HealthSpan Life! Update: STEVIA- A HEALTHFUL MEDICINAL SWEETENER AT LAST, unlike rebaudioside

update 28 June 2013  Four years is a long time  for an update.

and Dr Joe Mercola again prompts it in an analysis of aspartame and sucralose hazards, versus the benefits of stevia.

      Search of Pubmed and Google shows not one scientific report of adverse effect of the natural foodstuff stevia , only its beneficial effect on reversing insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, weight gain and hypertension.

In fact a recent trial from an Indian University shows that  it has potent antibreast cancer activity, as one would expect of an insulin sensitizer.

Wikipedia now reports last week:  “Two 2010 review studies found no health concerns with stevia or its sweetening extracts.^[54][55] In addition, a 2009 review study found that stevioside and related compounds have anti-hyperglycemic, anti-hypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-diarrheal, diuretic, and immunomodulatory actions; and  pancreas, renal and hepatic protection, “.

By contrast, the patented  pure isolate rebaudioside A is reportedly much sweeter than stevia, but has no reported benefit on bloodpressure or blood sugar.

       Four years on, there are still no reports on chronic safety studies in humans or rodents. Why is this?

January 2009  Dr Joe Mercola reminds us  that while the FDA has recently banned natural stevia as unsafe, it has now approved Pepsi and Coke to use the patented stevia extract rebaudioside A in cooldrinks. More USA spin, Disaster Capitalism, it’s 50year old War against Patients  – like the Iraqi  war and The  Pakistan  Deception – to favour it’s own industry rather than  peoples’ health and wellbeing.

This despite the fact that the first human clinical  studies of this single chemical  have been published in only 2008-  and show no benefit on blood sugar or bloodpressure reduction, nor adverse effect.

On the other hand, the results of trials on Pubmed.com  with stevia are impressive:

Chan, Hsieh  ea Taipei published in 2000 and 2003  that  1 and 2 year RCTs in mild hypertension that 750mg stevia a day produced significant reduction in hypertension, with significant reduction in heart damage compared to placebo. There ws no change in weight or blood chemistry.

Ferri ea Brazil 2006 showed that stevia up to 1.5gm/day for 6 months produced no significant fall in mild hypertension.

Gregersen ea Denmark in 2004 showed in type 2 diabetics that 1gm stevia compared to maize starch reduced 4hour glucose response by 18%, and insulin/glucose response by 40%.

No adverse effects have been reported on Pubmed from stevia.

Wiki says steviol glycosides are about half stevioside and half rebaudioside A . . So, as usual, it may be that the whole plant extract is better than the isolated rebaudioside A  that has been approved for commercial use in USA- althought the evidence from trials and centuries of use favours  natural stevia, which in Chinese in moderate but not Brazilians in double dose reduces mild hypertension; and in Danes appears to be a good insulin senstitizing antidiabetic.

Thus the evidence is strong that stevia extract taken as sweetener powder  – (but not the patented rebaudioside A) – will be useful adjunctive protection against glucose-insulin resistance, diabetes and hypertension. Few of us are likely to use 1 to 2gms of stevia a day as a sweetener , but the principle of prevention is to combine the widest range of nutrients in the diet, including the hundreds of natural insulin sensitizers eg  stevia, vitamins, minerals, and human and plant biologicals.

(I now use up to about stevia 150mg/day in hot drinks instead of my usual +- 25gms/d  of sucrose – 1 tsp per cup – so a sweeter tooth that likes  say 3tsp sugar per cup might use 500mg stevia a day).

HealthSpan Life! provides 30% stevia drops in 30ml designer mini bottles suitable for handbag or pocket to provide about 1tsp of sugar sweetness from 3-4 minidrops ie about 200 tsp of sugar sweetness per bottle  – which from the above evidence will aid reduction in obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes-hypetension-lipidemia, and thus in cancer- renal-vascular-dementia risk, opposite to that of sugar (and perhaps aspartamate).

TESTOSTERONE and ESTROGEN IMPLANTS- IMPLANT CONTRACEPTION.

update 4 March 2013:  the bad news for cheats – especially after cyclist Lance Armstrong’s confessions in January  2013, and the St Valentines Day massacre – the   Blade Runner Oscar Pistorius media frenzy  including unfounded accusations of steroid abuse ‘roid rage – is that testosterone is not recommended and prescribed for bodybuilding or performance enhancement, but solely where medically appropriate.

the good new news is that, while worldwide supplies of testosterone periodically run out,  it and estradiol are    now available once more in South Africa as appropriate 70-year old pellet implants for men and women needng HRT .  But the cost including implanting every 4-6 months remains likely much higher than fortnightly selfinjection or daily cream application.

at the beginning of 2013  authorities  were bemoaning the end of attempts to market depot hormone contraception for men.  But given increasing longevity, and falling male and female fertility, and potentially double the duration of fecundity of men compared to women, and the  real hazards of male and female sterilization and continuous female contraception with all current commercial ie patented synthetics,  for the determined couple  implants offer physiological reversible contaception without the risks of commercial patents.  For males implants of testosterone and progesterone, and for the female  triple implants of testosterone progesterone and estradio,  remain an option to be explored.

Jan 2010:  the important  report  from South African authorities on testosterone replacement for men  is wrong on one account:  such replacement with injection need not cost almost R6000pa  for the  ideal 3monthly German Schering AG ultralongacting brand.

as this column has repeatedly pointed out, physiological depot  injection has been available in South Africa for almost 70 years.  Currently it retails at perhaps R350 per gram as depotestosterone,  the equivalent dose to the 3monthly 1gm  injection (ie 160mg/fortnight)  being 160mg 1.6ml  every 2 weeks ie a cost of about R1400 per year.

This is easily and safely self-injected subcutaneously with a tiny (insulin) 25g needle, and gives physiological blood levels to most men – as with all chronic drugs, the dose and interval  simply needs to be titrated to individual metabolism and response, always under periodic medical screening. Eldrely men usually need and tolerate perhaps 20% less than younger men, who may well tolerate 200mg/fortnight.

It is blatantly wrong  to give the shortacting Sustanon monthly- this brand has been banned by authorities- and  unphysiological to give monthly the gold standard   depotestosterone cypionate / enanthate- with a life of about 3 weeks, since it is well known that the irrationally marketed higher dose for less frequent injection  eg 400mg imi monthly will give the adverse peaks and troughs that Dr Hafferjee notes. It’s like condemning  eg spirits or wine when 4% beer provides far less alcohol- but common sense tells us they are equally good (or bad!),  just the dose and interval needs to be proportionate.

Authoritative data on rational dose and interval of old depotestosterone has been freely available since at least 1991, so there is no justification whatsoever for proclaiming Nebido or other costly  forms of testosterone replacement  as the necessary gold standard- this is classic marketing hype.

We have long insisted that in this age of gender equity, men are as entitled as women to appropriate HRT- but the obtuse authorities and their stupid medical advisors refuse to recognize that both genders equally need all appropriate hormone replacement including physiological sex hormones for their vast life-extending multisystem benefits, least of which is sex.

Yet Discovery Health  has recently refused an elderly man testosterone replacement (recommended by his psychiatrist)  on the grounds that it is an aphrodisiac. Such refusal  of long-validated endocrine replacement (by their medical officers) amounts to medical negligence let alone defamation, fraud  and woeful ignorance.

Nebido and depotestosterone cypionate/enanthate are equally, superbly physiological if used rationally eg subcutaneously, to avoid the unnecessary multiple risks of intramuscular injection.  It can be questioned whether any patient who refuses to be taught his own injection warrants such costly replacement- the same natural selection applies to millions of insulin-dependent diabetics. And replacement of testosterone often relieves type 2 diabetics of the need to use costly and risky  insulin, when appropriate testosterone and metformin reduce all-cause mortality by perhaps half, whereas insulin in type 2 diabetics does not.

Just yesterday this column decried confusing causation with association in the comm0n  but far from majority universal problem of hyperandrogenism in women. There are only two major anabolic hormones that decline seriously with both aging and disease in both men and women, in whom appropriate physiological testosterone and vitamin D3  replacement (with appropriate physiological estrogen for women) is thus often required lifelong from what is potentially middle age to maintain health into vigorous- rather than frail- old age.

TOURISM HEALTH: SAFARI HEALTHSPANLIFE HEALING CAPE TOWN HOLIDAY 2013.

Health- slante, l’chaim!, hayah, sawubona! – in any country or language  is a blessing, a gift- not a right. It is insurance that has to be planned and enforced. Leaving it to fate, illness and hoping for a cure is often too late, sometimes crippling if not often  fatal. With comprehensive natural supplements, we can and should all die peacefully at an  active fit advanced  age  90years +  –   not old, incapacitated and demented. We owe this prevention to both ourselves, our  kids and our aging seniors.

So sensible lifestyle aside, promoting health  includes simple low-cost  (no-xray/no-laboratory) periodic screening:  for all,  from childhood:  of weight,  girth, eyes, teeth, bloodpressure, brainfunction- memory; and ultrasound bones – at any pharmacy/ optometrist, school or clinic;                         and  for women:  checking the breasts and pelvis for risk of  cancer.

The HealthSpanLife  South African Natural Medicine Clinic SANMC next to Cavendish Mall on the slopes of Table Mountain in beautiful Cape Town – one of the favourite world tourist  and heritage centres-  is a specialist clinic  staffed by experienced  registered professional practitioners- a medical internist specialist  (also UK registered);  a homeopath;  and a Muslim nursing sister.

It provides  one-stop holistic screening and diagnostics, and – uniquely-  evidence-based  natural remedies- nutritional support for all symptoms and chronic conditions-  also  for menopause-andropause-genitourinary- breast-sexual dysfunction- obesity-pain/headache –chiropractic  and detox ,

as well as if needed  appropriate modern specialized  testing and prescription medicines for all chronic major conditions including bio-identical hormone replacement for both genders (including implants);

and integrated referrals nearby (and in Gauteng)  as patients desire eg for autism, acupuncture, aromatherapy, physiotherapy, aquarobics,  advanced scopes, delicate restorative micro (eg hands, toes)-as well as major (eg bariatric, spinal,eye-, ear- neuro-)  surgery, infertility, xray/other scans, cancer, hyperbaric oxygen, spiritual intervention, psychiatric-hypno- therapy, and eg genetic profiling and counselling,   dialysis and transplantation, and stem cell therapy. …

Gentle Non-xray  ultrasound bone-density measurement (recommended by Cape Town , UK, and USA universities),  and tactile mechanical breast mapping (recommended by CANSA, UK, USA, Indian and Chinese studies) are available at SANMC (and in Gauteng) by appointment, and are covered by some medical aid plans;  whereas menopause consultations are covered by all open plans.

As typified by a new review last month,    World opinion is to use xray  mammography and  xray bone density imaging  only as last resort and only  in the elderly – or in staging those with breast cancer- because of the major problems and risks of xray imaging..   As world experts Profs Cornelia Baines epidemiologist in Canada, Mike Baum breast surgeon  in London and Peter Gotzsche epidemiologist  in Denmark  say,  there never has been any independent scientific evidence to support hazardous routine mass mammography crush xray screening of well women, let alone any repeated mass xray screening for decades, or the dangerous fictitious marketing hype of the American radiology-Breast Surgeons and Curves International nonsense  that xray mammo screening saves lives ..

While health tariffs must rise with inflation,  where med aid doesn’t cover, New Year 15% discount applies through January on cash-paid clinic services and in-house products. . .

For out-of-town/ overseas  visitors, accommodation and travel locally and throughout Africa and beyond can be arranged by outside experts around  clinic appointments. .  http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/visiting/Pages/default.aspx

For appointments visit  the SANMC at 1^st floor no.  15 Grove Medical Bldg on Pearce St  cnr Grove Ave (parking opposite at ABSA on Grove);    or  phone +2721-6831465/  -6717415; or fax  +27865657215; or email the manageress, doctors or Sister at   sales@healthspanlife.co.za  to discuss needs,  timing and preliminary costing. For details, references  and rationale for screening and prevention,  see https://healthspanlife.wordpress.com/?s=screening.

CHRONIC ILLNESS- MANAGED ANTIAGING & GENERAL PRACTICE CLINIC SOUTH AFRICA

update 6 April 2015

In Claremont  Cape Town

A  Specialist Family Internist Clinic offers consultations by appointment especially for managing (and ideally preventing)  the major chronic degenerative diseases of aging  and  maintaining physical, mental (and why not sexual?) vigour to a ripe and healthy old age; as well as preventing and managing acute disease at all ages.

The clinic (a specialist physician and a nutritionalist)  offers all-system evaluation and if available, natural  (as well as essential prescription orthrodox) prevention/treatment including metabolic – weight-endocrine-diabetes; heart-lung -kidney; hypertension; neurological-pain; joint & muscle; abdominal, immune system ie infection, cancer and auto-immune  support;  genito-urinary, & sexual problems;

and appropriate screening – ECG, non-xray ( no-touch thermography- eg thermomammogram;   SureTouch tactile) mammograms, non-xray (ie  ultrasound) BMD ie  bone fracture risk measurement, body composition, and appropriate hormone profiling/replacement.

Phone during office hours for appointment: for Claremont office  ph 021-6717415  or 6831465 (or 083-6299160) – at Grove Medical Bldg 1st floor no 15 (opp ABSA Bank Parkade c/o Grove Ave Pearce Rd)  , or neil.burman@gmail.com ;  or consultation by telephone/Skype or email .

by appointment only:        OFFICE HOURS: by appt: ph office:  9am-5pm weekdays, 9am-1pm Saturdays.  AFTER  HOURS up to 9pm any day generally at office: –  email doctor   neil.burman@gmail.com  or ph 6am to 9pm  0836299160. EMERGENCIES  cannot be dealt with- acute emergencies and trauma, bleeding cases  must go to any  Emergency Unit .

Billing according to means ie specialist professional rates:  eg as a preferred provider for Discovery Health-  consultation procedure  0190; for needy patients, what the medical scheme pays  Detailed medical report and advice protocol provided at R300. Even Hospital Plans have to pay for outpatient consultation for scores of PMBs ie Prescribed Medical benefit conditions like Menopause.

 Needy patients desiring brief consultation can be seen by arrangement at GP rate.    Bone density scan  (covered by some medical schemes)  procedure 3612..  Non-xray mammograms are not yet covered by medical schemes codes: R650 for SureTouch including clinical consultation, R800 for thermomammogram.

BANNING THE PRESCRIPTION OF THE GLITAZONE ANTIDIABETIC DRUGS

 neil.burman@gmail.com

This was a bad month for Actos (Takeda-Rly Lilly)  and Avandia (Glaxo), another good month for metformin.

As indicated in this week’s NEJM, the glitazone  class of drugs sold commercially as Avandia and Actos, has now belatedly  been suspended,  restricted or black boxed  by the European – EU and the  USA- FDA- regulators  (after shocking prevarication pandering to Big Pharma), because of  promoting  heart failure, let alone visual loss- macular oedema, osteoporosis fractures,  fatal hepatitis (troglitazone deaths), and adiposity –weight gain and  cancer.; with consequently and unsurprisingly no significant reduction in all-cause mortality ..

Regulators like our own MCC  must now surely suspend ie ban the current  glitazone drugs in view of the long-accumulating list of their serious adverse effects and related deaths.. There never was or is compelling clinical reason for their prescription any more than there is or was allowing eg  the soon- banned Mandrax, Ponderax, practolol, stilbestrol, cerivastatin or the original glitazone troglitazone Rezulin on the market.

The current glitazones have  been in use scarely a decade; and  are not necessary let alone essential since:

-metformin remains the best drug ever discovered against all major common degenerative diseases including type 2 diabetes and overweight, with zero serious adverse effects in the longest (20year) randomized controlled trial ever conducted,

– with 1/3 reduction in all mortality and major chronic degenerative disease, halving of heart attacks in type 2 diabetics due to metformin’s unique combination in titrated clinical use of antioxidant, anti-lipidemic, vasodilator antihypertensive, anticancer, anti-aging, appetite- and adiposity-controlling, anti-hepatitis, antimicrobial, insulin-sensitizing, pro-fertility and fibrinolytic benefits, protecting all organ systems;

and at least halving of new diabetes in major preventative trials in “prediabetics” on four continents; and provided the dose of metformin is simply started low- at most 250mg/day

– and provided the starter dose is titrated weekly up to comfortable safe tolerance and desired effect- as must naturally be done with all chronic drugs.

In contrast to the glitazones, the latest studies  October 2010 by Evans ea   from Tayside Scotland and by MacDonald ea in the UK as a whole, showed that compared to sulphonylurea and other antidiabetics, metformin alone or combined with sulphonylurea  in +-75year old diabetics with congestive heart failure lowered all-cause mortality by 41% after 1 years and by about 30% longterm – the same outcome as in the UKPDS trial 30year followup.

From France Mouchiroud ea Sept 2010  discuss why global lifespan has risen from about 46 to 65years accross the 20th century, and how metformin (as dietary restriction mimetic) shares with rapamycin and resveratrol the slowing-down of age-related diseases.  And Li ea Sept 2010  show in experimental stroke in rats how chronic prevention with metformin was neuroprotective  via nitric oxide.

A careful population study in USA by Wertz ea Sept 2010  could find no difference in the 4.15% incidence of heart attack, heartfailure or death in  rosglitazone or pioglitazone users aged 18years or older;   and a careful study by Kaiser Permanente  Sept 2010 of all published glitazone trials confirms Pubmed search, that  after ten years of massive marketing  trials and massive unjustified use, there is  still no evidence that  the glitazones reduce all-cause mortality as metformin does, nor statistically reduce the primary usual glitazone trial endpoint of major cardiovascular event or death. 

How can glitazones have such benefits of metformin  when glitazones  are not dietary restriction mimetics but actually increase adipocytes and thus obesity and hence  cancer?  

 Instead of protecting drug companies’ and their lobbyists’  interests,  will the Regulators everywhere, including the “experts” at the  Universities – medical schools-  now act against these  unnecessary, risky,  fattening antidiabetic glitazones to protect patients?

Or will the leading medical schools and governments  continue ruthlessly  to put their massive monetary support from Big Pharma ahead of  truth, evidence and patients’ interests?

STATINS UNRAVEL: IN REAL LIFE CAUSE 50% MORE SERIOUS DISEASE THAN THEY RELIEVE:

14 June 2010: neil.burman@gmail.com:

 The statin scam unravels:

In Effects of statins in men and women in England and Wales,  and Individualising the risks of statins in men and women in England and Wales Profs  Julia Hippisley-Cox and Carol Coupland from Nottingham University UK report  a landmark  population based cohort study :      In 368 general practices some 10% of the 2million adults aged 30 years upwards were new users of statins.

 In real life patients, (not in highly selected subjects for double blind  RCT randomized controlled trials), the study  shows the comparative numbers for benefits and risks of statins:  compared to patients on no statins,  statins were associated with (per 10 000 subjects treated with statins) :

 *not significantly associated with Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, venous thromboembolism, dementia, osteoporotic fracture, melanoma or cancer of stomach, colon , lung , breast, kidney,or prostate.

*decreased risks of cardiovascular disease CVD:  271 cases prevented in women, 301 in men; and oesophageal cancer ;

*increased risks of moderate or serious: liver dysfunction 74 cases in women, 71 in men , acute renal failure 23cases in women, 29 in men, moderate or serious myopathy 39 cases in women, 110 in men; and cataract. 307 cases in women, 191 in men.

 thus they estimate that in total, in both sexes, CVD may be prevented in 286 but serious other disease caused in 50% more ie 422 cases.

But the study glaringly ignores, overlooks that statin use is not associated with two of the commonest risk factors for preventible major degenerative diseases of aging: no  reduction in increasing overweight- obesity, or diabetes .

Numerous analyses show that statins have justification  solely in patients with vascular disease, in whom they reduce all-cause mortality by some 16% and coronary heart mortality by up to 40% – but no reduction in non-vascular mortality. eg Wilt ea 2004 .

But in those without vascular disease and risk factors (smoking, obesity), vascular disease causes fewer than half of premature deaths; so statin use in such “primary prevention” population understandably has no significant benefit on reducing premature vascular mortality. Statins never significantly reduce non-vascular mortality – in fact Hippisley-Cox and Coupland show that non-vascular morbidity in creases by 50% more than the reduction in CVD.                                  So while there is  overall slight  reduction in all-cause  mortality,  there is highly significant increase in overall morbidity.

 So contrary to the UK professors  Wald and Law and the Statin industry who want statins to be available like aspirin over-the-counter, this major Nottingham University UK study contradicts  use of statins except with  severe resistant lipidemia- as occurs rarely due to genetic disease  in perhaps 1 in 70 South African Afrikaners.

Before focussing on mild to moderate hypercholesterolemia and prescribing statins – which in turn further reduce the vital antioxidant insulin sensitizer co-Q10 never mind essential cholesterol substrate  and thus precipitate all sorts of problems not least fatigue, myopathy and myolysis , doctors and society need to  address boldly the major risk factors, correction of which may reduce all-cause premature mortality by:

exercise – at least moderate and regular – by at least 25% ;

stopping smoking and alcoholism – each by perhaps half;

fish oil supplement perhaps 2gm omega3 a day – by almost half;

appropriate sex hormone replacement in deficient men and women by at least 1/3.

vigorous vitamins C,  D,  magnesium (with  broad other micronutrient  supplements) for widespread low intake- by perhaps 25 to 50% each;

avoiding obesity and diabetes including by using metformin to tolerance – by perhaps half.

Smoking, alcoholism and lack of exercise are cases  in point: they are  acquired addictions; so instead of being palliated with damaging statins, patients with vascular disease or major risk factors should  be compelled to undergo group therapy until exercising adequately and cured of  smoking, alcoholism  and the consequent weight gain and multisystem diseases  from bad food and bad  lifestyle choices.

ABANDONED DOCTRINE OF TRUTH IN MEDICINE: POSTMENOPAUSAL HRT:USE HUMAN TRANSDERMALS. WHY RISK TABLETS? BIG PHARMA WINNING THE DISINFORMATION WAR.

 5 June 2010. neil.burman@gmail.com 

Part 1: Transdermal better than oral estrogen for replacement: the importance of appropriate HRT.

part 2: Information warfare, Big Pharma, Appropriate HRT and the Doctrine of Deception.

PART 1: TRANSDERMAL BETTER THAN ORAL ESTROGEN: THE IMPORTANCE OF APPROPRIATE HUMAN HRT OVER PATENTED MEDICINES :

The  health bite today from the BBC  correctly highlights one of the many critical reasons why appropriate routine Hormone Replacement HRT should be taken permanently  by any route  – but preferably transdermally, not as tablets.  In the appropriate low human dose HRT reduces the natural risk of stroke- and of the far more common chronic major diseases that cripple and kill – ie heart disease, cancer, fractures, dementia..

  But the Menopause Societies (South African, British  and  International) ie BMS , SAMS ,   IMS , and  the BMJ must promptly issue strong statements to the media condemning the BBC again for its typical misleading  elementary misreporting- in this instance  as regards progestins..  

 Transdermal and oral hormone replacement therapy and the risk of stroke: The source report –  this week’s BMJ –   describes HRT use in UK over about 6.7years among postmenopausal stroke victims mean age 70years (50 to 79) compared to matched controls without strokes. But the inexcusable error in the BBC report is that it twice mentions progesterone as being quoted in the BMJ study- which is nonsense.  The  BMJ report never mentions progesterone,  it repeatedly says progestogen -ie synthetics progestins since these were and are deliberately and wrongly routinely prescribed (instead of progesterone) for HRT due to manufacturer-led market disinformation.

  Progesterone is the original natural progestogen- but no major drug company promotes it, so it has been rarely used except by thinking women who prefer to use prime ie human – bioequivalent- hormones!  

In the adjusted risk statistics, lowdose transdermal estradiol TD replacement  0.025 to 0.05mg a day lowered stroke risk by 19%; whereas the average gynecologist’s  arbitrary  patent pharmacological oral  dose (20 to 40fold higher than the TD dose)  of  about 0.625 conjugated estrogens CE equivalent to 1 to 2 mg estradiol OET ) a day increased stroke risk by 35% . Thus, in contrast to lowdose estradiol  TD which reduced the natural stroke rate, OET  and highdose  estrogen TD  increased the stroke rate by 50% – 90%.  

COMPARISON WITH USA WOMENS’ HEALTH INITIATIVE WHI:  the WHI  showed that on premarin 0.625mg/d the absolute  risk of stroke in USA women age 50 to 79years was about 0.3% ie 3 cases per 1000 women per year -but about 45% higher in depressed women on antidepressants. And  depression is even  more common after midlife, especially without HRT. This cohort from the volunteer WHI trial  was a mean of 63years at enrolment ie 7years younger than the British real-life cohort; and since the risk of stroke approximately doubles with every 10 years of aging, the basic risk in the British study women may have been about 5 cases per 1000 per year or 33 per 1000patients over the duration of the British stroke and HRT study. ie annually 4 cases per 1000 on lowdose estrogen TD versus 6 cases per 1000 on OET 

Despite vast evidence  that physiological replacement doses of the human hormone progesterone (the original progestogen in humans) has endless benefits for older adults, doctors, government clinics and committees overwhelminglly still are lead by the marketing hype of drug companies (and the regulators  lobbyists and governments they fund) to use  drugs designed for profit  eg xenohormone progestens that they wish  were and falsely claim are as good as the original one that our bodies produce.

Truthful information  on HRT for women is widely and easily available from even Wiki    and the real authorities like the British and International Menopause Societies, and any university department of gynecology. .   Thus today’s BBC report reflects the BBC’s willful  neglect  of the most basic check of its facts before publishing health bites. In this case, it misleads women that  conventional combined oral HRT (in fact containing the synthetic progestin that most drug companies and doctors encourage women to take) is beneficial in somewhat lowering the risk of stroke  (never mind womb cancer) – whereas such synthetic progestins. progestogens   especially in oral HRT have numerous sinister other adverse effects  eg breast cancer and heart disease,  compared to the numerous proven benefits of  lowdose human progesterone. .

KEEPS: THE DEFINITIVE HEAD-TO-HEAD TRIAL OF APPROPRIATE HRT: ORAL vs NON-ORAL ERT WITH OR WITHOUT PROGESTERONE.: The small but definitive 5year KEEPS double blind randomized controlled trial RCT is now more than half way through and due to report in 2012, comparing the alternative regimes in women in the early menopause (10years younger and less overweight than in WHI) . “ KEEPS is a multicenter trial that will evaluate the effectiveness of 0.45mg of conjugated equine estrogens CEE Wyeth Premarin, a weekly estradiol TD Climara patch delivering 0.05mg estradiol a day -( both in combination with cyclic oral, micronized progesterone (Prometrium Solvay) 200mg for 12 days each month), and placebo”.

Recent information from KEEPS is that it is proceeding smoothly, with no significant differences so far between the three arms- no increase in serious adverse events has yet been seen by the Independent Monitoring Committee in the still unblinded results.  

 Wyeth (now Pfizer since 2009) is not crossfunding KEEPS, although they may be hoping that  their premarin in lower dose will prove to be as safe as or better than estrogen TD in the medium term.. But given the ~70year experience with oral HT mainly premarin 0.625mg/d promoting breast cancer increase (although not mortality) after >12-15years of use , it is remotely unlikely that even ¼ of the long-standard premarin oral dose will prove anywhere as safe and effective as parenteral balanced human hormones for permanent protection in aging women.  One hopes it is, to vindicate the insistence of so many doctors on still prescribing OHT for  even just the first 10 years of menopause,  despite so much damning evidence to the contrary (see this entire website of reviews).

SO WHY PRESCRIBE, RECOMMEND HRT PILLS FOR POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN? when hard evidence is that non-oral  balanced human HRT (appropriate estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) is far superior in both benefits and zero risks for women? Whereas it is common cause that conventional oral HT ie about 0.625mg CE or equivalent started at menopause increases the  early risk of dangerous deep vein thrombosis DVT; and  begins to increase the risk of breast cancer to above that of untreated women after a cumulative dose of about 2 – 3 gms oral estrogen – after 10 – 15years ie by prime post retirement midlife in the midsixties. It is only some compensation that other cancers, fractures, ischaemic heart disease, dementia and (breast cancer- and all-cause) mortality, are reduced by appropriate m0dest doses of such OET combined with appropriate progestin; but such regime increases the risk of DVT, gallstones and fatness frailty- increasing body fat with increasing muscle wasting due to collagen loss which also promotes increase in the natural tendency to fractures and urinary incontinence by the midsixties.

Promoters of oral estrogen, bisphosphonates, SERMS,  and strontium cleverly ignore the hard fact that by far the greater risk for aging fractures is not bone density but muskuloskeletal ie failing bone and muscle strength and global co-ordination – which bisphosphonates do nothing to promote, while estrogen and strontium nad SERMS  may promote bone strength but not crucial muscle strength, and SERMS double the laready very high rate of stress urunary incontinence. .

  American major authorities do anything to promote their own commercial interests.  so they have long given their drug regulator the FDA – which is unashamedly paid for by big pharma- unbridled licence to make nonsensical claims and draconian laws. And because drug companies fund the FDA and the lobbyists and legislators in USA to promote their  products, (in a $trillion disease industry – some 8% of American GDP) they have the vast profits to in turn influence medicines regulators and legislators throughout the world to follow their profitable lead.

So  only the FDA and regulators  decide what foods are good for people, what supplements (of microfood stuffs) people may take, and licence designer synthetics for human prescription after trials of only a few months in a few hundred subjects – but insist  that old proven nutritional remedies may not even be claimed to have any health, preventative and therapeutic benefits unless they have undergone massively costly controlled trials that Big Pharma will never fund.

 Their hypocritical deadly nonsense is then to use draconian measures to stop suppliers from making any health claims for even supplements that are well known to be gold standards for prevention and treatment eg fish oil and the scores of other highly effective and safe biologicals- minerals, vitamins, human (eg glucosamine, chondroitin, n-acetylcysteine, coQ10, arginine, carnitine, carnosine), and plant products- that are (co)-hormones, antioxidants, true anabolics, nitric oxide promotors, anti-inflammatories, antidepressants, memory and vision promotors, neurotropics, insulin sensitizers, antiatheroma, hypolipidemic , antimicrobial etc. .  

In fact they now proclaim that citizens may not even buy supplements, foodstuffs  or even legally prescribed compounded hormone creams made from legal components (as are all other prescriptions made by manufacturing pharmacists practicing alone or in Big Pharma), unless the FDA has proclaimed them safe, because “they have not been proven safe”.

 This despite the facts that most  enduringly successful prescription drugs  (eg reserpine, metformin, digoxin, the synthetic progestins) are derived from/ based on successful evolution of and human experience  with the parent supplement eg vitamin, mineral and other biologicals  (eg non-oral progesterone, estradiol, testosterone)  over thousands of years,   and millions of patient years experience  in the past >100years of scientific discovery. 

The Disease Industry- FDA-Big Pharma – organized medicine international network- proclaims that no claims may be made for the benefits of supplements (the vehicles, parents  of most prescription drugs in use) unless they have been tested in rigorous trials to the same standards as designer drugs are recently tested.  

Yet the FDA and regulators allow the marketing of generics- chemical identicals but often far from identical pharmacology and therapeutic action- without clinical trials. Where is the logic for the vendetta against supplement creams  like individually compounded bioidentical hormones that produce measurable physiological levels and appropriate relief?

 This despite the fact that millions of patients have been and continue to be  damaged (iatrogenesis that results in vast numbers of hospital admissions and deaths annually) the past 50 years by drugs promoted by the FDA at the pushing of Big Pharma, based on far too short poor and often fraudulent reports which the drug industry ruthlessly manipulates.

  This led to the disasterous use of stilbestrol in pregnancy from the 1940s to the 1970s;         to the disasterous registration and extensive liberal prescription – in many cases even promotion over-the-counter- of practolol, thalidomide,  chloromycetin and other antibiotics;     potentially fatal unnecessary patent anti-inflammatories  up to the Cox2   inhibitors (eg Vioxx, celebrex) as painkillers;  barbiturates benzos and antidepressants;   lately sulphonylureas and glitazones as firstline drugs for type 2 diabetes instead of the gold standard metformin; new antihypertensive drugs as firstline therapy instead of the goldstandard lowdose amiloretic plus reserpine; appetite-weight suppressants instead of metformin;  bisphosphonates for osteoporosis instead of the goldstandard combined dozen vigorous vitamins minerals and sex hormones that halve all major diseases; and statins for uncomplicated mild to moderate cholesterolemia  instead of goldstandard combined minerals vitamins  metformin and HRT.

  And the simple fact that drug companies  will no longer risk funding head to head trial of one of their profitable drugs against gold standard old drugs or supplements of proven great all-disease medicinal value; since prevention does not pay- only disease pays.

The cost of protectionism for the lucrative Big Pharma industry – for the sake of trade and taxes – is vast  as witnessed by governments sponsoring eg statin , H1N1 flu vaccines , modern antidepressants, bisphosphonates and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, and when each of these products of unproven benefit in mass use nets the manufacturers  obscene multibillion dollar profits- in the case of vaccines, with 100%  indemnity guaranteed them at taxpayers’ ie the consumers’  expense!

The lesson from the new UK  study of oral versus estrogen TD is that appropriate ie balanced physiological-dose  human sex hormones are the logical 1st-choice prevention and treatment for postmenopausal women (and their peer mates) – not the multirisk wannabe synthetic substitutes that  Big Pharma keep hammering on the public- new psychotropes, NSAIDs, Cox2 antagonists, statins, bisphosphonates which lack the multisystem benefits of physiological balance of evolution-evolved natural micronutrients ie nutriceuticals.

Part : 2. DOCTRINE OF CENSORSHIP and DECEIPT;   vs DOCTRINE OF TRUTH/… see next review above this.

UPDATES: HEALTHY LIVING

This  blog is irregularly updated   with the latest detailed pharmacological information on the ingredients of anti-aging preparations, the powder blend compositions, and mail-order/wholesale prices.

These are all detailed  on the page Product Details and Pricelists. but of course all the ingredients, as food supplements, can be ordered individually to US  or UK  or Japanese pharmacopoea standard anywhere from any reliable importer or manufacturer.

The prices listed are not updated weekly, they are a guide; and  dependent from day to day on imported costs which are mostly rising constantly .

For information email sales@healthspanlife.com (or contact 027836299160).

The public, as well as interested distributors/retailers, are invited to contact Healthspan Life!.

SPECIALIST CHRONIC DISEASES CLINIC OF EXCELLENCE

   a Specialist Internist Physician [MB,ChB(UCT 1966), MRCP (UK 1974),   (fellow of the     Kronos Longevity Research Institute, Phoenix, Arizona 2004)  has opened a   CHRONIC DISEASE CLINIC    

 at Grove Medical Bldg, Grove Ave Claremont Cape Town  bewteen

ABSA Bank Parkade &  Warwick Sq opp. Cavendish Sq (also at Fish Hoek).

MISSION: To address the underlying causes of disease not just the symptoms,  to delay by decades all-cause disability and deaths.    Integrating natural and modern medicine.

managing and if possible delaying all common concurrent diseases of aging

including especially fatigue, frailty, diabetes;

 hypertension, cardiovascular, neurological, respiratory,

 abdominal, pain, headache, neurological -memory, renal, genitourinary,

endocrine , musculoskeletal, sexual and  immune diseases . 

Appropriate physiological Menopause and Aging Male HRT .

No-xray osteoporosis/BMD measurement by quantitative ultrasound.

Distance consulting.

phone/fax  +27216717415  for appointment, or respond below. .

Forbidden Medicine? Vitamin C-lecithin-fish oil- bioflavonoid interactions in the prevention of atherosclerosis, cancer and gallstones.

neil.burman@gmail.com

IS THERE ANYTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN?

Fish oil use for medicinal as well as dietary purposes  dates back at least to Viking times; but the 1922  scientific study of fish oil by Jack Drummond & Sylvester Zilva is the first paper on it on Pubmed, as a source of vitamin A.

But  in this ‘scientific’ era it took till the 1930s for fish  (ie codliver) oil’s  wide medicinal benefits  to be recognized.

Since then fish oil has proven to be the most pluripotential ‘micro’nutrient – at a dose as little as perhaps 100mg/day- in prevention and treatment (via either it’s omega3 EPA+DHA content, or its vitamins A and D content) of all common major diseases from learning , behaviour and memory disorders from birth to dotage, to infections, inflammation, arthritis, vision, pregnancy,  growth and osteoporosis, mood, Parkinson’s, hypertensive, vascular, thrombotic, lipid, cancer and diabetic disorders – probably halving all-cause ‘natural’ aging mortality.

The recognition of citrus juice- vitamin C – as a medicinal dates back apparently only 250 years to Dr James Lind’s recognition of it’s reversal of lethal scurvy. But it was first identified and isolated only about 80 years ago .  Since then it has proven to be as pluripotential a preventative as fish oil and now vitamin D3, and balanced sex hormone replacement.

The 1940s give the first reference  on Pubmed to bioflavonoids-which are anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-cardiovascular disease, anti-varicose veins, anti-piles  and anti-cancer- and promote the absorption of vitamin C.

In 1971 Borgman & Haselden described the  effects of cod liver oil on dissolution of gallstones.

from 1973 Cameron Pauling & Campbell published their landmark work on vitamin C to tolerance (not antiscurvy doses or below many grams a day) in the prevention and treatment of many human cancers.

In 1974 Krumdieck & Butterworth’s landmark  paper on cholesterol-lecithin interactions: factors of potential importance in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. summarized the evidence for combining supplements of vitamin C and soy lecethin (ie polyunsaturated fatty acid at position 2)  in the prevention of atherosclerosis- since once this disease is present, it can take months to reverse.

in 1976  Navarro & Guevara described the importance of vitamin C in prevention of gallstones.

and by  1989 Wechsler  ea described how omega-3-fatty acids  – fish oil–  just 1.5gm a day decreases biliary cholesterol and lithogenicity.

by 1997 Mizuguchi ea described prevention  by fish oil of cholesterol gallstone formation in hamsters.

and in 1999  Takenaga ea described how Lecithinized ascorbic acid (PC-AS) effectively inhibits murine pulmonary metastasis.

Lecitithin is derived from food – meat, liver, legumes, cereals, fish and eggs – but not from fish oil.   It – phosphatidylcholine- is a principal component of fat metabolism, cell membranes, brain, semen, and against gallstones, atherosclerosis (and thus heart – vascular-hypertensive -brain-), breast,  cirrhosis and other liver diseases.

The crucial DHA and EPA omega3 fatty acids are, practically, derived exclusively from marine algae and thence krill and fish oil .

Hence the paramount importance (in preventing all common diseases)  of promoting fish oil (by the teaspoon or capsule) together with lecithinized Vitamin C to tolerance eg  vitamin C 50% enhanced with perhaps 15% calcium carbonate,  5% mag oxide,  10% bioflavonoid and 20% lecithin. Up to a heaped  tsp 2 – 3 times  a day of such an Enhanced Vitamin C  mix – ie to bowel tolerance- will provide 5 – 7.5g vitamin C, 500-750mg calcium, 300 -450mg magnesium, 1-1.5g bioflavonoid and 2- 3g  lecithin, without diarrhoea.

This self-degassing self-emulsifying blend puts within reach orally the eg 1gm/kg vitamin C per day vitamin C to produce the high enough plasma levels of vitamin C that have  been shown to be lethal to cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. For the much higher doses of vitamin C for this purpose eg 30gm daily, some  of the calcium and magnesium obviously need to be replaced with sodium to avoid 3000mg/day calcium and 1800mg/day  overdose.

Adding say 1tsp cod liver oil to half a glass of water with eg 3tsp of the powder blend (ie 6gm vitamin C) and beating it produces a smoothie emulsion  that is easy to drink. Who needs fish oil capsules now?. And there is  virtually no limit to the  amount of lethicinized calmag ascorbate – bioflavonoid omega3 emulsion  that can be poured into the body to combat eg infection, atherosclerosis and cancer.

Obviously to this should be added a blend of all the other few-score safe proven potential preventative supplements to combat all the other chronic diseases of premature aging including even multiple sclerosis (especially highdose vitamin D3).

So while oil and water dont usually mix in a glass, ie vitamin C and bioflavonoids are soluble in water but  not in  oil, combining them by taking them  together with lecithin, fish oil and calmag (to lessen acid load with  better absorbed calmag ascorbate) a few times a day makes huge sense for all disease prevention let alone support..

And none of it is news.

But the farce from  “authorities”- ‘Regulators’ (who are paid big protection money by Drug Companies)  – is that labels, marketing materials are  not allowed to say that cheap harmless food supplements prevent let alone treat disease!..

And “Authorities” want to regulate (or put on doctors’ prescription only) safe medicinal  food supplements when they will not ban   the biggest killer  drugs-  like DDT, PCBs,  PVCs (and other estrogenics eg from the highdose xenoestrogens & -progestins consumed  orally by possibly a billion women and excreted into the water chain to pollute land and sealife) ie  throughout the environment and  food chain; and  stuffing sodas and  processed foods with cornstarch, aspartame and phosphates; and over-the-counter refined sugar and salt, smoking tobacco and alcohol which should at best be made  prescription- or permit-only .