Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Dad didn't like doctors. Long ago, Mom was in the hospital after abdominal surgery--for a mistaken diagnosis of appendicitis, if I remember right. She wasn't recovering from surgery, in fact, she was getting worse. When the hospital either couldn't or wouldn't do anything to help, Dad took her to another hospital, where they found her intestines had been put back in wrong. One of the nuns told Mom they almost lost her. At age 19 and with a 9th grade education, Dad had better judgment than the doctors at the first hospital. Doctors were mostly quacks then; doctors are mostly quacks now. That so many lined up for an experimental shot with an absolute risk reduction of symptomatic COVID of about 1% and a horrendous adverse events profile and then forced it on staff, patients and everyone else they could strong-arm should tell you all you need to know. The continued mask mandates at hospitals should remove all doubt.  The Cochrane Collaboration just published their findings...

For the first time, the vaccinated account for over half of the past week's COVID cases in Indiana. They made up 55% of cases, while 54% of Hoosiers are vaccinated. This is based on records I compile using data from Indiana's coronavirus website and the Regenstrief website that shows hospitalizations here. Click image to enlarge. Numbers at 12/30/21 are likely off due to delays in reporting over Christmas. COVID is spreading like a brush fire through the highly vaccinated office where I work, where there's been more coughing and sneezing in the past week than I've heard in two years. Coworkers are grabbing up tests, even as some of them doubt negative results. Why they bother to take a test if they're already so sure of the outcome that they doubt the result, I don't know. A few unvaccinated coworkers and I haven't been among the sick so far. The table shows a small proportion of breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated, but keep in mind...

Injunction against Masking Toddlers A federal judge has temporarily blocked Biden's mandate to mask toddlers and young children and require vaccination of teachers and volunteers in Head Start (pre-kindergarten) programs . The mandate would have "potentially devastating effects" on the program, according to Yasmina Vinci (“Vinci”), Executive Director of the National Head Start Association. A survey the NHSA conducted indicated "Fifty percent (50%) estimated their classrooms would be closed, thirty-two percent (32%) were unsure, and only eighteen percent (18%) said their Head Start classrooms would not be closed." The court found (1) the federal agencies (all part of the executive branch) had no authority to issue the Head Start Mandate; (2) that the Mandate is contrary to law; and (3) the Mandate violates the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirement. Further, the plaintiffs satisfied the four requirements for a preliminary injunction: (1) a ...

Sebastian Rushworth, MD has been reading studies so you don't have to. He's a Swedish junior doctor whose blog was recommended by Malcolm Kendrick, MD and is the author of COVID: Why Most of What you Know is Wrong.  The book covers long COVID, masks, Sweden's handling of the pandemic, and includes a basic primer on scientific studies. It's a short book crammed with information.  Sebastian Rushworth MD.  His latest post is called " Is COVID a Danger to Children? " His conclusion based on statistics from Sweden and the US is that "Children do many things every day that are more likely to kill them, and we don’t bat an eyelid" and therefore "Since it is at present far from clear that vaccination is less risky to children than infection, it is deeply unethical to vaccinate them." Not all of his conclusions are popular with his entire readership. In a post on Vitamin C , Rushworth concludes, "The best available evidence at this point in ti...

When they're nomadic, even if they grow neolithic crops and have herds of sheep and goats.  Truck drivers are nomadic, too. So were my parents in the early years of the marriage. Does that make them hunter-gatherers? A word from someone who knows the difference between farmers and hunter-gatherers is here . Spoiler alert--the farmers had more tooth decay, iron deficiency and starvation than the hunters. Check out the pictures of skulls, tibias and teeth.

Readers interested in the raw paleo+supplement diet that I've proposed for fibromyalgia might be wondering how to put this into practice. There's a lot to read--you can skip parts if you want to--but the better you understand how this works, and the more lousy conventional wisdom you dispense with, the more likely you are to stick with it and fine-tune it to your needs. The basic ideas: Fix any leaks in the gut. A strict paleo diet eliminates foods like grains, potatoes and legumes that can cause this problem, allowing the gut to heal. (UPDATE 6/27/2012: Avoid an additive called carrageenan . It's a neolithic food and an inflammatory.) This may also help with autoimmune diseases. Stop ingesting antinutrients that interfere with magnesium absorption. Grains and legumes have antinutrients (search for "phytate" at Google Scholar if you're interested). Antacids keep you from absorbing magnesium (and calcium, zinc and iron) and interfere with protein digest...

"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...

Amy Alkon Interviews Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades Advice Goddess Amy Alkon writes, Low-carb pioneers Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades are my guests this week. They are two of the all-too-few out there who are behind evidence-based ways to eat -- dietary science as opposed to the "science" on which so many base their diets.... These two have changed the lives and improved the health of more of my readers -- in absolutely incredible ways. People who read their books, like "Protein Power," typically end up losing weight...and with ease...like the pounds are stones falling off a truck. On the show, we'll talk about how to maintain a way of eating, and debunk a lot of widely held myths about diet -- myths many doctors still cling to.  Listen to the interview here  on or after Sunday, January 15, 8 PM. *** I Can't Give 110% Bonfils Blood Center, where I donate blood, started using slightly larger collection bags and increased the minimum wei...

The Low-Methamphetamine Lifestyle From Breaking Bad , a TV show about two men who cook meth: Jesse: "I've been thinking lately that I'd lay off of [the meth] for awhile, 'cause lately it's been making me paranoid, so, for, like, healthwise I'd just lay off." I guess we all have to start somewhere on our quest for a healthy lifestyle. Curing your Sugar Problem with Sugar? If you've been trying to solve a sugar problem by eating starch, "complex carbohydrates," or "healthy whole grains" and failing, it isn't your fault. Did the doctors who recommend this sleep through high school chemistry and get their MDs from a correspondence school in the Bahamas? Watch these two videos and you'll know more about carbohydrates than they do. In this video (sorry, embedding has been disabled) what the teacher is talking about is that starches (or complex carbohydrates) are long chains of sugars.  Or as Dana Carpender puts it, ...

If this were a short story, it would be full of foreshadowing. But like a good mystery, it's hard to connect the dots until the end. If you can't, don't worry--I'll tie it together at the end. I follow a mostly lacto-paleo diet and live pretty cleanly. But I've had a sinus infection for a month, and it's survived one and a half rounds of antibiotics.  I normally eat liver once a week, but haven't had the stomach for it lately. (Even when I'm well, I'm not a liver lover.) A few months ago, I started buying those big, dark chocolate bars--the 70% cocoa ones--and eating one per weekend. (I know what I said last night about hating sweets . It seems to be fruity sweets that I hate; maybe they remind me of medicine.) I started dreading my breakfast smoothie of butter, hot water, pumpkin pie spice and vitamins, even though I like the taste. I sometimes skipped it on the weekend. The vitamins included large doses of zinc and magnesium, a middling dos...

I'd like to share some really outstanding health-related blogs with you. All of these bloggers struggled with the health problems they write about. All of them go by science and results, not the dogma that is common in some areas of medicine. All of these authors have helped me and my family in some way: Dr. Eades' blog informed me that excess carbs were the cause of my acid reflux; Dr. Davis's blog has been a lifesaver for my diabetic mother; Tom Naughton's blog usually makes me laugh. If you like their messages, most of them have books or movies (in some cases, free e-books and newsletters) for your reference or that of friends and family who aren't on the Internet. Happy reading! Dr. William Davis , a cardiologist, focuses on preventive medicine. He writes quite a bit about diabetes as well. If you'd rather make lifestyle changes than have heart surgery, this blog may interest you. Dr. Michael Eades , co-author of Protein Power, writes about low-carb living....