Pneumonia and Antibiotics? Surprisingly Bad Mix

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It never ceases to amaze me how much mainstream medicine has moved away from understanding and supporting normal physiology.

There was just a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on primary prevention of atherosclerotic coronary heart disease. (in English: the article was about how to prevent a first heart attack)

I went into the article thinking it was going to cover lifestyle and targeted supplementation that has been shown, in medical research over the course of decades, to strongly prevent heart disease. Nope. The ENTIRE commentary was about how to determine when doctors should medicate with statins.

Sad, sad, sad state of affairs.

Vaccination is another aspect of mainstream medicine that has gone way off the deep end.  There are now strong recommendations to vaccinate all young children (girls and boys) with Gardasil for HPV.  This is NOT a cervical cancer vaccine and it has NOT, as of the date of this writing, been shown to lower the rates of cervical cancer.  Yes, this is correct.  It has been shown to lower the rates of higher grade lesions of the cervix, but not actual cervical cancer.  Medicine has taken a big leap here in saying that it protects against cervical cancer–this fallacy of using surrogate endpoints has fallen flat on its face many, many times before.

But wait! It gets worse…

What if one of the most common medical treatments actually derails something that is more effective than vaccination for a common condition. To twist this even further, what if the medical intervention is one that is the go-to treatment for the condition that a particular vaccine is designed for?

Regular readers already have an idea that I’m talking about the use of antibiotics wiping out normal, protective bacterial flora that does amazing things for your health.

Specifically, I’m talking about the use of antibiotics for pneumococcal pneumonia (Streptococcus pneumoniae). The type of pneumonia that medicine pushes the Prevnar vaccine throughout the entire lifespan, from infants to seniors.

This particular study puts all of this into perspective. In it, researchers looked at how the GUT bacteria could protect against LUNG infections. Here’s the specifics:

• It is well accepted that the gut microbiota supports BODYWIDE immune response.
• Researchers wiped out the gut microbiota of mice and then infected them with S. pneumoniae.
• When the gut microbiota was wiped out, there was more bacterial spread into the body, more, organ damage and higher death rates.
• When the bacteria was wiped out, the immune cells in the lung did not respond as strongly to bacterial debris (LPS and lipoteichoic acid) and the white blood cells had less ability to destroy the invading bacteria (phagocytosis).
• When a fecal transplant was done (yeah—sounds like something I’d sign up for…), bacterial counts in the lungs dropped back down to normal.
• After the fecal transplant, the immune system calmed down as well (TNF-α and IL-10).

In summary, the gut bacteria played a very, very strong role in fighting off Streptococcal pneumoniae infections in the lung.

Think about this. Having a healthy microbiome in your gut plays a role in fighting off bacterial infections in the lung. This means that the use of antibiotics for a bacterial pneumonia will PREDISPOSE YOU FOR FUTURE INFECTIONS by decimating your gut microbiome.

Staggering.

The mainstream medical approach to “preventing” pneumonia is to give the Prevnar vaccination (which I’ve written about how the potential pitfalls of this vaccination that can be read by clicking here). With the the same hand, your primary care doctor or pulmonologist will not hesitate to give you antibiotics to combat any number of infections, bacterial, viral or otherwise.

So what does this mean if you’re seemingly getting respiratory infections every time the wind changes direction? I would suggest you bombard your immune system with positive karma the second you’ve got the slightest indication of an infection. Vitamin C (at high doses—not 500 mg), vitamin D, vitamin A, no refined carbs and exercise (yes—exercise—raises your core body temp and helps your immune system fight off the infection better). And NO antibiotics unless you’re on your death bed with a fever of 104.

Over time (years, actually), your gut microbiome will recover to the point where it can help you fight infections in other areas of the body. If not, and you continue to use antibiotics at the drop of a dime, your immune system will NEVER stand on its own.

Never.

 

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Artificial Sweeteners and Bad Decisions-Surprising Links

Timothy Masters / Dollar Photo Club

Despite the mounting evidence on just how bad they are for us, artificial sweeteners remain on the market in just about everything we consume.

Think that just because you avoid diet sodas you’re safe?  Bought any chewing gum lately?  Use any protein workout drinks?  Did your doctor recommend Medifast shakes?  How about pretty much anything advertised as “no sugar added?”  You get the idea.  Unless you go out of your way to avoid them, you are probably taking in artificial sweeteners in a variety of products on pretty much a daily basis.

I do honestly believe that society is finally starting to understand that these compounds are not all they are cracked up to be.  The heavy hitters involved are aspartame (Nutrisweet), sucralose (Splenda) and acesulfame postassium (acesulfame K).  There are other natural sweeteners that are better alternatives, although I still recommend working towards using any type of added sweetener as little as possible.  These natural sweeteners include stevia, monk fruit and the sugar alcohols (xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol).

Artificial sweeteners first came on the market in an attempt to help reduce overall caloric consumption and stem off the tide of obesity and diabetes.  It all sounded like a good idea–how could it not work??

Well, it didn’t (and hasn’t).  Every current study looking at the effects of artificial sweeteners finds that they contribute to diabetes and obesity.  Quite the opposite of the intention.

So how did this happen when it seems to make sense on the front end?

Here are some clues:

• Artificial sweeteners alter the gut bacteria (microbiome) in mice.  Given the strong links between the microbiome and obesity, any uncontrolled alterations in the balance could spell disaster.
• Artificial sweeteners alter our perception of taste, especially in children, leading us to look for more and more “sweet” in our dietary choices.
• Sucralose has been shown to lower levels of brown fat, the wondrous type of fat that acts as a calorie-burner in our bodies.

With just this alone, it should be enough for you to swear off artificial sweeteners permanently.  But, just in case it isn’t, there’s one very interesting finding that you really need to know.  And it deals heavily with the choices that we make when it comes to our health and life.

Anytime we have to make a “deeper” decision on something, there is a reserve that we tap into.  This is opposed to run-of-the-mill quick decisions such as deciding whether or not to stay in the middle lane of traffic or the center lane.

This reserve in our brain requires energy, most typically in the form of sugar.  As we make decisions throughout the day, that energy gets depleted.  This is exactly why you should focus your attentions on things that are more important immediately after breakfast, lunch or dinner.

In this particular study, researchers used two types of lemonade to see if participants could avoid the depletion of decision making (referred to as “ego” in the context of the study).  One had sugar, the other the all-evil Splenda.

The exact test used was the Stroop test, which involves a deeper level of thinking to make sure you get the answers correct.

As time went on in the normal lemonade group, there was no breakdown of ego as the participants performed the Stroop test.  These findings suggest that glucose is an important factor in making sure we retain the ability to make good decisions, even after our brains have been given the run-around.

But what about the Splenda lemonade group?  There was no protection from the artificial crap.

What does this mean?  It potentially means that the use of artificial sweeteners in our daily lives are depriving our brains of what we need to make good decisions throughout the day.  These decisions could make for poor choices, like whether or not to drive home or go straight to the gym.  Or whether or not to make a healthy dinner or stop for fast food on the way home instead (AND skip the gym…).

You get the point.

 

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Knee Surgery for Torn Meniscus – Best to Leave it Alone?

Natural Treatments for arthritis

There are a few things that have managed to make it into “everyday thinking” despite the fact that it is more dogma than reality. Knee injuries are one of these things.

If you injure your knee and tear something, whether one of the supporting ligaments or one of the two meniscus (or is it menisci??), you’re going to have to have surgery.

I was personally one of these back in 1987 when I tore the medial meniscus of my right knee and had a portion of it removed surgically. If only I had known then what I know now…

The problem with evaluating whether or not surgery for a particular condition works is that we just don’t do placebo surgeries—it’s an ethical problem. Kind of like a placebo-controlled trial on whether parachutes are safer while skydiving. We just don’t do placebo surgeries.  Or at least we didn’t until 2002 when the Houston VA medical center decided to do a placebo-controlled surgical trial of patients with knee pain who went under the knife for “debridement,” or a clean-out to get rid of damaged tissue hanging around in the knee joint.

Turns out there was no difference between those who had the full surgery and those who had the placebo surgery.  Truly ground shaking outcomes considering that this type of procedure is done some 800,000 times per year in the US alone.

But I really don’t think that many surgeons truly changed based on the evidence of this study over a decade ago. From an insurance standpoint, it was pretty easy for the surgeon to just say he was going in to fix a meniscal tear.  And this sounded like a good idea because the back part of the medial meniscus (posterior horn) is commonly torn and it does not have a very good blood supply so healing just isn’t going to happen without surgical intervention to go in and remove the torn meniscus.

There are a couple of problems with this thinking.

The first problem is a biggie and has to do with how we determine whether or not there is any damage to the knee using MRI. Many people mistakenly believe that MRI is an exact science and that, if something is “found” on MRI, it’s the thing that is causing the problem.

Study and after has concluded that there is very little correlation to what is found on MRI and a patient’s symptoms. That’s not to say that that torn medial meniscus on your MRI is not causing you pain, it’s just that we can’t know for sure. And I can tell you, from treating hundreds of knees over the years, that a huge chunk of knee pain comes from the soft tissues surrounding the knees (muscles, ligaments, fascia) and not from what is going on inside the knee.

Fix these tissues and the knee pain goes away, regardless of whether or not the meniscus is affected by the treatment. But very few knee pain patients manage to find their way into physician’s offices that are truly competent with addressing these tissues. Part of this may be because they aren’t aware that these types of treatments even exist—It’s the surgeon’s office to MRI to physical therapy and back to the surgeon to schedule the procedure. Kind of circular.

The second problem has to do with this particular study. In it, researchers looked to answer the question about whether surgery to repair a degenerative meniscus tear (as opposed to one that happens from trauma) actually does squat. Specifically, they were interested in whether self-reported locking or catching would be improved by partial meniscectomy (since it is increasingly well-established that doing the surgery for pain alone is not beneficial).

Seventy patients underwent the real surgery to remove a portion of the medial meniscus and 76 had a sham surgery done. Here’s what they found:

• Thirty-two patients (46%) in the true surgery group reported catching or locking before surgery; after surgery that number was 49%.
• Of the fake surgery group, 37 (49%) reported catching or locking before surgery; after “surgery” the number was 43%.

In other words, some $50,000 later, risk of injection and time off and pain for rehab, there was pretty much no difference between the groups.

Studies like these and the other ones mentioned in this article are blowing open the doors of the dogma that surrounds knees injuries, findings on MRI and the value of arthroscopic surgery.  This is not to say that there is not value to the surgical options, but you better damn well be sure you see someone who truly understands how to asses and treat the soft tissues surrounding the knee before you go under the knife.

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Dairy and Your Brain; Quit it Before You Lose It

oraziopuccio / Dollar Photo Club

There are times that I think that maybe I’m off base when it comes to my dislike for dairy products and my recommendation to avoid it.

After all, the recommendation to have at least 3 servings of dairy daily is firmly entrenched in just about every public health recommendation since, well like…forever.  And the commercials that you hear just about every day make it sound like milk, cheese and yogurt will make you grow tall and strong and lift small SUVs without breaking a sweat or pulling a hamstring.

(Not quite sure where the “strong teeth and muscles” comes from—don’t think I have ever come across any study ever that evaluates this relationship—I’m pretty sure it’s purely a marketing ploy)

The belief that dairy is so an essential component of good health is so strong that many patients feel embarrassed or ashamed that they don’t take in the necessary servings, all the time confident that their bones are pretty much melting into sludge.

But where did all this come from??  Who’s the first one to look at a cow’s udder dangling there and think…”Hey!!  I’ve gotta get me some of THAT!!?

I know I’ve asked this hypothetical question before, but how would you react if you saw a teenager walk up to mom and start nursing?  I’m guessing you’d be appalled and disgusted, but this action is actually be somewhat more acceptable because at least mom would be the same species.  Try to name another mammal that continues to drink mom’s milk after it’s weaned.  You can’t because there isn’t one.

There’s only one real answer as to why we continue to believe that dairy is a health food.  Marketing.  REALLY, REALLY good marketing.

That the only logical answer because it sure as heck ain’t coming from solid research.  (Just in case you think that I’m making this up, feel free to browse through my well-referenced eBook on the evils of dairy by clicking here)

And while dairy has been linked to obesity, diabetes, poor bone health as well as prostate and ovarian cancer, I don’t know that I’ve come across any studies linking dairy consumption and brain damage.

At least, not until now.

But before that, a brief primer on Parkinson’s disease…

Parkinson’s disease is a condition where the brain cells in a certain area of the brain have died off to the point where they can no longer do their job.  Specifically, the dopamine-producing cells in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra die off over time until they can no longer produce enough dopamine to suppress muscle movement.  That’s where the resting tremor comes from—the substantia nigra is not producing enough dopamine to apply the brakes on the muscular system with it’s at rest.

It is estimated that, at the time of diagnosis, those with Parkinson’s have lost 70% of these brain cells.  Don’t know about you, but that sounds like a LOT of brain cells to lose in any one region.

With this in mind, let’s go back to this particular study.  In it, researchers looked at the brains of a group of 449 men (aged 45-68) who had been living in Hawaii to determine how well new nerve cells were being produced in the substantia nigra and how this related to overall dairy intake.  In addition, the researchers looked at the levels of the organochlorine pesticide hepatachlor epoxide residues present in these brains (this pesticide was heavily used in the 1980’s in Hawaii and ended up in the milk).

Here’s what they found:

• Those who consumed the highest levels of milk (>16 oz/day, or 2 glasses) had 41.5% lower brain cell density.
• In this highest group of milk consumers, 90% of them had pesticide residues when compared to those who drank no milk (63.4%).
• For smokers, this relationship between milk intake and brain cells was not present.

So what’s the take-home message here?

First of all, commercially grown dairy cows are notoriously high in pesticide residues even if they weren’t raised in Hawaii in the 80’s.  If you are still compelled, for some strange reason, to take in dairy products, stick with organic when possible.

Second, if you’re a smoker, you don’t have to worry about dairy intake—you’re already damaging your brain as much as you possibly can be.

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Whooping Cough — Is there REALLY an Epidemic?

Richard Villalon / Dollar Photo Club

Vaccine preventable diseases are all over social media and the news.  Measles, the Flu, whooping cough. And you can’t discuss these without polarizing the vaccination crowds.

Both sides.

For me, the discussion is never balanced with the facts.  Both sides rely more on emotions than facts when the answer usually lies somewhere in between.  But when it comes to whooping cough, I think the entire medical community is missing the story.  But, before we go into what the story really is, there are a few “housekeeping” things we need to get out of the way as it relates to Bordetella pertussis:

• Pertussis can be diagnosed by the presence of a cough (without any other known cause) of at least 2 weeks along with paroxysms of coughing, inspiratory “whoop,” posttussive vomiting, apnea (with or without cyanosis) in infants under one year of age, or a lab confirmation of Bordetella presence.
• While antibiotics are ALWAYS given, they actually don’t alter the course of the disease, but of course go a long way towards wiping out the microbiome.
• Beginning in 1991, the acellular version of the vaccine was used because the side effects of the prior vaccination were too great.  This vaccine, however, does not reduce the spread of the disease and may actually INCREASE the likelihood of spreading the disease.
• Whooping cough vaccine MASSIVELY increases the risk of pertussis being caused by a cousin in the same family, B. parapertussis.
• It has become increasingly clear that the vaccine, in general, pretty much sucks at preventing whooping cough.
• And, if it is effective, the protection is far, far shorter than we ever envisioned

All in all, the news is not exactly sparkling when it comes to the prevention of whooping cough through vaccination.  And, more importantly, these findings noted above are not any different today then they were when the acellular version was introduced 25 years ago.

This means that, for the entire 2 1/2 decades that this vaccination has been in use, society has not been nearly as protected as medicine thought it was.  And this means that whooping cough has been present among us for this entire time.  There is no reason to think that, all of a sudden, for no particular reason, the vaccination has lost efficacy in the past few years, leading to an epidemic of pertussis–this thought process just doesn’t make sense.

And yet we still consider identified groups of pertussis infections as “outbreaks.”  In a recent research study on the effectiveness of pertussis vaccination, researchers concluded that, since the vaccine performed so poorly, “…the data clearly indicates that the acellular vaccines (both DTaP and Tdap) are not working for as long as previously hoped, and that new vaccines may be necessary.”

Yes.  That’s going to be the answer.  More vaccinations to pile on top of the already-ineffective vaccine.  Someone’s going to make a LOT more money off of these findings.

Rather then throw more vaccinations at the problem, maybe we should spend more time on how to boost the immune system to combat whooping cough more effectively with things like vitamins D, C and A as well as locally grown honey in hot tea to help combat the cough (although, once it kicks off, not much is going to help control the cough, natural or otherwise).

After all, we’ve been fighting it off for 25 years without any help and doing pretty well-imagine how much better things could be with some nutritional support.

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