Wednesday 26 February 2014

Have You Got Your Statins Yet?

Recently we had yet another story on Statins and how millions more need to take them.

Is this really right?  Surely the question should be why do doctors believe more are at risk from heart problems?  What is going on to get to that stage?  and How can we reverse that?

The tests can be devised to show what they like, the range that indicates the so called need for statins can be set to 'sell' more drugs.   I think we need to stop being naive about the behind the scenes health decisions that get taken on our behalf and then applied to us.  Flawed studies, as the clips below will show.

The number of people that get blood tests and take the pills not knowing what the tests were for or what the pills are doing is frightening, yet the same people know exactly what the mechanic did for their car and what the problem was.  They will even give you a print out along with the bill.

May be we should start getting that print out from our Dr's.  A big rumpus at the moment about our medical data being shared with 'others'  Isn't it time it was shared with us!  Why don't we have access to our own medical records online or held within our hands...I digress....

How committed to good health is our government?  Why would they rather pay expensive drug costs for Statins rather than look at some of the major culprits of heart health and deal with it at cause?

Who pulls the government strings...we know there is no money in good health for certain companies, but our health is not part of a corporations profits and neither should our government be using our health in its corporation dealings.

Isn't it time that the government slapped a tax on high sugar foods and encouraged lower prices on veggie.  But if you go into any supermarket...the offers are rarely on vegetables, but the 2 for 1's are on biscuits, cereals, processed foods, high sugar foods.  What would the big suppliers of this food do,such as Nestle, if governments slapped higher taxes on this type of food.

Every budget sees a little more go on cigarettes and alcohol, but not enough to make them really prohibitive, just enough to take a bit more tax revenue from them.  The odd logic is to add a little more tax to help the NHS cope with the effects of them.....ugh!!!  So it's ok to have a sick population then and keep them just a little under optimum health...why?  remember no money in health for certain organisations....did we vote in a corporation or a government?....I digress again, but it is all linked.

We all know these are contributing factors in heart health.

Take the money that is being ploughed into drugs and plough into promoting health and helping people make good choices. Support the healthy food options with that money. Offering drugs like statins does nothing to alter the mindset.

We all need to eat...make the better choices cheaper.

The heart health story has laid all the blame on Cholesterol...cholesterol is only doing its job, if we have healthy arteries, cholesterol isn't needed to plug the gaps and cause plague in the arteries.

I have blogged on cholesterol and statins before but the best I've seen on this are contained in the links below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAq7Sxyp-JQ    Dr Sinatra   Integrative Cardiologist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdvtp40QmIY    Cholesterol – Johnny Bowden

Then just for balance, here is the BBC report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26132758

If nothing else, it will hopefully show how poor the science is in the tests we get. But also it might even start the right questions being asked when you are in the Dr's.

If a nurse or Dr tells you that you are a ticking time bomb if you don't take the statins....that is fear based medicine and that i'm going to write about later...the nocebo effect!  but it's amazing what people will do or take if a man or woman in a uniform or white coat tells you that you should and back that up with fear.....don't die of fright!





Saturday 15 February 2014

Where is this road leading?


The End of America -  not just America!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqRyUQzokYs


“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”


― Martin Niemöller


Is this the way citizens should be living in 2014


Tuesday 11 February 2014

Substance then style or is it just style over substance?

Life does present with some odd experiences.

For 2 hours a week I teach at a local further education college - trust me, you do this for the love of it and not for the finances!  As any teacher will tell you, the amount of time spent preparing and then marking is almost as great as the time in the room.  Well yesterday the faculty I work in had been selected for a teaching inspection....and so I found one of these designated chaps in my class.

I have to say it really must be up there as one of the biggest waste of time of one person we currently operate. There sits this person with his notebook in hand, tapping away as I'm trying to deliver the lesson. It takes no account of what went before and absolutely no account of my true knowledge of the subject.

He observed a lesson on a subject he knew nothing about and watched a demo on a subject he knew even less and watched the students practise a routine that to be honest he also wouldn't have a clue if I had taught them correctly or not.

I could have stood up and delivered a lecture that was a complete load of rubbish, taught a routine that I made up in my head as I went along and 'winged it' through out - but as long as I had done it in the preferred style of the moment with the focus on the current craze/fad of teaching methods with plenty of change in pace and student involvement that's ok.

I'm not one for convention and would rather respond to the needs of the group as we go along. That is something you can only do when you are confident in the subject knowledge and that what you are teaching is current/relevant and meets the need.  If some one had come along and randomly asked me questions on my subject to see that I hopefully knew what I was talking about and perhaps went around the room and asked students about their learning experience in the classroom, even testing the knowledge that by now the teaching should have given them - surely that would be a better test of teaching skills and abilities.

So now one waits for the feedback....In all honesty, the only feed back that matters to me, is that from the students.....Have they enjoyed it, did they get what they needed and expected, has it expanded their thoughts and knowledge and are they confident with their new skills.   These should be ongoing questions throughout a course, a constant dialogue. Not whether one has ticked the boxes for this years methods/standardisations.


Had the joy of attending a great workshop on Matrix Energetics at the weekend....really enthusiastic trainer, followed no teaching rules at all, yet we all came away with a great experience and all took from it what we needed.

One little moment struck my love of irony.....The trainer wanted a volunteer and asked people to raise their hands if they were someone who had issues about putting themselves first....The irony of it I love.   Should he perhaps have picked someone who kept their hands down as they didn't want to put themselves first and ignore those whose hands shot up, as they clearly did.  Tricky one and delightfully ironic.