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Ivermectin, Monoclonal Antibodies, and Blood Sugar: COVID Strategies

Ivermectin has been in the news lately with headlines like "Man ODs on Horse Dewormer" and "Hospitals Full of Ivermectin Patients." If this is the only perspective you've heard, let me tell you why people DIY their own health.  DIY Health Years ago, a commenter at Dr. Davis's Track your Plaque blog recalled when he was diagnosed with diabetes. He researched the illness, found that doctors and veterinarians had completely different views, and he wondered how humans and animals could be so different. He concluded that the veterinarians had it right. For a while, he thought about seeing a veterinarian for his diabetes, but finally decided to take care of it himself. He's not the only one taking care of his own illness. I'm part of online communities whose members have had to either fix their own health problems or watch them get worse. Dietary guidelines for all Americans include "healthy whole grains," even though too many Americans are overw

23andMe: Conflict of Interest and Crappy Advice

23andMe, the genetic testing company, sent me a new report saying I have a 64% chance of developing diabetes based on my genetics. Having at least three diabetic grandparents and hypoglycemia from the time I was a kid, I already figured I was a case of diabetes waiting to happen if I didn't take precautions. If I followed 23andMe's crappy advice, I'd probably become one of those cases. GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the diabetes drug Avandia , owns a $300 million share of 23andMe . Some of 23andMe's advice for avoiding diabetes is good--avoid added sugars, refined flour and potatoes. Thanks to the work of journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and a few renegade doctors and researchers who attacked the low-fat orthodoxy, they have to throw that in now to avoid losing all credibility. But their advice on what to eat instead isn't very helpful for filling you up and keeping you from snacking on foods with flour and sugar: Fruit can be very high in sugar; beans are mo

23andMe Signs Agreement with Big Pharma, Offers Health App

GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's largest drug makers, recently bought a $300 million stake in 23 and Me, a genetic testing company . The two also signed an agreement giving GlaxoSmithKline exclusive rights to customer data. The data is de-identified, aggregate customer information. 23andMe recently rolled out Lark, an health app specially geared to your genetics. I was curious what kind of diet advice Lark gave, since 23andMe advised me a year or so ago to limit saturated fat . Here's a screen grab from their video suggesting the new app is programmed with diet advice from the 90s: " Lark Chat: Personal Weight Loss Coach & 24-Hour Nutritionist " by ourLark on Youtube.  Uploaded April 27, 2015. Think about it, though--why SHOULD a company with a relationship to big pharma tell you to put down the bread when doing so may reduce your need for beta blockers (which lower blood pressure), nasal steroids and bronchial drugs, all of which GlaxoSmithKline m

Fishing for Depression Patients

I knew last summer when I saw the headline that there had to be a new depression medication out. How? The news was " All Americans Should be Screened for Depression. "(1) That's a good idea because, as you know, depression is a menace, affecting tens of millions and leaving many of its victims tired, overweight, prone to heart disease, impotent, blind, and--wait, I'm thinking of diabetes. It might make sense to screen everyone for diabetes. No, the reason for screening everyone for depression, I figured, was that there was a new drug someone was looking to peddle. Sure enough, the FDA approved a depression drug a few weeks earlier. (2) Some doctors are already screening patients--like me--for depression during routine office visits. My invoice for being seen for a puncture wound included "brief behavioral assessment," which I didn't remember getting. When I called the office about it, they said they gave everyone that assessment through a questionnair

Getting Over Palpitations

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge

AHA Recommends Statins for the Poor, People Near Airports, and Everyone in the Southeastern US

Not really, but why not? The American Heart Association now recommends cholesterol-lowering drugs for people who don't necessarily have low cholesterol, just risk factors for heart disease . (1) What is a risk factor? It's something that is statistically associated with heart disease. Everyone say it with me: association is not the same as causation. Take a look at the map below: Map from the Center for Disease Control . Obviously, living in the southeastern US (or Appalachia) is a risk factor for heart disease. As my father says about most car accidents happening within a few miles of home, you'd better move away from there. But the whole population there can't move out west, and I don't want them bringing their sweet tea and hushpuppies and green and orange jello here. The obvious solution is to prescribe statins by ZIP code, right? That goes for people who live near airports , too.(2) The AHA could get together with the IRS and doctors could prescribe

Shedding some Headwinds

Have you seen the list of drugs whose patents are going to expire in 2013 to 2016 ? It reads like a shopping list of drugs you'll need on a poor diet. Out of the 27 listed, at least 13 are unnecessary (statins), unneeded on a well-planned low-carb diet (acid blockers), treat conditions that might be improved by such a diet (medications for blood pressure, anti-depressants, bipolar disorder, diabetic nerve pain, for instance), or might be improved by removing wheat and other grains (medications for schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and osteoporosis). On the one hand, doctors will feel less encouragement from drug salesmen, seminars and advertisements to prescribe these drugs. Without those headwinds, doctors might be more inclined to suggest diet changes. After all, avoiding grains and eating healthy fats is becoming more mainstream: the book Grain Brain (due out in September) is against wheat, sugar and carbs (presumably too much carb) and is endorsed by several mai

All Better? Why go to Rehab?

They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no. -Amy Winehouse My mother is home from the hospital, where she arrived weak and dehydrated last Thursday. She thinks that an antibiotic made her ill.* My mother uses a wheelchair but she can stand up and she can walk with a walker. She couldn't use her legs when she went to the hospital, but by Monday, she could transfer herself from the bed to the wheelchair with no help, just someone to spot her. The hospital wanted her to go to rehab, but like Amy Winehouse, she said no, no, no, for good reasons: She felt well enough to go home. Rehab is expensive. They feed you a crappy diet at rehab--crappy meaning full of carbage. It's especially unhealthy when you're diabetic, like my mother. Got normal blood sugar? They're johnny-on-the-spot with the orange juice to jack it back up. Mom was assaulted at a rehab center a few years ago. The person was never brought to justice. Being home and careful about her diet

Vitamin D & Acid Reflux Redux

Long-time readers may recall my sinus infection that just wouldn't die. Over six months, I took antibiotics, long naps, a decongestant that gave me an allergic reaction so bad I stopped to wonder if I'd wake up the next morning . It finally ended when I came up with SWAMP and took megadoses of vitamin D, Mucinex and salt. It's February and once again, I've been fighting off a cold for a few weeks. While SWAMP consists of taking 50,000 IU of vitamin D for two days, I've had to take 40,000 IU for the past several days to keep my cough from getting worse. I'm not the only one who's taken large doses like this long term. Jeff T. Bowles, a layman, wrote and self-published a book called THE MIRACULOUS RESULTS OF EXTREMELY HIGH DOSES OF THE SUNSHINE HORMONE VITAMIN D3 MY EXPERIMENT WITH HUGE DOSES OF D3 FROM 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 IU A Day OVER A 1 YEAR PERIOD (caps in original) about his research and experiences. Bowles is a little crazy, and his problems

Feel Lousy? Maybe You're Being Poisoned

Relative: What are you doing? My mother: I'm throwing out everything with carrageenan in it. It's really bad. Scientists use it to make [research] animals sick. That's what made Lori so sick the other night with a migraine headache. Relative: I'll take the salad dressing. It doesn't bother us. My mother: Doesn't your daughter get migraine headaches? This conversation sounds absurd, but knowing the people involved, I'm sure it happened as my mother described it. In the relative's household, there's obesity, diabetes, migraines, hypoglycemia, fatigue, acne, and no doubt some other ailments I'm not privy to. Is this the new normal? Does illness seem so inevitable that some people aren't willing to think about what's causing it? Or do anything with an answer when it's handed to them? Let me tell you how I've felt since I've been free of carrageenan poisoning for the past week. My stomach doesn't hurt, I can eat low car

Man Against the Statin Machine

A proposed movie plot: a patient with a serious but treatable medical condition goes to a rehab center, where his condition isn't treated, he's given drugs that make him worse, and so he has to stay and pay for his board. Problem: something similar has already been done, both in the movies and real life . This was the danger my father was in. Almost a month ago, he had a stroke and went to a rehab center, where he made some progress but stalled. Under Medicare rules, he had to leave or pay full freight for continuing to stay there. The discharge coordinator offered no help to our family. What's worse, the pain in his side was never diagnosed, just treated with a pain patch, and he was given a statin drug without his consent. Statin drugs can cause muscle weakness, fatigue and foggy thinking--some of the reasons my father couldn't go home right away. And according to what I've read, there's no evidence they do any good for people over age 65. Dad is 82. He tr

Celebrity Endorsements

"I am not a role model." -Charles Barkley  Possibly the wisest words any celebrity ever said: And so it is with all entertainers flogging drugs, diet and fitness programs: they aren't paid to actually know how any of these work. An entertainer may not know any more than you do about diabetes, losing weight or getting in shape. What these entertainers have that you might not is stage training, the gift of gab, and a contract to shill for a drug company, weight loss program, or food manufacturer. I'm not accusing anyone of lying, but do you really think someone like Paula Deen, as spokeswoman for Novo Nordisk , is going to tell you how to keep your blood sugars under control without drugs? (Novo Nordisk is a major insulin manufacturer and sponsors flawed research supposedly showing that low-carb diets aren't any more effective than high-carb diets for controlling diabetes. See this .) Are some doctors paid shills, too? Oh yes. In fairness, a lot of p

Sybil: Multiple Personality, Hoax, or Vitamin Deficiency?

After [Dr. Connie Wilbur's] presentation a Q & A followed, and someone asked how [recovered multiple personality disorder patient] Sybil was doing. Connie's answer was brief, almost throwaway. Sybil had lived for a long time without much energy, she said, because in addition to everything else that was wrong with her, she had suffered for years from a disease called pernicious anemia. Another audience member followed with an unrelated question, and that was the end of pernicious anemia and Sybil. No one stopped to think about the bombshell Connie had just revealed. -from the book  Sybil Exposed(1) My, how times have changed. In days of old, people who acted strangely enough were said to be possessed and put through bizarre and dangerous rituals to cure them. Wait, we're still living in that era. Change "possessed" to "multiple personality disorder" (or "dissociative identity disorder" as it's called now) and you have the story of

The Dirty Little Secret of Acid Blockers

Who wouldn't want want relief from a stomach and throat that are on fire? This is what acid blockers offer. What nobody mentions, though, are the side effects. Acid blockers seemed like a godsend to me at one time. It was three years ago, when I couldn't eat tomatoes or oranges, my throat felt hot at night, food got stuck in my throat, there was a sour taste in my mouth, and finally, I got diarrhea that lasted a month and a half. A blood test showed two antibodies for Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that causes most stomach ulcers. I wasn't making the third antibody, instead I was going downhill. An endoscopy showed an ulcer in my throat. A high dose of antibiotics and a prescription for an acid blocker stopped the pain and healed the ulcer. All was well until I tried to go off the acid blocker. I think I have a pretty high threshold of pain, but last year, I lasted a day without it before stomach pain compelled me to start taking it again. Sometime later, I ran out and