How To Save A Drowning Healthcare System - NewsGrabs 13 July 2008

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How To Save A Drowning Healthcare System
Yet as Dr Andrew Weil - an enthusiastic proponent of nutritional supplementation - has suggested, this is a medical system that is on the verge of collapse anyway. He is confident, as many of us are, that when the collapse finally happens, a new integrative medical model will emerge. An 'upstream' model, that encourages individuals to 'express ownership of their own health' rather than leaving it up for grabs...

Groups urge European Commission to rethink policy on natural health
Dr Verkerk stated, after the meeting, "When you consider that the maximum daily vitamin and mineral levels the European Commission are considering for food supplements are much less than you’d find in a single, average meal—you know there’s a problem. You could find three times the possible maximum selenium level in a single brazil nut, or three times the beta-carotene level ins a single large raw carrot or three times the zinc level in a single 200 g steak."

Dr Verkerk added, "The European Commission needs to re-think its approach..."

Vitamin A for newborns reduces infant mortality
"Because childhood mortality is greatest during the first few months of life, a single dose of vitamin A administered by mouth to a newborn child can save the lives of an additional 300,000 children in Asia every year," said Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS, professor and dean emeritus of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. "That is on top of the one million lives a year that would be saved by dosing all vitamin A deficient children twice a year from six months through 5 years of age."

Leading worldwide cause of cardiovascular disease may be modified by diet
According to the paper, if Americans were able to increase their potassium intake, the number of adults with known hypertension with blood pressure levels higher than 140/90 mm Hg might decrease by more than 10 percent and increase life expectancy. Similar studies show that diets high in magnesium (at least 500 to 1,000 mg/d) and calcium (more than 800 mg/d) may also be associated with both a decrease in blood pressure and risk of developing hypertension.

Are Artificial Sweeteners Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts?
While the diet soda itself does not make you gain weight, it is becoming clear to researchers that the artificial sweeteners are affecting our natural ability to control our appetites. Sharon Fowler of the University of Texas Health Science Center states that for each diet drink consumed per day, the obesity risk increases by 41%. That´s a compelling argument against artificial sweeteners. There´s no question that our nationwide obesity problem is significantly worse than the 1950s. Are artificial sweeteners the hidden saboteurs of our weight loss efforts?

The Spin on Aspartame
... rather than simply rehash everything that has been written about aspartame, I wanted to take a different approach. I wanted to focus on a small part of the debate, and then follow it through to wherever it took me. I wanted to look at the folks who keep assuring us that it's safe: the experts. Experts in the government, experts in the medical field, the people who keep patting us on the head and telling us not to worry, that if aspartame was dangerous, they'd tell us.

Cargill to market stevia based sweetener
Truvia is made from certain compounds in the leaves of stevia, a shrub native to Paraguay, and will provide a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners including Sweet 'N Low, Equal and Splenda.

Truvia is going on sale first at a handful of D'Agostino supermarkets in Manhattan, and will eventually be sold at grocery stores and big box retailers across the country...

Why do we need sustainable healthcare?
Contemporary healthcare in western countries is presently dominated by use of pharmaceutical drugs—and most indicators would suggest that these approaches have had very limited value in dealing with some of the greatest scourges facing human health, including chronic diseases, psychiatric diseases and even certain infectious diseases.

From a cost/benefit perspective, pharmaceutical-based approaches to healthcare do not fare favourably and a sea change is required if mainstream western healthcare is to deal with the ever increasing burden on the healthcare system...

Sulston argues for open medicine
Britain's Sir John Sulston says that profits are taking precedence over the needs of patients, particularly in the developing world.

The Nobel Laureate told the BBC: "Some people would say it is not corrupt because it is not illegal, and that is true; but I consider that advertising a medicine that doesn't make clear any disadvantages of the medicine, or, in fact, the fact that most people don't need this particular medicine - I would cite, for example, anti-depressants which are hugely oversold, especially in America. This is the sort of thing I mean by corruption. It's not legal corruption; it's moral corruption."

Senior doctors “selling” drugs for $5000 a day
A long time drug industry insider in the United States says leading specialists can earn up to $5000 a day, for “educating” their peers on behalf of Big Pharma. The practise, where drug companies pay so-called “Key Opinion Leaders” to speak at industry sponsored educational events is widespread around the world.

US Senator Grassley Probes Psychiatrists Over Ties To Pharma
The investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, where Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican, into the ties between drugmakers and medicine is expanding. After targeting grants issued to academic psychiatrists, Grassley now wants the American Psychiatric Association to open its books for a look-see at pharma funding.

Big Pharma "Doomed" If It Doesn't Change, Says Eli Lilly Chairman
With patents set to expire on major products and no new blockbusters on the horizon, the pharmaceutical industry must adapt or die, the chairman of Eli Lilly & Co. has said.

"I think the industry is doomed if we don't change," said Sidney Taurel.

It is not just the expiry of patents, that besets Big Pharma. More important is a general loss of faith in pharmaceutical medicine, driven by continuous scandals of drugs that kill. The much touted "risk/benefit ratio" just isn't right.

Pharma Must Clean Up Its Act
“The public relations problems pharma has do not come from nothing. It’s not from paranoia or the figment of somebody’s imagination. It’s an industry that has been repeatedly caught red-handed trying to skew results and to bring drugs to the market that, perhaps, should not be there ... I would say the biggest thing pharma can do to improve its reputation is to clean up its act."

Pharma: Online Medication Sales Fueling Abuse
“In spite of those efforts, anyone of any age can obtain dangerous and addictive prescription drugs with the click of a mouse,” Joseph Califano Jr., a former US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, who heads CASA, says in a statement. “This problem is not going away. It is morphing into different outlets for controlled prescription drug trafficking like Internet script mills and membership sites that sell lists of online pharmacies, and different payment methods like eChecks, COD and money orders.”

Heart attacks and suicides... yet the dangers were all kept so quiet. So how CAN you trust your medicine?
More recently, an American academic who looked at more than 60 trials found that other manufacturers had concealed data about the effects of their antidepressant drugs on adults.

Half of the studies were positive and all of these had been published; virtually none of the negative ones had.

When the results of both the published and ‘concealed’ trials were combined, the drugs were shown to be no better than a placebo for mild to moderate depression.

Eli Lilly: From Pot To Prozac And Zyprexa
Eli Lilly once made a tincture of cannabis--used for treating muscle spasms and aches and pains back before marijuana was declared illegal--and so did many other companies. For fun, here's a pictoral history of where Eli Lilly has gone in the last 100 years or so in treating depression, psychosis and the aches and pains of life.

Cholesterol Drugs Recommended For Kids
New guidelines are due out from the American Academy of Pediatrics later today, calling for much younger kids to have their cholesterol levels checked and for statins to be used to treat the kids, despite a lack of evidence for safety and efficacy in using these drugs in kids.

What's driving all of t