Posted onJanuary 22, 2024|Comments Off on COVID-19 Link Dump: New mRNA Omicron Booster is Dead; the Unnatural Origin of COVID-19; Dr Dalgleish Calls for mRNA Vax Ban; Wm Briggs Says Your Mask Doesn’t Work; Cochrane Library on Mask Effectiveness
Dr. Mandy Cohen, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, accidentally announced mRNA’s passing on Friday on X (aka Twitter). Wearing a blue dress and her trademark vapid smile, Dr. Cohen admitted barely 1 out of 50 Americans have received the new mRNA Omicron booster.
Hours later, Pfizer confirmed the death, saying it will write off nearly $1 billion in mRNA jab inventory because of weak demand. Pfizer expects the market for shots to be one-third smaller than it predicted just weeks ago – though its new estimate still appears too high.
I contacted a scientist who had been involved in the study of the original SARS for his evaluation and explanation of the Japanese scientists’ report. His explanation is below. It is challenging for non-professionals to follow, but less so than the Japanese study itself. As I understand the findings, it is the absence of synonymous mutations in the variants that reveal that Covid and its variants are lab creations.
I suspect that the Japanese study will be suppressed and that any American or Western scientist who took up this inquiry would find himself cut off from research funds and his career terminated.
Those of us who knew from the beginning that the sequence of SARS-CoV-2 contained inserts which could not have possibly occurred naturally, and were similar to ones that had already been published from the Wuhan laboratory, have had to endure unbelievable scorn, scientific ostracism and the ignominy of being ‘cancelled’ by the mainstream media as well as by professional colleagues for nearly three years now.
In the summer of 2020 a paper I co-authored, describing the findings of an Anglo-Norwegian team of scientists who had demonstrated unique ‘fingerprints’ of laboratory manipulation in the Covid virus, was suppressed in both the U.S. and U.K. This was at the time that the World Health Organisation, leading science journals and others were going to huge lengths to persuade us that Covid was a natural occurrence, and that we should spend a lot more money to fight any such future threats.
Dear reader, a full-on spacesuit equipped with oxygen tanks, or with filters down below the viron level, will protect you from inhaling a respiratory virus. As long as you have it on. And don’t have to change the filter.
And you don’t eat. Or drink. Or use the facilities.
So it can be said “masks work” in blocking the spread of bugs.
But the flimsy plastic cheesy gappy snot-filled breath-soaked “surgical masks” the panicked hand-wringing shaking fear-filled hersterics made it a crimenot to wear?
The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions. There were additional RCTs during the pandemic related to physical interventions but a relative paucity given the importance of the question of masking and its relative effectiveness and the concomitant measures of mask adherence which would be highly relevant to the measurement of effectiveness, especially in the elderly and in young children.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory‐confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under‐investigated.
Comments Off on COVID-19 Link Dump: New mRNA Omicron Booster is Dead; the Unnatural Origin of COVID-19; Dr Dalgleish Calls for mRNA Vax Ban; Wm Briggs Says Your Mask Doesn’t Work; Cochrane Library on Mask Effectiveness
Radical new information on osteoarthritis from Paul Ingraham:
One of the most deeply held beliefs in musculoskeletal medicine is that osteoarthritis is a “wear and tear” condition — that joints slowly crumble under the onslaught of gravity and use and abuse. This fundamentally mechanical view of arthritis directly suggests that the heavier we are, the more likely we are to have trouble in our load-bearing joints.
But that’s just not the case: osteoarthritis prevalence doubled in the 20th Century independent of age and weight (Wallace 2017).
So something else has to be going on. People got heavier on average, but not twice as heavy!
Or consider this: obese people get more osteoarthritis of the hand (Jiang 2016), but probably not because they are walking on their hands.
So … why?
This post weaves together the threads of several past posts about the biochemical foundations of seemingly “mechanical” problems, and you may recognize some pieces. But this is an all-new synthesis, anchored by some good science news you can use — practical and encouraging, which is a rare pleasure.
Posted onJanuary 12, 2024|Comments Off on Are You Doing the “Dry January” Thing? Don’t Give Up!
This YouTuber mentions a book by Allen Carr: “Quit Drinking Without Willpower.” Comedian Nikki Glaser elsewhere has lauded Carr’s “The Easy Way to Stop Drinking,” but I can’t find that at Amazon.com. I did see his “The Easy Way for Women to Stop Drinking,” “The Easy Way to Control Alcohol,” and “Stop Drinking Now.”
There’s a lot going on in this study. I didn’t understand some of the statistics. Click the link for full details. Here’s the abstract:
Background
Psychiatric disorders have been a challenge for public health and will bring economic problems to individuals and healthcare systems in the future. One of the important factors that could affect these disorders is diet.
Objective
In the current study with a cross-sectional design, we investigated the association of Paleolithic and Mediterranean diets with psychological disorders in a sample of adult women.
Methods
Participants were 435 adult women between 20 and 50 years old that refer to healthcare centers in the south of Tehran, Iran. The diet scores were created by the response to a valid and reliable semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), and the psychological profile was determined by response to the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). The multivariable-adjusted logistic regression was applied to compute the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results
After adjusted for potential confounders, it is evident that participants in the highest Paleolithic diet tertile had lower odds of depression (OR = 0.21; 95% CI: 0.12, 0.37: P < 0.001), anxiety (OR = 0.27; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.45: P < 0.001), and stress (OR = 0.19; 95% CI: 0.11, 0.32; P < 0.001) in comparison to the lowest tertile. Furthermore, those in the third tertile of the Mediterranean diet score were at lower risk of depression (OR = 0.20; 95% CI: 0.11, 0.36; P < 0.001), anxiety (OR = 0.22; 95% CI: 0.13, 0.38; P < 0.001), and stress (OR = 0.23; 95% CI: 0.13, 0.39; P < 0.001) compared with those in the first tertile.
Conclusion
The result of the current study suggests that greater adherence to Paleolithic and Mediterranean dietary patterns may be related with a decreased risk of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, and stress.
I stopped exercising 18-24 months ago, I’m not even sure why. Probably just got busy with work or life and got out of the habit. I turn 70 next year and know that I must exercise regularly to improve and maintain my vigor as aging progresses. I expect big changes, and not for the better, over the next decade. My father died at 83; my mother is still alive and fairly healthy at 92.
Here’s the program I started yesterday:
Push-ups.
Dumbell overhead presses, Arnold style.
One-arm bent-over rows with dumbell.
Single-leg Romanian dead lifts with dumbell.
Squats with dumbells.
Bench presses (alternating flat and inclined).
Walking the dogs for 2.5-4 miles, at least 2-3 times a week.
A recent visit with my brother-in-law Dale inspired me to start walking the famous “10,000 steps a day,” roughly five miles. That’s what he does. My dogs love it. I usually fail when I’m working a string of 12-hour shifts. If you’re an older woman, maybe 4,400 steps/day is enough for a longevity benefit. In other populations studied, 6,000 to 8,000 steps/day was optimal for the longevity benefit. I admitted a patient to the hospital a few days ago who told me her health insurer sends her a small check monthly if she meets their step goal. She’s saving them money via lower healthcare expenditures, and they’re sharing with her. I love it!
For exercises 1 through 5 above, I’ll do them for 90 seconds each, loading myself with enough weight to exhaust myself by the time I’m done. My cadence for them will be ~5 seconds each direction. E.g., for the bench press, 5 seconds slowly lifting the dumbells up, the 5 seconds slowly lowering them. Sort of like Chris Highcock’s Hillfit program.
Before you start a new fitness program, I suggest you take some baseline measurements.
As in May, 2012, I still weigh 168 lb (76.4 kg). But this required loss of 12 lb (5.5 kg) over the last year. Compared to 2012, however, I’m sure I’ve lost strength and muscle mass and gained girth. At the level of the umbilicus, my abdominal circumference while standing upright is 38.5 inches (98 cm). That number in May, 2012, was 36.5 inches (92.5 cm). If I measure my girth while supine, the number is three inches less. Assuming I’ve lost an inch of height over the last 15 years, my BMI is 23.4. Calculate your BMI here.
Posted onDecember 28, 2023|Comments Off on 19 Free Expert Weight-Loss Tips
1. Record-keeping is often the key to success.
2. Accountability is another key to success. Consider documenting your program and progress on a free website such as FitDay, SparkPeople, 3FatChicks, or others. Consider blogging about your adventure on a free platform such as WordPress or Blogger, or try the newer social media sites. Such a public commitment may be just what you need to keep you motivated.
3. Do you have a friend or spouse who wants to lose weight? Start the same program at the same time and support each other. That’s built-in accountability.
4. If you tend to over-eat, floss and brush your teeth after you’re full. You’ll be less likely to go back for more anytime soon.
5. Eat at least two or three meals daily. Skipping meals may lead to uncontrollable overeating later on. On the other hand, ignore the diet gurus who say you must eat every two or three hours. That’s codswallop.
6. Eat meals at a leisurely pace, chewing and enjoying each bite thoroughly before swallowing.
7. Plan to give yourself a specific reward for every 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of weight lost. You know what you like. Consider a weekend get-away, a trip to the beauty salon, jewelry, an evening at the theater, a professional massage, home entertainment equipment, new clothes, etc.
8. Carefully consider when would be a good time to start your new lifestyle. It should be a period of low or usual stress. Bad times would be Thanksgiving day, Christmas/New Years’ holiday, the first day of a Caribbean cruise, and during a divorce.
9. If you know you’ve eaten enough at a meal to satisfy your nutritional requirements yet you still feel hungry, drink a large glass of water and wait a while.
10 Limit television to a maximum of a few hours a day.
11. Maintain a consistent eating pattern throughout the week and year.
12. Eat breakfast routinely.
13. Control emotional eating.
14. Weigh frequently: daily during active weight-loss efforts and during the first two months of your maintenance-of-weight-loss phase. After that, cut back to weekly weights if you want. Daily weights will remind you how hard you worked to achieve your goal.
15. Be aware that you might regain five or 10 pounds (2-4 kg) of fat now and then. You probably will. Don’t freak out. It’s human nature. You’re not a failure; you’re human. But draw the line and get back on the old weight-loss program for one or two months. Analyze and learn from the episode. Why did it happen? Slipping back into your old ways? Slacking off on exercise? Too many special occasion feasts or cheat days? Allowing junk food or non-essential carbs back into the house?
16. Learn which food item is your nemesis—the food that consistently torpedoes your resolve to eat right. For example, mine is anything sweet. Remember an old ad campaign for a potato chip: “Betcha can’t eat just one!”? Well, I can’t eat just one cookie. So I don’t get started. I might eat one if it’s the last one available. Or I satisfy my sweet craving with a diet soda, small piece of dark chocolate, or sugar-free gelatin. Just as a recovering alcoholic can’t drink any alcohol, perhaps you should totally abstain from…? You know your own personal gastronomic Achilles heel. Or heels. Experiment with various strategies for vanquishing your nemesis.
17. If you’re not losing excess weight as expected (about a pound or half a kilogram per week), you may benefit from eating just two meals a day. This will often turn on your cellular weight-loss machinery even when total calorie consumption doesn’t seem much less than usual. The two meals to eat would be breakfast and a mid-afternoon meal (call it what you wish). The key is to not eat within six hours of bedtime. Of course, this trick could cause dangerous hypoglycemia if you’re taking drugs with potential to cause low blood sugars, like insulin and sulfonylureas. If you take drugs for diabetes, talk to your dietitian or physician before instituting a semi-radical diet change like this.
18. One of the fitness bloggers I used to follow was James Fell. He said, “If you want to lose weight you need to cook. Period.”
19. Regular exercise is much more important for prevention of weight regain rather than for actually losing weight.
Posted onDecember 9, 2023|Comments Off on It’s Almost Time for Dry January
See you in February. Or not.
I’ve run across a number of people who slowly increased their alcohol consumption over months or years, not realizing it was causing or would cause problems for them. Alcohol is dangerous, lethal at times.
From a health standpoint, the generally accepted safe levels of consumption are:
no more than one standard drink per day for women
no more than two standard drinks per day for men
One drink is 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or 1.5 ounces of 80 proof distilled spirits (e.g., vodka, whiskey, rum, gin).
Dry January was conceived in the UK in 2012 or 2014. (A related concept is Sober October.) The idea is simply to abstain from all alcohol for the month of January. The Alcohol Change UK website can help you git ‘er done. Many folks notice that they sleep better, have more energy, lose weight, and save money. There are other potential benefits.
If you think you may have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, check your CAGE score. It’s quick and easy.
Alternatively, if you make a commitment to a Dry January but can’t do it, you may well have a problem.
Advanced Mediterranean Diet 