Who to Believe? You Choose…

The answers that come from science are sometimes blindingly obvious and sometimes extremely counterintuitive. Sometimes, those answers appear to be against the current perceived wisdom of the day (i.e., they don’t follow the AMA/FDA party line), which causes many of us to cheer them on, and at other times they follow it so perfectly it causes me to wonder which came first, the study or the conclusions? Even scientists themselves can sometimes be blinded by their own preconceived notions, even when study after study shows something else to be true.

The studies themselves are too often conducted by organizations that are not entirely trustworthy.[1] That’s why it’s always important to look at the results of scientific studies for yourself, and to ask yourself the question: Who conducted the study, and did they have a particular agenda in mind?

[1] For example, the British Medical Journal (2000: 320: 1574-1577) says that “As much as 20% of the reviews contained “strong indications” of what the researchers termed “publication bias.” In some of the reviews, the publication bias was so great that it actually changed the results to the opposite conclusion of what was reached.” This type of bias occurs in meta-analyses because studies with results that are significant, interesting, or from large well-funded studies are more likely to be submitted, published, or published more rapidly than other work.

In the end, I believe that truth will triumph (though it might take many years), and sound scientific thinking will overcome “magical” beliefs in false notions of health care that have no real evidence to back them up, no matter what the people trying to sell them to you would have you believe.

Sell them? Yes, we humans sell ideas just as routinely as we sell products. Usually, however, the selling of an idea is a precursor to the selling of a product. A “product” might be a bottle of pills, a toy, a car, or often it is a philosophy that will cause you to change your way of life. That is the idea we are “selling.” How do we stand to profit? Given that we do not sell you pills, nor receive any income from those who do sell pills; given that we do not charge you to get this newsletter, and no one pays us for the time we spend doing research, what motivation can we have to try to get you to change your lifestyle? There can be only one answer here: We would like you to use the knowledge we offer here to get healthy and to create a better life (of your own choice) for you, your family, and any friends you choose to bring along on the ride. Unless you decide we am simply a megalomaniacs who are seeking a huge following (e.g., religious leaders, if there could possibly be any who do not also pass the offering plate with increasing frequency J ), then chances are pretty good that the ideas we are pushing have no bends and twists to create the illusion that we are right and the other people are wrong. We stand to gain nothing physical or monetary from this work. The benefit is to you – all we get is the satisfaction that you are getting healthy, provided you actually choose to heed the advice given in these pages.

So, what about all the other types? I mean, those who dispense what appears to be great information, but there is always a fee attached – should you buy their product? That is entirely up to you, but please do some serious research on both the claimant and their product before opening your wallet. A lot of people have good ideas, but they hand you conclusions made by seriously skewed research. For example, there is a woman who used to be an M.D. (and still claims the title, though her license has been revoked), and she got very radical because she honestly did find some things that were contrary to the AMA party line. At first, her data still appeared logical (and even I applauded her), then it got whacko to the max. She lost her license to practice in the U.S. and moved her entire operation to Mexico where she could continue her work. This was a two-edged sword, because to many of her followers, that meant she believed so much in what she was doing that she was willing to be an exile from persecution by the evil government oppressors in order to do so. Yet, it also allows her to sell you flawed products and you can’t sue her across that line. I will not debate which was her reason, but I do know she gives you a formula to clean out your liver and thousands of people follow it because they can see the results! (So they all buy her other products and books too.) Excuse me, but analysis of the formula tells me why they can see the results: her formula creates small balls of soap inside your intestines, then when you excrete these balls, you believe her formula had removed your gall stones. What she is practicing is a thing called pseudo-science. It appears to have results, but they are not real. What she is selling is a con job. (Her name is withheld to protect the guilty.)

Sad to say, the world is full of snake oil salesmen. And the internet is rife with them today, each promising a cure for whatever ails you, and most of them based on something that either has never happened or cannot possibly happen in real life (many leaning heavily on people’s spiritual hopes – whether Christian, Asian or New Age). That goes for many products (see jab at the Ionic Breeze in next article). I have been reading web sites that claim this tea made from mushrooms will change your life for the better. The seller, however, has never heard of mycotoxins, so I can forgive their enthusiasm about such a product. But even then, they make extremely unrealistic claims. I wonder why people buy the idea, much less the product. I also hear my spouse in the next room, wading through forums dedicated to specializing on only one aspect of health and whose members seem to think that there is only one bad parasite in life and if you get rid of that, nothing else matters. They, obviously, also do not know about the toxins in many food products. They are partly on the right path, but still have blinders on and cannot see the big picture.

What’s the point of this article? OK, I’ll quit blathering. Do not accept anything anyone tells you without doing some serious questioning. I try to provide you links to the sources of my data in articles here. Check them out. Then check out the source of the sources. Don’t just take my word that a thing is so. Never blindly accept the word of anyone who makes a claim and then tries to sell you a cure. Never! Even if you have friends who say that it works. Check it out. And don’t go to one website and believe what they say (even my links – you can google key phrases and finds tons of things, both pro and con). Once you have read what is offered, then you can make a decision. Time will give you the evidence you need as to whether your decision was the right one. If your health improves, keep up the good work. If your health does not improve, either you are doing something wrong, or that path was not the right one for you. And if you have questions for which you cannot find answers, ask. Yeah, it really is that simple.

Indoor Air Quality

Being laid up with this bum leg for the past couple weeks has made me seriously ponder the health effects of staying cooped up in the house. It is winter and, if you are an average person, you spend more time indoors during this season than any other time of the year. So I went surfing through the various www.epa.gov sites/links and those of many air purifiers (some truly outrageous and unscientific claims!). So I decided you need to hear the science breakdown.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regardless of the time of the year, indoor air is 200-500% more polluted than outdoor air (on average), and if you’re like Joe Average, you spend almost 90% of your life indoors. The health effects of indoor air pollutants range from short-term problems of eye and throat irritation to long-term illness of respiratory disease and even cancer. We have briefly touched on the probable causes of some of this stuff before (mold, mildew, airborne fungi, bacteria, etc.).

Here are some things to consider regarding indoor air pollution (Source: EPA):

• Any pollutant released indoors is 1,000 times more likely to reach your lungs than the same pollutant released outdoors (e.g., paint, glue, smoke, anything sprayed).
• Many homes have airborne pollutant levels 25 to 100 times (2,500-10,000%) that of the air outside the home.
• Airborne pollutants from cleaning and personal care products you use in your home are three times as likely to cause cancer as pollutants from outside.
• 1,500 hazardous substances can be found in the typical North American home (what’s under your kitchen sink and in your bathroom? On the porch shelf or in the garage?)
• An estimated one out of every 15 homes in the United States has radon levels above 4pci/L, the EPA-recommended action level. A recent report by the National Research Council estimates that radon is responsible for between 15,000 and 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year in the United States (I find it debatable if radon is the true cause, but I won’t argue with them in this article.)
• Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), also called “secondhand smoke,” a major indoor air pollutant, contains about 4,000 chemicals, including 200 known poisons, such as formaldehyde and carbon monoxide, as well as 43 [possible] carcinogens.
• About 50% of all illnesses are caused by or aggravated by indoor pollution.
• Air pollution contributes to lung disease and lung cancer. Lung disease alone claims close to 335,000 lives in America every year and is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
• Ten million Americans have asthma. Asthma and asthma deaths have increased over 30% in the past 10 years.
• Biological pollutants such as molds, bacteria, viruses, pollen, dust mites, and animal dander promote poor indoor air quality and may be a major cause of days lost from work.

Let’s talk a bit about particulates in the air. Particle pollution is made up of complex microscopic bits (appx. 1/30^th the width of a human hair) that can cause serious health problems even at relatively low concentrations.

Researchers categorize particles according to size, grouping them as coarse particles (2.5 to 10 microns) and fine particles (less than 2.5 microns). Both can be harmful to your health.

When you inhale these particles, they embed themselves in your lungs. Some can even pass through to your blood. Studies link particle pollution to increased risk of asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, and tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S. every year (depending on what those particles are made of).

No doubt you have all heard of ozone. It is generated naturally by short-wave solar ultraviolet radiation and appears in our upper atmosphere in the form of a gas. Ozone can also be produced by passing an electrical discharge, such as lightning, through oxygen molecules. Lightning is a perfect example of making an abundance of O3 (ozone molecules) to naturally purify the earth’s atmosphere.

When ozone comes into contact with pollutants, it loses one of its atoms and “oxidizes” the pollutant, thereby destroying it. But, because ozone is an oxidizer (it is always trying to give away its extra atom), high, sustained levels of ozone in the air near the ground can be harmful to humans, animals, and even plants.

How do you get rid of this stuff? Get cleaner air in your house. I know, that is not a simple solution. It is hard to open all the windows and doors and turn on a fan to blow the crud out of your house when it is only 32 °F (0 °C) outside. And, even if you could do that, when you close them again and crank up the wood stove (or coal or oil/gas), you’re just going to fill up with more particulates. And you can never seem to circulate enough clean air, any time of the year, to get the mold out of the basement.

The solution, it would seem, would then be an air purifier (or two). I am not going to push any particular brand – not even the kind I have. There are better ones than what I could afford to buy. But I would like to spend a few more minutes warning you what not to fall for.

Never use an ozone generator that uses ozone as the primary source of purification. Ozone is an unstable oxygen molecule (O3) that oxidizes anything it bumps into. So if it bumps into iron, it makes iron oxide (what you know as rust). Ozone air purifiers work by propelling the ozone by a fan and whatever the ozone bumps into it oxidizes. This is great for removing odors, killing mold and mildew – and even killing small animals with enough exposure!

If a home is flooded or has a sewage backup, professionals will use this technology to help clean up the mess, but note that all people and pets are removed while the ozone is applied and are only brought back after the ozone is removed. This is the only appropriate use of that technology.

Still, there are several firms that sell ozone air purifiers for home use. This can be dangerous because overexposure to ozone can bring on asthma symptoms, and a high enough level of ozone can actually scar your lungs!

Beware the following misleading sales pitches often used by retailers trying to sell ozone purifiers for residential use:

• You need to turn up the ozone air purifier until you smell a fresh laundry scent. Because your olfactory system becomes accustomed to any odor over time, this means that your purifier has to continually be set to deliver higher concentrations of ozone, often leading to serious health consequences!
• Ozone purifiers are approved by the federal government for use in occupied spaces. No agency of the federal government has ever approved these devices for such use. In fact, several federal government agencies have worked in consultation with the EPA to produce a review that clearly documents that ozone is not appropriate for use in residential or home air purifiers.

Note: The U.S. EPA has established 80 ppb (parts per billion) of ozone exposure over eight hours as the National Ambient Air Quality Standard. The Underwriters Laboratories (the trusted source across the globe for product compliance) standard for emitting ozone is a maximum of 50 ppb. Currently, air purifiers are not legally obligated to comply with this standard, but it is a very strong recommendation.

Don’t waste your money on air purifiers like the Ionic Breeze. Ionic Breeze ads run on dozens of TV channels, versions are sold in countless publications, and the products are sold in lots of stores, so it must be good right? Wrong! The relentless intensity of advertising behind Ionic Breeze purifiers just gives the product the appearance of popularity.

Ionic Breeze Air Purifiers work by using a charged plate electrostatic system, but with no fan. It relies solely on the electrostatic plates to move the air though the air purifier. To some extent it does move air as you can see with their wiggling ribbons on TV.

What the makers of Ionic Breeze fail to mention is that it moves very little air. The typical air purifier moves 200 to 400 cubic feet of air a minute. If you put the little ribbons from the ionic breeze air purifier commercial on the typical purifier, they would be blown off. To put this in perspective, 400 cubic feet or air is contained in a room with 8-foot ceilings that is about 7’ by 7’ (slightly larger if some of that space is filled with furniture). J The real air purifiers move all of this air in only one minute. Here are some points to remember about the Ionic Breeze:

• One independent product testing publication reported that the Ionic air purifiers removed very little dust in a test lasting over 100 minutes. Generally, it didn’t come close to the performance of the other air purifiers tested.
• Ionic Breeze purifiers are found to absorb only about 30% of the particles in the air.
• The air purifiers that used ionic breeze technology were also found to have left about 5% of the contaminated air in the room to circulate without ever being absorbed by the purifier.
• Consumer Reports gave ionic breeze purifiers a “poor” rating.

If you have serious allergy or asthma problems, it’s obvious that you are better off going with a less well-advertised, but more substantially performing air cleaner (which often cost less than what Sharper Image charges).

Then there are those air purifiers that work to a greater extent, but still don’t catch everything. This class is the one that claims it is a HEPA filter. Boy, that’s a new buzz word for health nuts (get a HEPA vacuum!). That acronym, by the way, simply means High Efficiency Particulate Air filter.

An air purifier that is equipped with a HEPA filter is able to absorb 99.7% of all particles that are 0.03 microns and larger in size. Most harmful particles found in the air are measured to be about 0.03 microns or larger. To qualify as a “true” HEPA, the filter must allow no more than three particles out of 10,000 to penetrate the filtration media.

As good as that sounds, pure HEPA air purifiers do not remove odors, chemicals or gasses. Since these are molecular level substances, the 0.3 micron holes are large compared to the gas molecules. Because air must pass through the filter, it can be difficult to clean a very large room with a HEPA filter.

To understand how the HEPA works, imagine a filter that only allows very tiny particles to pass through. If you placed a single sheet of this HEPA paper in front of a fan, very little air would be able to pass because of the small size of the holes. In addition, air purifiers made like this would need to have the filter changed quite often because the holes would plug rapidly.

To get adequate airflow and filter life, you would have to fold the paper back and forth in a zig-zag pattern so that it can present a very large surface area to the airflow. This is how “real” HEPA filters are made – with as much as 40 square feet of the filter material folded into the HEPA section

A HEPA air purifier is simply a fan that forces airflow though a filter. The more times the air goes though the filter, the cleaner the room. So, if you put the product at one end of a long narrow room, how often is the air from the other end going to get though the HEPA filter? Not often. If you need to purify air in a large space, the HEPA is probably not your best choice.

Electronic air purifiers use an electronic charge to attract particles to collection plates and eliminate them from the air. Proven to be 95% efficient, electronic purifiers can absorb most particles from the air. Similar to magnets, they use static electricity to charge particles in the air. The static that is developed by the machine is used to attach a charge to all particles in the air that is taken in by the air purifier.

When the particles possess a charge, this charge is attracted to the opposite type of charge. This opposite charge is placed onto collection plates or other types of medium inside the air purifier. This medium attracts the charged particles and they stick to the charged medium instead of staying in the air. There are two types of electronic air purifiers: 1) The one-stage system in an electronic air purifier charges the particles and sticks them to the collection plates. There is only one step that the air goes through of filtering once it enters the air purifier. 2) In the two-stage system, however, the air enters the air purifier and the particles in the air are charged using high-voltage wires. The charged particles are then pulled into metal plates that are charged oppositely. Both types of electronic air purifiers are just as effective at removing particles from the air.

Electronic purifiers cover smaller areas such as bedrooms and small living quarters. The usage of electronic purifiers is very limited as an increased airflow reduces the unit’s effectiveness in removing air borne particles. Electronic units are acceptable in removing dust and pet dander but not recommended for removal of chemicals, smoke, molds and certain smaller pollen particles.

Negative ion purifiers re-create the same process that nature uses to keep the air fresh and clean. To understand how these purifiers work, you need to first understand the role negative ions play in nature.

An ion is any atom that has a positive or a negative charge (positive ions make you feel sluggish and/or depressed – there are a lot of those during hot humid days or when sitting too close to a CRT, like your TV or computer, while negative ions make you feels good – there are a lot of those next to a waterfall, or when you pet a cat). A positively charged ion will seek a negatively charged one to unite with and then turn into something new. In nature, ions are generated in abundance wherever energy is transferred into the air such as ultra-violet light from the sun, or by lightning and thunderstorms.

Negative ions remove airborne contaminates from the air you breathe, and have a rejuvenating effect when interacting with your body – especially your respiratory system.

Places that you find to be energizing, such as in the mountains, near waterfalls and the beach have optimal concentrations of negative ions of at least 2,000 per cubic centimeter.

On the other hand, there are only a couple hundred negative ions per cubic centimeter in the typical indoor environment. Scientific studies about negative ions have also shown that some people become moody, tired, depressed, or experience difficulty concentrating when negative ion counts are low (i.e., when positive ion counts are high). Negative Ion purifiers generate the negative ions that nature uses to significantly reduce the amount of dust and other particles in the air.

Most floating contaminants and allergens are positively charged. In environments where high densities of negative ions exist, they are able to reverse the charge of floating contaminants to a negative charge.

This results in a magnetic attraction among the floating pollutants in the air, causing them clump together. As a result, they become too heavy to remain floating and fall to the ground – out of the air you breathe.

However, these particles fall out of the air and are then stuck to the wall, floor, or items in the room that the air purifier is cleaning. The particles that the negative ion attract and charge are not cleanly taken out of the air or absorbed into the air purifier. Instead, they have simply been moved to the walls and surrounding solid items in the room. These particles could easily become loose and circulate in the air again.

Although negative ion technology may seem to be cutting edge and may seem effective since it is used in a few different industries, this type of air purifier is still not proven as effective as HEPA technology or electronic technology when it comes to eliminating and catching more particles in the air.

So, how about a combination of the above technologies? There are a few out there. A combination of electronic, HEPA, and negative ion generation? And how about we throw in a charcoal filter to eliminate odors? My house smells better and I can see that the smoke that was in the air is not there now. We’re still testing, however.

Short Shots

When one of the world’s biggest purveyors of unhealthy foods complains about how poorly the FDA is monitoring U.S. beef safety, you bet the situation must be pretty dire. The McDonald’s fast food chain has submitted comments to the FDA, along with a panel of researchers, saying the government’s efforts to protect consumers from Mad Cow disease “fall woefully short.” Since the first discovery of the brain-wasting disease in the U.S. in 2003, the government has tested less than one percent of all cattle. “It is our opinion that the government can take further action to reduce this risk,” wrote Dick Crawford, McDonald’s vice president. More at: http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/mcd.cfm (Interesting aside: we think Japan has a high incidence of Mad Cow disease, but they test 100%, so they catch every single one, while we test only 1%, so you are probably eating some of those mad cows.)

Mixing the common additives aspartame (that nasty neurotoxic artificial sweetener) and monosodium glutamate (MSG) causes nerve cell damage, say researchers at the University of Liverpool. The results from a two-year study were recently published in the journal Toxicological Sciences. The researchers found the additives were much more potent in combination with each other than on their own. Mice were exposed to concentrations of MSG and aspartame relative to what a child would receive in an average snack and drink. Researchers were surprised to see the additives interfered with nerve signaling systems and actually stopped the nerve cells from growing. Aspartame is commonly found in diet drinks, candies and flavored medicines, while MSG is frequently found in chips, processed cheese and many processed foods. More: at: http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/msg010306.cfm

You might have recently read that a Norwegian doctor proved that taking NSAIDs reduces your risk of getting oral cancer. Well, not true. He has recently admitted (under pressure) that he faked his study by making up fictitious patients and his faked study was published in Lancet as if it was real. I bet they are hiding under the covers now.

From The Independent, December 28, 2005: The use of chicken feces as feed is common in integrated livestock-fish farming, which also involves the transfer of pig and duck waste directly to fish farms.

An international group of bird conservationists believes that this practice – which is routine in Asia – may be responsible for the spread of the avian flu.

Some believe the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, which oversees this practice, may have been aware for some time that there were serious health risks involved with mixing farmed fish and animal feces.

More at: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article335356.ece

The practice of feeding feces, and possibly contaminated feces at that, to farmed fish is disturbing, but not particularly surprising. The practice increases fish growth and therefore profits, and whenever your health and their profit collide, your health is the loser.

Conditions at fish farms are like conditions at factory livestock farms: overcrowded, sickly, infected animals being fed whatever it takes to grow them as large as possible in as short a time as possible. Fish farm techniques are causing disease to be spread even to wild fish.

We were recently shopping at Sam’s Club and reading every package of fish we could find and guess what – all of them are farmed fish, and unless the menu at your favorite seafood restaurant proclaims “wild,” you will be eating farmed fish. One package at Sam’s did claim it was wild fish, but I’m not sure what to believe because the front label said “North Atlantic Cod” while the back of the package said “wild caught in China” and unless the world has changed geographically, China is nowhere near the Atlantic. Go figure…

Now maybe the Asians feed their farmed fish chicken poop exclusively, but so do many American fish farms. And the ones who claim they don’t do that feed them something else you don’t want – yeah, corn! Sigh….

Another Drug Critic Gets Silenced by Big Pharma?

Dr. Eric J. Topol, a cardiologist with the prestigious Cleveland Clinic Foundation, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the drug companies.

He came into the spotlight after he openly criticized drug company Merck and its painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market because of safety concerns.

Dr. Topol has also criticized other drugs and was recently demoted from his position as head of the clinic’s medical college. He suggested in a Webcast that his criticism of Merck was a key reason why he was demoted.

Though Dr. Topol is still the chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the clinic, associates say he may leave the clinic altogether.

New York Times, December 17, 2005. Full story (registration is required) at: