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Bill Sardi
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Posted January 11, 2014: by Bill Sardi
Over a year ago I reported on a blood test that can predict an impending heart attack days prior to its occurrence. The test measured the number of circulating cells sloughed off from the inside of arteries that can block coronary arteries that supply oxygen to the heart. But I asked then, “what to do next?”
The test needed to be refined and validated, which is what Scripps Institute researchers announced recently in the journal of Physical Biology.
But precisely what would cardiologists do to prevent the onset of a heart attack if the test indicates a heart attack is imminent?
Most likely they will employ drugs that reduce coagulation (clotting) of the blood but the number of these microparticles must be reduced to address the problem directly.
Posted in Heart, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted December 27, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Centuries ago the priest was the only one who had access to a Bible. Parishioners relied upon the priest to deliver and interpret the scriptures as they could not be examined directly and many people were frankly not even literate. But then came Martin Luther who nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. It called for direct rather than indirect contact with God for forgiveness of sins rather than the purchase of indulgences from the priesthood.
Today the masses have direct access via the internet to the body of knowledge in medical journals. However, that knowledge is cloaked in medical and statistical terminology that is not only difficult to interpret but easily manipulated. For the most part the masses must rely upon the priesthood of doctors to advise what is best for them.
Posted in Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted November 13, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Nov. 12, 2013- Out with monitoring cholesterol numbers. In what is being called a “tectonic shift in the way doctors treat high cholesterol,” the American Heart Association unexpectedly announced new guidelines today for prescribing statins drugs.
Without admission that older guidelines were a misdirection, the new guidelines abandon the idea of lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol to below 100 and re-set that number at 190. No mention is made about raising HDL “good” cholesterol, which cardiologists also once embraced till a major study had to be halted when elevation of HDL cholesterol resulted in increased deaths.
Cardiologists hope to get it right this time saying subjects who don’t fit the newly established guidelines should be encouraged to implement lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation along with dietary and exercise regimens.
Posted in Heart, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted October 18, 2013: by Bill Sardi
The pipeline of new remedies for macular degeneration is growing as some new medicines begin to show promise for this debilitating eye disorder.
For anyone stricken with macular degeneration, any imagined cure, if not harmful, would certainly be welcomed. There is no effective cure for the most common form of the disease.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an insidious eye disease that robs senior adults of their central (reading) vision.
About a third of senior Americans have early signs of the disease (yellow spots called retinal drusen). About 9% of seniors have suffered vision loss from the slowly-progressive “dry” macular degeneration.
Posted in Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted September 18, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Today’s health news headline emanating from Great Britain is that childhood asthma rates have soared for the past 50 years, doubling over that time. About 1.1 million British youngsters and an additional 4.2 million adults have asthma – with 1400 asthmatics dying annually.
This means something that began happening in the 1960s continues today with devastating consequences. It has to be environmentally induced, not naturally occurring. This means a long standing epidemic can exist within a modern human population and the medical community appears oblivious, even powerless to understand or stop it.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Modern Medicine, Uncategorized, Vitamins ; No Comments »
Posted August 15, 2013: by Bill Sardi
RADIO BROADCAST KLAV-1230AM, Las Vegas, NV, August 15,2013
Dear Doctor:
If there is any doctor listening out there…
I read your best medical journals, as I’m sure you do.
I know the difference between statistical and clinical improvements.
I know that the central focus of modern medicine in the past four decades, cholesterol reduction with statin drugs, has not significantly lowered mortality among high-risk or healthy adults (if you don’t believe what I just said, then check the bulletin just issued in the Journal of the American Medical Association). Harvard Dr. John Abramson, author of Overdosed America, has also documented that fact among healthy adults. The alarming part of the newly issued AMA bulletin is that the assumed benefits of lowering mortality among high-risk statin drug users has also been a false assumption.
Posted in Heart, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted August 12, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Comment: The newly released report (click link to review), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), concedes that statin drugs have now been relegated as secondary intervention in the prevention of heart disease. What now serves as primary prevention in its place, according to the JAMA report, are control of “lifestyle factors” such as smoking cessation, dietary measures, and limitation of alcohol intake).
This is a nice way of saying the major direction of western medicine in the last forty years has been flawed, even corrupt. Unfortunately, the only penalty for being wrong has been experienced by those who took statin drugs in good faith, paid the price with their lives, believing their well-trained physicians were guiding them in the right direction. That wasn’t true, and cardiologists knew this for a long time prior to the published report below.
Posted in Health Care System, Heart, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted July 20, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Maybe upstate New York surgeon Spyros Panos was a bit more obvious than his colleagues. Dr. Spyros never even pretended to use surgical instruments after he surgically opened knees, briefly inserted and withdrew a scope, then sewed up a small wound and billed insurance. Dr. Spyros is accused of booking more than 22 surgical procedures in a single day and delivering needless care.
But isn’t that precisely what all orthopedic surgeons do?
Over a decade ago a landmark report published in The New England Journal of Medicine compared levels of pain relief among patients who either underwent an operation that cleaned out (debride) dead tissue from the knee or a simulated operation where an incision was made but no scope was inserted. There was no difference in pain noted between the group undergoing the clean-up operation and the sham surgery.
Posted in Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted July 16, 2013: by Bill Sardi
More than two-thousand years ago Hippocrates was the first physician to issue a word of caution about the over-use of medicines. Hippocrates invoked an oath to “first do no harm” before doctors reach for the latest nostrum.
In 1976 Austrian philosopher and Catholic priest Ivan Illich, in his book Medical Nemesis, launched what was then considered “the gravest health hazard we face today: our medical system.”
Illich was unforgiving. The first sentence in his text reads: “The medical establishment has become a major threat to health.” His second sentence: “The disabling impact of professional control over medicine has reached the proportions of an epidemic.” Readers needn’t have read another sentence but to obtain the details.
Illich went on to say: “The public has been alerted to the perplexity and uncertainty of the best among its hygienic caretakers…. the pioneers of yesterday’s so-called breakthroughs warn their patients against the dangers of the miracle cures they have only just invented.”
Posted in Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted June 18, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Defenders of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) now provide evidence that any alleged risks for cancer, stroke, blood clots or other maladies associated with HRT are not greater than those for other commonly-used drugs such as aspirin or statin cholesterol-lowering drugs. Investigators claim risks for these infrequent maladies rise by less than 1 in 1000 HRT-treated women.
What goes unsaid is that while sex hormone mildly increases the risk for breast cancer, dietary modifications can significantly decrease the risk while replacing the estrogen signal in the body.
Researchers recently tested whether estrogen, tamoxifen (a drug anti-estrogen) or a flaxseed diet reduces the production of inflammatory factors called interleukin 1-a and 1-b associated with breast cancer.
Posted in Cancer, Dietary Supplements, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
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