Eating Plan, plan to eat!

Part III of my Trouble losing weight? Lose weight series

I went to the dietician yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to speak to someone who was intelligent and knowledgeable. It’s funny how what a supposed doctor can tell you about weight loss while they’re looking at your blood work is very different from what a dietician can tell you about how to take better care of yourself.


Here’s some of the differences between doctor/PA and dietician:


PA: Cut bread out of your diet

Dietician: Eat two slices of whole grain bread with breakfast and lunch. You need carbs in your diet.


PA: Insulin resistance will turn into diabetes, you must lose weight.

Dietician: Insulin resistance doesn’t always turn into diabetes. You can improve insulin resistance.


PA: Keep a food diary.

Dietician: You don’t need to keep a food diary.


PA: Cut out snacks between meals.

Dietician: You must eat a morning, afternoon and evening snack.


PA: Avoid cheese.

Dietician: With your low cholesterol you can certainly have cheese.


PA: Switch to skim milk.

Dietician: Drink 1% milk, it has less sugar than skim milk.


PA: Change your life to accommodate your diet.

Dietician: Let’s create a food plan that fits into your life.


Now, armed with some sensible and doable ideas to tweak my eating habits, I hope to improve my health, not just drop pounds while I starve myself in order to fit into an ‘ideal’ weight category.

My ultimate advice: Trouble losing weight? Lose your doctor, and find a medical professional who understands health.

Is your dog sick as a human?

I guess it’s not enough that people everywhere are urged to get a flu vaccination every year, now we have to worry about our dogs as well.


I just received an urgent e-mail written in large text in various shades of RED, urging me to vaccinate my dog against canine influenza due to an outbreak in my county.

I’m not worried. First, because unfortunately my dog passed away almost a year ago, and secondly because, according my research:

Canine influenza is a disease of dogs; no evidence exists that people can catch it. Like human flu patients, dogs with canine influenza develop respiratory symptoms such as coughing and sometimes runny noses. And like humans, most dogs that contract the flu will be only mildly sick and recover on their own.


I’m not downplaying the problem of having a sick pet, and I realize respiratory problems in creatures who rely heavily on their noses to detect danger, food, friends etc, can be serious, but I sort of get the idea that, as with people, someone who makes money on selling and administering the vaccine wants to make sure everyone is too scared not to get it.

I had a dog for 12 years and never ONCE even heard of canine influenza. Now, all of a sudden, it’s a thing and pet owners need to be acutely aware of it. Yes, I discovered dog adoptions in the County have been suspended due to an outbreak, and obviously no one wants to take on an already sick pet and be on the hook for medical care that should have been provided and paid for by a shelter, but can we all say it slowly together – OVER RE ACTING?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against vaccines at all, and I don’t want to see any pet become ill any more than I want to be ill myself, but just as with myself, I’m less than enthusiastic about running to the doctor to get shot full of chemicals as a reaction to a panicked e-mail.

Let’s stop all this hyper-awareness and fear-mongering now while we still can. That’s something I’d be willing to be vaccinated against.

Collected WTFery

I’ve been too deeply immersed in preparing to move to blog on a regular basis, but I have collected a couple of interesting tidbits to share.

The first entry in the WTF column comes directly from TD Bank [aka America’s Most Convenient Bank]. I don’t want to cast aspersions on any one financial institution, since I have an inkling they’ll all be doing this soon, but I can only speak for certain about TD Bank.
My husband and I both received a little flier from them the other day informing us that as of January 2009 [yes, that’s more than a year ago, but they’re just telling us now] “if you received more than $600 in ATM Surcharge Reimbursements you will be sent a 1099-Misc form.”

Translated into plain English this means: You know all those times we happily reimbursed you for the exorbitant fees we and other banks charge you to access your money from ATMs? Well, now you have to pay taxes on it.

Essentially, they take your money, they give it back and they charge you a tax on it. So money you should never have had to pay out in the first place, is now considered income.

What I really love is how it’s retroactive to 2009, meaning that if you’ve already paid your 2009 taxes [and let’s see – most of us have], you may have to make an adjustment once they get that 1099 out to you.

The next entry comes from my favorite source, health and wellness news.

Apparently The Journal of Urology is touting diet soda as a preventative for kidney stones. Researchers have concluded that citrate, an ingredient found in some sodas [lemon and citrus flavors], may help reduce the risk of kidney stone formation. Citrate can be found in non-diet sodas as well [not colas, though] but the researchers, ever health conscious, are quick to remind patients that the extra calories they get from regular sodas pose a health risk [obviously one more serious than cancer causing artificial sweeteners, but we won’t go there.]

What boggles me is, why would doctors decide that diet soda would be a better, healthier source of citrate than say, actual citrus fruits? Oh, right, fruits contain sugar and calories, therefore making them bad for you, where artificially sweetened and colored carbonated water contains no sugar or calories and is therefore a health food.

So, there you go. You can drink to your health, while you write out that check to Uncle Sam to pay taxes on your ATM rebates.

Feeling old? Take a pill.

People have been searching for the Fountain of Youth for centuries – and ultimately, what they've discovered so far is, you can’t really stay young or stop aging, but now scientists are trying to find a way to make people live longer by mimicking what they call the ‘longevity gene’.

This article from Reuters talks about the pharmaceutical industry’s push to develop a drug that will help people live longer. Scientists are studying centenarians around the world to figure out what in their genetic makeup has contributed to such long lives.

Clearly, as I think the article implies, long life is a factor of luck, having the right genes will help you live longer – of course coupled with a healthy diet and lifestyle. I find it interesting that the ‘answer’ to helping people live longer, healthier lives is automatically thought to be found in drugs. We can make a pill for that!

I have to admit, I find centenarians to be fascinating. What I’ve noticed about those 100-year-olds who appear in the news is that a good portion of them [well, okay, all] – have lived through world wars, many have even served in them. This certainly doesn’t equate to the safe environment the article cites as a factor in long life. Many of these people have held difficult or tedious jobs, they’ve existed at the poverty level in some cases, they’ve raised children and navigated our stressful society or even those deemed more stressful and managed to survive. So how do they really do it? Is it just luck? Good genes, good timing, good life choices? Or is it something the rest of us can really hope to emulate without having to fork over our Medicare Part D dollars for the ‘longevity pill?’

I wish the scientists would take a break from trying to develop new drugs and start really looking at longevity as something inherent in the human condition – something we can all achieve if we know how, not just if our (mandatory) health insurance covers it.

Ailment or evolution?

I struggled over finding the right title for this post – I really wanted to call it: Not racist? You’re sick … but I figured people would misconstrue that so I went with something a little less inflammatory.

Nevertheless, that is the real issue, apparently according to this article, which comes straight from the WTF Files.

Rare disorder erases all social anxiety – apparently a very rare genetic disorder is afflicting children with the inability to experience social anxiety and racist tendencies.
Can you imagine? NOT being shy, introverted, nervous in crowds or affected by the racial and cultural biases of your peers, parents and siblings is now a DISEASE.

Apparently, being predisposed to prefer people of your own color or ethnicity is normal. Kids who don’t feel that way automatically are somehow defective, as this study seems to point out.

The down side of this mysterious Williams Syndrome seems to be the following:

They will put themselves at great peril to help someone and despite their skills at empathy, are unable to process social danger signals. As a result, they are at increased risk for rape and physical attack.

So let’s break this down: They will put themselves at great peril to help someone

I guess all firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, animal control officers, and general Samaritans who have risked their lives for others are all sufferers of Williams syndrome then.

despite their skills at empathy, are unable to process social danger signals.

So being caring and sympathetic and yet maybe a bit socially clueless is an illness.

As a result, they are at increased risk for rape and physical attack.

I guess the average kid walking on the street is in no real danger because they will instinctively run away from someone who is a different race than they are??

Then there’s this:

As a result, people with Williams syndrome are "hypersocial," Meyer-Lindenberg said. They do not experience the jitters and inhibitions the rest of us feel.

Good God, people. This illness must be conquered!! I’m off to find out if there is a fundraiser or something because those of us normal people who suffer constantly from jitters, inhibitions, shyness and fear of strangers MUST do something to help the less fortunate among us.

Let’s race for a cure. We must end Williams Syndrome before it’s too late.

Addendum:

I did some research on Williams Syndrome and actually it’s not the medical profession that screwed this up so much as the author of the MSN article, Robin Nixon, who failed to include the physiological symptoms of the disease and totally missed the point of the reason anyone would be studying it. Nixon, it seemed, wanted to go for the sensational value of a less than accurate headline rather than true scientific journalism.

Defensive medicine may be offensive

This Associated Press article caught my eye today. It discusses the over-abundance of medical testing used as a form of disease prevention and opines whether or not such testing is really beneficial or just wasteful.

In a time when health care costs are out of control, we have to examine the real reason behind the inflated costs. We don’t spend too much on health care because we’re sick, we spend too much on healthcare because healthcare is overpriced and we have embraced the idea that in order to be truly healthy we have to be tested constantly for disease. We’ve been conditioned to believe that early detection is the key to our survival, that palliative medications will give us a longer life and incessant doctor visits will improve the quality of our lives.

Suddenly, this isn’t the case. Now the speculation is we are over-testing, over-medicating and maybe even over-worrying. I tend to agree – the old adage ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ holds some weight. Good health used to be measured by how little you needed medical care, now it’s measured by how often you go for health screenings, vaccinations and renewals of your prescriptions.

On the other hand, I do find it odd that now when health care costs are completely out of control, the worm turns toward encouraging people to use less healthcare. Is it really common sense finally taking over, or is it a subtle way to lower costs?

Do you believe in routine preventive health screenings or do you think we place too much emphasis on being tested for everything all the time? Sure people have survived for thousands of years without ever having mammograms or colonoscopies, but then again – people have been dying for thousands of years too. Are we really at the next stage of our evolution where constant medical care will keep us healthy and living longer, or are we beginning to devolve into a race that can’t survive unless we are fully medicated and irradiated at every turn of the calendar?

Pick your poison

At what point does the cure become worse than the disease?

I’m starting to wonder about a lot of the so called cancer treatments and cancer preventions coming down the pike. Everyone is terrified of cancer, and it seems the medical profession is working over time to find cures or at least treatments that can prolong life, ease suffering or make it less likely for people to get cancer.

What scares me is, it seems like most of the things they’re coming up with cause greater problems.

This article talks about hormone replacement therapy as a possible stop gap in the fight against colon cancer in women. It highlights a study that shows estrogen therapy has some effectiveness in lowering the risk of colon cancer, the controversial side effects of HRT itself notwithstanding.

Is it worth it to risk:

o Endometrial bleeding
o Breast tenderness
o Increased breast density, higher rates of abnormal mammograms and breast biopsies
o Increased risk of cancers, including breast, ovarian, lung, and malignant melanoma
o Cardiovascular events (e.g., heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular death)
o Gallbladder disease
o Venous thromboembolic events (blood clots)
o Reduced insulin sensitivity
o Brain atrophy, increased risk of dementia, decline in memory and cognition

in order to prevent colon cancer?

Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t understand why we should have to choose between one health risk and another. Good health is good ‘overall’ health. How can the medical profession tout something as being beneficial if it helps one thing while making something else worse?

We all accept side effects of our medications – everything has a down side, even taking aspirin can put you at risk for some other health concern. But should we really accept side effects, especially deadly ones, as just a matter of course? If you use HRT to prevent colon cancer, why should you have to then fear an increased risk for some other disease? In my opinion, something is not truly effective as a disease prevention if it has to the potential to cause another disease. Obviously, if doctors believed this, we would have very little in our pharmaceutical arsenal…but then maybe we could hope to find a medicine that helps without hurting.

Or is that too much to ask?

An aspirin a day keeps the doctor…on hand?

Since heart disease is still considered to be the number one cause of death in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control, finding ways to prevent it seems to be foremost on everyone’s mind. For years we’ve been told that low-dose aspirin therapy [an 81mg pill a day] is a good way to promote heart health. With aspirin being inexpensive and easy to get, it seems like good news…but wait, there’s more.

This article at Natural News suggests low-dose aspirin therapy for heart health may be doing more harm than good as this quote indicates:

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an aspirin a day increases the risk for a hemorrhagic stroke by 84%!(6)

Contrarily, WebMD offers this information on aspirin therapy stating that it does actually reduce the risk of death and it also says aspirin can reduce the risk of stroke. So why does the Journal of the American Medical Association say differently? Even the Mayo Clinic apparently agrees that daily aspirin therapy helps lower the risk of heart attack and stroke.

So once again, the question is, who do we believe? Based on the articles I’ve read recently, aspirin therapy may be a good idea for someone who already has heart disease, but it may not benefit a healthy person as a preventive measure. Supermarkets and pharmacies of course have aspirin readily available and the pharmaceutical companies continue to put out the low-dose forms marketed to people who will pick up the drug on their own and self-medicate thinking they’re doing something good for themselves.

Is it any wonder medical costs are out of control in this country, when we’re encouraged to do something potentially bad for us in the name of being health conscious?

Have you tried aspirin therapy either on your own or on the advice of a doctor? Would you try it, even if you had no history of cardiovascular disease, as a form of prevention? In the past, I have to admit, I might have. It seems like an easy enough thing to do, but now, I’m not so sure. What do you think?

More Mammography Controversy

I found this interesting tidbit in a Newsweek article by Sharon Begley.

In today’s issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists are reporting a study (the journal has made it available for no charge, so read it yourself and print it out for your doctor) that strongly suggests that some of the cancers detected by mammography would have vanished on their own had they not been detected and treated.

Cancers that vanish on their own? How is that possible? We’ve been led to believe that cancer is a killer – without treatment a death sentence and sometimes even with the most radical, aggressive, state of the art medicine to tackle it. How can it possibly just go away on its own?

Another quote from the article discusses a study that followed women who were screened for breast cancer and women who were not:

breast cancer rates were higher among screened women than not-screened women.

Interesting, huh? Or maybe frightening is a better word. Based on the articles I read, I’ve been wondering if maybe cancer is something we all get once in a while, some of us fight it off unknowingly and it goes away and others have it detected and then undergo radical treatments to kill it, sometimes winning the battle and other times not. I’m not suggesting we stop all treatments for cancer, but it concerns me that maybe the medical industry treats it too aggressively. I’ve known enough people who have died after a cancer diagnosis and aggressive treatment. It bothers me to wonder if they might have survived if their cancer had never been detected in the first place.

Brushing up on Fluoride

Here’s another modern dilemma – can we really believe what seems to be overwhelming scientific evidence that something is good for us, or should we question the studies that seem to prove the benefits of certain chemicals or medications because those benefits are directly linked to the profits of big business?

Fluoride has been bothering me for a while. I grew up, as I’m sure most Americans have, believing fluoride was good for my teeth. It’s in toothpaste or course. Sometimes it’s in mouthwash, it’s definitely in all the stuff the dentist wants to slather on my teeth, and it can even be found in some municipal water supplies. Fluoride prevents cavities. That’s what the studies show, and according to the Fluoride organization, it’s natural and perfectly safe.

That should be the end of the argument, right? Especially since any dentist will back this all up.
But what about the people who are rallying against fluoride? Here’s just a sampling:

Schachter Center for Complimentary Medicine

Fluoride dangers

NoFluoride.com

LifeScript.com

NaturalNews.com

According to articles posted on these sites and countless others, fluoride is a poison that can cause all manner of health problems. The danger seems to be in ingesting fluoride more so than simply putting in on the teeth, so while fluoride in your toothpaste might not be so bad, if you’re drinking it, or worse if you’re taking it in pill form, you may be doing yourself more harm than good.

My question is, why would so many different sources be so vocal about the dangers of fluoride if it wasn’t true? What do these sources have to gain by stopping people from using fluoride? Is it just an underlying distrust of the government or is there something to all these reports?

On the flipside, why do doctors and dentists seem to swear by fluoride as a prevention for tooth decay if it really doesn’t work? Aren’t they the ones who have first hand scientific knowledge?
What do you think about fluoride? Is all the hype just hype, or are we supposed to remain blissfully ignorant to another health hazard that’s literally right under our noses?

Cause and Effect or Cause and Detect?

The recent mammogram controversy has me disgusted. For years women have been told to get mammograms as often as humanly possible. Better safe than sorry, right? If you have breast cancer, you want to know about it as early as possible so you can begin life-saving treatments.

I know there are thousands of breast cancer survivors out there who are grateful that a mammogram detected their cancer early enough to afford them the time to treat it. But based on recent findings, I have to wonder how often mammograms cause cancer before they can detect it.

Now the guidelines have conveniently changed*, and women are supposed to have fewer mammograms for a host of compelling reasons, not least of which is the fact that the mammogram delivers a huge dose of radiation directly into the body.

How’s that for health and wellness? How can the medical industry justify a test that may cause the very disease it’s designed to treat? Are there acceptable losses in the battle against cancer? Are the detrimental effects of the test negligible when compared to the number of lives saved? So you get cancer – it’s okay. With a few rounds of debilitating chemotherapy, we can cure you. Sometimes.

I’m not sure I like the odds.

I’ve had a mammography. One. I know for many women it’s a painful experience, and for others just mildly uncomfortable. I fall into the second category. It wasn’t a picnic, but it was something I could handle if I had to do it again. The question I’m struggling with is, will I?

So far, the answer is no.

I’m researching the effects of mammograms and I don’t like what I’m finding. Sure, being able to detect cancer in its early stages is a great boon to modern medicine, but being able to prevent it all together is the miracle we’re looking for. I’m wondering, is it wiser to stay away from tests that have the potential to cause harm, or to risk that harm in order to get a head start on treating a too often deadly disease?

You tell me. Is the risk we are finding now associated with mammograms worth it? Are we doing all we can to protect ourselves from cancer or are we just lining up to be customers in the multi-billion dollar cancer industry which will crumble if people actually find a way to stop getting sick?

*If you follow health news, you may notice the guidelines have flip-flopped again. So how do we really know who to trust?