Archives for March 2005

“I am alarmed over the news that vitamin E in large doses is bad for health and will shorten your life. I know how you feel about many of these studies from medical schools and you say they are unscientific-what about this one?”

The world’s population is getting older. By the year 2100, more than a quarter of the people here on Earth will be over the age of 60. That’s over two and a half billion people! Experts also predict that the number of elderly people in developing countries will double in the next 20 years…

When I applied for medical school in 1948, there were 50 applications for every open spot. I was accepted after four years and felt lucky. Now it looks like you couldn’t pay bright young students to go into medicine. According to a recent report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, there will be a shortage of 200,000 doctors in the U.S. in the next 20 years.

Tuberculosis (TB) is still rearing its ugly head and the epidemic that public health experts have been predicting for the past few years is getting closer and closer…

“Hours in front of a computer screen may increase the risk of glaucoma in people who are myopic or shortsighted,” Japanese scientists reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. “Smoking and high blood pressure are potential risk factors but Japanese researchers believe excessive computer use may also play a role in short-sighted people.”

Well it’s about time. It is hard to believe that it took 100 years for the diet dictators, those of food pyramid fame, to face the obvious, which is: Diabetes is caused by an excessive intake of sugar-period.

Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true: There are poisons that will hurt you even at miniscule amounts. But that’s not always the case. That’s why you need to know about hormesis. I’ve talked about it before, but it’s one of those vitally important concepts worth regular reminders. Hormesis is the use of an agent that is toxic in large doses, but is therapeutically effective in small doses. It has been proven in various applications like radiation, snake venom, arsenic-and now carbon monoxide.

Remember calcium channel blockers? They were the miracle drugs of the late 20th century. They were going to eliminate heart disease, but it didn’t work out. Before the miracle calcium channel blockers, there were the miracle beta blockers. Well, what happened to them? Interesting you should ask.

Now here is some junk science I can really love to hate. It’s so corny, so absurd, so unscientific, so fecalithic that we can only laugh hysterically and ask these intellectual/scientific twerps for more. “Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems…”

IN THIS ISSUE: Junk science gone wild: Are your supplements driving you blind?; New uses, same old dangerous effects; A little bit of poison gas never hurt anybody-and it may actually help your heart; The nutrition lesson 100 years in the making: Learn it now and stay diabetes-free for good; Drugless therapy for Tuberculosis (TB); Shortsighted news on glaucoma risk; What can you REALLY expect from life expectancy?; American medicine falls short; Should you be scared of the new vitamin villain?