth). My own view is that, rather than trying to persuade meat-lovers to go vegan (which I don’t see as doable), we should start by outlawing factory farms. Switching to traditional farming would be better for the animals, the humans who ate them, and the environment. And if all livestock were grass fed on small farms, the meat produced would get a lot pricier, and consumption would inevitably decline.
(I think forcing people to pay more for meat would curb consumption more effectively than asking people to voluntarily give it up. Especially here in the US, where I just saw a young woman on TV saying that, in her community, everyone believes global warming is bosh, and in any case, if they want to drive a car that gets 10 miles to the gallon, they have a right to do that.)
Excellent. Decreasing meat consumption is a bad thing so let’s make it more expensive so the less well off die and decrease the surplus population. Brilliant stuff. Outstanding.
Lisa,
I think quite a few people in this community also think Global Warming (which was renamed Climate Change because there is so little extra warming nowadays) is bosh!
I would certainly be in favour of outlawing factory farms!
I live in a small town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales in northern England. We are surrounded by green fields and moorland. Most of the land is permanent pasture, some fields grow grass for silage and hay and a few are arable, mainly barley.
At this time of year most of the fields are crowded with sheep with their young lambs. The wool of the adult sheep is shorn in July simply for the comfort of the animals, as it now has little market value. The animals are reared only for their meat, which is expensive but delicious. The sheep live outdoors most of the year and are brought indoors mainly for lambing. One winter, some heavy snow at dusk drove several sheep off the moor into the town, into my next door neighbour’s garden. The neighbours were away and it took me ages to trace the shepherd who eventually came to round them up
Some fields are used to pasture dairy cows, some for beef cattle. The animals are kept outdoors in summer, but the winter weather is too cold for them round here and they have to live in the barns then.
Whether the farms could survive without large subsidies is unlikely. If meat is a healthy part of a human diet, which the evidence leads me to believe it is, the rearing of animals in the traditional manner should be supported by the tax-payer in the interests of public health. If not, this will die out and the beautiful, but man-made landscape of the Dales will eventually revert to scrub and forest. Fine for the wildlife, no doubt, and best for the remoter and least fertile places, but overall, this would destroy livelihoods and whole communities.
Incidentally, there is plenty of good, cheap meat still around if you know how to cook it. Last weekend I bought 900 g leg of beef for £6. Cut into large chunks, with just the thickest tendons removed, it made an excellent Hungarian goulash which lasted two people, two days, (large helpings, of course, none of this 90 g a week nonsense).
shirley3349: Thanks for the lovely description of your home surroundings. I, too, use the tough cuts of beef for stews, freeze the extra, and have them after hikes, when there isn’t time to cook. Since I buy 1/2 beef at a time, which lasts 15 months, there are plenty of tough cuts!
Lisa, you say that your friends have chosen their diet because they are “just worried about our planet (having studied environmental science in depth).”
Sadly nowadays most university departments have been captured by various interest groups. As a result, the description “environmental science” is something of an oxymoron. Most of what passes for environmental science is thinly veiled activism undertaken with clear policy objectives in mind. It bears little relationship to the disinterested inquiry undertaken by true scientists.
I certainly believe in outlawing factory farms. 25% of the Earth is grassland, which can sustainably support pasture and grazing animals, but not intensive grain cultivation and combine harvesters. If this means meat prices go up, so be it. We cannot farm by mining topsoil for ever.
But pasture can be very productive if managed properly.
“And at Brown’s Ranch in Bismarck, North Dakota, soil health improved by leaps and bounds after owner Gabe Brown began managing the land regeneratively. Organic matter and rainwater uptake tripled, “and we can easily handle five times the number of cattle that we used to,” says Brown, who also runs sheep and chickens and grows dozens of crops—all without using synthetic fertilizer, pesticides or fungicides.” — http://www.eatingwell.com/article/290723/this-man-wants-you-to-eat-more-meat/
The benefits of water runoff without polluting chemicals, CO2 absorption in increased soil carbon, and a more pleasant countryside and lively small towns far outweighs any cow farts.
It is not necessary to eat meat every day for good health in my experience. Eggs, dairy, poultry, fish, and fresh unprocessed and fermented fruit and veggies, and grains, can be combined in nutritious and healthy meals.
Martin Back: Thanks for posting that. Gabe Brown is one of the really good guys. North Dakota has one of the harshest climates in the U.S. for farming or anything else.
Dr. Kendrick,
This goes beyond making money from statins. To what do you attribute the tenacity of the vegan dogma? What do they want?
To all,
I did watch a lecture by Valter Longo who seems like a very sincere guy who has spent his career doing longevity research. He is Italian himself and promotes veganism with fish and discusses blue zones. In my opinion, ‘they’ are lying when they say Mediterranean blue zone diets have very little meat or dairy. And they don’t mention eggs. And if they eat eggs they eat chicken.
His research sounds convincing and I don’t know how to refute it.
I said to my daughter that since ‘they’ are telling us that red meat is the worst, I assume that it is the best and we should eat more of it.
Ah. He promotes not being vegan, then. I’m most confused by the rest of your post.
Valter Longo does not promote veganism, he promotes moderation.
He does not promote veganism as a term. He promotes a plant based diet based on his research into longevity. I’m not sure what is confusing. As an Italian, I thought he might know more about the diets of the Italians in the blue zones. I think they eat yogurt, cheese, goat and sheep. And I’m sure they eat eggs and chicken. They are being, falsely in my opinion, touted as eating mostly a plant based diet.
He says once you get quite old it is best to have some dairy.
My comment to my daughter reflects the fact that they are lying to us so boldly that if you turn what they say 180 degrees, you’ll get it about right.
Anna M: Great advice. The general rule I follow is that whatever the government says (about diet/health), I do the opposite. If it has a government warning on the package, it is probably (but not always) good for you.
Valter Longo also has a very well researched book “The Longevity Diet” and he spoke on a number of podcasts. I think Joe Rogan’s was one of them.
Anna,
Do a internet search for “Blue Zones wapf” which will find a number of discussions from the Weston A. Price Foundation. Here is one: http://nourishingtraditions.com/true-blue-zones-sardinia/
I’m continually amazed at how researchers frequently see what they think they are supposed to see, rather than what is actually there.
One of the big differences between a Sardinian shepherd and a Westerner following Wise Traditions diet is how much food they have access to. We have too much food in modern societies and we can’t control ourselves. That is at the root of many of our problems. Valter Longo, who studies longevity, talks about this a lot.
Too much food, too easily available, too heavily advertised, too adulterated in order to to taste good and last long on the shelf, too little nutrition per calorie — no wonder we’re getting fat and unhealthy.
Thanks for that. It completely confirmed what I suspected.
Thank you Malcolm for this post..Reminding us all of the adverse impact that a vegan & high carb diet can have. Easter has just been and despite already knowing this good advice,I indulged in chocolate, rich organic hot cross buns and toasted raisin bread…But now back to real food again ..
Meanwhile here in South Australia, I am again working in my gardens planting Winter vegies & cleaning up the spent Summer ones. As I work the soil is dry as dust from lack of rain : none here since the middle of December !
The dry spell is being attributed to Global warming by our local Greenists. But it is simply our normal and unpredictable climate..
Hope you are well now and recovered from the ‘man flu”
Dr Kendrick,
Thank you for this blog plost – your material is always stimulating!
It would probably strengthen your position if you additionally evaluated the TH Chan school of medecine criticism of the PURE study:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2017/09/08/pure-study-makes-headlines-but-the-conclusions-are-misleading/
Thanks
Nick
Teleoanalysis. An excellent word which I will use from now on to make up all sorts of things, for example obtaining a First from Oxford, Masters from Cambridge and my PhD from MIT. It perhaps explains how President Trump wins golf competitions when he wasn’t even at the right golf club. He produces a summary estimate of what he thinks he would have done by taking made up scores from all of his recent rounds producing a summary estimate of the size of relation … blah blah. Another example of a fine upstanding honest person.
It would take more than teleoanalysis for you Pete.
Great post as usual, Malcolm. I cannot understand how you can keep waving this stuff in their face and still the establishment refuses to take any notice. Well I can really, and it’s all down to money.
I hate to be a pedant, but I think all graphs have two axes. I think what you’ve got there is more a bar-chart with two axes.
Yes, I think you are right. I wasn’t quite sure what to call it.
Here in the colonies we would call it a “bar graph,” so you are correct after all.
I’ve certainly come across three dimensional graphs where the three axes, x, y and z are represented with a common origin like the drawing of the corner of a cube, without using perspective. I believe graphs showing even more dimensions are possible in theory, though representing them on a two dimensional surface must be challenging, to say the least!
Thank you
I’ve been wondering whether to respond or not. So now I’ve decided. This debate about diet has been going on for centuries. In a letter to the Romans the advice given was for vegetarians not to criticise the stronger meat eaters and vice versa.
I have a recent experience of trying a water-fast (unsupervised, which is not recommended). Controlling my BP has been a problem for a long time and reluctantly just before Christmas I went back onto Ramipril (2.5 mg) which had an immediate effect in bringing it down. Only at home can I get a true reflection of what my BP actually is (in a clinical environment it can be anything up to 232/116). The immediate effect did not last long.
On 10 April I did a treadmill monitoring test followed by a scan. By this time the Ramipril dose had been increased to 5mg (and the specialist at the hospital would like to see it increased to 10mg). My practice does a kidney function scan for those on Ramipril. I suspect it was borderline because they wanted me to do another test a month later – that is in May – and to drink plenty of water. I looked for an alternative method of reducing BP because it is not much use having a normal range of BP readings if my kidneys cease to function.
I found Dr Goldhamer’s video on water-fasting:
Dr Kendrick will be pleased to see that Dr Goldhamer also uses a graph in his presentation which is quite impressive. As Dr Goldhamer’s clinic is in the US, and I probably could not have afforded the cost or the time away in any case, I decided to do my own fast, disobeying several of the commandments like the resting side of things. I walked the dogs twice a day, played golf and went for a cycle ride with my stepson – who noticed how much slower I was than normal. I fasted for five days keeping an eye on my BP which remarkably came down with one reading as low as 117/64.
My 5-day fast finished on Easter Day. For the 5 days since then my BP has been consistently better than it has been in a long time. I have an unopened packet of Ramipril capsules and a big slab of cheese in the fridge. I doubt I can keep up the vegan side of the equation but I am not really missing tea (which I used to drink in vast quantities).
As to Ramipril it occurs to me that it works but perhaps just for a while, like an analgesic might help with a headache. That is not the kind of drug that would appeal to Big Pharma whose bottom line is the bottom line!
johnplatinumgoss
My wife and I both had raised blood pressure. We went onto strict LCHF + IF (15+ hours/ day). Blood pressure lowered quite quickly. Off BP meds for ever. It worked for us.
I encourage you to keep it up. You’ll get better at it and know your body better. If you are in reasonable health it is safe to fast at home. They always say talk to your doctor but most doctors don’t know much about fasting. Monitoring your BP, not overdoing it, and being careful unless you get dizzy when arising would be smart.
I just broke an 11-day fast. My goal was 12 days but I just got to unrelentingly hungry the past few hours I couldn’t take it.
About two weeks prior, I fasted 5 days.
Vaccines. The thing is, where to find decent information and how to understand it for s dim layman such as myself. If I go to somewhere online that seems too cranky, that’s no help to me. It does indeed seem to me that M, M and R are serious conditions. It seems that vaccination would be the sensible course of action. But sensible people such as Mr Kendrick think, at least, that there is some reason for caution. But he won’t blog on it because it will detract from his work on heart disease an people will think him a crank. Some already do. There are some right wing cranks on this comment section. Of course, because Mr Kendrick has that anti authoritarian thing going on.
I’m not especially pro or anti. Hey, I’ve seen Vaxxed several times. But just today a Dr pointed out that the separate vaccines, recommended by Wakefield, are less effective than the combined vaccine.
What is true? How to know?
What was the evidence given in support of the statement “combined MMR vaccine is more effective than giving three separate vaccines and spacing them out?”
Sasha: There simply isn’t any. Vaccinologists, like statinators, think evidence is only for sissies. There are no randomized, controlled trials for any vaccine currently licensed. Multi-valent vaccines are combined simply for convenience, and likely are both less effective and more dangerous. It would be interesting to see a study of the difference in adverse events between the single measles vaccine, in common use for 10-15 years in the U.S. and UK (and still available until a few months after Dr. Wakefield recommended it in 1998), and the MMR. It would be a Herculean, if not impossible, task to find and interpret this data. Much harder than prying anything out of Professor Sir His Majesty Rory Collins.
Gary: I agree with you completely.
Boy that seems unlikely. I think they want the convenience of giving several at once.
Bob, in the same interview it was stated that as well as each individual vaccine being less effective on its own when compared to being in the triple, we were informed that on their own, they are expensive. So, parents wanting one vaccine only, perhaps measles, are limited, as they are NOT available as part of the NHS vaccination programme. So, the poor have to take the triple or do without, if they have objections for the triple. I prefer the vaccines being given individually, only because I feel the triple is quite an onslaught for the little ones. I believe all three vaccines should be encouraged, but I object to the way parents are rail-roaded purely on COST!
As an aside, I nearly lost my sight due to measles at age 5. By the time my 1st born arrived the measles vaccine was available, so I was 1st in the queue for it….but my new GP was totally against it and I had no way of getting round the problem. 2 years later, my son was extremely ill with measles…pneumonia and severe middle ear infection, and the dreadful pain associated with that. Years later I nursed a very unfortunate child with encephalitis, blamed on childhood measles.
It will take a lot to convince me that anti-vaxxers have a good case. No one seems to mention the deadly diseases still prevalent in my young childhood…polio, TB and (across the globe,) smallpox. I recall the time when smallpox was totally irradicated across the world, except for strains being stored in laboratories, and that was achieved by use of global innoculation.
As an oldie, I do not partake in the flu jab or the pneumonia jab.
Jennifer – at 11 I got measles. And I repeat what I said here before, few days in bed, spots and right as rain shortly after. That applied to everyone on our street. As somebody said, it was a right of passage. Even the Brady bunch joined in. Now, it’s given to sound like the plague. Not doubting you but can’t believe your experience is typical.
Jerome. I don’t doubt you got through your right of passage quite nicely, but I must add that the minor symptoms and short duration that you describe resemble German measles, ( generally put into the ‘right of passage’ category in my young day, due to its awful risks for future pregnant women, so best for youngsters to attend ‘measles parties’). As recently as 2017 measles accounted for 110,000 known deaths globally. Prior to the vaccine, global deaths were in excess of 2.5 million.
Thankfully you were 11 at the time. Measles is particularly deadly for the under 5s, regardless of status or class.
Apologies to SteveR for this response, but I feel that WHO statistics in this case need mentioning, otherwise this blog, as he says, will be put into the category of conspiracy theorists of the lunatic fringe.
Jerome Savage: Jennifer had an experience with measles which is uncommon, but very real to those who experience it, and should not be discounted. What I advocate is that parents be armed with the scientific evidence of the risks of both the disease and the vaccine. Of informed consent. An end to mandates. As it is, at least in the U.S., there is no real post-marketing surveillance of vaccines available for scrutiny by the public, and the trial adverse event monitoring periods are too short to truly show the risks. Thus it is easy to sweep parental concerns under the rug. Armed with the best available knowledge, parents can then make the decision whether or not to vaccinate. I fully agree with the official position of the Russian Orthodox church that God intends for parents to make these sorts of decisions in the raising of their children. Japan is a good example of a vaccine policy which is much safer than that in the U.S. Children’s Health Defense has a good article this week comparing them.
Gary: I didn’t realize that was the official position of the Russian Orthodox Church… I was in Moscow subway recently. It has very little commercial advertising and lots of “society” ads: which museums are free this week, the weather, etc. I saw a news flash from Russian ministry of health that they’re considering bringing legal actions against physicians questioning vaccines. I was very disappointed to see it, I was hoping that Russia could chart a different course in the vaccine debate.
Sasha: Yes, the statement from the Church is a bright light in a dark world. I read it on Age of Autism a few days ago; should be easy to find there. What I found truly heartening is the statement that God has given to parents and nobody else the duty to make decisions for their children, health and otherwise, except in cases of abuse. As for the influence the Church has on the Russian Government, I have no idea.
I think the influence is substantial but there are probably competing interests trying to influence policy.
I got measles aged 2. I don’t remember it, but my mother tells me my parents were afraid I was going to die, it was so severe. I do remember getting frequent earaches as a child. No idea if they were an after-effect of the measles
Bob: There is much good information available. From a clinician’s (50+ years) point of view, read “Vaccines-A Reappraisal,” by Richard Moskowitz, M.D. From a parent’s perspective, “How to End the Autism Epidemic,” by J.B. Handley, is excellent. For a rich mine of historical information, “Dissolving Illusions” is a must read. There are many more. I have twenty good books on this subject. That was a very strange statement by the doctor-that the separate vaccine are less effective. Did he cite any evidence? The only reason for the MMR is so that more vaccines can be crammed into one shot. Mumps is a trivial disease in childhood, and never should have had a vaccine. There is currently a qui tam (for defrauding the U.S. government) law suit in Federal Court in Pennsylvania by the two researchers tasked by Merck with certifying the efficacy of the mumps component of MMR, which is required by law for purchase by CDC to show 95% efficacy. They were instructed (they allege) to use a variety of means to fraudulently show such results. Why the drop in efficacy? This vaccine (the Jeryl Lynn strain) is nearly 60 years old. Mumps outbreaks among fully-vaccinated post-adolescents (when mumps can be dangerous), such as in universities, and now a U.S. Navy ship, now in quarantine at sea, have become routine. There are also quadr-, penta-, and hexavalent vaccines now in use. This cannot be a good idea, combining multiple, if weakened, diseases in one shot and giving them to infants. In an Italian court case in 2012, GSK was found liable for causing autism in a girl from the hexavalent Infanrix hexa vaccine. Vaccine policy today is a cesspool of corruption. The more you learn, the more horrifying it becomes. I deeply appreciate Dr. Kendrick steering clear of this issue. The media, which, like government, works for industry, doesn’t hesitate to vilify anyone who questions the gravy train. For vaccine companies, vaccines are their profit leader, their future.
I have to say I find this all depressingly distracting. Why are we talking about vaccines on a site which is about what causes heart disease? I think it is disingenuous to compare ‘vaccinators’ to ‘statinators’. I would imagine most of us are now signed up to the fact that the diet/cholesterol/CHD model is a load of old codswallop whereas we know vaccines work, as evidenced by the fact that we now live in a smallpox-free world. I’m sure there are lots of arguements to be had about how safe or not it is to combine vaccines and how big Pharma may be implicated in this, but surely these are for other sites.
My fear is that we will perpetuate the myth that we are a bunch of conspiracy theorists who don’t believe in anything ‘conventional’ and can therefore be dismissed as the lunatic fringe.
I think this blog encourages questioning claims presented as science even when they are not. In that sense, questioning some of the pro-vaxxer claims is no different than questioning claims of statinators.
Sasha: Yes. I find this the most intellectually stimulating community I’ve ever been part of. Skepticism is a scientific virtue, and Dr. Kendrick has attracted a very interesting and diverse group of skeptics. Hooray for that. I enjoy reading them all, and thinking about what they have said.
Yes, I am also grateful to Dr Kendrick for allowing these sorts of discussions that promote critical thinking.
In reading about Lp(a), the following question comes to mind: In subclinical vitamin C deficiency, which may be the case for many, is the production of Lp(a) increased? Or increased in response to endothelial injury along with this deficiency? With large doses of supplemental vitamin C, is the production of Lp(a) reduced? Is there a relationship here? The only time I’ve ever had mine tested, it was 76, one point above the normal range, but this was before I began supplementing with vitamin C. I have no interest in or intention of getting the test again, but it is interesting to speculate what it might be now.
SteveR: The term “conspiracy theorist” as an ad hominem was invented by the CIA to smear those who questioned the official story of JFK’s assassination. It is not a term of argument, but a term of propaganda, and anyone who uses it thusly can be dismissed as uninterested in actual argument or debate, ignored. In comparing statinators and vaccinologists I meant that both hide actual data which shows that they are wrong, often dangerously wrong, and that both do so in service to industry interests. I appreciate Dr. Kendrick’s graciousness in hosting off-topic comments. I make errors like everyone else, but everything I write on the vaccine issue is based upon historical and scientific fact. We should all be very concerned about the behemoth the pharmaceutical industry has become, and about official corruption in health matters in both the U.S and the UK.
SteveR, it seems that in my wellwish to Dr. K, I inadventently bumped the cage and the anitivax dogs got out. I regret that. Now let’s get back and resume the dialogue aound Dr. K’s subjects.
Bill, ad hominem attacks do nothing to further a discussion, so to refer to people who post here as “antivax dogs” may elicit some forthright replies.
SteveR. Sincere apologies for the distraction and way off topic comments. You are correct, this is a blog on CVD but as the good Dr K states “perhaps it is annoying a lot of people?”.
We know this blog is read by “the medical/Governmental hierarchy” and hopefully they will choke on their pate de foie gras!
As for smallpox eradication
“Of these dogmas, I believe the practice known as vaccination to be the most absurd and most pernicious. I do not believe that a single person has ever been protected from smallpox by it; while I know that many serious bodily evils and even deaths, have resulted from its employment. The whole theory is founded upon assumption, contrary to common sense and entirely opposed to all known principles of physiology. Every physician of experience, has met with numerous cases of cutaneous eruptions, erysipelas and syphilis, which were directly traceable to vaccination, and if these cases could be collected and presented in one report, they would form a more terrible picture than the worst that has ever been drawn of the horrors of smallpox.” – Dr Robert A.Gunn, MD, Dean of the United States Medical College of New York, Circa 1882
The Autism piece deserves shading, and I apologize for the long-winded post. While most people assume an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) appears in singular form (echolalia, perseveration, hand flapping, etc.) with a marginally related Asperger’s version, in my field, this is not remotely true. As someone who works primarily with persons with ASD, I am fortunate to spend time with creative, intelligent, articulate people whose social challenges interfere with life just enough that they need support, sometimes a lot of it. They are not ill. Most are very bright, and in fact ASD and high intelligence share subsets of genes. It is highly common for testing to show very high levels of higher order intellectual skills, and parent interviews typically result in family history of engineering, computer engineering and the like. Usually the father (but sometimes the mother) works for one the major tech giants in my area. Even when they are obviously socially distant, the parents are never diagnosed, having been reared in a different era. But they universally can speak about awkward social lives as children.
One way to end the Autism epidemic as it is poorly called above would be to return to old diagnostic measures that included such obfuscating terms, such as Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). Previously children diagnosed with PDD-NOS would not have been termed autistic, nor would they have necessarily benefited from treatments available to persons formally diagnosed with Autism. Parents with children with PDD-NOS probably had no idea that they’re children were considered autistic by evaluators.
Another way to reduce Autism numbers would be to allow more wide-ranging care for persons with other disorders, such as fetal alcohol disorders or bipolar disorder. Currently, if one is diagnosed with ASD, parents have access to virtually unlimited in-home therapy (in the US). If you are unlucky enough to have the two disorders I mentioned (or any other significant psychiatric disorder), you do not have access to this support. What does this do to providers? It pushes us to make an ethical choice of qualifying persons who meet criteria technically, but who probably are not actually autistic. For instance, I recently assessed a child with a pervasive seizure disorder who received only minimal support. Children with significant neurological damage are often socially odd and engage in stereotypic behaviors. He was not difficult to qualify as autistic and his parents were grateful for the broader supports now available to him. (Yes, this is insane policy.)
In other words, describing Autism in epidemic terms is horribly naive and misguided. The number of persons I diagnose with level 1 (what used to be Asperger’s) greatly outnumbers those who most causal observers could recognize. Numbers are greatly inflated by changes in diagnostic terms and overall awareness of what exactly constitutes Autism.
This idea that persons with ASD are one way, or that ASD needs to be eradicated is false and harmful. While most of us would not choose to be autistic, I would caution against trying to rid the world of the genes that contribute to ASD (unless one is hopeful that a lack of engineers and other highly organized types are unnecessary). Because that is often what Autism is – a highly organized neurological presentation that provides someone with very focal intellect, a highly structured way of seeing the world, but a likely diminished social intuition. It’s not easy being autistic, but I would not want to rid the world of them. The persons I work with are clever, unique, thoughtful, even when they are often pains in my behind. I can’t imagine a world without them.
I suspect if one were to travel back in time and visit the Romans who were building roads and viaducts, one would find a group of socially awkward persons. Read about your favorite scientists, particularly ones who organized the world in interesting ways, and you will find odd, interesting characters.
Maybe vaccines do have some impact on some small subset of vulnerable individuals. I don’t know, but I also don’t think that someone without intimate knowledge of the field could make assumptions about prevalence and scale. This is a very complex system, and using raw diagnostic numbers is fraught with difficulties and error.
KidPsych, thanks for the explaination. I think there are many more vaccine damaged children than are accepted as such, and I think “autistic” is probably an inappropriate label. My understanding of autistic people is that they may have an an abnormal function, but what they have can be very high function in some respects which most of us can never hope to achieve. I think environmental factors including vaccines and glyphosate can cause neurological damage which is unlikely to result in high functions, but more likely, impaired function.
The reporting system in the US for vaccine adverse effects has been shown by Harvard researchers to give figures far lower than the likely numbers. Needless to say the medical industry has been trying to blame the parents or the patient, but never the injected toxic substance, which has never been tested for safety.
“Of these dogmas, I believe the practice known as vaccination to be the most absurd and most pernicious. I do not believe that a single person has ever been protected from smallpox by it” — Dr Robert A.Gunn, MD, Dean of the United States Medical College of New York, Circa 1882
It took another hundred years, but smallpox was finally declared eradicated from the world in 1980 by the WHO. It might have been sooner, had it not been for opposition to vaccination from the likes of Dr Gunn.
Martin, “eradicated” is a misused word in the vaccine world. As for the effectiveness of the vaccine, read “Dissolving Ilussions”.
Martin Back: Read (in “Dissolving Illusions”) what the good people of Leicester did in 1885 to eradicate smallpox from their city of half a million. Mistake to trust WHO except sometinmes.
Bill. Please don’t feel sorry. It was an innocent comment, and cages are sure easily rattled round here!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with anyone holding any opinion they like about vaccines, I just don’t think this is the right forum to express them. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, I think you stand a good chance of offending and ostracising visitors to the blog, which must be counterproductive. Secondly, I think it gives grist to the mill of all those who want to sling mud at us – the Rory Collins of this world and the popular press – who would take great delight in lumping the statin-skeptics in with the anti-vaxxers, the flat-earth society and people who think Martians shot JFK.
If there really is no appropriate forum for the serious discussion of vaccines, set one up!
I really think we stand a better chance of winning the argument about all-things-statin if we try and stick to the point.
I would like to see a serious vaccine forum discussion set up. However, from what I have seen, it seems impossible to achieve reasoned debate anywhere else. I am not entirely sure what to do. I would rather vaccine discussion could be kept to one side – but I cannot see how that can be done. I don’t want to stifle it – because I think it is good to have people from both sides discussing things. I don’t want to join in, because this is not my world of expertise. Anyone got any suggestions?
Dr. Kendrick, to my mind, your blog is not only about CVD causes but also about developing critical reasoning. I initially found it because I saw a pretty serious statin injury and I wanted to understand why, since the person injured was being given other reasons like “autoimmune hepatitis”. In reading your books and following peoples’ posts I learned a lot, not only about CVD and lipids but also about other issues. And that includes vaccines, since I also kept seeing vaccine injuries and I followed it up with sources provided by Gary and others. Most importantly, by seeing different points of view, I kept furthering my understanding of critical reasoning skills.
This blog is different because people are being civil, in contrast to many other sources out there. If we are taking a vote, I vote for keeping the topics of discussion broad. It’s fine to disagree, that’s where the truth is born, so to speak.
Dr. Kendrick: My two cents: I seems to be working perfectly fine to me as it is, and not distracting at all. We are all primarily interested in CVD and what has gone wrong in medicine in general. Nobody should be offended by those questioning current medical practice in any field. A civil, fact-based discussion is always edifying. I simply weigh in on the vaccine issue because I have educated myself on it, and consider it the most important issue of our day, in medicine. There is a connection, however small, between infectious disease and CVD risk. I would be perfectly happy to not do so, but when there are questions I can answer, I feel obliged. Some commenters use ad hominems; this seems the way of media reporting these days. Rightly so, they are roundly criticized, but there is nothing better for learning than a civil discussion among a diverse group of people with different life experiences and knowledge, even if it strays a bit from the subject at hand.
SteveR, we are lucky to enjoy something approaching free speech. It’s not quite free, as we have to choose words carefully to try and get across a point. Your sentence “I think you stand a good chance of offending and ostracising visitors to the blog, which must be counterproductive.”. The risk of offending people will always be present, the alternative is to have “political correctness” as has been legislated in Canada for example, where it is a legal requirement to use prescribed pronouns.
This sums it up https://youtu.be/44pERGAaKHw
AhNotepad: Thanks for the link. Jordan Peterson is always good, a voice of sanity in a lunatic world.
SteveR, your sentence “I really think we stand a better chance of winning the argument about all-things-statin if we try and stick to the point.”
“Winning” is not useful in a discussion as it must mean there are victor and vanquished states that are achieved. That can lead to resentment on the part of the “vanquished”. What is needed is agreement about what is fact. With huge finances involved, that is unlikely.
Facts:
Science is the endeavor to get closer to, rather than farther from an understanding of reality. It doesn’t always head in the desired direction. Posing the best conceived hypotheses, asking the most logical questions, and choosing the most likely answers to pursue further are all human efforts, and, therefore, fallible. The best to hope for is a closer and closer approximation of reality.
Asking even the best Science for “fact” is begging for a fair degree of disappointment.
Ask Vinay Prasad. Ask John Ioannidis. Heck, ask Dr Kendrick.
Reread “Doctoring Data”.
I have an extensive scar on my right shin caused by my smallpox vaccination in infancy. My mother did not want it done on my upper arm as hers was, so that I could wear low cut dresses when I grew up.
The vaccination site subsequently got infected and took many weeks to heal.
The “serious bodily evils” described by Dr Gunn in 1882 in the Wizard’s account, sound to me like the effects of various secondary infections, occurring either at the time of vaccination or before the site had had time to heal.
My mother also had all 4 of us have our smallpox vaccinations on an upper thigh for exactly the same reason as your mother. I distinctly remembering at the age of 3 having a weird dome shaped plastic bandage with holes over the vaccination site for quite a few days.
Frederica Huxley: That’s funny! A bit of vanity. I remember all of us had the carrot-core-shaped scar on the upper right arm, including my mother (they were a bit more modestly-dressed in her time). Still have mine, though it is very faint now.
shirley3349: Yes, and many of them were contaminated, as there was no standard manufacturing process; pretty much anyone could produce them by their preferred cheapest method. Today they are still contaminated, but less so.
Dr K, I agree that a dedicated vaccine forum would be ideal. Unfortunately, my fear is that it would simply become an echo chamber. We would only attract those specifically interested in the subject and really just end up preaching to the “converted”, for want of a better expression. The industry shills would plague the platform too and moderating this would become a nightmare.
The beauty of your blog is that it attracts an obviously intelligent and articulate readership; yes the main thrust is all matters pertinent to CVD/CHD/ cholesterol and the like (quite rightly so), but in addition we seem to have a community of contributors who are able to engage in a mature and reasoned discourse in an ever growing range of topics. Visitors come for a specific subject matter but may actually experience a light bulb moment in other areas too.
As for suggestions that we may be inviting ridicule; the moment the orthodoxy is questioned, the enemy begins to rally the troops. That particular “war on dissenters” is already waging.
I for one, really appreciate and acknowledge that your church, is a broad one. Some may feel that this detracts from the blog, my view is that it actually adds value.
To put it another way; you sir, are the headline act and we are the various support acts on the same bill. So thank you Mick Jagger, I mean Dr K.
Suggestion, Dr Malcolm,
Back, years ago when this blog was young, you suggested to us that the best way to learn was to figure it out for ourselves. With guidance. Your guidance. After all CVD is your world of expertise. We all know that that works.
I think that if the blog remains open to contentious peripheral subjects that do not fall in your world of expertise and that will therefore have no discipline of truly expert moderation – then you’re inviting mess and ridicule.
Do you not rub professional elbows with someone whose expertise IS vaccines? And willing?
A while ago your idea of having Gary moderate a sister blog fell through. Why was that? SOME entity of guiding force is needed.
“Anyone got any suggestions?”
Dr Kendrick,
How about opening a post called “Vaccine Controversy – part 1”. No content from you. Just a place for readers to make comments. When it gets to some number of comments (say, 300 or more), open another post (“Vaccine Controversy – part 2”). Rinse, wash, repeat.
New vaccine comments in regular CVD posts should then be deleted. Or, if it’s not too much work, just re-route them to the latest “Vaccine Controversy” post.
Hope that helps.
LA_Bob, having a title containing the word “Controversy” sets the tone to be one of conflict. This would not be good. It may attract the extreme and poorly researched arguments which can be seen elsewhwer on the internet. I do not understand why it is so important for people to not have vaccines discussed on this blog, when the adverse effects include organ (including hearts) and nerve damage. The present arrangement seems to work for most people.
AhNotepad, re. vaccinations
A stress/strain on the immune system. Everything is connected and relevant up to a point. I have stopped taking flu shots.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/heartdisease.htm?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fflu%2Fheartdisease%2Findex.htm
“Flu shots are approved for use in people with heart disease and other health conditions. The flu shot has a long, established safety record in people with heart disease.”
andy, the cdc article seems to be a marketing document indicated having an immune system overstimulation is somehow beneficial for the heart. I find this rather unlikely. Rather more plausable is one of many research papers on the adverse effects such as https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/54/12/1778/455098https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/54/12/1778/455098 which is not necessarily to do with heart problems, also https://www.yourtango.com/2019323557/five-flu-shot-side-effects-you-need-know-about-before-you-get-one
5. Racing heart
Flu shots are important if you have heart disease because viruses like the flu can raise your blood pressure and put stress on your heart. However, a rare side effect of a flu shot is a racing heart,
There are many videos and papers on the effects of the flu vaccine which disagree with the picture presented by the cdc, which is a commercial organisation and earns significant income from vaccine sales.
andy, https://youtu.be/HplGfFlf-fE has more research than I can manage.
AhNotepad, re. vaccines- thanks for the reference.
Gary, there are probably a couple of billion people living in slums and favelas under similar sanitary conditions as Suzanne Humphries describes in her book. Yet they don’t get smallpox and polio like the people of yesteryear did. Since the living conditions are the same, it must be the vaccinations that make the difference.
Years ago, before measles vaccination was common, I worked as an engineer in a farming area. One of the workers’ wives came to me, very concerned, and said her child had measles, what should she do? I had no idea, but I did remember reading somewhere that malnourished children were particularly vulnerable to measles, so all I could suggest is that she try to feed the child well. But this was a poor area where people people lived on maize porridge and pumpkin, and they fed babies on non-dairy creamer in lieu of formula. There was little chance of the baby getting decently fed.
Hopefully, universal compulsory vaccination will remove at least some worries from the lives of people living on the margins.
Martin, the apparrent reduction in cases is due to the change in reporting. So they vaccinate almost everybody, and those vaccinated are deemed to be protected, so anything they get cannot be the disease for which they were protected. The next step in many cases is to blame non-vaccinated people for somehow compromising the immune system of the vaccinated.
This explains several things https://youtu.be/448DKHpbvMU. It also points that aluminium containing vaccines, once thought to be aluminium hydroxide, was in fact amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate. This is a much more agressive adjuvant, and the video explains the mechanism for causing damage.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Suzanne_Humphries
JDPatten, That rational wiki article is about as accurate as you expect any wiki to be when discussing medical matters. It is inaccurate, and is at the level of being contemptible. This is something we have discovered previously on this blog when wiki reared its head. Yet another example of the need to be sceptical about what you find on the internet.
F.A.O. Gary Ogden
Hi Gary
I didn’t understand your query about the fenestration of the vasa vasorum – not sure if it has cropped up before. Could you provide a few more details? Thanks.
Also, from part 63, and your comment about when the heart starts beating. It reminded me of a similar comment by cardiologist Dr Peter Langsjoen who said:
“From before the day you are born…I guess as soon as your heart starts beating in utero…24/7…every single day of your life this guy (i.e. the heart) squeezes down like crazy…that pumping beats these arteries with a lot of force”.
(From his 2018 Integrated Health Matters talk)
Incredible how it all works and what initiates that 1st heartbeat.
Gary, I am also interested. thanks
Charles Gale: There was a discussion on one of the previous posts of fenestration in capillaries, and possibly the smaller veins (can’t remember for certain). This means that they’re full of holes, and molecules can pass through them, my supposition being that if lipoproteins can enter the walls of arteries (as the UT researchers claim to have found a mechanism for), it may be from the vasa vasorum. I made this supposition from Dr. Kendrick’s comment about the UT geniuses. I have nowhere read a credible claim the molecules can pass through an uninjured endothelium, and I think Dr. Kendrick is correct in embracing the response-to-injury hypothesis for the initiation and growth of atherosclerotic plaques. It fits all the facts, and has been patiently explained by pathologists for a very long time. The beginning of circulation in fetal development comes from “A Statin Nation, p. 21. A truly fine read; I think I’m on my fourth time through. Can’t get enough of this stuff. Utterly fascinating and amazing how the body works.
By the way, Jerome Burne has an article on the current media war on “statin deniers,” “antivaxxers,” and I think the food police, as well. Worth a read,
Thanks Gary. Excellent article.
I’m not familiar with the Blue Zones book, but I’m wondering if anyone who is, or who has looked at the factors involved in exceptional longevity has thought in depth of the role of social networks, social cohesion, in their longevity and low rates of CVD. Surely Rosetta, PA is an example of this. I would think this would be true the Seventh-Day Adventists in Loma Linda, CA, as well, quite apart from dietary choices. What about Okinawa? Sardinia? Others? I think Dr. Kendrick is close to nailing the most important factor in CVD. The power of group identity and of remaining in the natal territory. What of longevity in authoritarian states?
The book is very strong on social identity, sense of purpose, good relationships with friends and family
Very, very true Malcolm, and to my mind more useful than all the pills in the world. Unfortunately the actual concept gets more Utopian by the day! 😢
Gary, I’ve become a vaccine sceptic, but like many I’m not an expert. I think we are going over the top with the ever growing number of vaccines, but I still wonder whether some are worthwhile or even essential. Can you comment?
Stephen T: A difficult question to answer. While modern medicine is responsible for many wonderful things, too much of it is quackery. Statin drugs, surely. Many drugs, actually. The HPV vaccines, surely. What I think about vaccination in general is that the paradigm is wrong. The proper development of the immune system requires childhood infectious diseases, with fever, below the dangerous level, allowed to run its course. We have taken that away with U.S. vaccine policy, a policy driven by commercial interests, not child health. For over a century the Rockefeller Foundation has been involved in vaccine development. It is a sordid history. Some diseases, such as measles, have serious complications (in about 0.1% of the cases of measles). Many, such as mumps, rubella, and chicken pox are relatively benign in childhood, but not so in infancy and adulthood. And there are benefits: reduced cardiovascular risk for measles and mumps, and reduced shingles risk for chicken pox. In the UK there are no mandates, but it is very difficult to receive compensation for all but the most severe injuries. In the U.S. mandates are growing like weeds, and vaccines are entirely liability-free. What I would do is overturn the indemnification of industry; overturn all school-attendance mandates; mandate medical schools to train doctors to recognize vaccine injury (currently they are not); mandate reporting of all adverse events by doctors (currently <1% are), on penalty of loss of licensure, and mandate that before administration parents be fully informed of the risks and benefits (currently they are not). I would open the Vaccine Safety Database to independent scrutiny. This holds all the dirty little secrets of the actual rate of vaccine injury. This information is held closer to the chest than Emperor Rory Collins holds the statin dirty little secrets. I had three vaccines (smallpox, polio, and tetanus) in childhood, none in infancy; today's schedule calls for 72, half of them by age two. If I had known then what I know today, I would have declined all vaccines for my child. But I would leave it up to the parents to choose; nobody else has any right to make decisions, medical or otherwise, about their children than their parents, except in those rare cases of abuse or neglect. Hope this helps.
Gary, I’m not sure about those HPV vaccines. I have this book, but haven’t read it yet:
The reporting of the measles outbreak has reached a fever pitch here in the US.
I have always understood that shingles was caused by the re-activation in adults of the chicken pox virus which has long been dormant within some nerve cells since a childhood infection with the disease. If this is true, catching chicken pox as a child is NOT protective against shingles but is the cause, however remote. Without have had chicken pox, however mildly, one cannot get shingles later in life.
shirley3349, I’n not sure about cannot get shingles, but medical persons who dealt with children to treat chicken pox were reputed to suffer significantly less than those people who were not so exposed. Herd immunity?
It is not definitively known why the dormant chicken pox virus can re-emerge later in life as shingles. However, what is now clear in the US (where the chicken pox vaccine is mandated), is that the number of senior citizens developing shingles has increased significantly since it was added to the schedule. It seems that because children no longer develop the illness, the adult population is no longer benefiting from a natural booster.
In essence, the burden of disease has shifted.
There is of course a shingles vaccine to “protect” adults. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
I saw some nasty adverse effects from shingles vaccination.
How bad was that shingles shot reaction, Sasha?
As bad as my sister’s? She had shingles of the scalp. Bleeding. Painful. Lasted a year and a half. Blinded her eye on that side.
I got my two Shingrix shots
JD, it was bad. Of course, no one admitted to it being vaccine related since many practitioners don’t like to admit that what they’ve done could have caused harm and since vaccines are perfectly safe, right? So, what happened to her never made it to a vaccine adverse events database. Pretty typical for vaccine injuries, in my experience. Instead, she was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy which mysteriously developed the next morning after the shot. I don’t know if you ever saw the presentation but it can be pretty bad.
Usually “true” Bell’s Palsy responds pretty quick to acupuncture but in her case it took me a long time to help her resolve it. My working hypothesis is that since people doing the jabs aren’t familiar with acupuncture meridians, when they accidentally shoot it up into a wrong spot, it can travel up the meridian, which is what I think happened to her.
People can choose whether they want to vaccinate or not but I think it’s important to honestly discuss risks vs benefits. If majority of adverse events never get reported, your NNH will approach infinity. And I certainly disagree with vaccine mandates.
I personally believe that you can’t vaccinate your way to health but that’s my opinion…
Sasha: It is apparently the Shingrix which has a high rate adverse events. Age of Autism had a post on this, with quite a few comments by those who had experienced them. There is also Vostavax, of which I know nothing.
Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised. What I saw wasn’t good.
Sorry, it is actually called Zostavax.
I had the Zostavax two shots a few years ago.
Then, recently I had the Shingrix two shots. Wanted to be sure to avoid shingles! (I’ll let you know if I ever get it.)
Horrible reaction to all those shots: Shoulder a bit sore and feeling a little under the weather for a day or two.
Meh.
Speaking of diet, there’s an interesting interview with Nick Lane, the British biochemist / author (Power, Sex, Suicide; Life Ascending; and other books). He’s big on early evolution.and mitochondria.
In the interview, Lane suggests an unusual reason why fruit and vegetables may be healthy. Just a tidbit, but it’s noteworthy.
http://aging.nautil.us/feature/173/yes-life-in-the-fast-lane-kills-you
LA Bob: I love mitochondria. No energy (ATP) no life.
A relative of mine decided to stop taking statins. At her last checkup she confessed to the doctor. The conversation went something like this:
Doctor: Oh, you’re one of those.
Patient: Yes. I’m afraid of the side-effects.
Doctor: Let’s have a look at your cholesterol. NINE! (350 in US units). Madam, while I am your Doctor, you WILL take your statins.
Patient: But the side effects…
Doctor: Look, take them for four months, and we’ll see if your cholesterol comes down, and deal with any side effects. But promise me you will take them every day.
Patient: (meekly) Yes, doctor.
She was telling me this, and said she was interested in whether her cholesterol would come down.
To which I replied it would certainly come down, but would it do any good? (Late 60s, healthy and active, not overweight, no symptoms of CVD. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?)
Incidentally, he’s my doctor too, and I like him. He put me on statins which I never took. But we operate like the US military regarding gays: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
We mustn’t do that.
We have to stand up for what we believe. If we pretend to take the drugs, then no-one benefits. Sometimes you have to stand up to bullies.
Martin, that way is certainly easier, but I don’t think doctors learn anything from it.
I think I’m more than capable of discussing statins with a doctor. I usually ask them why the countries with the highest blood cholesterol have the lowest rates of heart disease. That’s a contradiction of theory that could only be tolerated in medicine. I also ask about NNT and the difference between absolute and relative risk.
I’ve been asked to take statins and blood pressure medication, but I’ve never felt under any pressure to do so. I make a counter argument and they quote NICE guidelines. I’m an adult and there’s supposed to be something called informed consent.
Tis easier to change Quacks
Than try to change their minds.
Bill in Oz: Recently someone posted a link to “Another You,” and since then I’ve been gorging on The Seekers,” my favorite group during the teen years. Brings tears to my eyes; so beautiful. I had entirely forgotten about them. Also, good news down there: Peter Ridd has prevailed against James Cook U. for his unwarranted sacking. And the garlic is almost ready, about a week later than usual; been snapping scapes.
Gary, we are still eating garlic from last harvest in November/December. And I have planted 7 varieties of garlic this Autumn. One more to go. And of course I am growing all my Winter veggies. Leeks almost ready to eat ! But it’s been a difficult year with no rain from December 14th 2018 till Wednesday just gone..But that’s our natural climate here in South Australia..
I keep a watching brief here at the moment.. I’m very engaged & busy with the national elections. Hopefully we can defeat the Greenists attempting to force us to live in poverty with high cost energy. EV cars etc.. I expect such stuff from the Greens party here. But I am completely bewildered that our once great Australian Labor party has been taken over by this nonsense.
I think that this Global warming is a ‘mental dis-ease’ spread by propaganda and lies.. They are .just as bad as the propaganda & lies behind “cholesterol kills” & “statins save lives” which Malcolm has been fighting against for decades now.
The evidence is ignored and the individuals like Dr Kendrick, are shunned while journalists from the main stream media become willing distributers of alarmist propaganda.
Bill, global warming? unlikely, and doesn’t tie up with the current dogma https://youtu.be/KazGXAqgkds
Bill in Oz: Read Tyler Durden’s (Zero Hedge) piece on EV’s. Turns out they are more environmentally damaging than diesels. Mainly because of the batteries, which have a limited useful life. Mining and refining the metals to make them takes an enormous amount of energy, plus the costs of producing and delivering the power to run the cars make them about worthless as a replacement for fossil-fuel powered cars. Only the $2,500 subsidy per unit keeps the industry alive here. Why are so many leaders in government the world over such blithering idiots? I suspect that it doesn’t take much in the way of brains to get elected, and once elected, they are nearly impossible to dislodge.
F.A.O. Gary Ogden – lp(a) and vit C
Hi Gary
As soon as I started supplementing with vit C, I started to measure lp(a) and also total cholesterol levels.
I had 3 lp(a) tests as follows:
Sept 2016 – 124 mg/L
Sept 2017 – 98 mg/L
Nov 2017 – 72 mg/L
The lab range is 0.00 to 300.00 mg/L, described as “normal – no action”. (This is English lab measurements)
My lp(a) was low and came down in value. I’m happy with that.
What I can’t prove is that vitamin C did this, and I’m not prepared to stop taking any vit C at all (i.e. dietary or supplements) to see what happens to my lp(a). If nothing else, insufficient vit C is in second place as the cause of my near fatal CVD event and 1500 plus calcium score. Not keen to go there again.
However, total cholesterol remains high (at least according to official guidelines) from which it is possible to conclude that in my case my high cholesterol levels are not the result of damage/repair but I’m naturally high.
Zoe Harcombe is good on this, especially on her familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) blog a few years back. She commented to me about high cholesterol and FH: “Remember – there are highs and lows on any normal distribution – by definition. Some people have a cholesterol level of 3, some have 10 – they’re both on a normal distribution”.
Adding to low lp(a) levels, also a low/medium hs-crp (high sensitivity – c reactive protein) level = low damage/repair going on.
As a tangent to your comment, I’m now mulling over what amounts/ratios of repair substances (e.g. lp(a), cholesterol) the body produces to repair the damages. Equal amounts? Or maybe more of one substance than another? Is there any science to the make up of arterial plaque or does it vary between individuals. Certainly, in extreme cases, there can be plenty of calcium present.
Getting back to vit C and lp(a) – Dr Rath and many others say yes – it does lower lp(a). I’d bet that a zero lp(a) reading would be rare and I think Dr Rath refers to lp(a) production prior to arterial damage. Might be worth checking out his site or getting in touch:
https://www.dr-rath-foundation.org/
I’m not sure what they are like in responding to queries, but I’ve seen some people on the Vitamin C Foundation forum raising queries and getting a reply.
I can’t believe you are not tempted to get your lp(a) checked again! Go on!
Charles Gale: Thank you very much for the information. I’ve bookmarked Dr. Rath’s site for later digging into. I think he has some important insights into CVD. My L(p)a, or Lp(a) (can’t remember) is 76 nmol/L, which is probably a bit above 300 in your units, since the reference range here is < 75 nmol/L. I'm actually on the anti-testing, anti-screening bandwagon. Just living well makes me feel great!
Gary, thank you for the helpful reply to my earlier vaccine query. I would like to see the changes you describe.
Gary Ogden
P.S. to my lp(a) reply – here’s John Cha’s 2015 Maastricht talk which has been posted in the comments in previous years:
Within the 1st 5 mins Dr Cha states: “…the idea being that the building and repairative (?) properties of lp(a) manifest itself under sub clinical scurvy” and the disintegration of the artery wall allows lp(a) and fibrinogen to enter and stabilise the artery wall.
A great 20 min presentation.
thx for video
Sorry to hear about your cold & flu troubles. We all know that homeopathic remedies are ‘snake oil’ (or worse) because they are ‘proven’ not to work. However, a few years ago, I was talking to my ‘kiné’ (helping me with a problem related to some hernia surgery). I found that her views on saturated fat (among many other things) matched my own. She mentioned that she had long used a homeopathic remedy (L52) against flu. I thought ‘why not?’ and have been using that L52 on a daily basis (at least during the winter) ever since. Coincidentally, I have not suffered from flu (or colds) since, even though both my wife (especially) and son have done. Must be pure coincidence since homeopathy is ‘proven’ pure quackery…
The light bulb came on, and I’ve figured it out: HDL = good (because everyone says so, including Dr. Kendrick); LDL = better (because of the many roles it plays in maintaining homeostasis); Chylomicrons = best (because they deliver those delicious saturated fatty acids we just digested to our mitochondria to fuel the greedy little devils). This also correlates perfectly with size: small, medium, large (actually giant). What better evidence could we have of the miraculous nature of cholesterol? Although none of these are cholesterol, we needn’t worry our pretty little heads about such details. Just eat and digest with gusto!
If this is true it’s big – Oklahoma grandfather who claims a drug for DOGS cured him of ‘head-to-toe’ cancer is tumor-free two years after doctors gave him three months to live https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6965325/Oklahoma-grandfather-claims-drug-DOGS-cured-cancer-tumor-free.html
Thanks for this. Fascinating
The Vet wasn’t Jesus of Nazareth was he? Ruff Ruff. Failing that an ex-Daily Mail reporter.
Joyce, give your statins to the dog.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jvim.12123
Short-Term Effects of Atorvastatin in Normal Dogs and Dogs with Congestive Heart Failure Due to Myxomatous Mitral Valve Disease
Where are the endpoints in that dog paper?
The drug was well tolerated and “cholesterol” went down.
AND !?!
5 minutes of my life I won’t get back.
My Dad just turned 90 last Friday. A month ago has was given 5 months to live, as he has non Hodgkins Lymphoma. I sent him this story and suggested he try it. Thank you Randall for posting.
Not sure if you’ve seen this: https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/05/inflammation-disease-diet
On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 at 9:04 PM, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote:
> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “April 25th 2019 Thank you to those of you > enquiring after my health. I have had a horrible cough and cold and proper > ‘man flu’ for the last couple of weeks, now settling. Before that, skiing, > before that lecturing. But enough about me. Over the last” >
David Gordon: Thanks. They’re on to something.
Dr. Kendrick, with your moderating, and the apparently reasonable care taken by those who post about vaccines, the discussion here is the best available. Other sites I have stumbled on seem to generate extreme views. The pro side is mostly industry biased, and they have little interest in science. To them “the science i settled”. The con side is dismissed as supporting quackery and is a risky place to be if you are a professional. Vaccine discussions have generated far less hostility than some of the vegan/HCLF/LCHF diet discussions.
My view is to carry on in the same way if you are prepared to allow it.
Dr Kendrick, as for vaccines, please allow the debate. This is the only place I hear rational argument. Everywhere else, including the BBC this week, it’s “vaccines are safe and effective”, much like statins, and only ignorant dimwits think otherwise. The bias is shocking. The closure of any debate, even worse.
I had measles as a child, as did all my family and school mates. I can’t reconcile my undramatic experience with the near hysterical portrayal in the media. Yes, I fully accept that a few people do suffer, and even die, from measles. Surely the question is whether vaccines are doing more harm than good? If I could decide for my three-year-old self, I’d take the measles.
Whilst permitting the debate, please, Dr Kendrick, it’s too dangerous for you to get involved.
You can’t fight on all fronts and the current orthodoxy would easily allow Sir Rory and his pals to put you in the “vaccine denier” box. It’s so wrong, but it’s where we are.
Stephen T: Thanks. I fully agree with all you’ve said.
Stephen,
I completely agree with you, and I think it is important to remember that as people increasingly realise that they are being fed propaganda from places like the BBC – now on so many subjects – they absolutely come to rely on blogs like this to feed them the real news!
I would remind everyone making suggestions here that Dr Kendrick has absented himself from the headlining role with respect to vaccines.
As he has stated, it’s not his world of expertise.
Is that good?
Have we considered that his burden and his professional risks might be plenty enough dealing with just CVD here?
JDPatten, thank you so much for that reminder, I could so easily have forgotten.
JDPatten: Truth is the most powerful ammunition anyone has, and Dr. Kendrick has discovered a great deal of it over his professional life. This will protect him. By truth I don’t mean anything approaching absolute truth, rather more like the falsification of nonsense, into which category much of CVD treatment falls.
JD Patten,
Unfortunately, I am only able to reply directly to the first layer of comments. I am a bit taken aback by the sharp way you reprimanded Ah and Gary for responding to your vaccine inquiry, and frankly, the way you spoke to Dr. Kendrick as well. Almost demanding. He has at prior times clarified his reluctance to personally say much on the topic.
I find this discussion useful and civil, and I note that a few people have responded with irritation. Is it because they have taken one side and therefore want it shut down because both sides are being calmly discussed? I have to wonder. That would be bad form.
Anna M, It’s not a problem, I don’t have much knowledge, so having someone throwing spanners in the works just points in the direction of the drawing board.
Anna,
Sorry. I try my best to be respectful in my posts. There was no intention to seem harsh. I simply question the usefulness of this particular CVD blog for serious inquiry into peripheral matters – without the kind of guidance and gentle correcting influence Dr Kendrick has provided us on CVD.
I don’t see that there are “sides” to take. Striving to a greater understanding of Impartial Reality means never being absolutely certain of how close you are at any given time. I do believe that Dr Kendrick is closer to the reality of the workings of CVD than any other source openly available at this time. Belief is a fragile anchor to rely on, but, short of spending another lifetime of education and involvement in the raw research, it’s all I have.
I try to clear my perspective of the bias my own experience burdens me with and weigh actual evidence. Concerning vaccination, this blog, so far, cannot clarify for me where Reality might lie.
LA_Bob has a perfectly reasonable suggestion BTW, provided it wouldn’t burden Dr Kendrick further.
I disagree, because most of the evidence we discuss here, is not abstruse, it is the same story over and over again:
Dodgy statistical evidence.
Drug/vaccine trials run by drug companies.
Researchers being shut up, or sidelined for inconvenient views.
Research that seems to prove A being manipulated until it seems to produce not(A).
Observing the pattern is important. For example, I came here because of problems with statin side effects and the pretence that these don’t exist or are extremely rare, and I now realise that vaccines have similar problems, except that they can wreck the whole of someone’s life, and those of the people who love them, whereas statins can only spoil the last few decades of life!
JD Pattern,
Why, thank you! I thought so, too! I realize some disagree. Oh, well….
David B (May 2) Agree totally, it’s the same type of argument put forward by the same type of (dishonest/conflicted) “experts”.
I take the easy way out and call it Human Nature, devious & deceptive at the best of times, but when motivated by “religious” belief -( eg, herd vaccinations) – or money ( statins) it becomes deadly, and there are no limits to the lies being told to support the profitable view.
We saw that with Big Sugar and Big Tobacco.
JD,
Thank you for being gracious. I did not mean you when I asked why some people have wanted to shut down vaccine discussions here. I don’t think LA Bob’s suggestion is appealing. It might turn into a free for all. And Dr. Kendrick doesn’t need more blogs to be responsible for. I think we spend the majority of our time discussion CVD, but this is a very interesting community, and many of us do have a few other interests. I like getting these perspectives here. Yes, there are other places to go, but I like it here. Other places do not replace this place. And really, there are some intriguing commonalities between the way certain topics are being handled by the press and the major rags. We see a pattern. Seeing patterns is definitely a contributing factor in one’s discernment and assessment. I say this especially about global warming. In the case of vaccinations, the parallels are even more exact.
Saasha,
Even if it is good sunflower oil, it should not be used for cooking. Eating a little in salad dressing or eating the seeds might be OK, but Americans get 9 times the safe amount of omega 6 oils as they should.
Stephen, I can understand your frustration, but as far as I am concerned, this blog has always been primarily about heart disease, and as this is close to my heart(pardon the pun), I personally would be disappointed to see it diluted too much. I also have a huge interest in Cancer treatments and Lymphoedema, but I find my information regarding these elsewhere. If you spread yourself too thin, you can lose your way. You might like to try vaccination.co.uk as a starting point, but there’s a myriad of information out there just a Google away!
Stunning – Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff on Statins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hbNSHPco0g&feature=youtu.be
Thanks for the link. Any independent research it seems is rare. Thank God for Dr Kendrick and those too stubborn and/or brave to fall to corporate lies.
Stephen T : Agreed on all fronts. Dr K will know the futility of entering such lists – no point in throwing down such a gauntlet – one day the vaccine matter will be resolved – eventually the truth of skewed science and corruption will out, eventually.
A few weeks ago someone asked about Repatha. I’ve found it again. On pp. 147-150 of “A Statin Nation.” CVD death: Repatha 251, placebo 240. Total mortality: Repatha 444, placebo 426. Heralded as a great triumph, of course. And a bargain at only $14,000/year. You can’t make this stuff up.
Do you have any data about side effects, because it seems amazing to me, if blood cholesterol levels can really be lowered so drastically without causing problems. I even wonder if at least some of the statin ‘side effects’ aren’t really side effects, but I direct consequence of lowering cholesterol levels. Malcolm once pointed out that the PCSK9 inhibitors work by increasing the uptake of cholesterol, but even so, I don’t want to tinker with my body more than absolutely necessary!
David Bailey: I know nothing about Repatha except what Dr. Kendrick has written about it. It is clear from the clinical trial data that it kills people who take it faster than those who don’t, so I would presume the adverse effect are likely worse than those for statins. Why would anybody in their right mind agree to take it? Reread Chapter 11 of “A Statin Nation.” The adverse effects of statins are so common and so worrisome that a large majority of people stop taking them within a year, and many of those toss them in the trash without telling their doctor. Lucrative quackery.
A highly respected UK cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, reveals his controversial views on coronary stents and statin drugs. Speaks of Roy Collins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb5SmhY30kw
Out of curiosity, I just did the math on the Repatha data, that is the difference between the death rate in the treatment group and placebo group, both for CVD death and all-cause death. Here they are:
CVD death: 0.51%, Repatha; 0.49%. placebo
All-cause death: 0.51% Repatha;; 0.49% placebo
Exactly the same! Repatha is an equal opportunity killer, more deadly, by 0.02%, than life itself.
I may have made a fundamental error in my calculations. I’m no math genius. Looking at the figures again, I think it should be 51% death for Repatha, and 49% death for placebo, meaning Repatha is 2% more deadly than life itself. Any math whizzes out there to straighten this out?
I put my bookmark at p. 157 of “A Statin Nation” last night because I wanted to remind everyone of why NO is “the critical substance” for “CV health.” It:
-Relaxes smooth muscle cells, preventing angina attacks.
-Reduces blood pressure.
-Stimulates the growth of collaterals.
-Drives the production of endothelial progenitor cells in the bone marrow.
-Is the most potent anti-coagulant in nature.
So lets get out in the sun, and stick out our tongues at the dermatologists while basking.
Interesting article in the current (May) issue of “Natural History” concerning the role of the consumption by hominids of fatty acids, particularly from the marrow and brains of large game animals, in the evolution of modern humans. Also the role of Omega 3 fatty acids in the evolution of our (the non-politicians) large brains. Don’t tell His Excellency Rory Collins! For once in my life actually on-topic.
I also appreciate the ongoing discussion regarding vaccines and appreciate Dr Kendrick allowing it. My 4 very young grandchildren in Canada are not vaccinated. We have done a lot of research on vaccines and we are not experts either but then few in the world seem to be which in itself is frightening and yet manufacturers continue churning them out with few solid safety or efficacy studies being done. It is extremely complex but to me basic common sense dictates that injecting harmful substances (which all vaccines contain) into the body will produce adverse reactions sooner or later. Our bodies were simply not designed to handle this type of invasion.
As someone once noted, ‘common sense’ is neither common nor sense, but you are right to question the precepts on which vaccination is based, especially in your last sentence. Why, for instance, do we inject vaccines when the mode of infection is only very very rarely – I can only think of tetanus – through the skin, rather than overwhelmingly though the respiratory tract and/or gut. Smallpox vaccine used to be ‘scratched’ into the skin without deep penetration, but most vaccination is subcutaneous or into muscle tissue.
Rather than an appeal to ‘common sense’, logic would suggest that our immune system has evolved to deal with intruders entering though the ‘front door’ of the respiratory tract and/or gut, rather than through an ‘accidentally caused hole in the wall’ (as tetanus enters).
Stephen, though tetanus is not much of a problem as long as the door doesn’t get shut behind it. Keeping the wound open and allowing oxygen access will kill the tetanus spores.
They found collagen “inhibits the proliferation and migration of cultured aortic smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in vitro. These cells contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases.” (in hypercholesterolemic rabbits) and suggest that Ctp provides an effective therapy for treating atherosclerosis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25468425
Randall: Thanks. Very interesting.
Dear Malcolm
I enjoyed your books enormously, and your continued good work against the dark forces of big pharma. I expect you have seen this excellent YouTube from a like minded cardiologist.
I wish I’d seen it before my stent was done last year ! I was at least equipped to battle with the cardiologist against taking any statins, although I tried them immediately post op, in case, until they gave me muscle symptoms within a few days !
Best wishes
Peter Bishop (69 year old semi-retired dentist)
>
It’s all nuts, yep, the fat clogs your arteries https://youtu.be/zkC0-sXruM8https://youtu.be/zkC0-sXruM8 . I wonder who he works for.
There are only 2 saturated fatty acids that raise LOL cholesterol when they are substituted for carbohydrate, these are lauric acid and myristic acid (think: coconut and butter).
Walter the Willett has authored a paper finding that these two saturated fatty acids, in the NHS/HPFS population that is his personal fiefdom and whom on this occasion he was pimping to Unilever (did they know that would happen when they signed consent forms?), have protective associations with heart disease.
More LOL-cholesterol raising saturated fat, less heart disease. The other saturated fatty acids, that don’t raise LOL cholesterol, look very slightly bad, but then they are in the cheap fats and we know what poverty does.
You can find the same difference in a number of other papers. If saturated fats kill us, which seems a stretch, they don’t do it by raising LOL cholesterol.
End of, or it shoulda been.
Here’s more evidence that LOL-cholesterol raising saturated fats don’t kill.
Myristic acid – a reliable cholesterol-raising SFA in feeding studies, if not in this trial – increases the omega 3, DHA, in serum
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15936650
Higher serum DHA is associated with lower CAC score
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-018-0242-7
I rather think you mean LDL-cholesterol – though I quite like your new name for it!
George,
Is “LOL (ELL-OH-ELL) cholesterol” something doctors measure? Sounds like it might relieve stress. May I steal that?
Sphingomyelina – risk factor for atherosclerosis. The researchers found that the more oxidized cholesterol in the blood, the more sphingomyelin in the walls of the arteries. And the more sphingomyelin, the more arteries become calcified. https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/heart-health/oxidized-cholesterol-vegetable-oils-identified-as-the-main-cause-of-heart-disease/ there is an elevation of sphingomyelin in aortic lesions in which this lipid can account for 70% of the total phospholipid – https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/129/7/1239/4722573
Interesting – encouraged me to look up oxidized cholestoral.
First site contained following;
“Your immune system may mistake oxidized cholesterol for bacteria. Your immune system then tries to fight it off, which can cause inflammation inside of the arterial wall. This can lead to atherosclerosis or heart disease”
Have never heard this argument before or did I, .. but just couldn’t understand it ?
I have a problem with these blogs / studies. I find them so interesting that I am not getting out for my usual levels of nice stress busting exercise.
Call me cranky. OK. But I prefer to see myself as skeptical. Skeptical across the board. So, when I read this passage in a novel recently, it clicked:
“You should know the difference.”
“Between what?”
“Fiction and reality.”
“I’ve learned to leave that to the most arrogant among us. They’re the only ones who seem to think they know everything.”
Oh dear me. I am getting more confused than ever regarding vaccination. I recall suffering with chicken pox at 6 years old, and have the scars to show how bad it was. I had the most awful shingles at age 70. My children were vaccinated against chicken pox, so should I stay alive for perhaps another 30 years in order to see if they contract shingles? Or maybe, by their 70th birthday they will have been ‘ordered’ to have the anti-shingles jab. Incidentally, I was offered the jab last year, despite my GP notes stating that I was still recovering from shingles.
I am getting concerned at our ‘Health’ Secretary because he is considering the USA route of compulsory jabs. No one could accuse me of being politically Liberal, but come on… a step too far!!!!
I know I seem to always have stories to tell, but my experience is of 1) nursing a man with chicken pox in an NHS isolation unit, 2) nursing an otherwise independent elderly lady with shingles who could no longer care for herself and 3) being one of a team in ITU attending to a man with tetananus.
I can see the logic of herd immunity, as its concept has been hard-wired into me by family tales such as the death of an aunt who contracted diphtheria, and our beautiful little neighbour getting polio in the early 1950s, an elderly relative still suffering the effects of TB in his 20’s ( yes….he survived, but his quality of life has suffered). I won’t go on….but this is a very intricate topic., and should not be a case of compulsory vaccination being pitted against no vaccination of any sort.
Oops…tetan. ..anus…sounds even worse than tetanus.
Jennifer, herd immunity, https://youtu.be/_KhofzZ-ke8.
I have written tomy MP about Matt Hancock and his tyrannical statement of forced vaccination. Vaccines are not safe https://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/andrew-wakefield-demolishes-ignorant-us-vaccine-lobby/. Any objection to Mr Hancock’s attitude should be on the basis of safety, because if it is contested on personal choice, it will more likely fail, as people are just ignorant and stuppid, like those who voted Brexit are treated.
Matt Hancock knows as much about medicine, as I now about quantum mathematics. However, he does know how to generate a positive headline. He can see that vaccines are much loved, and ‘anti-vaxxers’ much hated. He doesn’t need to know anything much more than that to stir up a bit of populist ‘pitch-fork waving.’ Who do we hate? ‘anti-vaxxers.’ What should be do? ‘ban then now!’ People do love a black hatted villain to hate.
As I have mentioned over the years on this blog, politics is central to every aspect of our lives, be they personal, national or international topics. Vaccination is a major example. The stress of listening to the garbage spouted by some of our ‘leaders’ gets me down at times….so thanks for the contributions I have access to here, which help me to understand aspects of the discussion. There are good people across the globe, so I want to believe good will win over evil.
I’m no fan of the editor of BMJ, but here is her response to Matt Hancock, in a measured voice of sanity:
“What you have is a spectrum of people, some for whom its (sic) an obvious thing to get their child vaccinated, others at the other end who will never be convinced, and in the middle, perfectly intelligent, sensible people who are not certain what to do and its (sic) that group of people we need to treat with respect and provide them with information.
Social media can be both a positive and negative thing in that. Clumsy-handed censorship I don’t think is the way forward,” she said.
What I find amusing, in a macabre sort of way, is that was actual misinformation actually censored, a large percentage of that would be what comes from government and media, not just about vaccines, but about a wide variety of things.
I too have written to my MP expressing my disgust at Matt Hancock’s statements recently. I agree, safety is the key here. What I find astonishing, is that people around the developed world have been conditioned into taking a perfectly healthy baby, to get “immunised” against a disease which (a) The child may never get anyway (b) Would in the overwhelming majority of cases fully recover from if they did and then (c) develop lifetime immunity against. Not to mention the lifelong immune boosting benefits of naturally acquired infections and recovery.
Perhaps the “health” Secretary might like to consider looking at this:
http://healthimpactnews.com/2019/cardiologist-measles-and-mumps-infections-could-save-millions-of-lives/
Jennifer: Agreed. No medical treatment should ever be compulsory. In the U.S. vaccines are liability free. Very big red flag. In case of injury, one must know about the compensation system, which few, including most doctors, are even aware of. Then one must sue the government. We’ve seen how that works out. Pediatricians routinely deny any connection between a vaccination and subsequent injury. Drugs must undergo three years of post-marketing surveillance because trials don’t always pick up signals of toxicity. This was true of Vioxx. Vaccines have no post-marketing surveillance, and manufacturers are allowed to ship lots to widely-scattered locations; this further dilutes any signal of problems with any particular lot. This is not allowed with drugs, only with vaccines.
Gary, I am a big fan of Dr Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ. She published, and later defended, Abramson and Malhotra’s article on statins and their adverse side effects. When Sir Rory ‘Statin’ Collins waded in behind the scenes with a big stick to force a retraction, she reviewed the evidence and, with minor corrections, defended the article. Collins repeatedly declined to send a response for publication.
Dr Godlee has also published articles by Nina Teicholz and Gary Taubes. She again withstood pressure from the nutritional establishment who wanted Teicholz’s article withdrawn on pathetically thin grounds. Dr Godlee has made a valuable contribution to scrutinising the mess that is nutritional science and our dietary guidelines. She wrote an editorial on ‘Too Much Chemotherapy’ that I found informative and helpful.
Anyone interested in the e-mails between Dr Godlee and Sir Rory Collins can see them here. I think it’s enlightening.
Click to access SP13_Emails_between_Rory_Collins_and_Fiona_Godlee.pdf
Stephen T: Yes, all of this is admirable, but it does not make up for Brian Deer.
Stephen T, Godlee is also guilty of publishing false accusations about John Walker’s and Andrew Wakefield’s work, several months before the ruling in the Royal Courts of Justice exonerated them. Godlee as far as I know did not publish an apology, or retract the statements. If she did I would be interested to know.
I had chicken pox as a child and then shingles in my 40s.
Having the disease confers protection, but not a complete guarantee. I got shingles after a prolonged period of work-related stress and when I was still eating low-fat rubbish. I suspect my immune system was well below par.
I wouldn’t touch the shingles vaccine. I much prefer some natural protection and a less stressful life.
An article in JAMA:
“Level and Prevalence of Spin in Published Cardiovascular Randomized Clinical Trial Reports With Statistically Nonsignificant Primary Outcomes A Systematic Review”
https://t.co/SdqZkNmZZ5
JD Patten
“…the most arrogant among us. They’re the ones who seem to think they know everything.”
Bertrand Russell had a similar observation but it was the stupid people who were cocksure and knew it all, and the intelligent people who had doubts and questioned things.
I think Bertrand Russel also said that “Most people would rather die than THINK – And they DO!”
It was demonstrated that native LDL does not cause lipid accumulation in cultured cells, whereas modified particles, such as oxidized, desialylated, glycated, and electronegative LDL, are highly atherogenic….. Increased susceptibility of sdLDL to oxidation can be explained by its lipid composition [48]. Moreover, sdLDL particles contain less antioxidative vitamins and are therefore more susceptible to oxidation than larger forms of lipoproteins https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5441126
Regarding Walter Willet, I am amazed that this statistical charlatan is so rarely called out for the fraud that he is. He is completely non-scientific to the core — he seems to have no concept whatsoever of biology, biochemistry, or any other basic science.
Nina Teicholz is the only public figure of which I am aware, who (in her book) has pointed out the game Willet plays.
The press is a more-than-willing “useful idiot” in this game, gobbling up free “news” content doled out by the likes of Willett. They are mostly very lazy and very ignorant, with a powerful herd behavior.
John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, in his confirmation hearings stated that judicial citing of foreign law (to justify domestic court decisions) is alike to looking out over a crowd voicing varying opinion, and selecting only those with whom one agrees. Producing the weak correlation factors of the typical so-called “epidemiological” studies is the same thing. It can easily be done by design, producing the results desired by those funding and performing the study. This is FRAUD — pure and simple. Sugar coating of this nonsense, and the paying of any respect whatsoever to a clown like Willett, is excessive IMO.
Walter Willet is a campaigning vegetarian, so he’s hardly a neutral scientist seeking the truth.
Nutritional epidemiology shouldn’t be called ‘science’. It’s often no more than guessing by people with a cause or agenda.
http://www.ehnheart.org/cvd-statistics.html
Ok maybe selected extracts following, but very relevant;
“CVD mortality is now falling in most European countries, including Central and Eastern European countries which saw considerable increases until the beginning of the 21st century.
Fat consumption and energy consumption in Europe have increased over the last two decades, driven mainly by trends in Eastern Europe. In the EU, consumption of fat and energy has remained relatively stable over the past two decades”
Eastern European CVD rates had always been particularly, by all accounts.
Oops
“Particularly HIGH , by all accounts”
Deaths from heart and circulatory diseases among people under 75 are on the rise for the first time in 50 years, UK figures show. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) says increasing rates of diabetes and obesity are partly responsible.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd4vr7lvrvmo
For once, the BHF is probably right about something.
Important figure from Mass General Hospital is leaving to start Verve, a private endeavor to address CVD worldwide by manipulating genetics.
Fine, if he were interested in nitric oxide enhancement of stress “fight or flight” response dampening, but no. He’s interested in lowering LDL by addressing PCSK9 and such with CRSPR.
He feels this is going to be really big. Probably will be. …Not as he thinks.
JD,
It is so disgusting to read this and not least to see the “framing” of the CVD issue with a man in his thirties in the bed.
If you know the least about the genetic complexities of our metabolism and what is possible to achieve with gene alterations it turns out to be even more disgusting to me. No-one understands how it all works together and in that perspective the claimed “precision” of the CRISPR technology in terms of the “endpoints” for our metabolism is just a bluff.
Are they intending to change the genome of a fetus to produce less cholesterol in all subsequent generations???
What is really going on in this crazy world?
All is scam/fake news and claims!
Goran,
Yes.
On the other hand, this genetics venture might well be the best bet yet to definitively demonstrate (inadvertently!) that blood level of LDL has very little, if anything, to do with CVD… at the cost, of course, of a few experimental human lives.
Sounds like another Theranos. Persuasive concept, massive potential sales to anxious parents, investors will throw money at it.
Will it work or cause damage? Eh, worry about that later.
I just read an interesting article saying that Google is one of the top investors in Verve.
From the article:
“As we know, Google wants to have as much data on consumers as possible… And what could be more insightful than genetic data?
Nothing impacts the human condition more than genetics. Google sees this as a major opportunity to boost revenues by advertising personalized health treatments.
Imagine Google maps your genome and sees that you are susceptible to early-onset Alzheimer’s, heart disease, or cancer. It could then market specialized treatments directly to you.”
https://bonnerandpartners.com/how-megapolitics-destroy-wealth/
I think sanitation and nutrition affect the human condition far more than genetics. Take many samples from many genetic groups, and I think the outcome will be in all of the groups, that those with good sanitation and nutrition will fare much better than those in the poor sanitation and nutrition group.
AhNotepad: Epigenetics tells us that it is the gene/environment interaction which affect disease/health, most of the time; that is, environmental factors can cause or suppress the expression of genes. As far as I know, only a few rare genetic mutations are considered to be directly causal in disease.
…or stress…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/03/statins-do-cause-muscle-pain-scientists-conclude/
Came across this in Telegraph from 3 years ago ;
“Britain is already the “statins capital” of Europe – with the second highest prescribing levels in the Western world, amid spiralling obesity and aggressive prescribing of the medication by GPs, whose pay is linked to take-up of the pills”
Jerome, thankyou, your link is so interesting. As a 71 year old diabetic ‘in the system’ , I am always under pressure to take statins. At 7.4 my lovely GP understands my refusal, admitting that at 9.1 he does not take them either, But, other medical professionals I see from time to time, hint at another solution for me, namely an injection, to reduce my 7.4 to a ‘better’ reading. Well, they can keep their pesky drugs for others. My 79 year old female relative ,non-diabetic, is being plagued to get her 5.6 lowered….for crying out loud….she is spending £s on nutritional ‘foods’ because they guarantee to reduce her levels. Well of course they do,,, but what the hell for?
Will this malarkey never end!
Jerome. Just an update on my 9th May response to you. With a new total cholesterol this week showing a reduction from 7.4 to 7 in three months, I was immediately contacted with a message saying that I ought to be on statins! But of course I politely explained that my GP understands why I do not want them, and that was the end of the matter. However, I questioned why my HbA1c, recorded as 44 mmol, is classed as ‘abnormal’. All other blood profiles are within normal parameters. Kidneys fine, liver fine, B/P fine. weight fine. Now come on….things are just getting stupid. But ‘computer says’, and never mind the nice assurances from a human GP. Watch out you doctors….our ‘health’ Secretary of State is out to oust you just as soon as you can stick your stethoscope in your ears…..oh no, they went out of fashion years ago, I believe.
Jennifer, the treatment boundaries get lower so pharma’s net gets wider.
We’re just customers and sales opportunities. Problems are invented then exaggerated with dodgy statistics. Hardly anyone is ‘normal’ by pharma’s definition.
Jennifer
I don’t know what my cholestoral level is nor do I care. Mayb if it got to 15 or so I would hav concern about some underlying condition. Am afraid I see a doctor including my own as someone who wants to sell me something that somehow gets him extra remuneration. The associated corporate givaways in the surgery don’t help. As regards statins, in years to come I would like to see the purveyors of this health hazard taken to task thro a legal framework, public inquiry if u like. The more I see in relation to these things, the more concerned I become and the more I question & blank out corporate spiel. Past disappointment at this stage.
Dr. Brownstein has written a blog post about Repatha. Dug into it pretty deeply, and it is much creepier than I expected.
There’s vast amounts of money to be made from monoclonal antibodies, so powerful organisations will be involved.
Gary, would this be the evil you mentioned ?
It appears we have another heretical Doctor who delights in dis-assembling Research Rhubarb !
https://www.drbrownstein.com/new-cholesterol-lowering-medications-associated-with-25-severe-adverse-effects/
Janet Love: Yes. A rate of 25% serious adverse events in both treatment and placebo groups. What’s not to like about that? What is creepy is that the placebo wasn’t a placebo at all, but a chemical concoction no doubt put together by an alchemist who designed it to achieve an identical result. Safety apparently matters not, only the equality of safety, or, in this case, its lack.
It seems Dr Brownstein is on to something – the whole statin thing has moved on to a new level and opportunity has knocked for some !!
The Statin Disaster – greatest fraud in medical history” he says. Extract “This Special Report is a $9.95 value, but we will send it to you FREE, along with a copy of Dr. Brownstein’s book. Remember, you cover only a small $4.95 shipping fee for your entire STATIN PROTECTION KIT. ”
STATIN PROTECTION KIT ?? Just don’t take them !!
https://w3.brownsteinhealth.com/Health/DRB/Offers/Statin-Disaster-2
Fascinating stuff from Dr David Brownstein.
Thank you all
I was already stretched out reading “A Statin Nation,” the computer long silent, with cats occupying the chair, when I was intrigued about potassium and the Scottish Heart Health study, so I looked it up. Three factors showed up as protective in both columns (CVD and all-cause mortality). Potassium, vitamin E, and height. The latter we can do nothing about, apart from visiting Procrustes, but I am more convinced than ever of the benefits of potassium supplements. Makes me wonder if vitamin E should be added to the regimen. I’ve just ordered 1,000 g of citrulline mallate powder at $0.29 per dose. I suspect increasing NO production is more crucial than either of these as a protective factor, but highly unlikely that the SHHS looked at them. I also researched selenoproteins out of curiosity. Guess what-they are not only crucial to many biological processes, but are made in the post-statin mevalonate pathway. The pleiotropic effects of those damn things must be pretty powerful to overcome all the damaging things they do.
Gary
Glad to read your post, because I was going to post about similar subjects.
Firstly big fan of potassium, Got the idea from á blog of Dr K some time ago.
Secondly vitamin E also, idea from Göran
Now as to Citrulline malare and L Arginine, I have been taking three grammes daily for some time, I have been buying in one gramme tablets which I pound to powder in a pestle and mortar. I wonder how bio available it is, since taking blood pressure readings as a marker, I note it has little effect. However, it is the rhubarb season, which I grow abundantly and I note that now my BP readings have dropped. Since rhubarb has the second highest nitrate content, after rocket lettuce, I wonder if our bodies handle it better.
Just don’t cook it in a aluminium pan. (Aluminum for our North American friends).
Mr. Chris: Thanks. I’m hedging my bets by taking both citrulline malate, 4g/day in divided dose, and also drinking beet kvass and eating pickled beets. NO really is our vasculature’s best friend. I don’t recall Dr. Kendrick mentioning it, but I think it is also a good idea to take a collagen supplement, along with vitamin C, to enhance endothelial repair. None of these break the bank.
Fears over statins side-effects of mental, memory and pain problems
The study examined 556 patients over four years and found up to 49 per cent developed adverse reactions, including mental health disorders, sleep and brain function problems. Up to a quarter suffered muscle pains and almost 20 per cent had problems with thinking or memory. The research, soon to be published in the journal Current Vascular Pharmacology, has fuelled the bitter debate between doctors and academics over the widespread prescription of the drugs, including in people at low risk of heart disease.
A work colleague was assessed last year for his risk of CVD by the occupational health team. He was deemed to be a suitable candidate for statin therapy according to the risk calculator. He was given information about lifestyle changes etc, but the statin was prescribed to him at the time because he was told that a “belt and braces” approach was essential. He has no history of CVD but always does what the doctor(s) says. I politely tried to talk him out of taking the medication but it fell on deaf ears.
A few months later it was quite obvious that his mental abilities had been compromised. In my dealings with him he would on occasion, forget a conversation (or part of it ) and just seemed to have less mental focus. Of course, I cannot be sure that the statin was responsible but if I was a betting man………
I have made the same experience with an old friend of mine. It was my opinion versus the one of his GP and I lost and my friend suffered the “side effects” of memory loss and muscle weakness.
Finally he had a new GP who told him that people over 70 have no benefit from statins – wow!
My friend has now recovered to some degree
I read on the BBC’s news health website yesterday, that folks who don’t eat breakfast have a higher rate of CVD and death rate than folks who ate their breakfast….
Dear me Bbbbeee.. You have made a major boo boo.
Have they stopped employing people with brains at the BBC nowadays ? It certainly looks like it..
The media of every kind employ idiots. Besides, in my neck of the woods the death rate is 100% whether you eat breakfast or not.
Bill in Oz: What’s amusing about this silliness is that everybody eats breakfast, at some point, on most days. I do virtually every day, but rarely before about 11:00 a.m.
It’s all in the word breakfast – it matters not when you break your overnight fast!
The people with brains all died of CVD because they didn’t eat breakfast before reporting to the “news” room!
I was reading a scary transcript of a talk by Dr Bernstein on the complications of diabetes. It can really mess you up physically.
Then this passage caught my attention.
Let’s say my finger is a capillary. Here are the pericytes all around the surface of the capillary. One of them bursts, the endothelial cell underneath it will balloon out, it’ll look like a little bubble. Under a magnifying ophthalmoscope they’re called microaneurysms, it’s a little bubble of the blood vessel called an aneurysm. That bubble can burst and cause blood to be released into the retina and even more important, the pericytes produce an anti-proliferation factor, a factor that prevents proliferative retinopathy, but when you lose pericytes, there is no longer a pericyte to make that factor, that area will allow the proliferation of capillaries and you’ll now get proliferative retinopathy. So, you can get problems from these proliferative cells, the proliferative vessels that can burst, or you can also get retinopathy from the bursting of the microaneurysms. I think that the microaneurysms are more of a warning sign but the proliferation is a much more serious condition.
https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/dr-bernstein-interview-on-diabetes-complications-617051/
Here the doctor is referring to blood vessels in the eye. But it occurs to me that perhaps the same bursting of the pericytes due to sugar in the blood occurs in the vasa vasorum, leading to blood release into the arterial wall and ultimately to plaque via the clotting mechanism. If this is so, you could develop plaque in a healthy artery with an intact endothelium. No need to posit endothelial damage, just excess sugar in the blood.
What does Dr. Kendrick think?
New study – CD-fed male apoE−/− mice (they spontaneously develop arterial lesions), trehalose caused a 40% reduction of atherosclerotic plaques. Trehalose is a sugar, it is used as a sweetener. We have shown that a known autophagy inducer—trehalose—given orally for a 16-week period and without any visible adverse effects, inhibited atherosclerosis It was observed that trehalose supplementation can have also other advantageous effects in metabolic diseases…. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6479548/
Thirty‐two healthy adults aged 50‐77 years consumed 100 g/day of trehalose. Twelve weeks of oral trehalose supplementation improves NO-mediated EDD and smooth muscle sensitivity to NO in resistance arteries of MA/O adults… trehalose may be an effective intervention for reversing microvascular dysfunction and decreasing CVD risk in healthy MA/O adults. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4931825/pdf/aging-08-1167.pdf
Randall, I find the above comments on trehalose all very confusing and conflicted.
“Trehalose is a sugar, a disaccharide composed of two glucose molecules joined by an alpha-alpha (1,1) glycosidic bond …”.
But we understand that high carbs intake (=sugars after digestion) > increases blood glucose > increases insulin: but insulin inhibits/prohibits autophagy (natural cell death and replacement which is good in normal circumstances).
So confusion: what is the mechanism that makes trehalose a known autophagy inducer?
Trehalose supplementation improves NO … (which is good for CVD prevention/repair) while high carbs / sugars (especially) consumption is generally bad for CVD (in various ways discussed in this blog at length).
So I really do find trehalose all rather confusing, puzzling, and conflicted.
Perhaps trehalose is the exception sugar like fructose which is processed by the body differently – is it?
Do you have any insight on this?
Did anyone else see the study from Duke University Clinical Research Institute a few weeks back noting that fewer than 10% of medical caveats related to heart health are backed up with robust, rigorous science (multiple, replicable studies)? This is no doubt why women with no history of cardiac events are being pushed to take statins, and folks in general are being urged to adopt near-vegan diets. Here is a pop-press link for anyone that wants to follow up (https://considerable.com/your-doctors-advice-on-treating-heart-problems-may-not-be-backed-by-solid-science/). Perhaps Dr. K has had a chance to look over the original paper?
It is with some regret that I say this but it appears that the sense delivered here is now “out” & part of the narrative so to speak. It was nice to be part of an on the edge blogstream, a medical pioneering study series that hinged on the wisdom of a stubborn science & evidence based GP who was calling nonsense for what it was, ie nonsense. Dr K confirmed our suspicions about modern profit and share price based medication, driving a recovery ambulance & four through lazy medical preaching & practice. (Pulling my punches here!) But as if to prove the message is no longer outside the pale, the Labour party deputy leader Tom Watson spoke on BBCR4 this evening about his diabetes and weight reduction programme. Sanguine & thoughtful, he acknowledged that his eventual recovery, following many years of I’ll health was not in keeping with national guidelines as it involved fat consumption and saturation fat at that. It also required initial fasting to reduce fat deposits around the liver & pancreas to allow for proper insulation production which he understood would allow for energy usage rather than storage. This was supported by a diabetes treatment centre in Warrington, maybe a confidence but suspiciously close to Dr K’s work location. A Newcastle professor delighted in announcing two things,
1. Permanent recovery from D2
2. No medication requirement
This means the solution is FREE !
Pharma Power players will not be amused! I am comfortable with that but was also comfortable with being a bit of an oul rebel. Ah well, can’t hav it everyway!
of course its NOT insulation production !! Insulin !!
and not saturation fat – saturated fat !! Apologies (again)
Jerome,
Well, we have made the same experience!
We realized that my wife was severely in theT2 D state 10 years ago and did our home work and first of all noted that all carbs in the food raised the blood glucose and decided from one day to the next to throw out all carbs from our food. (Strict LCHF!)
Her recovery was dramatic and she has never touched any medication. Blood glucose levels are fine.
There must be a change coming. Even the BBC on Radio 4 a few days ago were discussing calories from carbs and calories from fat, and how they do not have the same effect. The cause of weight gain is insulin, the hormone produced to haandle the effects of carbs. It’s not needed if the calories are from fats, as those calories don’t cause raised insulin levels. Well, waddaya know?
AHN Sad to becoming mainstream?
Jerome Savage,
Yes it is most amazing and almost miraculous to find an MP to publicly announce his T2DM control through LCHF without meds.
But the minister of health is silent. The NHS is silent (as far as I am aware).
Really, the NHS should announce that if you want to be treated for T2DM you immediately start and stay on a LCHF diet as a minimum for life. And screw the UK dietary guidelines that Dr Harcombe has so ably slated.
Prof Noakes (the Noakes Foundation, Cape Town) has performed excellent work on providing dietary guidance to poorer people.
For anyone interested in the Gardasil debacle, a group of high-owered attorneys, including RFK, Jr., is suing Merck for fraud in the clinical trials (they cannot be sued in the U.S. for product liability). In March the court held a Science Day before the judge. RFK, Jr. has made a video of what their presentation showed the court. He has just published it on Children’s Health Defense. 50 minutes. Worth a watch. The most dangerous vaccine ever licensed. Scoundrels, all of them; Merck executives, the FDA, CDC, and Congress, who is completely derelict in its duty of oversight of federal agencies.
As RFK Jr. has stated, wouldn’t it be great if Merck sued him for making false allegations but they cannot and will not because (a) he is telling the truth and (b) he would then be in the legal position to file for “Discovery” .
Readers of this blog may be interested to learn that the excellent blog by Jon Rappaport (10 years in the making) has been censored by WordPress. Jon has been a thorn in the side of the pharmaceutical industry and governments, exposing their tactics and lies for many years now. It seems that they have had him shutdown.
If anyone is interested in supporting Jon’s investigative journalism and the right to express a dissenting opinion, then please consider subscribing at nomorefakenews.com
That’s crazy. On what grounds did they shut him down?
Sasha, Jon wasn’t given a reason, they simply killed the blog. No doubt he will be given the usual “in breach of community guidelines” catchall excuse.
A 10 year old blog and they have suddenly discovered a problem; this is censorship, pure and simple.
Thankfully, it would appear that Jon may have a backup and is attempting to restore it on an alternative platform.
I can’t believe it’s happening.
The Wizard: Yes, this is another horrifying example of the censorship of a truth-teller. John Rappaport is one of the few journalists I respect. His posts about what has gone wrong in Medicine are nicely complementary to what Dr. Kendrick has told us. The U.S.A. is rapidly turning into a totalitarian state. Congress is too cowardly to do anything about it, and the population is too comfortable and too trusting to realize the water is gradually getting warmer. This will not end well.
Seems to be somewhat personality driven, his message that is. Some of his narrative is credible but some just verges on David Icke material.
Low-Dose Aspirin Linked To Bleeding In the Skull, JAMA Review Says http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/low-dose-aspirin-linked-bleeding-skull-jama-review-says
I looked at the article. Looks like bad science to me, they report relative risk, not absolute risk, which is pretty much zero. I don’t think it would make big headlines if they reported “Aspirin Increases Brain Bleeding Risk by 0.17%”
From the Article:
“According to the study results, people who took the placebo had a 0.46 percent risk of head bleeds during the combined trial periods. The aspirin group, on the other hand, had a 0.63 percent risk which represents a 37% higher relative risk.”
I’m going to recommend to Sayer Ji from Green Med Info to get a copy of Malcolm’s book “Doctoring Data”.
I wish my uncle by marriage would follow a diet to lower his cholesterol levels, low carb, vegan, what not. I’m personally not a believer in the cholesterol theory anymore. I don’t care what my cholesterol levels are. My uncle on the other had is a believer and takes a statin for lowering his levels per doctors orders. So here of late my poor uncle has experienced great hip and knee pains. Both of his hips have now been replaced. The last replacement was around a month ago. He had a terrible time recovering from the operation. His kidneys stopped working well and so did his bladder after the operation. He eventually was able to leave the hospital but it took time to get things up and running again in his body. The new joint replacements are reportedly not all the good. He still has joint pains. And now as of the other day his doctor informed him that he might have cancer. The uncle is now back to making trips to the hospital for cancer testing.
I can’t help but think all of this could have been avoided if he stopped taking a statin to lower his cholesterol levels. We will never know of course if that would solve his health problems but I would have liked to have seen that simple idea given a try.
Soul: How can it possibly be beneficial to take a drug which entirely blocks a crucial biochemical pathway? The pleiotropic effects of statins, such as increased NO production, largely make up for the damage they do, on a population level. On the individual level, they can be exceedingly damaging, regardless of these effects, as many have reported. There are non-toxic, pleasurable ways to increase NO production, such as exposing skin to sunlight. As I understand it, it is UVA which triggers NO production in the skin, so even on a cloudy day we benefit. Another interesting one is citrulline, a non-essential amino acid. Yesterday I had quite a long hike (8 miles) for this early in the season. I took three doses of 2 g each of citrulline malate, before and during the hike, and it reduced fatigue. Dissolved in water, it tastes similar to the ascorbic acid I take. Not everybody likes a tangy beverage, but I do!
Gary, and assisted by consumption of nitrate rich foods:
a selection: arugula lettuce; spinach; beets /beetroots; celery; iceberg lettuce; pomegranates; plus more …
Robert L
You don’t mention rhubarb second only to aruaga in nitrate content
On topic – Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients. it decreased the level of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and blood glucose, and increased the level of HDL cholesterol. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19641727
According to the latest annual survey by MediaRadar on TV ad spending, pharma spent approx $6.6bn in the US alone last year. Is it any wonder that the lamestream media sings the praises of everything drug/vaccine related?
https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/hey-big-spenders-pharma-ranks-top-five-industries-for-tv-media-spending-says-report
I am sorry to say that the UK is going down the same route, albeit in a far more sinister way. The average citizen has little to no interest/time to look at the bigger picture. If they see it on the BBC, it MUST be the truth. They do not have the skills to navigate the astroturfing on the internet and inevitably believe the mainstream “health” agency blurb. The NHS knows best. The politicians are either misinformed or are deliberately misinforming, that means you Mr Hancock.
They play with words and policies, the oral prestidigitation is quite remarkable, the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance is on another level altogether. We still cannot get medicinal cannabis on prescription and yet they have no problem allowing doctors to hand out opiates like M&M’s and we can drink/smoke without limit !!!
Thank God for outspoken medics such as Dr K.
The Wizard, in my GP surgery’s small waiting room is a huge electronic screen advertising local businesses, including the local vape shop (“stop smoking, start vaping”) and a pub.
Aileen – perhaps follow the money?
Goran,
Clearly, the doctor suggesting no benefit from statins in those over 70 is paying no attention to reports such as this, another candidate for viewing through the perspective of “Doctoring Data”. But, those who might most benefit from reading the book most likely discount it and avoid it as a professional standing spoiler. Their loss; our loss.
https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/910162?nlid=129737_2802&src=wnl_cmemp_190518_mscpedu_card&uac=25547DG&impID=1966720&faf=1
I’ve been thinking a bit more about Soul’s poor uncle. It appears from the trial reports that statins have a very slight benefit, but we really have no idea of the truth of this. A few caveats: exclusion criteria. Some, perhaps many, are excluded from all clinical trials, for various reasons, yet the drugs are prescribed to all takers. No trial has lasted more than four or five years, but what will happen ten years out? Twenty? Has anyone actually taken statins for twenty years? Seems unlikely. Has any trial group actually been followed for any length of time post trial? The biggest red flag is the hidden data. Were it even a tiny bit good they would shout it from the rooftops. There are too many idiots and shameless drug-pushers in charge in this world.
Gary
Isn’t the marginal benefit (CVD exclusive) as a result of the NO content? Incidentally i came across old notes of mine from 5 years ago and where I thought I stopped statin use in 2010 i came under considerable med pressure to return and did so around 2013/14. My notes refer to toe cramps and I recall that they were painful as hell. That pain is but a 5 year memory, coinciding with statin abandonce once & for all. Other leg cramps that I associated with long runs & cycles are also just a memory despite my occasional 60 to 80 mile cycles.
I agree – my problems with Simvastatin only really started after 3 years. That is why it took a while for the problem to be recognised properly. The terrible thing is that once the statins aren’t considered as an explanation, there are always going to be alternatives – Post Polio Syndrome in my case. Plain old “getting on a bit” would be another.
Gary: Absolutely
Today I was expecting delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which typically occurs two days after a strenuous hike. I have no soreness today, and I did a 1/2 workout, which went well. More evidence that the citrulline malate did what it is claimed to do. I’m taking two 2 g doses, stirred into water on most days, and three for hiking.
Gary
About Citrulline, what is your total intake in á day’?
Reading up about the difference between It and Arginine I came across a comment that it metabolises better in the body.
Looking forward to your reply.
Mr Chris: I take three 2g doses spaced throughout the day, most days; sometimes two. The package says 1-3 doses per day. As I recall the therapeutic dose in the literature is 5-8g/day. This is really great stuff, more obvious in its effect than any other supplement I have taken. At $0.11/dose, it is affordable.
Gary: L-citrulline.
I’ve been taking the stuff for a few months now. Heavy Spring chores notwithstanding, I’ve had no muscle soreness either.
The question: the bottle tells you to take your doses between meals, the idea presumably being that this amino acid would simply get assimilated into the general protein mix of a meal, obviating its particular individual effects. I’ve not been able to find evidence that this is true. It would be so much easier with a meal – no scheduling fuss.
You take yours between or with? Got reasoning behind it?
JDPatten: I usually take it on an empty stomach. No particular reason, just that meal timing is different than when I want the effect. I recall the website saying something to the affect that if it bothers your tummy, take it with meals, thus implying that it is recommended to be taken apart from meals. As I understand it, it is the kidneys which convert the citrulline to arginine, which leads to NO production, so maybe it doesn’t matter too much? I have no idea!
GOOD STUFF GARY !
Bill in Oz: Yes it is the real deal; one of Dr. Kendrick’s best recommendations. I’m actually taking 3 2g doses most days, morning, noon, and suppertime, though on a hike I compress them into early morning, pre-hike, and mid-hike. The therapeutic dose in the literature is 5-8g/day. By the way, I just finished the garlic harvest. Whew! What a job.
Gary,
What do you like about the citrulline malate over L-citrulline?
Dr. John H: At first I took a citrulline/arginine supplement from the health food store, in capsule form. I don’t much like pills, so I switched to the citrulline malate powder, based on all the positive things body builders say about it. Cheaper, easier to take, and seems to have greater effect. A 2g dose is US $0.11. I take 2-3 doses per day, so it really doesn’t cost that much. I am slower to fatigue from exercise, and recover faster.
Thanks!
Gary thanks for all this NO citruline input, appreciated
I have been trying to understand my own CVD-issue now during 20 years of study from my ignorant starting point but with my natural science research perspective and not least with the help of Dr. K’s blog.
I am today in a reasonable good shape, taking the severeness of my state into consideration working liberally with my gardening tools and chain saws, at 72, .
So, what may be the reason for this rather good outcome on my part?
My own guess today is that the reason is that I have used “the broad brush” alternativ medical “healing” approach or with other words that of precaution while ignoring the deterministic medical/big pharma solutions offered as of very limited scientific value. Understanding the immense complexity of our metabolism this makes sense to me.This is completely contrary to the opinion my latest cardiologist who claims “pure luck” in my case and who naturally “hates” my rejection of all his prescribed pills as well as the comprehensive CABG.
Still I remember, prior to my MI (about 50 yeas ago), the enforced procedure used to tie recent victims to their beds killing 50 % – great medical science indeed!
Yes. Relative or absolute comparisons?
Professor Colin Baigent (where did i see that name before?) is quoted & confirms that there are no side effects of any significance !! Try telling that to daily mail readers.
Dr. Richard Moskowitz, a GP in Massachussetts with 52 years of clinical practice, has written an excellent commentary on vaccination today in Age of Autism. Absolutely worth a read. And yes, there is a link to having acute febrile infections in childhood and a reduction in CVD (and cancer) risk.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.012330
Chronic infections have been reported to be risk factors for both coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke. DNA of oral bacteria, mainly from the viridans streptococci group, has been detected in coronary thrombus aspirates of myocardial infarction and cerebral aneurysms. Viridans streptococci are known to cause infective endocarditis and possess thrombogenic properties. We studied the presence of oral bacterial DNA in thrombus aspirates of patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with mechanical thrombectomy.
Request for Help-
A while ago I read a study that said something like “For every blood pressure medication one takes, the risk of death goes up by 30%. 3 or more blood pressure meds increases the risk of death as much as having uncontrolled hypertension”
I want to include that study in a blood pressure article I’m writing, but i can’t find it anywhere. Does anyone here know what I’m talking about and can post a link?
That’s ok, it’s only relative risk. What’s the absolute risk? It may be insignificant.
Hi, Dr John H,
I’ve tried poking around a bit, but I haven’t found what you’re talking about. For your amusement, I did find an article which suggests the opposite.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/are-3-blood-pressure-drugs-better-than-1#6
LA_Bob: That article screamed “surrogate endpoint.” I confess I didn’t read to the end, but using the word “goals” was a red flag. Increased health and lifespan would be the only goal of value, in my estimation, not BP reduction. We now know that the linear model of BP risk MUST be false. Kind of reminds me of the BBC and their “50-50 challenge,” and the New York Times and their 50-50 goal, the former in regard to gender parity in on-air personalities, and the latter gender parity in published letters-to-the-editor. Rubbish, as our good Dr. Kendrick’s father would say. Equality of opportunity sounds like an admirable goal, but equality of outcome? Preposterous. Only in a land with fewer functioning brain cells than humans.
I found the study I was looking for: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150529193554.htm
This study says the “risk of stroke went up 33 percent with each blood pressure medicine” and “three or more blood pressure medications had a stroke risk of 2.5 times higher”. That’s a 250% increase! They go on to say: “You’re in as much trouble by the time you are on three medications that achieve excellent control as you are when you have hypertension and it is untreated, which is amazing,” Howard said. “We want to raise the issue that, despite great advances in a pharmaceutical approach, relying solely on this approach is going to come at a dear price of people’s lives.”
I watched the video Andrew Wakefield, MD on YouTube where he explains the facts behind the fraud he is alleged to have committed regarding a particular MMR vaccine and autism, and I’m convinced he’s a decent chap, an honourable researcher, and did nothing wrong. The authorities and the journalist Brian Deer have some explaining to do, however.
Martin Back: You are correct. The only fraud in this affair involved the lies BMJ printed, which were reviewed only by the three senior editorial staff, not by external peer reviewers, as the editors claimed. The findings in the retracted Lancet paper, of gut dysfunction co-morbid with autism, have since been replicated numerous times, and it is now considered to be present in 70-90% of cases. Settled science, as they say. Nobody had recognized this before. They (the team of thirteen researchers at the Royal Free) were the first, and thus this work was groundbreaking. Rare today that any scientific findings are replicated even once. If anyone wishes to know all the details of this sordid affair, go to ahrp.org and read “L’affaire Wakefield: Shades of Dreyfus & BMJ’s Descent into Tabloid Science.” In addition to Dr. Wakefield, two others were drug before the GMC, based upon a secret complaint made by Brian Deer in 2004, Dr. Simon Murch, and the leader of the team, senior author of the paper, and one of the world’s leading pediatric gastro-enterologists, Professor John Walker-Smith. All were convicted. Dr Murch was allowed to keep his license after he publicly expressed support for MMR. This whole farce was about the MMR and vaccine policy, just as is the case in the U.S. Not about children, not about health, not about scientific integrity. The revenue stream, and nothing else. Professor Walker-Smith, though retired at the time, appealed, to restore his good name. Instructive to read Justice Mitting’s decision quashing all charges, and restoring Professor Walker-Smith’s medical license. The GMC is truly the gang who couldn’t shoot straight. Incompetent, and nasty, besides. Dr. Wakefield’s insurance refused to pay for his appeal, but essentially Justice Mitting’s decision exonerated all three. The effect of this kangaroo court was to set back autism research at least a decade. Autism worldwide has become an existential threat, a crisis of immense proportion, and governments and the “health” bureaucracy is doing nothing of any value to address it. Schools in both the U.S. and UK are facing unprecedented challenges in coping with a student population more damaged than any in anyone’s memory.
The honest guys seem to be outside the “establishment” – the crooks inside!
Martin,
Thank you for this link.
Wakefield certainly does not sound like “quack” me.
As a follow-up to my previous comment, here is a reference for what is happening to children in the UK. Same is true in the U.S.:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/17/mental-health-young-people-england-crisis-point-teacher-school-leader-survey
Not sure why I didn’t get this post from the 25th of April but glad just the same I found it. Thanks again Dr Malcolm Kendrick for your great work and hope you’re on the mend.
Vitamin C and skin problems blog hijack – call for help
For me, my stress related dermatitis/skin problems are an external manifestation for my internal coronary artery calcium score of 1500 over the years. In my mind on topic.
My dermatitis currently is rampant, worse than ever: scalp, forehead, temples, mouth, ears, neck and elbows are sore and flaky.
Internet googling on the efficacy of vit C in resolving skin problems is contradictory about the role of vit C in skin problems – either (1) too much or (2) too little vit C.
Sticking to known and reliable sources, the Vitamin C Foundation had this to say about itchy skin (which I’ve had and is/was different to my dermatitis):
“might be fillers in pills, but the obvious culprit is allergens in tissues that are being driven out of the body via the skin by a new and improved immune system…once toxins and allergens are gone itchy skin should stop”.
I’ve had that itchy skin response and it went.
The Vitamin C Foundation said this about eczema, having provided a link on eczema:
“if the description (on the link) is accurate, eczema sounds like a malfunctioning immune response caused by vit C deficiency”.
Anyone any thoughts? Cut back or mega, mega dose on vitamin C to help?
Charles,
”Indeed. May we also imagine a world where doctors are less liberal with their antibiotic therapy, and use vitamin C instead? Interestingly enough, vitamin C may be a useful cure for eczema itself. For decades, there has been a series of Russian studies exploring this. A very promising University of Texas study was reported in 1989 specifying an effective eczema-reducing dose of 50-75 mg vitamin C per kg body weight per day. That is about 25-35 mg per pound, amounting to a few hundred milligrams a day for an infant, 1,000 or 2,000 mg/day for a child, or 5,000 to 6,000 mg/day for an adult. The study was double-blind and well controlled. (Severe atopic dermatitis responds to ascorbic acid. Med World News 1989; April 24:41.) The success may be due to vitamin C’s antihistamine effect, to its anti-inflammatory effect, or to its immune-enhancing effect, or perhaps all of the above.”
From http://www.doctoryourself.com/eczema.html
Hi Charles,
For skin things like this, I often think of food allergies and gut health, along with emotional stuff. Most vitamin C is made from corn which is a common allergen. If the bottle says “corn free” and “non-gmo” it is most likely made from gmo corn, unless the source material is specifically stated, such as tapioca. You could try the tapioca based one (I like the one from Ecological Formulas). I personally really notice benefit from the tapioca C, that I don’t get with other forms, though I’m more sensitive than most people. Probiotics can often help, I’ve seen Prescript-Assist work really well for people.
I noticed the eczema that I have on my foot got a lot better with vitamin C (4g 2x/day). I recently started nebulizing colloidal silver to help get over a flu, and I’ve noticed more improvement. Seems like the silver is getting into my gut and killing pathogens.
With your high CAC, have you thought of it being an adaptogenic response, and what would cause that?
Charles Gale – AhNotepad – Dr John H –
This might be of interest :-
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2019/06/11/acne-drug-could-treat-hardening-of-the-arteries-study-suggests/
(snip…) “Professor Cathy Shanahan and Professor Melinda Duer, who co-led the study (Gabriella Bocchetti/University of Cambridge/PA)
“It’s been 12 years of basic research to get to this point,” said Professor Melinda Duer, from the University of Cambridge.” (more…)
“We set out with absolutely no expectation of finding a potential treatment – there is no treatment currently and nobody would have believed us if we had said at that point we were going to cure hardening of the arteries.”
(snip…) : ““We wanted to find out what triggers the formation of calcium phosphate crystals, and why it seems to be concentrated around the collagen and elastin which makes up much of the artery wall.” (more…)
mmec7, no mention that cholesterol is the cause of artery problems. Too many endothelial cells dying and creating calcium crystals. What causes endothelial cells to die at a rapid pace?
Antibiotics to the rescue. What is the effect on mitochondria and gut microbiome?
mmec7,
This is fascinating; calls to mind some questions:
Calcification is a typical response when healing cannot keep up with further injury. In arteries where this is the case, calcification is protective, preventing soft plaque from rupturing. If statins do anything at all for you, they further this calcification protection.
So, in individuals where calcification is forming for cause, we want to prevent that? Or maybe even remove the calcification?
Look upstream: Address the cause of plaque formation – hence calcification – In. The. First. Place.
Look downstream: Think of the possible ramifications of fooling Mother Nature. There is usually a sound function for the often complex bodily responses to our self-abusive lifestyles.
The full article, for you to pick apart, put back together, and see if it holds water:
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(19)30658-8
JDPatten, re calcification
Oxidative stress is mentioned several times, this suggests hyperglycaemia and AGE’s.
Another topic to consider is possibility of calcium oxalate nanocrystals circulating in bloodstream. This abrasive environment could do a lot of damage.
Looking for a medicine to stop calcification may not be the answer.
mmec7, Very interesting!
I bet there could be a natural medicine solution for this, especially if the calcium is an adaptive response.
One other thought for Charles, after reading the article above:
Researchers often take simple things and make them overly complex. Maybe it’s just the antibiotic effect that cleans the calcium from the arteries, in which case bacteria or other microbes could be damaging the endothelium and the calcium is adaptive to keep the arteries from bleeding out. If this was the case, then taking a lot of colloidal silver might do the trick – have you thought of giving that a try?
Dr. Kendrick: It seems to me to make sense that the factors which protect against atherosclerosis in the cardiac arteries, i.e., increased NO production, enhanced productions of EPC’s, etc., must be protective against atherosclerosis in the carotids as well. Yes? Maybe? Too many long words for a simple question, in any case. I must say that citrulline seems to increase my stamina and give me a greater sense of well-being. Placebo effect maybe, but that’s good, too.
Gary
NO / Carotids now that is an interesting question to which I would love to know more.
Ten year Study finds link between ambient ozone exposure, carotid wall thickness. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05-link-ambient-ozone-exposure-carotid.html
Now I’m wondering if citrulline, like Viagra, has a salubrious effect at altitude. I’ve never had any problem with altitude up to 11,000′. I am anticipating looking for any difference when i can get into the high country. As it is, there is still too much snow above 6,000′ to venture forth.
All those tricks Dr Kendrick warned us about, now on one page, with illustrations.
How to make a clinical trial say whatever you want
http://www.thepharmafist.com/trials/?salutoliver
Yes, and excellent and funny blog. I very much enjoyed it.
AH Notepad
Thanks for the vit C/eczema link.
I note in the current blog – “Writer’s block” – that commenter Ellen has posted a comment about Grant Genereux’s work. She mentions he cured his head to toe eczema (and other things) and seems to tie in with his vitamin A toxicity theory.
It seems, as with CVD, that many skin problems also have multiple possible causes/triggers.
Charles, I expect everything is the result of combinations of factors, with some much more significant than others, though even the small effects are significant. This is where the mainstream system fails. A wholistic approach appears to be mumbo-jumbo at first, but to have a targeted approach to one or two causes may miss important factors. The other approach by a certain Dr. K. “Don’t just do something, stand there,” may well be a safer approach than dishing out medications. I have not bothered growing vegetables for years as the economics to produce anemic plants was uninspiring. I have now ordered some rock dust as it replaces the depleted minerals, which get taken up by the plants so we can get the benefit. A bit like taking vitamin C in large doses helps many processes (well I think so).
Superb and informative. I will surely share this with others. Thanks a lot for writing such a great article!
Dr John H
Thanks for your comment on vit C and eczema. Based on a previous comment of yours a few blogs back, I have started using the quali-C and also the liposomal products you mentioned.
From googling, the tapioca vit C seems to come highly recommended. Also, in capsule form, it’s very affordable and portable and available here in England.
Already supplementing on vit C, I would have hoped for a robust system to minimise these sorts of things. It’s the appliance of science going forward with a handy dandy 1g scoop to measure out the vit C powder. Start low and increase dosages seems to be good and consistent advice. Andrew Saul states “quantity, frequency and duration” and “take enough to feel great, to get well”.
N=1 has started! No change so far – 1g a day increase is the plan.
Researching and resolving skin problems are a nightmare, as I have learnt from my dermatitis over the years but I think you sum up the main causes: (1) allergies (2) gut health and (3) emotional stuff.
They don’t know the causes or they do know the causes…what works for one person doesn’t work for another…every possible cream and dietary suspect has been implicated or dismissed. In the current “Writer’s Block” a link was posted to Grant Genereux’s blog in which he cured himself of eczema (vit A toxicity) and here in the UK a paper called the Daily Mail reported a case of someone getting rid of it with megadose IV vit C. The article was lacking on detail though.
For me I’m sure it’s the emotional stuff – stress, unpleasantness and negativity at work. Googling “adaptogenic response” – it ties in with this? Adaptogens (e.g. herbs) relieve stress? I’m taking magnesium glycinate.
I felt in better shape staggering out of intensive care 3 years ago. Crazy. You’d think it could not get more stressful than that.
Before I get too morbid about this iniquitous skin development, I’ll post my comment and order some tapioca C to my vit C supplements.
Thanks again!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190612084332.htm
The team, led by the University of Cambridge and King’s College London, found that a molecule once thought only to exist inside cells for the purpose of repairing DNA is also responsible for hardening of the arteries, which is associated with dementia, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.
There is no current treatment for hardening of the arteries, which is caused by build-up of bone-like calcium deposits, stiffening the arteries and restricting blood flow to organs and tissues.
Supported by funding from the British Heart Foundation, the researchers found that poly(ADP ribose), or PAR, a molecule normally associated with DNA repair, also drives the bone-like calcification of arteries.
Additionally, using rats with chronic kidney disease, the researchers found that minocycline — a widely-prescribed antibiotic often used to treat acne — could treat hardening of the arteries by preventing the build-up of calcium in the circulatory system. The study, the result of more than a decade of fundamental research, is published in the journal Cell Reports…………
Just in from AuntMinnie : Elevated CT CAC scores linked to future heart failure
The presence of coronary artery calcium (CAC) on the CT scans of middle-aged individuals, especially African Americans, was associated with an increased risk of structural heart abnormalities and future heart failure in a new study, published online June 14 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.
https://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?
Elevated CT CAC scores linked to future heart failure
By Abraham Kim, AuntMinnie.com staff writer
Dr. John H – colloidal silver
By coincidence, I was rewatching Suzanne Humphries’ 2014 Stockholm vitamin C talk and she mentions colloidal silver. She states iherb “also sell colloidal silver 500 parts per million and I recommend that every house has that”.
I’ve never heard of colloidal silver and then twice in one week!
Googling “colloidal silver” and “colloidal silver for eczema” shows, as you state, it’s very good for wounds and all types of skin problems.
It seems the product can be used in various forms (1) orally (2) topically (3) spray and (4) as you state “recently started nebulizing colloidal flu”
and that you noticed some improvement on your foot.
I’m going to give it a go…probably topically or spray it on before I crumble/flake away
I hate to ask but I will – as with your vit C comments and recommendations over the months – any chance of a brief/basic buyer’s guide to colloidal silver?
Charles,
Here is some more detail on the treatment that I’m thinking has the potential (in theory) to clear up both the skin condition and excess arterial calcium.
1. Vitamin C: Try the tapioca based one, just in case you are sensitive to the corn based ones. As I mentioned above, almost all vitamin C is made from GMO corn, even when it is labeled “non-gmo” and “corn free”. Quali-C is made from conventional corn. I like the Ecological Formulas tapioca C, and I like to buffer it with Bob’s Red Mill baking soda at a ratio of 1 part C to 3/8 – 1/2 parts baking soda.
2. Colloidal Silver: Delivered via a nebulizer. The best nebulizer type for silver is ultrasonic. The best one to get that I know of is the Veridian Sonic Mist.
Best price here, but often out of stock:
http://www.wholesalepoint.com/product/veridian-11-520.aspx
Or here:
https://www.noinsurancemedicalsupplies.com/cart.php
I am making a theoretical assumption that the calcium deposits are an adaptive response as a result of pathogens in the blood damaging the endothelium. I thought of this after reading the article posted above about a certain antibiotic removing calcium from the arteries. Could the silver work for the arteries? I don’t know, but seems a worthy experiment and worth a try. It seems likely it could help the skin.
Nebulized silver can quickly get into the bloodstream and kill pathogens. Taken orally is OK too, though my thinking is that nebulizing may get it to where it’s needed in the arteries more directly. Start slow, as it’s easy to get detox reactions. Typical nebulizer dosages that I have heard are 1 tsp. 1-3x/day.
I suggest Meso Silver which is one of the few true colloidal silvers, and is considered to be more effective than ionic silver products such as the popular Sovereign brand.
3. Prescript-Assist probiotic: A very effective probiotic to heal the gut and rebuild the flora.
Also, since modern wheat is a very common allergen, probably a good idea to avoid it for a while (if you don’t already). Modern wheat easily damages the intestines and cause skin problems, maybe it also can damage the arteries.
If you try this, let us know how it works!
Oh, in a previous post I wrote “adaptogenic response” I meant to say “adaptive response”.
Here is a simple gut healing protocol using silver and aloe. The author is a paid spokesman for the makers of Sovereign Silver (but does not disclose it). He uses 1 ounce silver to 1 ounce aloe on an empty stomach 3x/day. I’m going to try it using half as much Meso Silver.
Click to access RSB-GI-Silver-Aloe-protocol.pdf
Corrected link for nebulizer:
https://www.noinsurancemedicalsupplies.com/sonicmist-ultrasonic-nebulizer-system/
Be careful with taking aloe vera internally. It’s a “cold” medicine energetically. Gut problems have different etiologies. One needs to do a proper differential diagnosis. If you hit a wrong pattern with aloe vera, it will aggravate.
Sasha: Thank you for that information. We have a very large Aloe vera in the garden, and I have used it topically a few times, with good effect, but never internally. I do recall the taxi driver in Atlanta told me that taking it internally had reversed his IDDM.
Gary: what do you mean by IDDM?
As far as aloe, yes it’s often used both internally and topically and often with good results but it’s effective for “hot” conditions and will aggravate “cold” conditions. One would need to do differential diagnosis…
Sasha: Sorry for the apparently bogus term. If NIDDM means “non-insulin-dependant diabetes melitus,” then IDDM must mean “insulin-dependant diabetes melitus.” He was an insulin-dependant diabetic, and he told me the Aloe vera eliminated his need for insulin, something I’d never heard before.
Gary: thank you for clarifying.
Good point Sasha! It may be that the silver alone will do the trick.
Am hardly ever without Colloidal Silver, have been using for many years. And always take with me when in hospital – useful for swabbing down locker tops, bed rails, table top, light switches, door handles etc. Also use in winter, spray throat to halt any buggles flying around. In addition, spray on toes – toes are forever covered up, so to arrest anything that might be unwanted. Also use on supermarket trolley handles. Does mean carrying around a spray bottle
One can make one’s own colloidal silver. Youtube has the how to info. Means setting up a bit of equipment. For myself, I buy it from my Bio health food shop. I have it in 10 and 20 ppm – Higher Nature do a good line.
mmec7, I don’t carry any bug killer around, and I haven’t caught anything. Unfortunately it is not possible to kill all bugs, and it would be indiscriminate and so kill good as well as bad surely? The way to not suffer the effects of bad bugs is to swamp them with good bugs. This means good nutrition and not being too clean.
Antibiotics are less effective nowadays, and for some diseases there is no antibiotic treatment available. This has been encouraged by excessive use. The same is happening for vaccines where the diseases are mutating into something more dangerous, and the immunity is becoming less able to cope. This is the best explanation I have seen to date, and throws up some hideous facts regarding the Callous Disregard with which the politicians and pharmasists (definition: makers of poisons and potions) treat populations.
Colloidal silver thread continued
Folks – Many thanks for the informative and useful comments and recommendations on colloidal silver for skin problems.
Here are 2 contrary opinions on the the taking of colloidal silver orally (which, I suppose, includes using a nebulizer), as opposed to topically:
(1) Mark Sisson’s Daily Apple website had an entry on colloidal silver supplements dated Aug 2007 in which the blog states supplements are “ineffective and unsafe” and “colloidal silver supplements fall into the dangerous category”. Here’s the link:
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/silver-scam/
and the opposing view
(2) the Finchley Clinic here in UK had the following comment on the internal usage of colloidal silver: “under EU regulations designed to protect consumers, in other words let’s face it, protect the drug companies who campaigned for the regulations, we are not permitted to give advice on internal usage of colloidal silver. During the 10 years we (and countless other companies) did advise on internal usage, and the hundred years before that when it was used internally, we didn’t notice too dead bodies lying in the streets as a result. Perhaps we weren’t being observant enough”.
Here’s the link:
https://www.thefinchleyclinic.com/shop/colloidal-silver-15ml-re-fillable-e-219.html
For me, it seems topical is the way forward for skin issues.
Also, the Finchley Clinic, for visitors to Dr Kendrick’s website who are interested in the vitamin C side of CVD, sell tapioca vitamin C.
AhNotepad – Colloidal Silver, buggles. Hospital infections are notorious. Caught a real nasty one from three nunrses who were coughing all over the place, blowing noses, not washiong hands etc etc. This when I was in an emergency situation with a PE (p’embolism). Ended up with a hell of a bronchitis. Another nasty one was caught from someone on the train to Paris. A norovirus. A week in bed at the hotel – an expensive visit ! As for nutrition, mine is excellent. I do not need pointers on ntrition… Yes. Am fully aware of the problems re antibiotics – especially the fluroroquinolones. Been floxed once, As for being overly ‘clean’, am aware of the guidelines. Just a pity that hospitals are notaware of ‘good’ guidelines : a same clothe used to wipe down a mattress, then locker tops, then bedside chairs, then bed rails, then…same cloth for the next bed. Ho-Hum !
Re the Wakefield presentation, had listened to it a while back. He’s pretty sound. And, no, I do not hold with the present vaccine scene – far from it. And as for pharma’s machinations and the appalling corruption now found masquerading under the umbrella of ‘medicine’, Hmmmm. Words fail one.
I shall continue to use the colloidal silver. I prefer a spray of CS to a bout of bronchitis or picking up another norovirus.
Thank you AhNotepad.
Is it the weight loss, or the low carb diet that provides the benefits……
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100036.htm
The study appears today (June 20) in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.
……..Over about four months, each study participant ate three month-long controlled diets — high-carb, moderate-carb and low-carb — with a two-week break between diets. The order in which the participants ate the diets was randomly assigned.
The research team, led by research scientist Parker Hyde, ensured that the participants would not lose weight by providing them with pre-prepared meals that contained an amount of calories equal to their energy expenditure.
After eating the low-carb diet, the participants had a variety of significantly improved health measures, particularly lower triglycerides and improved cholesterol readings. Despite the fact that the low-carb diet contained 2.5 times more saturated fat than the high-carb diet, it decreased saturated fat in the bloodstream and was associated with an increase in the size of cholesterol particles in the blood, which decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease, Hyde said.
The researchers also report evidence of increased fat-burning efficiency after a low-carb diet and an improvement in blood sugar. They did not see statistically significant improvements in blood pressure or insulin resistance.
Three participants no longer had metabolic syndrome after the moderate-carbohydrate diet and one no longer had the syndrome after the high-carb diet. Volek said that those results are likely explained by the fact that even these study diets — particularly the moderate-carb diet — represented a shift toward fewer carbs for study participants.
“Even a modest restriction is carbs is enough to reverse metabolic syndrome in some people, but others need to restrict even more,” he said.
Good write up on use of sauna therapy and its effects on CVD prevention.
https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/sauna?fbclid=IwAR3hGvTkn8lm0MBQ0HoEfQfahZqStToKNSMAXOE4FbzvqCEE9FAqmqkq8og
Dr Kendrick:
Have you seen Paul Mason’s presentation?
At about 14:15 he talks about how the LDL particle
goes through the vessel wall. I don’t believe it, and
I think maybe you don’t either.
I think the boneheaded brigade at the Lancet should read Eat Your Heart Out written by James LeFanu in the mid eighties. Still holds true today.
I have not read that, but his more recent “Too Many Pills” is a book that is well worth reading.
Dr Le Fanu has been somewhat more vocal in his views about modern medicine since he retired from being a GP. Probably his earlier reticence was wise given the slings and arrows that Dr Kendrick has to endure.
Is he still with us then?
Just been following yet another Twitter argument involving Taubes, Hall, Guyenet et al. I dont know what all the fuss is about. Junk, fried food, takeaways andmicrowaves have fuelled the fat tsunami. What else do you need to know? Trying to tell me a boiled potato is evil is just flim flam.
Very well said
Sasha: GMO potatoes and other crops may be another reason to avoid eating plants
andy, if the ill informed NFU get their way assuming Brexit happens, they “hope to have GM crops extensively in the UK. Let’s hope they want a 5g aerial mounted on their roof too.
Reading statin nation were you recommend vit k3 for calcified arteries.checked on google and it said vit k3 is banned in most countries.is this true.if so why.
Sent from my iPad
>
Lynda Thomas: I thought it a bit odd the mention of vitamin K3, as I have never heard of it. I wonder if Dr. Kendrick meant K2.
K2
Numbers, numbers!
K2: There’s MK-7 (Greek?) otherwise known as menaquinone (5) and there’s menatetrenone (4) and a few others, I believe. (Getting dizzy!)
The tetra has a very brief half-life and the quin quite a long one.
Can you do a bit more in the way of enlightening us?: Which? Both?? All???
https://t.co/mkLQpPqXeU
Clearly dietary advice needs comprehensive reviews
This is worth reading to show how serious studies have been (deliberately?) misrepresented by withholding parts of the original study document.
Quote from the abstract of the paper.
“Conclusions Available evidence from randomized controlled trials shows that replacement of saturated fat in the diet with linoleic acid effectively lowers serum cholesterol but does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes. Findings from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid.”
Chriss Morriss: And the lead investigator on the Minnesota Coronary Experiment? None other the Ancel Keys. Why did he put it in the garage rather than a scientific journal? It utterly destroyed decades of his own work, and the bully tactics he employed to destroy anyone, such as John Yudkin, who begged to differ, and had actual data.
Gary Ogden: Ancel Keys already proved 10 years earlier in 1958 that saturated fat causes CVD (7 Countries Study). Publishing a study that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat causes more problems would have created a paradox.