| In short, as a group of 10 respected scientists warned in the prestigious new england journal of medicine in March 2005, "Obesity has been shown to have a substantial effect on longevity." In fact, obese adults are expected to have their life expectancy shortened by two to five years unless aggressive efforts are made to slow the obesity epidemic. As for severely obese people, they'll have their lives shortened by 5 to 20 years.
Overweight and obese children will suffer similarly. |
| New England Journal of Medicine.
"This research conveys a powerful message of hope to people at risk for type 2 diabetes," pronounced then Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "By adopting a moderate, consistent diet and exercise program, many people with one or more of the risk factors for type 2 diabetes can stop the disease before it becomes irreversible."
Meanwhile, another study from Australian researchers, written about in Diabetes Care, followed 36,787 men and women aged 40 to 69 without diabetes and followed up on them four years later. |
| Yale University School of Medicine researchers reported in the new england journal of medicine that half of the 439 obese youngsters studied developed various Syndrome X risk factors, including insulin resistance, unhealthy cholesterol, and other metabolic abnormalities.
Now, let's take a look at some not-so-sweet developments and trends that researchers, nutritionists, and junk food critics believe have contributed to our country's obesity epidemic and concurrent health crisis. |
John J. Ratey, MD
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 In the wake of this disturbing news, millions of women stopped taking hormones, and the new england journal of medicine published a population survey showing that in 2004 breast cancer rates dropped 9 percent. Then a prominent British study reported that women on HRT have twice the risk of developing dementia, which is a major concern for anyone beyond middle age. However, there are studies supporting the use of HRT for short periods during menopause. The only universal advice for menopausal women is to ask your doctor. Whatever the answer, the contradictions put many women in a painful bind. |
| In 2004 the new england journal of medicine (NEJM) published a review of treatments for generalized anxiety disorder that failed to even mention exercise. It was primarily a rundown of our most common antianxiety drugs, with a nod to therapy and relaxation. Of the thirteen pharmaceuticals charted in the review, all bear a formidable list of possible side effects. None have been endorsed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as explicitly safe during pregnancy—not an incidental point given that women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety and depression as men. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Sugar and the Hyperactive Child." new england journal of medicine 330 (February 3, 2004): 355-56.
Leonard, Brian E., and Cai Song. "Stress and the Immune System in the Etiology of Anxiety and Depression." Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 54, no. 1 (1996): 299-303.
-. "Stress, Depression, and the Role of Cytokines." Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 461 (1999): 251-65.
Liu, Jianghong, Adrian Raine, Peter H. Venables, and Sarnoff A. Mednick. "Malnutrition at Age 3 Years and Externalizing Behavior Problems at Ages 8, 11, and 17 Years. |
C. W. Randolph, M.D.
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 Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of The new england journal of medicine, states: "Drug companies have become vast marketing machines wielding nearly limitless influence over medical research, education and how doctors do their jobs."
There are volumes of solid, credible clinical trials and medical studies that validate the safety and efficacy of bio-identical hormone therapies. Unfortunately, the medical research institutions and universities that publish these studies do not have the budget to hire a sales force to go out into the field to educate physicians. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Citing the new england journal of medicine, the authors wrote, "In 2005, database product sales, including an unknown amount from licensing Masterfile information, provided more than $44 million to the AMA."
Once the high prescribers are identified, the drugs reps are then directed to reward those doctors with attention and gifts. The highest prescribing doctors are the ones with whom the drug reps work hardest to build relationships. According to Ahari, "The highest prescribers (9s and 10s) are every rep's sugar mommies and daddies. |
Charles Barber
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 All of which is to say that the industry has invaded the academy, and the academy has only been too happy to let them in. The new england journal of medicine has a sensible policy requiring its authors to list their financial relationship with the drug companies. The only problem is that the policy can be somewhat impractical. For an article on the antidepressant nefazodone, the authors' financial ties with the makers of the drug were so voluminous that listing them in full would have taken up too much space in the Journal. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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 In Chapter 5, I cited a study, recently reported in the new england journal of medicine, in which huge doses of statins successfully reduced patients' cholesterol levels well below 150 mg/dL. But even so, as their diet never changed, one out of four of the subjects experienced a new cardiovascular event or died within thirty months.
Unlike the drugs, plant-based nutrition has beneficial effects far beyond reducing cholesterol levels. It has a mighty impact on a host of other risk factors, as well: obesity, hypertension, triglyceride, and homocysteine levels. |
Jack Challem
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 According to a report in the new england journal of medicine, people taking ramipril (Altace) to treat prediabetes benefited from improved blood-sugar levels; however, the drug did not reduce their risk of developing diabetes or dying.
Early in 2007, Eli Lilly, the maker of Zyprexa (noted previously) agreed to pay a total of $1.2 billion to 28,500 people who took the drug for bipolar disease or schizophrenia. The drug had gained a reputation for promoting both obesity and diabetes. |
| Another study, published in the new england journal of medicine, found that eating healthier foods and going for regular walks were twice as effective as medications in preventing diabetes.
We believe you'll find our recommendations easier to follow than you might imagine, with meal plans consisting of tasty and satisfying foods. It may surprise you to learn that we're speaking from personal experience. That's right—we, too, had signs of prediabetes until we changed our eating habits.
JACK'S STORY
Ten years ago, I had a potbelly that seemed to grow another inch with each passing year. |
Hyla Cass, M.D.
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 New England Journal of Medicine, describes how pharmaceutical-company-sponsored research published in medical journals is actually quite biased in their favor—and not focused on the consumers' best interests at all.
Similarly, in Overdosed America (Harper Perennial, 2005), John Abramson, M.D., an award-winning family doctor and member of the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, makes the point that we are using prescriptions far too often—and more for the benefit of the drug companies' bottom-line than for our good health.
Dr. Abramson doesn't stop there. |
| MICRONUTRIENTS: VITAMINS, MINERALS, AND ANTIOXIDANTS
To achieve optimum health and nutrition, you need to "eat right and take a multivitamin," as a recent headline in the prestigious new england journal of medicine editorial put it. "The evidence suggests that people who take such supplements are healthier."
Like carbohydrates, protein, and fats, vitamins and minerals are essential to good health. They are considered micronutrients {micro = small) because they are needed in relatively small quantity compared to the macronutrients. |
| More Antidepressant Facts You Should Know
Despite the success of antidepressant drugs in treating many people, a study reported in the new england journal of medicine found that most commonly prescribed antidepressants do not work in at least half of those who take them. You may also have to try one or two or more different antidepressants before you find the one with the greatest benefit and least side effects. If you have been on one of these medications for some time, you may also discover that they can lose effectiveness over time, a condition called tolerance. |
Dr. Sharon Moalem
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 A 2005 report in The new england journal of medicine said that the epidemic of childhood obesity is the critical element in a gathering storm that could produce the first modern decline in American life expectancy—dropping life expectancy as much as five years.
There's no question that gallons of sugary soda, baskets of fatty fries, and too many hours watching television and playing video games instead of after-school sports is a fattening combo. But new research suggests that may not be the whole story. |
Dr. Abram Hoffer, MD, FRCP (C) and Dr. Harold D. Foster, PhD
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 Simvastatin and niacin, antioxidant vitamins, or the combination for the prevention of coronary disease. new england journal of medicine 2001;345:1583-92.
11 McKenney J. New perspectives on the use of niacin in the treatment of lipid disorders. Archives Internal Medicine 2004;164:697-704.
12 Munro M. Cholesterol pill's side effects worry BC drug specialists. Victoria, BC: Times-Colonist, September 16,2003.
13 Graveline D. Transient global amnesia. A side effect of "statins" treatment. Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients 2004 Aug/Sept;253/254:85-89.
J4 McCracken RD. |
Charles Barber
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| Editorials in The New York Times and The new england journal of medicine endorsed the practice. By 1945, 45,000 Americans had been sterilized, 21,000 of whom were psychiatric patients in state facilities.7 Afterward, one patient wrote: "I shall ever bemoan the fact that I shall never have a son to bear my name, to take my place, and to be a prop in my old age."8
In 1916, Dr. Henry Cotton of Trenton State Hospital, believing that germs from tooth decay led to insanity, removed patients' teeth and other body parts, such as the bowels, which he thought might be the causes of their madness. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Paul Meltzer, MD, PhD, head, section of molecular genetics, cancer genetics branch, National Human Genome Research Institute.
The new england journal of medicine.
Scientists are learning that not all melanoma skin cancers are genetically alike. And that may have far-reaching implications for the treatment and prevention of this disease.
I'm somewhat optimistic now that we may turn the corner on melanoma therapy.
Paul Meltzer, MD, PhD
THE STUDY
Dr. |
Charles Barber
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| The problem is a system in which businesses have control over the evaluation of their own products," Marcia Angell, former editor of The new england journal of medicine, has said.36 While the PDUFA structure goes back to the beginning of the Clinton administration, the influence of Big Pharma over the FDA has increased since 2000. "Business has taken a much higher profile at the FDA because of the current administration," Mary Faith Marshall of the University of Minnesota Medical School contends. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Tel-Hashomer, Israel.
The new england journal of medicine.
Blood sugar levels at the high end of "normal," coupled with other risk factors for type 2 diabetes, may help identify apparently healthy men who are at an increased risk of the disease, a new Israeli study suggests.
THE STUDY
For the study, the researchers obtained fasting glucose levels for more than 13,000 men from the Israeli Defense Forces, all between the ages of 26 and 45. During the average 5.7 years of follow-up, 208 of the men were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. |
Charles Barber
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| A 1998 review of articles published in leading journals such as The Journal of the American Medical Association and The new england journal of medicine found that 11 percent were ghostwritten. The fact that authors were paid to write the articles for the drug companies is not disclosed to the reader. Some observers have called
*Warfarin, with its ungainly name, was surely brought to market before the naming of drugs became a sophisticated business. the 11 percent figure for ghostwritten articles too low. |
Devra Davis
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 The editors of the new england journal of medicine in the early 1930s lamented the "dangerous" increase in the rate of American feeblemindedness, calling the economic burden of supporting the mentally feeble "appalling." In 1934 the Journal's editor, Morris Fishbein, wrote that "Germany is perhaps the most progressive nation in restricting fecundity among the unfit" and argued that the "individual must give way to the greater good."26 Presumably Fishbein was unaware that under the programs then taking shape in Germany, he would have been one of those giving way. |
| Two years later, Sidney Farber stunned the medical world with a report in the new england journal of medicine in 1948. At the time, children with leukemia were expected to die quietly and were known to die more quickly when given folic acid. Farber reported that giving them agents that blocked the formation of folic acid basically extinguished their cancers.
These discoveries rocked the cancer world. They showed that Mary Lasker had been right about one thing: medicine could come up with drugs to treat cancer. Within ten years, death rates from leukemia in children had begun to fall. |
| His 1975 article in the new england journal of medicine detailing these conditions forced examination of every other smelter in the country. Studies showed that levels of lead that did not immediately sicken children still dulled their brains and nervous systems.
ASARCO's answer to this crisis was straightforward. Smeltertown families were booted out of their homes. Only the dead remained. The small Smeltertown cemetery of marked and nameless graves was covered with blackened, windswept sand. |
Too Profitable to CureBrent Hoadley, Ph.D.
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| In the same vein, Larken in a new england journal of medicine (1986)13 article stated that human insulin was no less antigenic than porcine insulin.
Another indicator in this immunological debate was addressed by Prager and Schernthaner in Diabetes in 1983.14 He stated that patients treated with pork or human insulin had similar activity of human receptor insulin sites.
A1995 study published in Diabetes noted that highly purified beef insulins were comparable to pork insulins in the amount of insulin necessary to maintain good blood glucose control. |
| Unfortunately, a 2003 article in the new england journal of medicine states that replacement hormone therapy is not the answer to prevention of heart disease, especially in women. In fact, hormone replacement may increase the risk of CHD (coronary heart disease).4
Another example of corporate greed supported by "reliable" research, involves our children. Today's children are viewed as a life-long money stream for the pharmaceuticals, particularly if their parents can be convinced that they need the current "drug of choice" and that the drug is FDA-approved. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 The new england journal of medicine published a report showing that women who took at least 100 IU of vitamin E per day for several years had 40 percent decreased likelihood of having a coronary event when compared with non-vitamin E users.172 Continued research has now demonstrated that doses between 400 and 800 IU per day dramatically reduce the risk of nonfatal heart attacks, but do not reduce the number of deaths from CAD. |
Too Profitable to CureBrent Hoadley, Ph.D.
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| Although appearing in highly respected publications, like new england journal of medicine (NEJM), British Medical Journal, and The Lancet, these articles are actually nothing more than commercials targeted at doctors and other health care professionals. Direct advertising to doctors, presented in the guise of scientific reference, is no more credible than Madison Avenue's provocative images that entice patients to "ask your doctor about (insert name of drug)." E.R. Shell's article titled "The Hippocratic wars" appeared in the June 28,1998, edition of the New York Times Magazine. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 I have focused on the major and most respected and reliable journals, including The new england journal of medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and The Lancet.
I have read and analyzed all of the articles in these journals as well as editorials and news articles {British Medical Journal is the best for medical news reporting) for information relevant to drug safety. Following footnotes and leads from articles in these journals to other research and reports, I have drilled deeply into drug research and outcomes. |
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