New Obesity Injections: Age of Reckless Innovation

Covid-19 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) with an alliance between Pharma-Investors-BigBiz-Government-Media has opened the floodgates to entering what I call: The Age of Reckless Innovation in Medicine.

Once again, no long-term studies, yet it’s promoted.

One known potential side effect of this obesity injection is THYROID CANCER. That’s mentioned as if it’s no biggie.

It omits that THYROID CANCER has a 5-year survival rate. Yet, this weekly jab for life is called “exciting” twice in this article.

The repurposed Diabetes drugs, Wegovy or Ozempic have the following potential long-term side effects:

  1. Risk of thyroid cancer with 5-year mortality rate
  2. Pancreatitis
  3. Renal failure
  4. Kidney problems
  5. Diabetic retinopathy
  6. Gallstones

    Yet, investors will salivate due to the increased number of obese, especially after lockdowns, when they closed gyms and considered fast food as “essential.”

    Remember, increased numbers in data translate to being able to get more funding for a problem.

    For decades, government health agencies have been calling obesity an “Epidemic” yet Body Positivity has been promoted on the cover of all magazines.

    That’s what you get when Media, Health agencies and For-Profit businesses such as Pharma work together to profit for said epidemics.

    When they stand to profit from a treatment already in the pipeline with dangerous known side effects ignored, it is Medical Tyranny, causing harm or worse, death.

    In 2017, Life Expectancy in the United States was 81.2 years.

    In 2020, it was 77.2 years. A drop in 4 years. What’s causing people to die 4 years earlier?

    In 2023, it is 73.2 years. A drop in 8 years.

    That’s an alarming drop, without anyone questioning the cause of it just 5 years.

    We are 4 years out since the start of the pandemic, and 3 years post vaccination. That should raise a major red flag.

    Many of the side-effects from the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine also have a 5-year survival rate.

    This is where the why are they pushing it on everyone question intensifies.

    Watch for them to push the Obesity drug too without mention of the above severe risks.

    Investors rely on you not being aware of them, as they did with the mRNA vaccine. The intense safe and effective push ignored how the risks far outweighed the benefits, and it did not allow for informed consent, which is vital to any treatment in Health.

    You have to be living under a rock to not notice the younger ages and increased numbers of deaths from unknown causes or from cancers in remission suddenly accelerated to Stage 4 post-vaccination.

Notice the article mentions the Government may cover the obesity vaccine for the masses they say and pay for it. That once again means the Government ordering and paying for it with tax payer dollars and giving billions of dollars in advance to pharmaceutical companies and then pushing it on everyone under the sun.

Remember if a few potential side-effects are made public, we now know they may willfully be withholding a lot more.

THYROID CANCER Symptoms:

  • A lump (nodule) that can be felt through the skin on your neck.
  • A feeling that close-fitting shirt collars are becoming too tight.
  • Changes to your voice, including hoarseness.
  • Difficulty swallowing.
  • Swollen lymph nodes in neck.
  • Pain in your neck and throat.
  • Sometimes no symptoms at all; you’ll just die from “unknown causes”

    Read article here:

New drugs could spell an end to the world’s obesity epidemic

The “excitement” at this time is NOT justified.

Pay attention to who covers Health now. In the beginning of the pandemic, it was disturbing to see Dr. Fauci interviewed by Yahoo Finance before experienced Health Journalists.

This article on Obesity is in The Economist.

It’s because it’s about Money, not Health or Medicine. Money for them, not you. This article is to cause HYPE for Investors and start to create demand from consumers.

Yes, consumers. And they want billions of you.

The entire Body Positivity movement was a set-up to normalize obesity in order to gain more customers, as they know you can be metabolically healthy now, but in 10 years you will be Diabetic.

They know full well it’s not Healthy, but the young are being exposed to obese images on the cover of health magazines. It’s conditioning to get you obese while young, so they can treat you later.

This Obesity injection doubles as a Diabetes injection, so it’s a way to set-up the young Body Positivity crowd as future customers.

That’s why Pharmaceutical companies are wringing their greedy hands at the thought of government mandating their products.

Remember, the government has never mandated exercise or healthy foods.

But you can bet pharmaceutical lobbyists may try to force anyone who is obese to take these vaccines.

Billions of dollars for them. You now know they don’t give a hoot if you drop dead.

Do you know who buys magazines or views these images at checkout counters? Teens.

The subliminal message is THIS is healthy.

It’s not about health. It’s about getting customers as young as possible. This new obesity injection is being recommended for 12-year-olds. Customers without anyone watching your back for safety, albeit short-term or worse, long-term and there’s no recourse if you suffer adverse events or die 5 years from your injection.

The lesson of the past three years is “Virginia, there is no safety net.”

Imagine a 12-year-old obese kid taking this, who ends up dead at age 19 from “unknown causes” and media ignoring it.

The same Playbook will be at play of not disclosing the real cause.

When they say “New Drug Could Spell An End To The World’s Obesity Epidemic” remember “New Drug Could Spell An End To You.”

Welcome To The Age of Reckless Innovation, the new normal from the NLM Group.

No Lives Matter.


We all knew there was some corruption in every industry, but the past three years revealed how it spread like weeds to most everyone we trusted to tell us the truth or appropriately ask the right questions.

NEVER AGAIN.

Further, people’s level of happiness doesn’t change after 75K a year. So you sold your soul for something that won’t even bring you one extra iota of happiness.

If you sold out as a healthcare provider, physician, scientist, health expert, journalist, anchor, reporter, fact-checker or other spreader of lies, you’re no longer fooling anyone.
No one trusts your face anymore.

Congratulations.

The real Leaders, Experts and Winners are serving and protecting themselves, their friends, their families and their communities from lies or lies of omission that may harm or kill them prematurely.

There is NEVER a good reason to not inform the public of the good, bad and ugly.

Some people may decide they are still willing to take the risks, but that is their right and their decision, AFTER BEING FULLY INFORMED.

IT’S WHEN THEY ARE NOT INFORMED THAT SOMEONE IS GUILTY OF MISREPRESENTATION.

FALSE MARKETING.

FAILURE TO INFORM.

WILLFUL MISCONDUCT.

Oh, you may also want to look up studies injecting sugar directly into the cells of mice. They learned it causes them to become obese.

How would they have injected it directly into humans?

Annual flu shots? I’ve never had one. Not obese. We really do not know what is being injected into babies, children and adults, especially the vulnerable.

We can no longer trust what they tell us.

Ask if Government-BigBiz-Pharma-Media ever provided ANY incentive for you to exercise daily?

Free gym membership?
Free healthy meal delivery?
Free vitamins?
Free Spa days?
Free mani/pedi/hair salon?
Free Vacation?
Free Education?
$500. Gift Certificate for Amazon?

NO!

DURING A SO-CALLED PANDEMIC the incentive was:

Free donuts everyone!!!

It’s sickening to recall how fear was willfully used for the misconduct.

Bottom line:

They DON’T WANT YOU HEALTHY.

They DON’T WANT YOU THIN.


THEY WANT YOU SICK OR DEAD.

The for-profit Pharmaceutical companies have existed for a long time, but we had safeguards in place. People we entrusted to look out for our safety.

In the past three years, all those safeguards have been removed. Government Public Health Agencies, Health Journalists, Physicians, Academia sold out. Even the fact-checkers are fake.

When we think back to old commercials with Physicians smoking cigarettes, we realize the brainwashing isn’t new.

Media gets paid to promote it. You buy it, think it’s good, and unwittingly get addicted to it. Government calls it an new epidemic and gets funding to treat your new addiction, and then taxes it.

Academia gets paid to research it. Pharmaceuticals get paid to develop a treatment. Physicians get kickbacks to prescribe it.

It’s a vicious cycle, which profits them, while leaving you sick or dead.

It all has nothing to do with health or ending any epidemic they created.

The good news is there are people in each industry who haven’t sold out.

They entered their professions for the right reasons, and stand their ground. These are the ones you can trust.


In Other “Health” News Today, March 3, 2023:

20,000 people may have been exposed to Measles at a Kentucky religious event.

Measles was first reported in 1765 with 6K people dying from it. The vaccine doesn’t prevent it. You can still get it, but they say it will be “milder.”

7-11 days post-vaccination some kids get Measles.

They also may get encephalitis, meningitis, pneumonia, chronic arthritis or diabetes.

The creation and licensure of the Measles vaccine was in 1963.

Measles was declared ELIMINATED in the year 2000.

So, why is it presenting itself in the year 2023?

Is it another case that is due to the unvaccinated or is it due to the fact that vaccines don’t prevent it and the risks outweigh the benefits?

Below are a few side effects of the Measles vaccine, which Pharma shows to Professionals (Physicians):

SIDE EFFECTS

The following adverse reactions are listed in decreasing order of severity, without regard to causality, within each body system category and have been reported during clinical trials, with use of the marketed vaccine, or with use of monovalent or bivalent vaccine containing measles, mumps, or rubella:

Body As A Whole

Panniculitis; atypical measles; fever; syncope; headache; dizziness; malaise; irritability.

Cardiovascular System

Vasculitis.

Digestive System

Pancreatitis; diarrhea; vomiting; parotitis; nausea.

Endocrine System

Diabetes mellitus.

Hemic And Lymphatic System

Thrombocytopenia (see WARNINGSThrombocytopenia); purpura; regional lymphadenopathy; leukocytosis.

Immune System

Anaphylaxis and anaphylactoid reactions have been reported as well as related phenomena such as angioneurotic edema (including peripheral or facial edema) and bronchial spasm in individuals with or without an allergic history.

Musculoskeletal System

Arthritis; arthralgia; myalgia.

Arthralgia and/or arthritis (usually transient and rarely chronic), and polyneuritis are features of infection with wild-type rubella and vary in frequency and severity with age and sex, being greatest in adult females and least in prepubertal children. This type of involvement as well as myalgia and paresthesia, have also been reported following administration of MERUVAX II.

Chronic arthritis has been associated with wild-type rubella infection and has been related to persistent virus and/or viral antigen isolated from body tissues. Only rarely have vaccine recipients developed chronic joint symptoms.

Following vaccination in children, reactions in joints are uncommon and generally of brief duration. In women, incidence rates for arthritis and arthralgia are generally higher than those seen in children (children: 0-3%; women: 12-26%),{17,56,57} and the reactions tend to be more marked and of longer duration. Symptoms may persist for a matter of months or on rare occasions for years. In adolescent girls, the reactions appear to be intermediate in incidence between those seen in children and in adult women. Even in women older than 35 years, these reactions are generally well tolerated and rarely interfere with normal activities.

Nervous System

Encephalitis; encephalopathy; measles inclusion body encephalitis (MIBE) (see CONTRAINDICATIONS); subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE); Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS); acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM); transverse myelitis; febrie convulsions; afebrile convulsions or seizures; ataxia; polyneuritis; polyneuropathy; ocular palsies; paresthesia.

Encephalitis and encephalopathy have been reported approximately once for every 3 million doses of M-M-R II or measles-, mumps-, and rubella-containing vaccine administered since licensure of these vaccines.

The risk of serious neurological disorders following live measles virus vaccine administration remains less than the risk of encephalitis and encephalopathy following infection with wild-type measles (1 per 1000 reported cases).{58,59}

In severely immunocompromised individuals who have been inadvertently vaccinated with measlescontaining vaccine; measles inclusion body encephalitis, pneumonitis, and fatal outcome as a direct consequence of disseminated measles vaccine virus infection have been reported (see CONTRAINDICATIONS). In this population, disseminated mumps and rubella vaccine virus infection have also been reported.

There have been reports of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) in children who did not have a history of infection with wild-type measles but did receive measles vaccine. Some of these cases may have resulted from unrecognized measles in the first year of life or possibly from the measles vaccination. Based on estimated nationwide measles vaccine distribution, the association of SSPE cases to measles vaccination is about one case per million vaccine doses distributed. This is far less than the association with infection with wild-type measles, 6-22 cases of SSPE per million cases of measles. The results of a retrospective case-controlled study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that the overall effect of measles vaccine has been to protect against SSPE by preventing measles with its inherent higher risk of SSPE.{60}

Cases of aseptic meningitis have been reported to VAERS following measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination. Although a causal relationship between the Urabe strain of mumps vaccine and aseptic meningitis has been shown, there is no evidence to link Jeryl Lynn™ mumps vaccine to aseptic meningitis.

Respiratory System

Pneumonia; pneumonitis (see CONTRAINDICATIONS); sore throat; cough; rhinitis.

Skin

Stevens-Johnson syndrome; erythema multiforme; urticaria; rash; measles-like rash; pruritis.

Local reactions including burning/stinging at injection site; wheal and flare; redness (erythema); swelling; induration; tenderness; vesiculation at injection site; Henoch-Schónlein purpura; acute hemorrhagic edema of infancy.

Special Senses – Ear

Nerve deafness; otitis media.

Special Senses – Eye

Retinitis; optic neuritis; papillitis; retrobulbar neuritis; conjunctivitis.

Urogenital System

Epididymitis; orchitis.

Other

Death from various, and in some cases unknown, causes has been reported rarely following vaccination with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines; however, a causal relationship has not been established in healthy individuals (see CONTRAINDICATIONS). No deaths or permanent sequelae were reported in a published post-marketing surveillance study in Finland involving 1.5 million children and adults who were vaccinated with M-M-R II during 1982 to 1993.{61}

Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, health-care providers and manufacturers are required to record and report certain suspected adverse events occurring within specific time periods after vaccination. However, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has established a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) which will accept all reports of suspected events.{49} A VAERS report form as well as information regarding reporting requirements can be obtained by calling VAERS 1-800-822-7967.

Read the entire FDA prescribing information for M-M-R II (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Virus Vaccine Live)

Do Pediatricians Read the above list to parents before administrating it or are they simply told about the milder side effects such as swelling at the site of injection? Again, there is NEVER a good reason to not inform patients or consumers about ALL the risks associated with a particular treatment.

Without that, it’s Medical Tyranny, which places Profit before People. Every single life matters.

Every person has a right to bodily autonomy and the right to know short-term and long-term side effects. Calling it “rare” is not a reason to omit it, because they may just be the rare person it harms.

By now, it’s clear many of the side effects are most certainly not rare. Not only that, but a tremendous amount of effort is going into to distracting you from that or manipulating you into believing it’s being caused by something else.

Nice try.

The public has a right to know in order to make an informed decision. Without that, they’ve been hoodwinked, fooled, manipulated and lied to.

For a company like Phizer with a history of bad marketing practices to ask a federal judge to withhold side effects until the year 2076 should raise a Red Flag to everyone about 1) them knowing and 2) their intent.

How many people were injected before Judicial Watch had to sue to get these side effects released?

How many were not permitted to give Informed Consent? How many were continually told it was “safe and effective?”

How many were financially incentivized to state that while injecting people when the risks for them far outweighed the benefits?

Public Health can not and should not move forward until those questions are answered and all those responsible are held accountable for the Medical Tyranny that has taken place the past three years.

I’ve had this blog for twelve years to extend upon the blips of health information or lack thereof you get on the TV and this is the first time in history I feel the need to create a shiny new category.

I’ve had categories such as health, fitness, mental health –never covered vaccines.

The new category would be BULLS*T

I attend private Catholic schools, so will call the category HEALTH HYPE so I don’t have to wash my mouth out with soap. Creating new category now.

One second…

Done. I’ve placed this obesity injection in that new category.

As always, feel free to comment below or email: maria.dorfner@yahoo.com

Stay healthy.

New 30-Min. Tech for Weight Loss

PREMCHATTOOMD

There is now a non-surgical alternative to gastric bypass.

obesity2

It’s for people with a BMI of at least 30-40 who despite changing habits can’t lose weight.

obesity1

It’s called ORBERA and it involves inflatable balloons that help you shed 20 to 80 pounds.

OBESITY3
ORBERA balloon is inserted down throat and into stomach using an endoscope in less than 30 min.

OBESITY 3

The balloons are then filled with saline, filling up space in the stomach.

OBESITY3

OBESITY6

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the dual balloon technology and NYC Gastroenterologist Dr. Prem Chattoo of Hudson River Gastroenterology is one of the first doctors to offer the procedure.  His office is located in lower Manhattan.

PREMCHATTOOMD

“It’s not a long term solution like bariatric surgery. The procedure is used for a quick, six-month weight loss to get rid of 10 percent of your body weight. After six months, the balloon is removed and you should see a pretty noticeable weight loss,” Dr. Chattoo says.

 

WALK2

The end result is weight loss and reduced hunger.

After the procedure, ORBERA has a 12-month diet and exercise program to follow.

The biggest benefits about ORBERA, according to Dr. Chattoo, are that no abdominal surgery is needed and that the procedure is completed in the same day.

OBESITY9.jpg

The procedure is recommended to those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30-40 or those who have other risk factors for heart disease such as diabetes or high blood pressure. A BMI or 30 or higher is defined as obese. More than a third of U.S. adults fit that range.

The procedure costs 6-8K and is not covered by insurance.

One procedure will be donated for free to one person in need who meets requirements. Contact: maria.dorfner@yahoo.com   Write:  Orbera in Subject, include your contact information.

Additional Images for Media:  https://apolloendo.box.com/s/t7ukrrujfjk4mrgjwo5l5w5obd3djmbt

For more information contact Dr. Prem Chattoo at http://www.hudsonrivergi.com

For more information about the Orbera procedure visit: http://www.orbera.com

Stay healthy!
MD

####

 

WALK1

“Always remember the benefits of daily exercise for your mind, body and spirit. If you hate or dread exercise start with walking. Break it up into 15 minutes at a time until you reach 30 minutes. Then, increase it to 45 or 60 minutes. You don’t even need a gym to do that.

Remove  all junk food from your home. Load up on healthy snacks. Remove all processed foods and soda. Drink lots of water. You’ll begin to notice a difference in 6 months. In one year, it will all be a habit.

No matter what help you get surgically or non-surgically, you always want to strive to develop lifelong healthy habits. Address the underlying of ‘why’ you select unhealthy foods. Stressed?  Find someone to talk to. There are lots of free counselling services where you can call and talk to someone confidentially.

Rushed?  Fix meals the night before.  Hate your job? Start looking for a new one.  Sit at a computer all day?  Get up every 15 minutes and walk around office. Take stairs. Depressed?  Again, find someone to talk to and exercise daily. Make an appointment with a professional psychologist if it’s really bad. When exercising,  don’t focus on the physical. Focus on the mental benefits when you start. Physical has a way of catching up when you fix your mind and thoughts first. Stay positive.

Good things take commitment, dedication and time.

Your goal should never be a quick fix, but to change habits that got you to the place where you feel tired, sluggish and unhealthy and replace them with new, better, healthy ones. You can do it.  One day at a time. ”  -Maria Dorfner

Interesting research shared by Melissa Robinson:

Brown Fat, Triggered by Cold or Exercise, May Yield a Key to Weight Control

Fat people have less than thin people. Older people have less than younger people. Men have less than younger women.

It is brown fat, actually brown in color, and its great appeal is that it burns calories like a furnace. A new study finds that one form of it, which is turned on when people get cold, sucks fat out of the rest of the body to fuel itself. Another new study finds that a second form of brown fat can be created from ordinary white fat by exercise.

Of course, researchers say, they are not blind to the implications of their work. If they could turn on brown fat in people without putting them in cold rooms or making them exercise night and day, they might have a terrific weight loss treatment. And companies are getting to work.

But Dr. André Carpentier, an endocrinologist at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec and lead author of one of the new papers, notes that much work lies ahead. It is entirely possible, for example, that people would be hungrier and eat more to make up for the calories their brown fat burns.

“We have proof that this tissue burns calories — yes, indeed it does,” Dr. Carpentier said. “But what happens over the long term is unknown.”

Until about three years ago, researchers thought brown fat was something found in rodents, which cannot shiver and use heat-generating brown fat as an alternate way to keep warm. Human infants also have it, for the same reason. But researchers expected that adults, who shiver, had no need for it and did not have it.

Then three groups, independently, reported that they had found brown fat in adults. They could see it in scans when subjects were kept in cold rooms, wearing light clothes like hospital gowns. The scans detected the fat by showing that it absorbed glucose.

There was not much brown fat, just a few ounces in the upper back, on the side of the neck, in the dip between the collarbone and the shoulder, and along the spine. Although mice and human babies have a lot more, and in different places, it seemed to be the same thing. So, generalizing from what they knew about mice, many researchers assumed the fat was burning calories.

But, notes Barbara Cannon, a researcher at Stockholm University, just because the brown fat in adults takes up glucose does not necessarily mean it burns calories.

“We did not know what the glucose actually did,” she said. “Glucose can be stored in our cells, but that does not mean that it can be combusted.”

A new paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation by Dr. Carpentier and his colleagues answers that question and more. By doing a different type of scan, which shows the metabolism of fat, the group reports that brown fat can burn ordinary fat and that glucose is not a major source of fuel for these cells. When the cells run out of their own small repositories of fat, they suck fat out of the rest of the body.

In the study, the subjects — all men — were kept chilled, but not to the point of shivering, which itself burns calories. Their metabolic rates increased by 80 percent, all from the actions of a few ounces of cells. The brown fat also kept its subjects warm. The more brown fat a man had, the colder he could get before he started to shiver.

Brown fat, Dr. Carpentier and Jan Nedergaard, Dr. Cannon’s husband, wrote in an accompanying editorial, “is on fire.”

On average, Dr. Carpentier said, the brown fat burned about 250 calories over three hours.

But there is another type of brown fat. It has been harder to study because it often is interspersed in the white fat and does not occur in large masses. Investigators discovered it in mice years ago. Now, in a recent article, Bruce Spiegelman, professor of cell biology and medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and his colleagues report that, in mice at least, exercise can make it appear, by turning ordinary white fat brown.

When mice exercise, their muscle cells release a newly discovered hormone that the researchers named irisin. Irisin, in turn, converts white fat cells into brown ones. Those brown fat cells burn extra calories.

Dr. Spiegelman said the brown fat he studies is different from the type that appears in large, distinct masses in rodents, the type Dr. Carpentier was examining in his subjects. That brown fat is derived from musclelike cells and not from white fat.

Dr. Spiegelman suspects that humans, like mice, make brown fat from white fat when they exercise, because humans also have irisin in their blood. And human irisin is identical to mouse irisin.

“What I would guess is that this is likely to be the explanation for some of the effects of exercise,” Dr. Spiegelman says. The calories burned during exercise exceed the number actually used to do the work of exercising. That may be an effect of some white fat cells turning brown.

Many questions remain. The only brown fat that can be easily seen in people is the muscle-derived fat that shows up in scans. And that brown fat, notes Dr. C. Ronald Kahn, chief academic officer at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, is visible in people only when it is turned on by making them cold.

Almost everyone of normal weight or below shows this brown fat if they are chilled, although individuals vary greatly in how much they have. But this brown fat almost never shows up in obese people. Is that one reason they are obese, or is their extra body fat keeping them so warm that there is no reason to turn on their brown fat?

There is also an intriguing relationship between the brown fat that emerges under the skin and the density of bone. Dr. Clifford Rosen, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, is studying mice that cannot make brown fat and was astonished by the state of their bones.

“The animals have the worst bone density we have ever seen,” Dr. Rosen said. “I see osteoporotic bones all the time,” he added, “but, oh my God, these are the extreme.”

And while exercise may induce brown fat in humans, it remains to be seen how important a source of calorie burning it is, researchers say.

As for deliberately making yourself cold if you want to lose weight, Dr. Carpentier said, “there is still a lot of research to do before this strategy can be exploited clinically and safely.”

 

Brown Fat Burns Ordinary Fat, Study Finds – NYTimes.com

healthylife

 

ABOUT THIS BLOG:

 

newsmd1    MARIA DORFNER is the founder of NewsMD Communications and Healthy Within Network.  This blog is a part of that.  She began her career in 1983 at NBC News in NYC where she continued to work behind-the-scenes on TODAY SHOW, NIGHTLY NEWS and all programs until 1989 when she helped launch CNBC.

As a producer, she has produced talk shows, segments and series and travelled extensively. In 1993, she developed and senior produced 7 health series: Healthy Living, Healthcare Consumers, Healthcare Practitioners, Lifestyles and Longevity and Green Magazine.

She co-anchored Healthy Living and Healthcare Consumers airing on CNBC for three years before launching NewsMD Communications. Her clients include a Who’s Who in Medical/Health, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which she shot, wrote and produced weekly segments for  NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox. Discovery Health Channel, where she wrote, produced and directed the documentary series, 21st Century Medicine. She has helped raise multi-millions of dollars for hospitals in need and has been a part of several successful health startups.  She has worked as Director of Research for Roger Ailes at Ailes Communications, his consulting and production company and again as a producer. Her articles have been published in Broadcasting & Cable Magazine and she has hosted The Secret to Success.

She has continued to be a go-to person for network heath shows, stories and content. She was awarded a health reporting scholarship from The American Medical Association (AMA), a Freddie Award for Excellence in Medical Reporting, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the March of Dimes, an Angel of a Sponsor Award from Make A Wish Foundation and an Outstanding Leadership Abilities from her alma mater, Pace University and Commitment to the Advancement of Women in Media Award.

In 2014, she published 3 books. She was also awarded a scholarship to Columbia University by NBC News. She also received  Media Recognition Award from the American Heart Association for her series Heart Smart. She has been specializing in Medical/Health for 23 years, and has worked in Media for 33 years after starting as an intern during college.  In her spare time, she enjoys reading, learning, writing, nature, hiking, swimming, bike riding, working out, cooking, exploring museums and travel. She is a certified scuba diver and aerobics swim instructor.

littleme1

“Health has been a passion of mine since I was a kid.  What I do and who I am are seamless.  I come from a large Italian family. If someone is sick I’m the one they call for research. My best friend growing up in Brooklyn was my cousin Josephine, and we’re still close. We were little health nerds. She became a pediatric nurse.  We loved researching everything to death and still do.  Two things I love and know well. Media and Medical.  Yet, I think in both, they’ve forgotten the most important person –the patient. So, I want to help put the ME back in MEdia and MEdical.  Today, it’s SO hard to know who to trust in both.  Fortunately, people are smart and they are now well aware of the various financial ties “experts” and physicians and media have to promoting certain medications or other large companies, products or services that absolutely do not serve our health or our best interests. The worst part is when we learn they knew and do not reveal it to consumers for decades, which contradicts the oath, “First do no harm.”  So  much damage has been done and no one is accountable. How do you like that. Well, ethics matter. People matter. And people want and will choose what is best for their health. People are empowered and will use their money to denounce those companies aligned with making them sick.  I created this blog to be a trusted resource for people. I do it for free because I believe Virgil is right. There is no greater wealth than health and you absolutely have to trust who is telling you information and why more than any other time in your life.  It’s even worse if you’re rich because then people try to sell you even more things. That may be fine when it’s a handbag, but your health is too precious and there are no returns or refunds if you end up paying a price for trusting the wrong advice. Remember, “expert” doesn’t always mean that.   I feel extremely blessed to be healthy.  I’ve been healthy all my life. I’ve never even had stitches.  I love to help people and my career became a vocation when I was able to utilize my communication and journalism skills to do that.” 

-Maria Dorfner

Thanks for following my health blog.

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Exercise and Your Mental Performance By Howard LeWine, M.D. Brigham and Women’s Hospital

We hear so much about the physical benefits of regular exercise. What effects do exercise and staying fit have on our cognitive function — the mental activities by which we acquire and process information that becomes knowledge?

Researchers have done experiments to look at how well people perform mentally while exercising and immediately after an exercise session. Other researchers have examined the association between fitness level and age-related cognitive decline.

Unlike physical measurements that can be taken with some precision, defining tests of mental performance and exercise to get reliable outcomes is a much greater challenge. Despite the obstacles, researchers have made some headway.

 

Mental Performance Tasks Influenced by Exercise

During a session of moderately intense aerobic exercise, mental performance improves in several measurable ways

  • Reaction time
  • Perception and interpretation of visual images
  • Earlier automation of certain skills, what is sometimes called muscle memory
  • Executive control processes

Of these, exercise exerts the most positive influence on tasks of executive control, such as:

  • Planning
  • Scheduling
  • Coordination of people, places, events, etc.
  • Working memory — the brain’s ability to temporarily store and manage the information required to carry out complex mental functions
  • Inhibition — the ability to block out unnecessary distractions

Personally, I like to catch up on my medical journals while riding a stationary bike. I find that my concentration and comprehension are better than at any other time.

 

Impact of Exercise Duration

Improved cognitive function begins to show at about 20 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise and will be maintained for about another 40 minutes. Beyond 60 minutes of exercise, fatigue is likely to become a factor. For very fit individuals, enhanced mental performance could continue beyond an hour.

Once fatigue sets in, you start to lose the mental edge you have gained. If exercise continues, then mental performance actually will decline to a level lower than where you started.

The positive cognitive effects of exercising for 20 to 60 minutes are primarily related to increase in blood flow to the brain and stimulation of nerve cells to release more neurotransmitters (chemicals that send signals between brain cells). These positive effects will be maintained for a short time after the exercise session as long as you have not become overly fatigued. If you expect to have a long and hard workout, don’t plan on doing any important decision making or complex mental functions immediately afterward.

 

Influence of Exercise Intensity

Moderate intensity aerobic exercise that keeps you breathing a little faster and makes you sweat is probably the optimal intensity level to get the mental boost. If you monitor your heart rate to guide your intensity level, you want to strive for about 75% of your maximal heart rate.

With moderate intensity exercise, your body is activating the sympathetic nervous system and raising levels of adrenalin. These are likely the two main factors driving improvements in mental performance.

At high intensity of exercise, you will perceive your level of exertion and this sensation will likely interfere with concentration and ability to perform mental tasks. Personally, when I am over 80% of my maximal heart rate, I am only thinking about keeping my breathing under control while visualizing a beautiful, peaceful place.

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Fitness Level and Cognitive Function

Generally healthy people age 55 and over who are physically fit are less likely to lose cognitive function than sedentary people in similar health. However, unlike the improved measurements of cognitive function seen during and shortly after exercise, levels of fitness as related to mental performance assessments can only be suggested.

Although some indirect evidence is compelling, there is no direct evidence that fit people operate at a higher mental performance level in between their exercise sessions. Any association of being more fit and maintaining higher cognitive function may or may not indicate a direct relationship. People who are more fit tend to have greater motivation, eat a healthier diet, and be more engaged in their own health care.

 

Fluid Intake and Exercise

Dehydration is associated with a marked reduction in mental performance, independent of whether it is exercise-induced or caused by other factors. Researchers have shown that the decreased cognitive function immediately after exercise-induced dehydration can be quickly reversed once fluids are given to return body weight to the pre-exercise level.

One study found that hyperhydration — extra fluid beyond what is lost — improved mental performance more than just replacing fluid losses. This principle should not be taken to extreme, since overhydration with water during prolonged exercise can dangerously lower blood levels of sodium (a condition called hyponatremia).

Water and sports drinks are equally effective at maintaining hydration during exercise. Sports drinks that contain simple carbohydrates (sugar) may provide a mental advantage for other reasons.

 

Carbohydrates To Feed the Brain

The brain needs a constant supply of glucose to function normally. During exercise, the body preferentially uses glucose as the main energy source for contracting muscles, including the heart and the muscles used to expand the lungs. At moderate intensity exercise of 20 to 60 minutes, there is still plenty of sugar available to the brain to allow the improved mental performance noted above. If exercise is more prolonged, especially at a high intensity level, then the amount of blood sugar available to the brain may be an issue.

Studies have shown that cognitive function is better when fluids are replaced with a sugar-containing solution rather than a drink without any calories. However, when blood glucose levels are measured, they are not low enough to say that hypoglycemia is the explanation. More likely, the sugar-containing solutions improve endurance and lessen the perceived level of exertion. Improving both of these factors positively impacts mental performance.

 

Boosting Cognition Now and for the Future

In the short run, each session of aerobic exercise on a stable piece of equipment such as a stationary bike, treadmill or elliptical machine has the potential to give you a double benefit for your time spent. Not only will you be improving your fitness, your ability to concentrate on and perform mental tasks also will likely be enhanced.

In the long run, physical activity appears to be at least as important in staying mentally sharp as keeping your mind active and maintaining strong social connections. Multiple studies have shown that people who exercise regularly will have less age-related cognitive decline and lose less brain tissue seen on MRI and PET scans.

 

 

 

Howard LeWine, M.D., is chief editor of Internet publishing, Harvard Health Publications. He is a clinical instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. LeWine has been a primary care internist and teacher of internal medicine since 1978.

Reviewed by Faculty of Harvard Medical School 

Dr. Oz: How to Boost Your Metabolism All Day Long

Here are some fantastic tips from Dr. Oz on how to boost your metabolism all day long:

6:30 A.M.
Do a little yoga. It can double your metabolic rate first thing in the morning. I recommend a gentle cycle of two sun salutations. If you’re new to yoga, check out my seven-minute morning routine (which also includes a few strength-building exercises).

6:40 A.M. 
Drink cold water. Five hundred milliliters of H2O (a little more than a pint) may spike metabolism by 30 percent for as long as an hour. Water triggers the sympathetic nervous system, which in turn stimulates your metabolism. Cold water may also force your body to use energy to warm it.

6:50 A.M. 
Take 500 milligrams of white bean extract. In a 2007 study, people who took the extract (which may slow the absorption of carbs) for 30 days experienced a significant improvement in their muscle-to-fat ratio. That’s good news for metabolism since muscle burns about three times more calories than fat.

7:00 A.M. 
Eat a protein-packed breakfast. Digesting protein takes up to seven times more energy than digesting carbohydrates or fat. Try making a dozen hard-boiled eggs on Sunday, and eat one or two each day.

8:00 A.M. 
Enjoy a cup of joe. Caffeine promotes an increase in norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter that keeps your sympathetic nervous system activated and your metabolic rate humming. According to research, coffee may increase the amount of energy you burn by 16 percent for up to two hours.

9:30 A.M. 
Take 50 milligrams of forskolin. Recent studies indicate that compounds in forskolin—an extract derived from a medicinal plant—might break down fat and help raise levels of thyroid hormones, which play an important role in regulating the speed of metabolism.

10:00 A.M.
Snack on tahini dip. Tahini is made from sesame seeds, a rich source of zinc. And zinc may increase the production of leptin, a hormone that improves metabolism and curbs appetite.
11:15 A.M.
Chew a stick of sugarless gum. New England Journal of Medicine study found that this mindless activity can help your body burn 19 percent more calories per hour. (At that rate, if you chewed gum every waking hour, you’d lose 11 pounds over the course of a year! And likely drive everyone around you nuts.)
12:00 P.M. 
Go for a brisk 15-minute walk. A trip around the block can triple your metabolic rate. This boost continues after you stop moving because the body consumes more oxygen, a crucial player in metabolism, when it’s recovering from exertion.
12:45 P.M.
Spice up lunch with peppers. Capsaicin, the key substance that makes chili peppers hot, stimulates your “fight or flight” stress response and may increase metabolism by 23 percent. Peppers may even improve your muscle-to-fat ratio: Research suggests that capsaicin inhibits the generation of fat cells.
2:00 P.M. 
Sip a cup of green teaThis miracle beverage pairs caffeine with a compound known as EGCG—and together they create an even greater bump in metabolism than caffeine alone. Studies also indicate that green tea may reduce body fatand trim the waistline.
5:00 P.M.
Use your muscles—with your mind. Believe it or not, visualizing a workout can actually trick your body into strengthening your calorie-zapping muscle: A Cleveland Clinicstudy discovered that participants who spent 15 minutes a day imagining flexing their biceps had a 13.5 percent increase in their strength after three months.
5:15 P.M.
Use your muscles—with your muscles. After age 30, we lose 3 to 8 percent of our muscle mass per decade, which is one of the main reasons metabolism slows. To counteract that loss, aim to do two to three 30-minute strength-training sessions a week, using moves that engage as many muscles as possible, like squatsplanks, and lunges.

6:30 P.M. 
Cook dinner with coconut oil. Most of the oils we eat are converted largely into fat. But coconut oil, with its unique molecular makeup, is rapidly converted into energy—and may causea 12 percent bump in your metabolism.

6:55 P.M. 
Add dairy to your meal. Calcium can help improve your muscle-to-fat ratio in two ways: It binds with fat to reduce the body’s absorption of fat. And any remaining calcium typically circulates in your bloodstream, helping to break down fat cells.

7:00 P.M. 
Garnish with dill weed or chives. Both of these herbs are packed with kaempferol, a flavonoid that has been shown to increase the production of metabolism-spurring thyroid hormones by about 150 percent.
7:45 P.M. 
Unwind with a glass of wine. Alcohol can raise your metabolic rate for up to 95 minutes. In fact, a large peer-reviewed study found that women who regularly enjoy a drink are seven to eight pounds lighter, on average, than teetotalers.

10:30 P.M.
Hit the hay. Irregular sleep patterns can disrupt the circadian rhythm of your cells, throwing your metabolism out of whack. Do your best to get a steady eight hours of rest each night.

Keep reading: 4 more ways to turn back the clock

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/How-to-Increase-Your-Metabolism-All-Day/7#ixzz1wSfYZpRa

Obesity or Greed Epidemic? by Maria Dorfner

It’s 2021 and this blog I wrote before blogs were even a thing back in 2005 still rings true. The question is where has all the funding to cure “The Obesity Epidemic” gone? Is anyone even keeping track of it. If one thing makes people MORE susceptible to poor outcomes from Covid or any other virus –it’s obesity.

Obesity isn’t about your size. It’s about body composition. Even thin people can have unhealthy fat surrounding their organs. Take your heart. Cardiovascular Disease ranks up there as the #1 killer of Americans.  What contributes to Cardiovascular Disease? Obesity.

The #1 Predictor of Your Health and Longevity is what you eat. Why haven’t Public Health Experts focused on this at the START of the Pandemic, when they had the undivided attention of people stuck at home WANTING to know what they could do to improve their overall health?

It’s been over a year from “15 days” and the ONLY MESSAGE to MILLIONS OF PEOPLE is wear a mask, wash your hands, avoid crowds AND most importantly, get a vaccine.

It’s because they profit when you are obese and then chronically sick as a result. They will use Media to advertise all that fast food to you and serve it to you cheap.  If they can get you obese sooner –in childhood –well then they ill have a customer for their sick care sooner.

Have you ever seen what foods are served in food pantries to the most vulnerable? Highly processed foods with high sodium, junk food, sugar and sweets.  Have you ever looked inside a vending machine inside a Hospital Waiting Room?

Filled with soda and junk food.  It’s as if they don’t read the “health” studies OR are the studies really done to find out how to make people sick and then do THAT? Taxpayers shouldn’t be funding studies used to harm them instead of help them prevent and avoid illness.

None of what has been done by health experts and government officials since the pandemic began address underlying conditions, which are truly at the heart of poor health outcomes. If the virus and all its variants aren’t going away –public health experts need to be focused on educating millions of people about what they CAN do to improve their health.

PREVENTION isn’t covered by Health Insurance, which needs to change.  Purchasing healthy foods, gym memberships or any other tool that improves your daily habits SHOULD indeed be covered to either prevent or reverse obesity, which would prevent or reverse CHRONIC ILLNESS.

Today, we have Health Insurance that covers TREATMENT of diseases AFTER you’re already sick.

Physicians who have caught on to this paradox are already beginning to refer to the Healthcare System as The Sickcare System.  Our healthcare workers aren’t immune from  stress, unhealthy eating habits, lack of time for exercise and  burnout.  In fact, almost half of them report burnout and wanting to quit.

That’s unacceptable today. If the world has learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that HEALTH comes FIRST and that your mental health is most definitely tied to your physical health.

I have been shouting that for decades. The money is there to solve these problems. It’s time reallocate these funds to real life solutions, instead of simply treating things after it’s too late.

The following is the original blog written in 2005. Obesity in children and adults has risen since then.
Consequently, the States with the highest deaths from Cardiovascular Disease are also seeing the worst outcomes from Covid during this time.

The real problem isn’t the unvaccinated. It’s their underlying conditions, which aren’t being addressed until they show up in the hospital. Then, it’s marked as a death from Covid.


Today, as some docs want to regulate toxic sugar I’m reminded of a blog I wrote on this day in 2005:

June 4, 2005 – Every day we are bombarded with media messages about the “obesity epidemic“.  The AP puts a new story on its wires and TV news writers end up rewriting the wire copy for broadcast, so the propaganda ends up in our living rooms.

Who is distributing the Press Release? What is their motive? What have they got to gain by scaring the public into believing we’ve all got one foot in the grave? Turns out, a lot of folks have a lot of money to gain.

In 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO), officially declared obesity a disease. You can’t declare something a disease unless it’s widespread and statistics back it up.

Recently, we have seen how the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) admitted inflating those numbers. The CDC was able to receive about $40 million dollars a year allocated towards obesity based on their previous numbers.

In 1993, a study by McGinnis & William Foege, M.D. published in JAMA estimated that the most prominent contributors to mortality in the U.S. were, in order, tobacco, diet and activity patterns, alcohol, microbial agents, toxic agents and firearms with “dietary patterns and sedentary lifestyle being the most common source of unnecessary death and disease among Americans“.

That was 19 years ago, yet we keep getting told the same information as if it’s new.

They want us to believe that obesity has surpassed tobacco deaths. Maybe the people who quit smoking started eating.  Although, the alarming number of deaths due to obesity that Foege quoted back then were the same wrong numbers derived from the CDC.

Obesity programs are funded primarily by the National Center for Chronic Disease and Prevention. There’s that word “disease” again. The budget? $747,472,000.

Turns out, a lot of folks want to get their hands on that money under the guise of conducting “obesity research”. The Medicaid Obesity Treatment Act of ’01 required medicare prescription drug coverage to cover drugs medically necessary to cover obesity.

By declaring obesity a disease many unhealthy strategies for weight loss (stomach stapling, liposuction, diet pills, body wraps, herbal remedies, etc.) might become warranted. Doctors could justifiably use these treatments and feel confident that they are improving the client’s health simply by decreasing his or her weight.


Pharmaceutical companies would be able to market their quick fix pills and quacks could promote radical diets that promote fast weight loss. It must be emphasized that the effect of these treatments would only be temporary since they don’t address long-term behavior change, such as lifetime physical activity and improved dietary habits. In addition, even if weight loss is achieved and maintained there is no guarantee that it will be accompanied with health benefits.

It’s bureaucracy growing in inverse proportion to its effectiveness. It can justify more government taxing under the guise of “tax policy as a social engineering tool”. There are so many special interest groups that want us to buy into the obesity epidemic under their insatiable search for funding. When the truly obese do not respond to their efforts — then they go after the mainstream. More numbers enables them to justify their perpetual fundraising efforts.

The so-called obesity epidemic brings in revenue. In order for these organizations to keep the money rolling in they have to expand the nationwide guilt trip and falsify numbers. The motive is money. Plain and simple.

Foundations redirect their funding when a new disease pops up. Millions of dollars in grants have been awarded under the “obesity epidemic” war. There’s some obese person out there somewhere who seriously needs help and doesn’t have money, but that person probably never gets help.

If these foundations really want to help people, why not make the grant application open to the obese individuals instead of research institutions and organizations that keep getting grants merely to reinforce that a problem exists. That would cost less and help more.

Long-term diet and exercise modifications are the only effective lifestyle changes that affect obesity. It doesn’t take billions of dollars to make people aware of that. Yes, some people have a genetic predisposition towards obesity, but even they can make changes in their eating and activity level.

Stop lowering the threshold for who is considered obese, so that more and more people fall into a category so companies can sell more drugs to them. So far, adults, children, elderly and even newborn babies have been included in this ever-expanding “Greed” epidemic.

A lot of wallets expand along with waistlines, and consumers need to be wary of studies and research reports that keep reinforcing the same ol’, same ‘ol with a new twist. The new twist is usually a result of some people sitting in a room saying, “We have to figure out to get more money” from this.

How does telling you you’re fat get them more money? Because then you go to the doctor and ask for help. He recommends drugs or surgery. Fast food? The government puts another “sin tax” on it. What’s next? A “sin tax” for computers and televisions because after all, they do contribute to inactivity. Let’s not forget the lawyers who benefitted from tobacco settlements who would love to go after another big industry as well.

[by Maria Dorfner, NewsMD Communications, originally posted on a blog Saturday, June 04, 2005 @ 7:45 PM

newsmdcommunications.blogspot.com/Cached]
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2012 UPDATE – 7 years later.  The headlines as predicted want to include MORE PEOPLE in this “epidemic”. More people. More money.   The headline should be:  Obe$ity Greed Epidemic Much Worse Than Americans Believe.

Study: American Obesity Epidemic Much Worse Than CDC Believes

The traditional measures of obesity are inadequate, according to a new report

April 2, 2012 RSS Feed Print

The American obesity epidemic might be much worse than many experts believe because of the limitations of the Body Mass Index, which is the most popular number used to diagnose the condition…

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pets are included now.

Statistics tell us there is no change in this epidemic.

A recent article I read by Pope in the New York Times backs this up.  It’s not because there are a lack of medications.  I begin to wonder if all these pills are merely placebos.  The side effects that kill tells me that’s not the case.  At least not in a few batches.

Here’s a link to all the pharmaceutical drugs available to treat obesity. http://www.drugs.com/condition/obesity.html

There is also an organization called Obesity in America.  The website is www.obesityinamerica.org.  It was created to educate, legislate and reverse obesity. It will also feed information to reporters. That’s enough sugar-coated sweetness to make one obese.

There are people who require medical intervention.  They need to be the focus here.   I cry if I watch The Biggest Loser.  I can feel their pain.  I often wonder why God didn’t create bodies that stayed exactly the same no matter how you eat.  Why do people have to suffer over how their bodies look or how they perceive their bodies to look?  Why is it so hard to lose and so easy to gain?

Being thin doesn’t make you immune to stress and challenges either.  It’s easy to blame extra weight for every problem in your life. When that extra weight is gone –it gets harder because when you discover the problems are still there you begin to feel even worse. Only now you can’t comfort yourself with ring dings.  It’s a vicious cycle.  You absolutely have to have new coping mechanisms and habits to deal with any triggers that made you reach for comfort food in the past.

On “The Biggest Loser” people are led to believe that once they lose the weight, they will be happy.   Many of these people actually look into the camera and exclaim, “I’m SO happy now!”   Happiness doesn’t work like that.  You could be happy obese.  Obesity doesn’t make you unhappy.   Happiness does not rely on external factors.   Once you attach it to an external factor –it will crash because things do not stay the same. They change. Look at nature if you want to understand how this works.  If you can change, yet stay the same –you will be happy.   Your habits result from your beliefs.

Establishing good habits from childhood is so important.  Habits are things we do automatically.  When I was a kid, we ran outside to play after school.  They will tell you being poor or being stressed will make you a fat kid. That is baloney.

Bikeriding was big after school. So was jogging, touch football, tag or stoopball right on the steps. And I played tennis with Rob Bonomolo in grade school. We learned how from watching “Hart to Hart” on television. Jump rope was big after lunch in the lunchroom. Susan Favola, Lorelei Donofrio and I made sure to cover the entire alphabet while jumping.

What belief system did we have then? We associated being outdoors with freedom. Freedom from homework (presumably that was done before you ran outside), freedom from sitting in a stuffy classroom, freedom from work, freedom from carrying heavy books, freedom from wearing a uniform.

We could dump our way too heavy book bags, get into comfortable clothing and run free.

Think about that feeling. Close your eyes. Fresh air. Running. Not a worry in the world. We weren’t sitting staring at screens. We were active outdoors. Flying free. Like birds.

Wrong photo.  Those birds are sedentary.  You get the picture.   Visualize flying ones.
If the economy were as it is right now when I was growing up and my Dad was out of a job –I would still run outside and play, even more.

You don’t need Big Brother telling you you have a disease and you’re part of an epidemic that is bigger than HIV (it’s not).

Maybe if the government focused on fixing the economy, as much as they focus on fixing your waistline, the stress would go away for the unemployed, underemployed, single mothers, single fathers, uninsured and kids.

It’s not an epidemic.  Thinking that releases the exact kind of stressful hormones  you don’t want in your body.  Remain calm.  It’s your private health. Take care of it one day at a time.

Make good choices.  Stay positive.   You are going to be okay.  Lifestyle changes and changing your daily habits one day at a time, until it becomes your long-term habits is what will change your health for the better. Preventing disease is something these organizations will NOT profit from –but you will.

Again, you need to educate yourself about healthy habits, healthy foods and daily exercise. Some people will say it’s genetics and they can’t help it. If you know you have a genetic predisposition for obesity, you have a warning. You know that if you don’t do something different, you will have the same outcome as a family member. You can make lifestyle changes that will and can improve your outcome.

I keep repeating 25% of your health is determined by genetics. 75% is lifestyle. Change your lifestyle and you can change your outcome.

Otherwise, others will continue to profit from your illness. It  will also make you more susceptible to other illnesses.

Look up how to reverse (insert whatever) naturally, and you will find a lot of information that for years has been called “quackery” because as I stated –no one can profit from you being healthy.

60

                                                                                                                              

60.  Minimum # of days it takes to change an unhealthy eating habit.

HOW TO CHANGE AN UNHEALTHY EATING HABIT TO A HEALTHY ONE:

1.  AWARENESS – Be mindful of the unhealthy eating habit.  Think of WHY you reach for certain unhealthy foods. Then, exchange it for something healthy.  See list below.

2.  PLAN MEALS – If you have no time for lunch and that is when you grab something unhealthy, prepare a healthy meal the night before and bring it to the office with you.  If you work from home, put it in the refrigerator for easy grabbing the next day.

3.  REDUCE STRESS – Meditate. Reducing stress will also improve your sleep.  Mediatating just twice a week can help with sleep problems.  Turn off all electronic equipment and find a quiet place with no distractions and simply breathe and stretch.  Nature is wonderful to quiet the noise.

4.  TAKE IT SLOW SO YOU DON’T CRASH – Slow-and-Steady is best.

 20 SMALL CHANGES YOU CAN MAKE THAT ADD UP in 60 DAYS:

  1. Start each day with a nutritious breakfast.
  2. Get at least 8 hours of sleep because lack of sleep can cause you to overeat.
  3. Drink more water instead of sugary drinks, sodas, soft drinks or energy drinks.
  4. Don’t eat meals on the run.
  5. Eat when you’re really hungry.  Stop when you’re comfortably full.
  6. Say no to second helpings.
  7. Eat healthy snacks every few  hours: fruits, veggies, almonds, walnuts.
  8. If you eat dairy, switch to soy or lower-fat dairy products.
  9. If  you eat white bread, switch to whole-grain bread.
  10. Use mustard instead of  mayo.
  11. Instead of sauces, flavor your foods with herbs, vinegars, mustards, or lemon.
  12. If you drink coffee, switch to cafe au lait, using strong coffee and hot skim milk instead of cream.
  13. Limit alchohol to 1 or 2 drinks a day.
  14. Eat larger portions of water-rich foods and less of calorie-dense foods.
  15. If you never exercise –start with walking each day.  Stretch and walk.
  16. Replace unhealthy snacking foods in your house with healthy ones. 
  17. Replace ice cream with  yogurts.
  18. Replace salty pretzels and chips with cereals, almonds, walnuts or popcorn.
  19. Stock your refrigerator with fresh fruits & veggies for snacking.
  20. Make your goal feeling healthy,  rather than a certain weight.

60 DAYS.   TWO MONTHS.  LONGTERM CHANGE.  BE PATIENT.

French Weight Loss Drug Caused 1,300 Deaths

Can the Mediator Scandal lead to Justice for D...

According to AFP, Mediator, a drug licensed for use by diabetics that became widely prescribed in France as a slimming aid, “probably” caused at least 1,300 deaths before it was withdrawn, a study published on Thursday said.

Mahmoud Zureik of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), who co-led the probe, told AFP that around 3,100 people had required hospitalisation during the 33 years during which the drug was sold.

However, these figures could well be an “underestimate,” he said.

The study, appearing in the specialised journalPharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety, finetunes an estimate by Zureik in 2010 that the death toll from the scandal was between 1,000 and 2,000.

Mediator, known by its lab name as benfluorex, was initially licensed to reduce levels of fatty proteins called lipids, with the claim that it helped diabetics control their level of blood sugar.

But it also suppressed appetite, which meant it gained a secondary official use to help obese diabeticslose weight.

In fact, it was widely sold on prescription for non-diabetics wanting to slim.

In 2009, Mediator was pulled from the European market amid evidence that it damaged heart valves and caused pulmonary hypertension.

Its French manufacturer, Servier, is being probed on suspicion of dishonest practices and deception.

The new study is an extrapolation based on figures for deaths from faulty heart valves, although not from hypertension, among major users of the drug.

The main data comes from France’s national health insurance system, which said that 303,000 patients used Mediator in 2006.

According to Mediator, 145 million packets of Mediator were sold on the French market before the drug was pulled.

The Mediator case came to light after a scandal involving a similar type of anti-obesity drug, fenfluramine, in the late 1990s.

MORE WEIGHT-LOSS MEDICAL NEWS:

FDA warns against quick weight-loss programs using hormone

SARATOGA, Calif. —

Proponents of a hormone-based diet claim you can lose 10 pounds in three weeks with no exercise, but this unusual weight-loss program some swear by comes with serious government warnings.

For Sanjay Mohindra, tennis comes easy. But losing weight doesn’t.  With his 20-year high school reunion looming last summer, the then 230-pound Mohindra found a diet that finally worked for him.

“I was able to lose twenty-five pounds in three weeks and get under two hundred pounds. It got to a point where I didn’t even know what I was going to wear because I couldn’t fit into my suits,” said Mohindra.  He went on to lose an additional 15 pounds.  His parents were so impressed with his weight loss, they also signed up for the controversial plan.

“I started at 124 pounds. I’m at 109 pounds. Now, I don’t think I could have done this any other way,” said Nina Mohindra, Sanjay’s mother.

The way the family did it was the HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin diet.  HGC is a hormone produced by pregnant women. Under a doctor’s care, the diet required them to inject themselves daily with the hormone and follow a very strict diet of only 500 calories a day and not exercise.

“Not only did I not feel dizzy or weak, this is the best I have felt in my life,” said Raj Mohindra, Sanjay’s father.  He still checks his blood pressure, but is off his medication after losing 24 pounds.

The HCG diet is not new. It first surfaced in the 1950s. Today, it’s FDA approved for fertility treatments, not weight loss.  But the Mohindras’ doctor at a Saratoga anti-aging clinic is able to prescribe HCG as an off-label use. He has done so for roughly 500 patients.  He calls it a short-term jumpstart rather than a long-term solution.

“For the patients who follow our program correctly, 90-to-95 percent lose our target weight, which for women is 20 pounds in 6 weeks.  For men, it’s 25 pounds in 6 weeks,” said Dr. John Tang.

With a cost around $900, it can be successful for those willing to follow the detailed diet of only 500 calories a day. To give you an idea of what 500 calories is, that’s about a turkey sandwich with mayo and cheese. But on this diet, you can only eat from a strict list of proteins, fruits and veggies for two meals a day.

“I would say the mind is a very powerful thing. And I would say there’s a big placebo effect occuring here,” cautions Dr. John Morton of Stanford Hospital‘s Bariatric Surgery Department.  He stresses the impact and any long-term effects of HCG as a weight loss program have not been studied and says some of his clients have tried and failed.

“Lemon, cayenne, pepper, and maple syrup diets all the way to HCG.  I do think this appears to be a gimmick,” said Dr. Morton.

The FDA stresses there are no FDA-approved HCG products for weight loss.  In December, they started cracking down on companies illegally selling them over the counter. The FDA calls the low-calorie diet reckless and says eating so little is likely behind the weight loss.  Nutritionists warn it’s not a long-term solution.

“The minute you lose it and stop eating that way, you gain it back. In 99.99% of the cases, the individuals gained back even more weight than they lost,” said dietician Lillian Castillo.

But the Mohindra family says they have not gained the weight back thanks to the one thing all sides agree on: healthier eating.

To read more about the Federal Drug Administration warnings regarding HGC diets, you can go to the FDA web page on the subject.

FDA (trade union)
Image via Wikipedia

10 Metabolism Boosting Foods

Image

This great article from Sheri Strykowski about metabolism boosting foods and how to increase metabolism that is sure to have you nodding your head in agreement but there are a few that will probably be new to you as well.

 How to Increase Metabolism

1. Water! A new study seems to indicate that drinking water actually speeds up weight loss and is a great way how to increase metabolism. Researchers in Germany found that subjects of the study increased their metabolic rates (the rate at which calories are burned) by 30 percent after drinking approximately 17 ounces of water. Water is also a natural appetite suppressant that banishes bloat as it flushes out sodium and toxins. Drinking enough water will also help keep you from mistaking thirst for hunger. So drink up! Make sure that you are starting your day with a big big glass of water and drink throughout the day not just all at one time.

 2. Green Tea! Studies show that green tea extracts boost metabolism and may aid in weight loss. This mood-enhancing tea has also been reported to contain anti-cancer properties and help prevent heart disease. It’s also a trendy drink among weight-conscious celebrities. You may Have already seen my green tea articles but this may be one really fantastic herb and it tastes nice too!

3. Soup! Eat less and burn fat faster by having a bowl of soup as an appetizer or a snack. According to a Penn State University study, soup is a super appetite suppressant because it’s made up of a hunger-satisfying combination of liquids and solids. In the study, women chose one of three 270-calorie snacks before lunch. Women who had chicken and rice soup as a snack consumed a n average of 100 fewer calories than those in the study who opted for a chicken and rice casserole or the casserole and a glass of water. I used to joke that soup is not a meal but it really dies fill you for very few calories and remember that when you eat a food with a lot of taste it really will satisfy.

4. Grapefruit! The grapefruit diet is not a myth. Researchers at Scripps Clinic found that participants who ate half a grapefruit with each meal in a 12-week period lost an average of 3.6 pounds. The study indicates that the unique chemical properties in this vitamin C-packed citrus fruit reduce insulin levels, which promotes weight loss and boost metabolism. NOTE: If you are taking medication, check with your doctor about any potentially adverse interactions with grapefruit. Grapefruit, because of the soft peel is a nice alternative to an apple of orange and study after study of the last 30 years has shown that it can really help burn fat.

5. Apples and Pears! Overweight women who ate the equivalent of three small apples or pears a day lost more weight on a low-calorie diet than women who didn’t add fruit to their diet, according to re searchers from the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Fruit eaters also ate fewer calories overall. So next time you need to satisfy a sugar craving, reach for this low-calorie, high-fiber snack. You’ll feel full longer and eat less.

6. Broccoli! Study after study links calcium and weight loss. Broccoli is not only high in calcium, but also loaded with vitamin C, which boosts calcium absorption. This member of the nutritious cabbage family also has plenty of vitamin A, folate and fiber. And, at just 20-calories per cup, this weight-loss superfood not only fights fat but also contains powerful phytochemicals that boost your immunity and protect against disease.

7. Low-Fat Yogurt! Dairy products can boost weight loss efforts, according to a study in the April issue of Obesity Research. People on a reduced-calorie diet who included three to four servings of dairy foods lost significantly more weight than those who ate a low-dairy diet containing the same number of calories. Low-fat yogurt is a rich source of weight-loss-friendly calcium, providing about 450 mg (about half the recommended daily allowance for women ages 19-50) per 8-ounce serving, as well as 12 grams of protein. As far as superfood go Yogurt is right there. It includes calcium, protein and a ton of other nutrients as well as good bacteria and probiotics for you digestive tract.

8. Lean Turkey! Rev up your fat-burning engine with this bodybuilder favorite. Countless studies have shown that protein can help boost metabolism, lose fat and build lean muscle tissue so you burn more calories. A 3-ounce serving of boneless, skinless lean turkey breast weighs in at 120 calories and provides 26 grams of appetite-curbing protein, 1 gram of fat and 0 grams of saturated fat. With the price of chicken going up and up these days Turkey has become a great alternative. Remember that Turkey is a little tougher than chicken and the taste is a little different but it is not just for Thanksgiving and Christmas anymore.

9. Oatmeal! This heart-healthy favorite ranks high on the good carb list, because it’s a good source of cholesterol-fighting, fat-soluble fiber (7 grams per 3/4-cup serving) that keeps you full and provides you with the energy you need to make the most of your workouts. Just be sure to choose steel cut or rolled oats, not instant oatmeal, to get your full dose of vitamins, minerals and fiber. For many years now Pro Bodybuilders have relied on Oatmeal as a staple of their breakfast, it is amazingly high in nutrients.

10. Hot Peppers! Eating hot peppers can speed up and boost metabolism and cool your cravings, researchers at Laval University in Canada found. Here’s why: Capsaicin (a chemical found in jalapeno and cayenne peppers) temporarily stimulates your body to release more stress hormones, which speeds up your metabolism and causes you to burn more calories.

Here’s how these 10 fat-blasting superstars help you lose weight and how to increase metabolism.

How to Increase MetabolismEach of these healthy weight-loss boosters fills you up and keeps you full longer on fewer calories.

How to Increase MetabolismWater-rich fresh fruits, veggies and soup dilute the calories in your food and allow you to eat more without breaking the calorie bank.

How to Increase MetabolismHigh-fiber fruit, vegetables and nutritious whole grains keep your digestive system on track and steady insulin levels, which prevents fat storage.

How to Increase MetabolismLean meat boosts metabolism and burns calories because it take more energy to digest than other foods.

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