Health Topics

By popular demand, I am posting items that target new directions in medicine. By taking charge of your own medical program and combining it with proper nutrition, exercise, and alternative medical treatment, you can easily eliminate more than 50% of your visits to the doctor and hospital, extend your life by 10-20 years, and be significantly more creative, productive, and smarter in your chosen field of endeavor. You can also (with a little work and a lot of interviewing) find a physician who will work with you as a trainer in the sport of maximizing health and longevity.

If you value your life, or maybe if you just work in healthcare, the first two books are absolutely required reading.

Millenson, Michael L. Demanding Medical Excellence : Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age. Univ of Chicago Press, 1997.

Herzlinger, Regina. Market Driven Health Care: Who Wins Who Loses in the Transformation of America's Largest Service Industry. Addison-Wesley, 1997.

• I won't dwell on the huge problems that exist in the healthcare industry. You can read this Harvard Business School professor's analysis for yourself.

Gittleman, Ann Louise. Super Nutrition for Men : And the Women Who Love Them. M Evans & Co, 1997.

Khalsa, Dharma Singh and Cameron Stauth. Brain Longevity : The Breakthrough Medical Program That Improves Your Mind and Memory. Warner Books, 1997.

• If you do not take aggressive action, you will get dumber as you age. If you do take action, you can actually improve your mental capabilities. Take responsibility for yourself!

• Key points
• Homocysteine levels may be more important than cholesterol levels for risk of heart disease. And they are more easily controllable.
  • Alfthan, Georg; Aro, Antti; Gey, K Fred. Plasma homocysteine and cardiovascular disease mortality. Lancet 349:9049:397, 8 Feb 1997.
• The majority of carpel tunnel surgery is not necessary. Vitamin B6 and cofactors can often eliminate the problem.
• Some of the same nutritional deficiencies that cause heart disease also decrease brain function.
• Your doctor (with few exceptions) will not tell you about this. If you want to save your body, you'd better take personal responsibility for it!
• "The origin of arteriosclerosis is now understood to be a toxic effect of a by-product of protein breakdown, the amino acid homosysteine. The importance of fats and sugars in the genesis of the disease is now understood to be related to the loss of the vitamins B6 and folic acid through processing, refining and preservation of foods, creating an imbalance between the abundant methionine of foods of animal origin and the amount of these essential vitamins necessary to prevent a buildup of homocysteine in the body." (p. 96)
• "In 1962 Dr. John Ellis of Texas discovered that many victims of carpel tunnel syndrome, a painful disorder of the wrist and hand, responded symptomatically to moderately large doses of vitamin B6 (100-200 mg per day) after two to three months. Many patients with carpel tunnel syndrome, particularly if it involves both hands, have deficient blood levels of vitamin B6 and they respond favorably to vitamin B6 therapy. Dr. Ellis observed that few of his patients receiving vitamin B6 developed angina or heart attack. In a retrospective study of his patients over a five-year period, the risk of chest pain or heart attack was found to have decreased by 75 percent, compared  with patients of other physicians in the country who received no vitamin B6. Furthermore, there was an apparent increase in longevity of 7-17 years in patients who had taken  vitamin B6, compared with patients who had not taken the vitamin." (p. 95)
• "In a study of men with elevated cholesterol levels, the administration of vitamin B6, B12, folic acid, riboflavin, choline, and troxerrutin, an antioxidant of plant origin, decreased both homocysteine levels and LDL levels." (p.96)
• This is a good example of how vitamin deficiency can cause multiple problems. Some of the substances that lower homocysteine levels also affect brain function (choline and TMG, a sugar beet derivative).

New England Journal of Medicine, 11 June 1997

• An increased plasma total homocysteine level conferes an independent risk of vascular disease similar to that of smoking or hyperlipidemia... intake of folate and vitamin B6 above the current RDA may be important in the primary prevention of CHD (coronary heart disease) among women.
• "I'm surprised they noticed. In my opinion, except for folic acid, the RDAs are so ridiculously low that they are nothing more than a reeking pile of political nonsense that keeps people sick and kills many." Julian Whitaker, M.D. Editor, Health and Healing, May 1998.
• Godfrey P. Oakley, Jr., M.D., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eat Right and Take a Multivitamin. NE Journal of Medicine, April 9, 1998 -- Volume 338, Number 15.