Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is common in kids and adults with asthma. So naturally, conventional doctors treat their patients’ GER with PPI drugs. But over time, some doctors (and PPI makers) have imagined that the PPIs may actually help alleviate asthma symptoms.

Well, we wouldn’t want to pass up a chance to substantially widen the use of this popular class of drugs, now would we?

Researchers for the American Lung Association mounted a study that tested a popular PPI drug on more than 300 kids with asthma.

The results: The PPI did nothing to reduce asthma symptoms or improve lung function, but the kids did have increased risk of adverse events that included respiratory infection, sore throats and bronchitis.

Fortunately, this study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association, so with any luck many doctors will get this signal loud and clear: PPIs are not suitable asthma treatments.

But you can be certain that PPIs will still be used in asthma patients who develop GER. And that’s simply bad medicine for one outstanding reason: PPIs have been shown to deplete magnesium.

And the kicker: Research suggests that one of the causes of asthma is…yep…magnesium deficiency.

In fact magnesium treatments are sometimes used by naturopathic doctors to help control asthma. But that’s a serious uphill fight if an asthma patient is already taking a PPI.

Sources:
“Lansoprazole for Children With Poorly Controlled Asthma” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 307, No. 4, 1/25/12, jama.ama-assn.org

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I can see it now. A special episode of “Hoarders” where they storm a house and uncover a massive supply of Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that supposedly shortens the duration of the flu.

It would be kind of sad to see the cameras crawl past towers of boxes stacked on top of boxes of expired Tamiflu, purchased at the height of the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic scare a few years ago.

Of course, the hoarder in this case wouldn’t be some poor soul who can’t control his compulsions. No, this hoarder is the U.S. government.

In 2006, the U.S. spent $2 billion to purchase millions of Tamiflu doses in preparation for a pandemic that never came. And we weren’t alone. Other nations and governing bodies, including the European Union, did the same thing — as did countless doctors and patients.

And now, new evidence — or rather a very deliberate LACK of evidence — suggests that all these governments and individuals were completely swindled.

21^st century snake oil

A couple of years ago, two people admitted they had been paid to ghostwrite some Tamiflu studies.

According to Discovery magazine, they were instructed to embed two key messages in their work: 1) Flu is a threat, and 2) Tamiflu is the answer to that threat.

This was devastating news to the Cochrane Collaboration.

As I’ve mentioned before, Cochrane is a non-profit, independent organization that does just one thing: they review health care research.

In a previous Tamiflu analysis, Cochrane researchers concluded that the drug might help some patients shorten the duration of the flu by about one day, while also cutting the risk of pneumonia and other flu complications.

That last part was a huge break for Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, because they could now make the claim that the drug might help prevent serious complications that would result from a genuine flu pandemic.

But the Cochrane research was later challenged because some of the studies in the analysis hadn’t been published. So Cochrane reopened their investigation and asked Roche to provide all the raw data.

Roche gave them some of it, but not all. Cochrane pressed them. Roche resisted. And according to the researchers, to this day, the company still has not turned over the complete set of study data to Cochrane, although Roche claims they’ve turned over enough data to answer Cochrane’s questions.

And then the ghostwriting scandal surfaced and all those previous conclusions went out the window.

Two more Cochrane reviews — one in 2009 and one released last month — note that Roche STILL stonewalls the complete data. So based on the limited research they’ve been able to see, Cochrane now says there’s no proof that Tamiflu reduces flu complications like pneumonia and death.

As one researcher told MedPage Today, any country that purchases stockpiles of Tamiflu is doing so without the benefit of trustworthy data. He says, “They’re taking the drug manufacturer’s word at face value.”

And you and I both know what a drug maker’s “word” is worth.

But there’s one more smoking gun here, and I can’t believe it’s being mostly ignored.

MedPage Today reports that Cochrane’s analysis showed that in “many trials” the placebo contained two chemicals that weren’t even in the Tamiflu capsules. What’s more, Roche has disregarded requests for complete information about placebo content.

Now THAT is astounding!

That’s not just a smoking gun, that’s a smoking gun that shot the elephant in the room!

It’s preposterous! If placebos contain elements that aren’t present in the drug being studied, that looks a lot like someone took steps to make sure the outcomes of the studies weren’t left to chance.

When you’ve discovered a placebo that’s not a placebo, and combine that with a couple of ghostwriters instructed to put a pro-Tamiflu spin on study results, then add in Roche’s refusal to release data, you have the beginnings of a reality show that even the makers of “Survivor” couldn’t have come up with.

Sources: 
“New Analysis Challenges Tamiflu Efficacy” Michael Smith, MedPage Today, 1/17/12, medpagetoday.com

“The Problem With Medicine: We Don’t Know If Most of It Works” Jeanne Lenzer & Shannon Brownlee, Discover magazine, November 2010, discovermagazine.com

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If you come down with a flu that’s bad enough to land you in the hospital, don’t be surprised if your doctor wants to give you a statin drug.

That’s right — a cholesterol-lowering statin…for the flu.

You see, if he’s one of those docs who still believes statins are magnificent, and if he also happened to see a wildly optimistic CBS report about using statins to prevent death from flu, he might jump to the conclusion that prescribing a statin for flu patients is a brilliant idea.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m with Kwong

Previously I told you about research of statin use as a way to reduce the risk of dying when hospitalized with the flu. The idea is that statins are anti-inflammatory, so they might help alleviate flu symptoms.

Well omega-3 fatty acids are excellent anti-inflammatories too, but without the side effects of statins. So why not give flu patients an omega-3 supplement?

Of course that line of reasoning would interfere with mainstream medicine’s continuing campaign to convince consumers that statins are magic superdrugs.

No surprise then that it’s hard to say which is the larger farce: This hapless new study, or CBS’s completely absurd take on the study.

We’ll start with CBS. Their report includes this note: “Thirty-three percent of the patients were given statins, while the rest were given other antiviral medications.”

That makes it sound like a clinical intervention study. But no — not even close.

Of the 3,000 subjects followed in the study, 33 percent were already taking statins when admitted to the hospital, or they took statins after admission. They weren’t “given” statins by the researchers.

As for antiviral medications, some of the statin users received antivirals, but some didn’t. Some of the non-statin users received antivirals, but some didn’t. And antiviral use was unknown for more than 200 of the study subjects.

So the comment from CBS is simply untrue. And the fact that antiviral medication use was all over the highway is a good indication that this study is also all over the highway, but then ends up in a ditch.

For instance, many patients in both groups had serious health problems that could have easily caused their deaths, regardless of statin use. Hundreds had heart disease. Hundreds had metabolic disease. Hundreds had kidney disease. But more importantly (since we’re talking about the flu), more than 700 had chronic lung disease and almost 500 had asthma!

But here’s my favorite part…

The researchers state that their study “confirms” a previous study that suggested a link between statin use and a decrease in pneumonia hospitalizations and deaths, “although the effects were minimal.”

But then, CBS notes that some experts were “just plain dubious” about the study. One of them, Dr. Jeffrey C. Kwong, said, “At the end of the day, I’m not convinced that statins are protective.”

What CBS doesn’t say is that Kwong is not just any expert. He was the researcher that led the statin/pneumonia study — the one with “minimal” effects, and the one that this new study supposedly “confirms.”

So if your doctor asks you why you won’t take statins for the flu, just tell him if the lead researcher isn’t convinced, you’re not either…

No matter what CBS says.

Sources: 
“Association Between Use of Statins and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized With Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza Virus Infections: A Multistate Study” Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 205, No. 1, jid.oxfordjournals.org

“Statins reduce flu death risk by half, study shows” Ryan Jaslow, CBS News, 12/14/11, cbsnews.com

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1) If you swallow a felt-tip pen, it may not show up on an x-ray
2) If you say you’ve swallowed a felt-tip pen, nobody is going to believe you

Twenty-five years ago a British woman was checking her tonsils with a mirror and a felt-tip pen. According to an NPR report, “She slipped and the pen went down her throat.”

X-rays taken at the time didn’t show a pen, so nobody believed she actually swallowed it.

Years later, when the woman developed unexplained diarrhea and weight loss, a CT scan exam revealed the pen. Doctors removed it to prevent bowel perforation.

And the kicker: Yes, the pen still worked. A write-up in the British Medical Journal includes a photo of the pen and a note written with the pen: “Hello.”

In BMJ, the doctors concluded, “Occasionally it may be worth believing the patient’s account however unlikely it may be.”

Occasionally!?

I find that attitude from a doctor to be outrageous! It’s the height of arrogance.

I understand how swallowing a pen is out of the ordinary, and I’m sure some patients seem unreliable in describing their health issues. But most patients’ accounts are authentic more often than just “occasionally.” And, let’s be honest, we would all know if we swallowed a pen.

I mean… “Hello!”

Sources:
“After 25 Years In Woman’s Stomach, A Pen Still Writes” Scott Hensley and Melissa Forsyth, NPR, 12/21/11, npr.org

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I don’t like to throw statistics around. They tend to be pretty easy to dismiss — and to fake.

But this one stopped me in my tracks. One half of all Americans over the age of 65 take a daily aspirin to reduce risk of heart attack and stroke. That is 50%! And, about one-in-three middle aged Americans do the same.

That’s appalling. It means that the brainwashing has worked and millions of people are putting their health at risk every day in return for scant protection from cardiac events.

If you know anyone that thinks daily aspirin therapy is harmless (especially your doctor!), you need to make sure they see this.

But here’s the kicker: Also tell them they should NOT abruptly stop taking their aspirin. That might actually make matters worse.

Quite convincingly…

I recently told you about research results that appeared to be excellent news for diabetics. In fact, those results were exactly the opposite of excellent.

In that study, diabetic subjects with a history of heart attack or stroke were 23 percent less likely to have a second heart attack if they took 325 mg of aspirin daily.

Now, keep that dose in mind — 325 mg — while we look at a new study from St George’s University of London.

The UK researchers examined nine studies that compared regular aspirin use to placebo in more than 100,000 subjects who had never had a heart attack or a stroke.

The first part of the results will warm the hearts of medical mainstreamers: Those who regularly used aspirin reduced their risk of any type of cardio event by 10 percent, and reduced their risk of non-fatal heart attack by 20 percent.

But the additional results will give the hearts of those mainstreamers a sudden chill: Regular aspirin use boosted the risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeding 30 percent.

The lead researcher told the New York Times, “We have been able to show quite convincingly that in people without a previous heart attack or stroke, regular use of aspirin may be more harmful than it is beneficial.”

Now let’s go back to that diabetic study where subjects took 325 mg per day, and I think we can safely say that the much higher dose, consumed daily over a long period, is almost certain disaster.

The Times notes that the findings will likely add to the confusion about who should take a regular aspirin and who should not.

Well…no. The findings help SETTLE the confusion and move us closer to banishing the idea of aspirin as cardio therapy.

If there’s any confusion, it’s this: How do you safely pull back from aspirin therapy?

A few years ago I told you about a study that reviewed hundreds of cases of coronary episodes. Researchers found that severe angina and fatal heart attacks appear to be prompted in some patients by the sudden halt of regular aspirin intake.

Patients with a history of heart disease were at particularly high risk, and those are the very patients who are most likely to begin aspirin therapy in the first place.

If you’re taking daily low-dose aspirin, talk to your doctor about these studies before you wean yourself off this “wonder drug.”

Sources: 
“Effect of Aspirin on Vascular and Nonvascular Outcomes” Archives of Internal Medicine, Published online ahead of print, 1/9/12, archinte.ama-assn.org

“Daily Aspirin Is Not for Everyone, Study Suggests” Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, 1/16/12, well.blogs.nytimes.com

“Higher daily dose of aspirin could play key role in preventing heart attacks for those with diabetes” University of Alberta press release, 7/5/11, eurekalert.org

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Two items zipped by so quickly they almost seemed like they were part of the same story…

Item one: Celebrity chef Paula Deen confirms rumors that she has type 2 diabetes.

Item two: Pregnant nurses who work with chemotherapy drugs are twice as likely to miscarry.

Hmmm… I would have to file these under “Nobody saw this coming?”

Chemo drugs attack cells that divide rapidly — which is exactly what’s happening with a fetus in the first trimester. So why would anybody be surprised to learn that these drugs put a baby’s life at risk?

Meanwhile, in other “news,” Paula Deen is famous for high-calorie recipes that call for rich ingredients, such as deep fried stuffing on a stick. (No, I didn’t make that up — that’s a real Paula Deen recipe.)

And still…somebody is getting paid to report on that.

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Betty White’s recent 90th birthday reminded me of a TV interview I saw a couple of years ago, when she was still just a spry, young 88. The interviewer asked Betty to share her secret for longevity, and she didn’t miss a beat: “Sheer blind luck!”

She got a laugh, as always.

A couple of years ago, a New York Times reporter put that same longevity question to several seniors, and they gave her some pretty good health advice.

Esther, 99, says, “Eat in moderation and drink in moderation.” She adds that regular exercise, walking, and yoga helped.

Phil, 100, keeps his sunny side up: “Enjoy every minute that you’re living. I think that’s some good advice.”

My favorite quote comes from Hazel, 100. Her longevity secret: “There’s no secret about it, really. You just don’t die, and you get to be 100.”

Got to love that. Don’t over-think it. Just keep on living.

A new study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet concludes with some longevity advice that also requires no over-thinking.

The authors write: “This population-based, prospective study of men with relatively high intakes of dietary calcium and magnesium showed that intake of calcium above that recommended daily may reduce all-cause mortality.”

Simple. Calcium plus magnesium works longevity wonders.

Calcium’s better half

At the risk of keeping it not entirely simple, Dr. Spreen offers three rules for supplementing with calcium.

Rule One: As the Karolinska study shows, calcium must have magnesium.

Dr. Spreen: “Calcium without magnesium doesn’t occur in a natural human diet, so it shouldn’t be introduced to the body that way. Calcium alone has been found in several experiments to be improperly laid down in the body, even affecting arterial walls before setting up in bones.

“Unfortunately for those looking for the simplest solutions, the mineral calcium requires more than just magnesium: It also needs manganese, boron, silica, strontium, usually digestive enzymes, often additional betaine hydrochloride, and ALWAYS vitamin D (and high doses of that last one if a lot of calcium is swallowed).”

Rule Two: Forget about antacids

Dr. Spreen describes the form of calcium in antacids simply as a “problem,” noting that this inferior form actually lowers the acid level (pH) in the stomach, which is necessary for digestion of many nutrients and proteins.

Rule three: Know your calcium forms

Dr. Spreen: “Not all calcium salts are absorbed the same, and in some cases there are pretty big differences. However, it’s usually easier to acquire (and cheaper to take, per amount absorbed) in forms that may cost less than the most absorbable types. By just taking a bit more of it, it’s not that big a deal (as long as the other ‘stuff’ is taken with it).”

Dr. Spreen notes that among the commercially available types of calcium, the best marriage of price, percentage of elemental calcium, and absorption is calcium citrate.

Whether you’re concerned about bone health, or just “don’t want to die,” you can read Dr. Spreen’s detailed look at the pros and cons of different calcium forms here.

Sources:
“From Taft to Obama, Victrola to DVD: Secrets of the Centenarians” Karen Barrow, New York Times, 10/18/10, nytimes.com

“Dietary Calcium and Magnesium Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Men” American Journal of Epidemiology, Published online ahead of print, 2/19/10, aje.oxfordjournals.org

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According to evidence in the British Medical Journal, women who joined that revolution may have added years to their lives.

Researchers followed more than 46,000 women for more than 40 years, beginning in 1968. Women who took the first birth control pills back then took them for an average of just four years. But death records show that women who took the Pill generally lived longer.

Risks vs. benefits are mixed. Use of the Pill may increase risk of cervical and breast cancers. But other studies show that hormones in the Pill might have actually protected some women from ovarian and endometrial cancers.

The Scottish researchers say they can’t speculate on cause and effect, but my friend Emily isn’t so timid.

Emily has two young sons and she sent me an article about the Pill study with this note: “Here’s cold, hard proof. Raising children will kill you!”

I’m pretty sure she’s only half-kidding.

Sources:
“Women On the Pill May Live Longer” Maria Cheng, Associated Press, 3/12/10, ap.org

That note appeared in a New York newspaper in 1909.

And from an 1886 edition of a Pennsylvania newspaper: “The death of Mr. Maas, the well-known tenor, calls attention to the peril of sleeping in a damp bed.”

And from a Kentucky paper, 1911: “New York’s foremost medical men go so far as to say that if every adult walked five miles a day, doctors would be put out of work.”

These three antique news items also appeared on twitter, in a twitter feed known as Tweets of Old (twitter.com/TweetsofOld).

R.L. Ripples — a writer and researcher — posts several tweets every day. Each one contains a line transcribed from actual newspapers or digital scans of newspapers in online archives.

I picked out the three above because they’re health-related. But there are all kinds of quotes on a wide range of topics, such as the Galveston Sand Crabs baseball team (Texas, 1895), home dentistry (Tennessee, 1904), and beer made from Sacramento River water (California, 1886).

I’ll finish with one more health warning: “Frank Cook, of Vernon, died of blood poisoning caused by smoking cigarettes.” (Texas, 1895)

Don’t smoke, get daily exercise, and make sure your bed is dry. Old advice, but all good.

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If your liver could talk…well, that would be annoying. But if your liver could speak just once and give you one piece of guidance, it might be this: “You are what you drink.”

What your liver is talking about is fatty liver disease.

FLD is caused by excessive and prolonged consumption of alcohol. Over time, heavy alcohol intake causes fat accumulation in the liver, which prompts inflammation and liver scar tissue.

Eventually, FLD can escalate into dangerous chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, liver cancer, and heart disease.

But notice that your liver only mentioned “drink” — not alcohol.

That’s because there’s another beverage that can contribute in a big way to FLD. But when alcohol isn’t part of the picture, the condition is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Nearly one in every four Americans has NAFLD, and because there are no symptoms, hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — don’t even know it.

A daily attack on your liver

University of California researchers recently revealed a frightening connection between high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and NAFLD — frightening because indications of NAFLD development began so quickly.

After just two weeks (TWO weeks!), subjects who consumed either fructose or HFCS as 25% of their daily caloric intake (which, according to the USDA, a LOT of Americans do) showed significant blood level spikes of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

This is a potential disaster in the making. And even though we’ve been brainwashed to worry about LDL, this time it’s all about the triglycerides.

In NAFLD, triglyceride is the dangerous fat that accumulates in the livers of people who drink little or no alcohol. The resulting inflammation, scarring, and destruction of liver cells is basically the same thing that happens in people who drink alcohol to excess.

Last year I told you about a study where dietary information was gathered from 400 subjects with NAFLD. Results showed that more than 80 percent of the subjects drank HFCS-sweetened beverages, and nearly 30 percent said they did so every day.

Liver scarring was most pronounced in those with the highest HFCS intake.

If you find yourself craving a daily soda or two, or some other treat that’s sweetened with HFCS, don’t fool yourself into thinking that a little bit won’t do any harm. Even small amounts of this Franken-sugar can lead to serious damage — and very quickly.

Sources: 
“Added fructose ups lipids, even within USDA recommended limits” Steven Fox, Medscape Medical News, 7/30/11, medscape.com

“High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay News, 3/19/10, healthday.com