Green Tea Reduces Total and LDL Cholesterol Levels

Posted on June 8, 2020 | 1 comment

Most to the green teas I’ve purchased are brown

Green tea consumption  is linked to reduce incidence of cardiovascular disease. The meta-analysis at hand suggests that the benefits are related to reduced total and LDL cholesterol. I suspect it’s more complicated than that.

Collectively, consumption of green tea lowers LDL cholesterol and TC, but not HDL cholesterol or triglycerides in both normal weight subjects and those who were overweight/obese; however, additional well-designed studies that include more diverse populations and longer duration are warranted.

Source: Effect of green tea consumption on blood lipids: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials | Nutrition Journal | Full Text

Steve Parker, M.D.

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Click the pic to purchase at Amazon.com. E-book versions also available at Smashwords. com.

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QOTD: Schlichter on #Coronavirus, Police Lawlessness, Rioting, and Self-Defense

Posted on June 2, 2020 | 1 comment

No rule of law here. It’s the law of the jungle.

The Chinese coronavirus fiasco, the shocking killing of George Floyd, and the riots resulting from Democrat failure have taught the American people several things. One is that a surprising and sad number of law enforcement officers are willing to follow cheesy, stupid, and unconstitutional orders. A quick tour of social media will horrify you with the damage done to that support by video of stupid cops hassling civilians for going outside or trying to attend church. The people who long backed the blue feel stabbed in the back, and LEOs are going to have to work to earn back the support they lost because a lot of their comrades sided with Democrat bullies against the people.

Similarly, we have learned that the police are not necessarily going to be there for us. From that gooey tub of cowardice in Florida who let kids be murdered while he stood with a weapon outside the school – I can’t even type those words without sputtering in rage – to the MPD [Minneapolis Police Department] running away and letting criminals burn their building, do you feel comfortable putting your lives in the hands of such government employees? The one inspirational sight during the riots was a bunch of black Americans with modern rifles defending their businesses.

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Four in Ten of All U.S. #COVID19 Deaths Were in Elder Care Facilities #Coronavirus

Posted on May 30, 2020 | 1 comment

Are you tired of this pic yet?

I’ve reported here before that shockingly high rates of COVID-19 deaths in elder care facilities in a few individual states. Avik Roy looked at data from multiple states:

Roy writes in Forbes:

According to an analysis that Gregg Girvan and I conducted for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, as of May 22, in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

*  *  *

And 42% could be an undercount. States like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a hospital, even if they were originally infected in a long-term care facility. Outside of New York, more than half of all deaths from COVID-19 are of residents in long-term care facilities.

 *  *  *

Nearly one-tenth of all New Jersey long-term care residents have died from COVID-19

As I recall, the first COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. was in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.

Do you ever wonder how this pandemic could have been less severe if our rulers had concentrated their public health efforts on elder care facilities and older vulnerable adults? I do.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

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Handy Chart of When States Went Into Panic Mode #COVID19 #Coronavirus

Posted on May 29, 2020 | 1 comment

I’ve been an advocate of opening up the economy since April 2, 2020. So if millions more in the U.S. die from COVID-19 you’ll know who to blame, partially. Of course, if my recommendations are followed, few will perish.

Despite my following the pandemic fairly closely, I couldn’t remember exactly when the Arizona economy was strangled. The handy chart below indicates March 31, 2020. For you states that don’t return to relative freedom and  capitalism, don’t ask the rest of us for a bailout. You made your bed, now lie in it.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Is There a Role For Zinc in Treatment or Prevention of #COVID19? #Coronavirus

Posted on May 28, 2020 | 2 comments

Artist’s rendition of Coronavirus

Read the article in Advances in Nutrition and then let me know in the comment section:

ABSTRACT

Zinc is an essential trace element that is crucial for growth, development, and the maintenance of immune function. Its influence reaches all organs and cell types, representing an integral component of approximately 10% of the human proteome, and encompassing hundreds of key enzymes and transcription factors. Zinc deficiency is strikingly common, affecting up to a quarter of the population in developing countries, but also affecting distinct populations in the developed world as a result of lifestyle, age, and disease-mediated factors. Consequently, zinc status is a critical factor that can influence antiviral immunity, particularly as zinc-deficient populations are often most at risk of acquiring viral infections such as HIV or hepatitis C virus. This review summarizes current basic science and clinical evidence examining zinc as a direct antiviral, as well as a stimulant of antiviral immunity. An abundance of evidence has accumulated over the past 50 y to demonstrate the antiviral activity of zinc against a variety of viruses, and via numerous mechanisms. The therapeutic use of zinc for viral infections such as herpes simplex virus and the common cold has stemmed from these findings; however, there remains much to be learned regarding the antiviral mechanisms and clinical benefit of zinc supplementation as a preventative and therapeutic treatment for viral infections.

Source: Role of Zinc in Antiviral Immunity | Advances in Nutrition | Oxford Academic

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#COVID19 Fallout: U.S. Unemployment Rate Up to Almost 15%

Posted on May 26, 2020 | 1 comment

The U.S. economy

As expected, everyone ignored my April 2 advice to open up the economy and let healthy, relatively young people go back to work. Read on, and weep.

Unemployment rates were higher in April in all 50 states and the District ofColumbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Similarly, all 50 states and the District had jobless rate increases from a year earlier.

The national unemployment rate rose by 10.3 percentage points over the month to 14.7 percent and was 11.1 points higher than in April 2019.

*  *  *

Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in April, 28.2 percent, followed by Michigan, 22.7 percent, and Hawaii, 22.3 percent. The rates in 43 states set new series highs. (All state series begin in 1976.)

I can understand the devastating unemployment numbers for Nevada and Hawaii; they’re heavy into travel and tourism. Michigan? I don’t know.

Source: State Employment and Unemployment Summary

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: I live in Arizona. Our unemployment rate is 12.6%.

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Click the pic to purchase at Amazon.com. E-book versions also available at Smashwords. com.

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From Ivor Goodbody: Major Risk Factors for Death From #COVID19 #Coronavirus

Posted on May 26, 2020 | 1 comment

Probably at little risk of serious illness if she’s generally healthy

Note that a prior diagnosis of hypertension (high blood pressure) was NOT a risk factor for death from COVID-19. Most other coronavirus articles list hypertension as a risk factor for serious illness, if not death, from COVID-19. Admittedly, “serious illness” is not the same as death. I’ve never understood how chronically controlled hypertension could increase risk of serious illness or death.

I recently read someone calling coronavirus, instead, controlavirus. Referring to governments controlling our businesses, personal movements, shopping practices, access to “non-essential” services, and violating our constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and worship as we choose. Not as our rulers choose.

“Return to your home and hide under your bed!”

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Should Andrew Cuomo Be Charged With Manslaughter?

Posted on May 26, 2020 | 1 comment

It’s looking like, nationally, 30-40% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are of nursing home residents, whether they perished at the nursing home or contracted the disease there and died in the hospital. The percentage varies from state to state.

From Daily Caller:

New York nursing homes were forced to accept more than 4,500 coronavirus patients from hospitals thanks to an order from Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a tally by The Associated Press found.

Cuomo has come under heated criticism for his March 25 order forcing recovering COVID-19 patients into New York nursing homes — a decision blamed for the state’s high body count among the elderly. The governor waited roughly six weeks before reversing the order on May 10.

The New York State Department of Health refused to release the results of an internal survey on how many coronavirus patients were placed in nursing homes across the state, the AP reported.

The health department is knowingly under-counting the number of nursing home deaths as a result of a quiet rule change made in late April, a department spokesman previously acknowledged following a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Radical Idea: Judge Jame Blacklock Says Both State and Federal Constitutions Should Be Honored Even in a Pandemic #COVID19

Posted on May 19, 2020 | 1 comment

No rule of law here. It’s the law of the jungle.

This a May 5, 2020, legal opinion of Texas Supreme Court Justice James D. Blacklock Justice:

“The Constitution is not suspended when the government declares a state of disaster.” In re Abbott, No. 20-0291, 2020 WL 1943226, at *1 (Tex. Apr. 23, 2020). All government power in this country, no matter how well-intentioned, derives only from the state and federal constitutions. Government power cannot be exercised in conflict with these constitutions, even in a pandemic

In the weeks since American governments began taking emergency measures in response to the coronavirus, the sovereign people of this country have graciously and peacefully endured a suspension of their civil liberties without precedent in our nation’s history. In some parts of the country, churches have been closed by government decree, although Texas is a welcome exception. Nearly everywhere, the First Amendment “right of the people to peaceably assemble” has been suspended altogether. U.S. Const. amend. I. In many places, people are forbidden to leave their homes without a government-approved reason. Tens of millions can no longer earn a living because the government has declared their employers or their businesses “ ‘non-essential.’ ”

Those who object to these restrictions should remember they were imposed by duly elected officials, vested by statute with broad emergency powers, who must make difficult decisions under difficult circumstances. At the same time, all of us—the judiciary, the other branches of government, and our fellow citizens—must insist that every action our governments take complies with the Constitution, especially now. If we tolerate unconstitutional government orders during an emergency, whether out of expediency or fear, we abandon the Constitution at the moment we need it most.

Any government that has made the grave decision to suspend the liberties of a free people during a health emergency should welcome the opportunity to demonstrate—both to its citizens and to the courts—that its chosen measures are absolutely necessary to combat a threat of overwhelming severity. The government should also be expected to demonstrate that less restrictive measures cannot adequately address the threat. Whether it is strict scrutiny or some other rigorous form of review, courts must identify and apply a legal standard by which to judge the constitutional validity of the government’s anti-virus actions. When the present crisis began, perhaps not enough was known about the virus to second-guess the worst-case projections motivating the lockdowns. As more becomes known about the threat and about the less restrictive, more targeted ways to respond to it, continued burdens on constitutional liberties may not survive judicial scrutiny.

Ideally, these debates would play out in the public square, not in courtrooms. No court should relish being asked to question the judgment of government officials who were elected to make difficult decisions in times such as these. However, when constitutional rights are at stake, courts cannot automatically defer to the judgments of other branches of government. When properly called upon, the judicial branch must not shrink from its duty to require the government’s anti- virus orders to comply with the Constitution and the law, no matter the circumstances.

 

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NYT: Lockdowns Are Not at All New #COVID19 #Coronavirus

Posted on May 19, 2020 | 1 comment

I’ve slipped into the questionable habit of using “social distancing” and “lockdown” interchangeably. The latter is more politically charged and is perhaps best used to describe the more draconian forms of social distancing.

The April 22, 2020, article is by Eric Lipton and Jennifer Steinhauer:

Dr. Markel had published a book, “When Germs Travel,” in 2004 that examined six major epidemics since 1900 and how they had traveled across the United States. He decided to work with Dr. Martin S. Cetron, the director of the C.D.C.’s quarantine division, to look more closely at the lessons of the Spanish flu of 1918.

The research started with St. Louis, which had moved relatively quickly to head off the spread of the flu, and Philadelphia, which waited much longer and suffered far more.

Officials in Philadelphia did not want to let the flu disrupt daily life, so they went ahead in September 1918 with a long planned paradethat drew hundreds of thousands of spectators to promote war bonds.

In St. Louis, by contrast, the city health commissioner quickly moved to close schools, churches, theaters, saloons, sporting events and other public gathering spots.

Dr. Markel and his team set out to confirm just how important a role timing had played in reducing deaths. They gathered census records and thousands of other documents detailing the date of the first infection, the first death, the first social distancing policies and how long they were left in place in 43 American cities.

Separately, Dr. Mecher and his team looked at the experience of 17 cities, using newspaper clips and other sources.

Both teams came to the same conclusion and published papers on their findings within months of each other in 2007. Early, aggressive action to limit social interaction using multiple measures like closing schools or shutting down public gatherings was vital to limiting the death toll, they found.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Click the pic to purchase at Amazon.com. E-book versions also available at Smashwords. com.

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