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AUGUST 2021 TABLEHOPPING
One thing I notice as people are out and about more but honestly I see every day in my office is that people slouch. Yes you…you slouch a lot. Your posture sucks and it’s possibly affecting your health. Your mother was right again. Posture affects more than just how tall you appear. Poor posture can create a host of symptoms from back pain, headache, fatigue, breathing problems, jaw pain and even knee hip and foot pain at least according to the Cleveland Clinic. According to the American Posture Institute bad posture is a major risk factor for falls in the elderly and since falls in the elderly are a major risk factor for death ….poor posture = increased mortality. So it’s not just about how you look ..it’s about your whole body health. Most of the articles about posture on the internet are oriented around gaining height but my concern with your slouching is that it contributes to your poor health. I am a primary care physician not a chiropractor but both professions can agree that posture is important and working on your posture can have real benefits. So, your posture is bad but your grandkids posture is even worse since they are always looking down at their cellphones and there’s little chance of that changing.
Here’s a simple test from the Mayo Clinic to check your posture…it’s called the wall test.
Stand so that the back of your head, your shoulder blades and your buttoc ks touch the wall, and your heels are 2 to 4 inches from the wall. Put a flat hand behind the small of your back. You should be able to just barely slide your hand between your lower back and the wall for a correct lower back curve. If there’s too much space behind your lower back, draw your belly button toward your spine. This flattens the curve in your back and gently brings your lower back closer to the wall. If there’s too little space behind your lower back, arch your back just enough so that your hand can slide behind you. Walk away from the wall while holding a proper posture. Then return to the wall to check whether you kept a correct posture.
There are lots of options to help you work on your posture including some devices which buzz like the Upright Go and the Uposture which signal you if there is a change in posture ….I have no experience with them and just ordered the Uposture to check it out. I often recommend to my patients that they consider a garment to help their posture….they are called posture guards. I can’t recommend any of them in particular but they are not expensive and you can get a good sense of what they look like on the internet. You can also go to physical therapy and work on your posture and sometimes they use flexible tape that acts like the garments and helps maintain posture. There is a school of posture called the Alexander Technique and we have a local expert in this technique..Kathryn M Miranda….who has taught this program for decades. She can be reached at 315-412-4829.
I don’t think any of us are usually aware of our posture unless someone points it out …that’s why I like the garment idea …it’s a constant reminder to straighten up and fly right. I too am working on my posture…my wife and I are taking dance lessons in preparation for my daughter’s upcoming wedding and posture is the first thing the dance instructor focused on. Well, that’s what the second dance instructor focused on anyway…the first dance instructor fired us….That must tell you something right there…..I have discovered I like taking dance lessons. My wife and I have been married over 30 years and I worry that things could get a little stale and dancing once a week together really gives us something to do that focuses on both of us. Thankfully she seems to enjoy it as much as I do. If you are in a relationship that in any way could benefit from something new in your life I highly recommend giving dance lessons a try. Our instructor is suffering enough…go find your own and …work on your dance steps and your posture at the same time.
JT BARRY MD
JULY 2021 TABLEHOPPING
THE ENERGY PARADOX
I will get to Magnesium in my next article but I just read Dr Gundry’s The Energy Paradox and wanted to bring it to your attention. His earlier works including the Plant Paradox radically changed my approach to illness and wellness and since so many people suffer from a lack of energy I thought you should know about it. I also highly recommend Walking with Peetey the dog who saved my life but that’s another article entirely.That book too brings together many of the concepts I bring up in the office everyday but again …another day.
The Energy Paradox addresses the issue around fatigue….When your get up and go has gotten up and gone. Many people erroneously believe that you run out of energy as you age but Dr Gundry points out that you are just running out of the right fuel ..that you are not recharging your body’s power and battery pack …your mitochondria. Mitochondria are tiny organelles that are found in almost every cell in your body and produce the vast percentage of all the energy your body manufactures in a day. If your mitochondria are happy …you are healthy. If they are not…you are not. Furthermore the mitochondria are heavily influenced by the bugs in your gut …there’s that microbiome connection again ! The mitochondria need full spectrum light ( which controls energy production via quantum mechanics..read the book for details ), properly constructed cell membranes (which brings us back to the omega 3 / 6 ratio I preach about and which your doctor can easily test for) and interestingly enough melatonin. Yes , it turns out the sleep inducing chemical produced by your pineal gland is a major protector of mitochondrial function. You don’t have to depend on just your own production of melatonin…it’s found in abundance in certain foods like olives, olive oil,pistachios and mushrooms. Dr Gundry posits that it’s not the resveratrol in red wine that makes it so healthy, it’s the melatonin !
The standard american diet overwhelms your mitochondria, damages your gut lining, changes the character of the microbiome in your gut and the processed foods damage energy production so it’s no wonder you lack the energy of youth. Furthermore , as Dr Gundry points out, our eating habits overwhelm the gut and the mitochondria by presenting too many nutrients too often that the mitochondria shut down to protect themselves. When the mitochondria are damaged it TAKES energy to destroy them and activates the immune system. The restorative medicine field has long held that all disease is inflammation and all disease is mitochondrial dysfunction and all disease begins in the gut and now you begin to see the interconnectivity of these theories. Dr Gundry’s research takes a whole different approach to the benefits of the keto diet. I thought the keto diet produced ketones which are a clean fuel for your cells and mitochondria. He postulates that these ketones and butyrates are actually communicating to your cells that times are hard and the mitochondria have to be more efficient and more plentiful in response to this stress.
How to improve your mitochondrial function and thereby improve your energy production? Get exposed to light…get outdoors. Dramatically cut down on the linoleic acid in your diet ( canola oil and the other seed oils) while adding Omega 3’s like fish, fish oil etc. He has long recommended Olive oil but now adds sesame oil as an oil that is a powerful antioxidant, a blocker of inflammation at the gut wall level and even has a protective effect against electromagnetic fields! Do some strength training or resistance work which increases the number of mitochondria in your cells. Change the composition of the bugs in your gut and the signals they send your cells and mitochondria by eating more fiber ( the term he uses to describe these substances that are made by the bacteria which then communicate with our bodies is post biotics).
Finally he again promotes the concept of time limited eating. Not grazing from sunup to sundown and beyond as most Americans do but limiting the time you consume food so the mitochondria are not overworked and have some down time to rest and repair. I am not going to get into the details about his dietary recommendations , his suggested supplements and his list of medications and chemicals to avoid. That’s too much for one or two columns to give justice to. This book is packed with details, loaded with references and pretty easy to read. If you want to change your energy level, lower your inflammation, and raise your overall health you want to read this book. Do yourself and your mitochondria a favor and read this book. You don’t have to get any special lab tests done to see results. You don’t have to read any testimonials. You will feel the results for yourself. This is called a N of 1 trial. You be the judge. Until next month…get well…stay well….
JT BARRY MD
JUNE 2021 TABLEHOPPING
Covid 19 might be calming down finally but the world is still going crazy. I was going to write an article about Magnesium or maybe review Dr Gundry’s latest book The Energy Paradox. I was thinking I would review the vaccination rates in various states and show their correlation or lack thereof with infection rates. But then I came across an article about my profession that I couldn’t believe. Last week the biggest medical organization …the American Medical Association .. issued statements to the effect that it supports critical race theory and no longer supports equal treatment to all people. The article I read states that “ The AMA also makes clear that it now rejects the concepts of “equality” and “meritocracy,” which have been goals in the fields of medical science and medical care. “ Furthermore, and I am quoting again..“Equality as a process means providing the same amounts and types of resources across populations,” the association said. “Seeking to treat everyone the ‘same,’ ignores the historical legacy of disinvestment and deprivation through historical policy and practice of marginalizing and minoritizing communities.”
I am of course not suggesting that minorities have not been screwed over in the past and may be still today but isn’t it the essence of America and shouldn’t it be the essence of medicine to treat everyone equally? How can this major organization reject equal treatment of all people? Needless to say I am no longer a member of the AMA and it’s interesting that I got an offer via the internet to renew my membership at 50% off. I wouldn’t renew my membership if they paid me. In my office its our explicit policy to treat everyone….no matter where you come from, no matter where you are going, no matter how you identify your gender or sexual preferences (as long as it doesn’t involve minors) no matter how much you are worth, no matter your age , no matter what…everyone deserves to be treated equally with fairness and kindness and hopefully understanding of your medical issues. As the well known business expert Mr Rogers has so aptly stated there are three rules of success….Rule #1 Be Kind. Rule #2 Be Kind…Rule #3 Be Kind.
Of course I have felt for some time now that my profession has lost its way. I have seen how we, instead of looking for the cause of disease, now only look to treat the symptoms with medications and procedures. Interestingly it all started when I read Dr Gundry’s second book the Plant Paradox. I realized then I was only focusing on the symptoms and not the cause. The obvious fact that every physician knows but few acknowledge is that we should be focusing on the basics of your health…your diet , your exercise, your sleep and your stress. Don’t cover up the indigestion..find out the cause. Don’t just treat the high blood pressure…it’s a sign that the patient is doing something wrong…find out what is wrong and fix it and the high blood pressure goes away. Healthy people do not have heart disease, cancer and diabetes…it’s when we deviate from healthy habits that we get ill. Returning to healthy habits will resolve the illness. My profession has been trained to study pathophysiology in medical school then completely ignore it in practice.
The current practice of medicine is superb at managing your illness but if you want to really improve your health…to regain your wellness you are not likely to find a champion in your primary care office. We pay the most by far of any nation for health care and we rank low on real health measures. And now I find that the most prestigious medical association is more focused on social considerations than real equality of health care. Sorry , but I am going to stay firmly in the camp that believes all people should be cared for equally and if that somehow gets me in trouble with the “powers that be” so be it. Opposing the AMA shouldn’t get me in trouble with the Medical Society or the Health Department should it? Free speech may not be so free in America anymore. Maybe it’s a little hubristic but I close with the words of Martin Luther at the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521..”I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.
Until next month…get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
MAY 2021 TABLEHOPPING
Vitamin C is not just about treating your cold.
I just finished reading Dr Thomas Levy’s book entitled Stop America’s #1 Killerwhich is about vitamin C deficiency. Perhaps you know it better as scurvy. Almost allanimals can make their own vitamin C but we humans, bats and guinea pigs cannot. We must get it from the environment. It’s said that scurvy killed more British sailors than warfare did but this is not a story about historical malnutrition. It’s about you and your risk of Vitamin C deficiency. 40% of patients with septic shock had Vitamin C deficiency. The Nutrition Journal reported that up to 87% of critically ill patients with Covid 19 had Vitamin C deficiency. Of course Vitamin C deficiency is not limited to seriously ill individuals. As reported in the American Journal of Public Health in May 2004 “vitamin C deficiency and depletion were common (occurring among 5%–17% and 13%–23% of respondents, respectively)” Based on my experience it’s actually more common than that. Doctors don’t routinely assay for Vitamin C deficiency but we probably should give your SAD diet. That’ s standard american diet …full of food depleted of nutrients, loaded with trans fats, extra sugars , exotic chemicals and seed oils.
Vitamin C is a potent natural antioxidant and is concentrated in white blood cells 80 times more than in the serum. Vitamin C deficiency at the cellular level has been shown to be a cause if not the cause for the changes at the arterial level that cause hardening of the arteries…ie heart disease. The literature supporting Vitamin C deficiency as a cause of heart disease is much stronger than the literature that high cholesterol causes heart disease. Dr Levy sites studies that show people with higher levels of Vitamin C have lower incidence of heart disease. Vitamin C facilitates lecithin’s ability to add esters to the cholesterol in your arteries thereby making it more soluble and allowing HDL to bind it and remove it from the artery wall and transport it to the liver. Lower levels of VItamin C are associated with higher levels of fibrinogen. High Fibrinogen levels are associated with increased risk for heart disease and blood clots. Dr Levy also reports that patients with the highest levels of Vitamin C have lower risks for cancer.
So, Vitamin C deficiency has been linked to both heart disease and cancer. Do you need more impetus to supplement than that? No article about Vitamin C would be complete without a mention of its prior champion ( preceding Dr Levy) Linus Pauling. His belief that Vitamin C would treat the common cold has been much debated and he further postulated that it would prevent cancer. It’s true he died of prostate cancer but not until the age of 93 ! Dr Levy’s book is very heavily and meticulously referenced but it’s an easy and informative read. I highly recommend his prior book entitled Death by Calcium and have just ordered his book on Magnesium so expect more to come.
Until then …get well and stay well
JT BARRY MD
April 2021 TABLEHOPPING
Well , the vaccines have arrived and with it the push to vaccinate everyone. Never had covid? Better get vaccinated. Had a bad covid infection ? Better get vaccinated. Tested positive but didn’t get sick? Better get vaccinated. Immunocompromised? Pregnant? Able to get pregnant? Better get vaccinated. New strains are coming…get ready for more vaccinations.
All three currently available vaccines have been thoroughly tested and reviewed. They all appear very safe and effective. Of course, there are people who have a strong reaction to the vaccines but that’s true of many previous vaccines. There does not appear to be a relationship between having a reaction and having protection from Covid-19. Whether the shot bothers you or not doesn’t seem to make a difference in terms of protection. It’s all good in the hood.
So why shouldn’t absolutely everyone get the vaccine and we can get this whole ugly pandemic behind us? The supposition is we must get a high vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity. The WHO website says you must vaccinate 95% of people to have herd immunity to protect against measles. You must vaccinate 80% of people to have herd immunity to polio. We currently don’t know how many people you have to vaccinate to achieve herd immunity to Covid-19 but it will probably be in that range of 80% or above.
Again, the vaccines appear very safe and very effective so why am I proposing that it would be nothing less than scientifically disastrous if everyone is vaccinated. That’s right…there is a very very strong rationale to NOT vaccinate everyone. To vaccinate everyone violates very basic tenets of science and scientific experimentation.
Absolutely no one familiar with science will deny that any real experiment MUST have a control group. Without a control group you have no basis to understand interventions. This has been true since the beginning of experimentation. Without control groups you have no way of knowing whether any intervention, be it a drug, a procedure or a vaccine is really effective and safe. Even the WHO, the CDC, and the federal government completely agree with this. That’s why every single study of the vaccine safety and efficacy had these control groups.
Say what you want about President Trump but he did indeed facilitate the fastest development of a vaccine in the history of science. A term from the great Star Trek series..”warp speed” was used to describe the process. I personally have faith and confidence that the process was thoroughly vetted and all safety concerns were addressed. There were, as mentioned, controls on all the vaccines trials so what’s my beef? Absolutely none of the vaccine trials have LONG TERM controls. And we absolutely have to have long term controls. It remains vital to the scientific process. WIthout long term controls we have no way whatsoever to assess long term or distant effects of the vaccine. Like it or not, politically correct or not, but the need for long term controls is a scientific necessity.
It’s an unfortunate fact that prior coronavirus vaccine research was halted not because the viruses didn’t provide a good immune response in the animals tested but because those animals when later exposed to the virus got worse instead of better. so the vaccine instead of protecting the animals actually made their immune systems react overly aggressive when they were next exposed to that virus. It wasn’t for lack of money. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It was because of this viral potentiation that prior coronavirus vaccine research was giving up. None of the current available vaccines had trials that extended beyond a year. So we really have no way whatsoever of knowing about long-term side effects of the vaccine. I’m not saying in any way shape or form that the vaccine causes infertility but we have absolutely no information on this and therefore we have to have controls that are people that aren’t vaccinated. It does not appear right now that the vaccine causes viral potentiation in humans but again we’ve only been at this a few months. Without controls there is no way whatsoever to know whether some side effect or condition down the road is due to prior vaccination or some new virus or Chinese intervention or global warming or some new toxic agent. We have to have short-term controls and we have to have long-term controls and that means that it is, in fact , absolutely vital that we have people that do not receive the vaccine. If the government said we’re going to withhold the vaccine from 10 to 15% of the population in order to achieve this scientific goal, people would be outraged .But when people volunteer not to get the vaccine they’re considered anti-scientific . Not so.
Many of my friends think the vaccine will be mandatory for travel or to gain admission to concerts and events. I think they are probably right but who really knows? We will find out together pretty soon. Until then…Get Well and Stay Well.
JT BARRY MD
MARCH 2021 TABLEHOPPING
DETOX COCKTAIL….MAKE MINE A DOUBLE
This is going to be a longish article and there is too much to cover in one issue but it’s another very important topic for you to get a handle on. When I first heard of people doing detox’s I thought it was some hippy dippy West Coast wheat grass dealio but when I started to look into it I realized there is a lot to this and its important , as a healthcare provider, that I get a handle on what this entailed. Detoxifying regimens basically try to eliminate the build up of the various toxins both fat soluble and water soluble in the body you have built up over time.
Do I really need to convince you of how toxic you are? I have previously written that the US Government has been sampling human tissues for years this is taken directly from the EPA website. “The National Human Monitoring Program (NHMP), established by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1967, used an exposure-based approach to assess human exposure to toxic substances. Its primary component was the National Human Adipose Tissue Survey (NHATS), an annual survey conducted from 1970 to 1989 to collect and chemically analyze human adipose tissue specimens for the presence of toxic chemicals.”
According to their research 100% of fat samples contain styrene which is a breakdown product of styrofoam. Most samples tested contained dioxins, organophosphates etc. As reported in his book Toxic Solutions, Dr Joseph Pizzorno reflects on Dr Sanjay Gupta noted that there are up to 200 chemicals in the blood of babies even before they are born. Does that get your attention ? Over 90% of people in America have measurable levels of phthalates ( which is a breakdown product of plastic) and glyphosate ( the main ingredient in roundup ) Puget sound , the waterways off the coast of the State of Washington…have had the fish in the estuaries tested and they were found to have measurable levels of these drugs in the fish… Flonase Aleve Tylenol Paxil Valium Zoloft Tagamet Oxycontin and Cipro and other antibiotics.
Dr Pizzorno’s book mentions a study from Harvard which determined that Americans have lost 41 million collective IQ points as a result of exposure to lead , mercury and organophosphate pesticides. This doesn’t even include the question of fluoride exposure and mental retardation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5285601/
What about these many products we use daily that makes them dangerous? The average woman uses 12 health and beauty aids a day and the average man uses 6. These chemicals are not well regulated. Think this is all just conspiracy theory? Watch the documentary Dark Waters which is about the Dow Chemical company and teflon type coatings. The government is coming late to the game and is heavily influenced by the very companies it’s supposed to be regulating.
We call these chemicals toxins because they affect your body’s insulin sensitivity, they affect the cell membranes, they affect the microbiome in your guy, they directly affect your DNA and its expression. Toxins disrupt hormone function , mitochondrial activity, nervous activity and displace needed minerals in your body. Furthermore the toxicities are synergistic…each one making the next more damaging.
As reported by the President’s Cancer Panel of 2010 there were 80,000 chemicals in the market in the US the vast majority of them understudied and unregulated. There is no point in listing the long string of chemical names and abbreviations that we are exposed to and consume, breath in, coat our skin with etc..it’s just too long and most of the names are unpronounceable.
Do you recall the article I wrote about children’s sunscreen and how recent evidence showed that the kids had much higher levels of these chemicals in the circulation than had previously been reported? Is there anyone who thinks this is harmless or unimportant?
The issue of toxins affecting Insulin sensitivity is a particularly interesting one. Dr Pizzorno’s book makes a compelling argument that it’s very likely that simply increased sugars are not the sole cause for the diabetic crisis we are experiencing. It makes sense that diabetes has increased as our consumption of sugar has increased. We went from consuming 5 pounds of processed sugar in a year to over 152 pounds a year as reported in 2014. But if you look at the graph of sugar consumption versus diabetes it is not a tight correlation. On the other hand when you graph diabetes against chemicals on the market there is a much tighter correlation. Now correlation doesn’t prove causation but it certainly raises the intellectual eyebrow.
So this month’s article laid out for you the basic facts that you are loaded with chemicals that disrupt your health at a cellular level. Next month I will lay out what to do about it…Until then Get well and Stay well.
JT BARRY MD
GOING TO POT…..POTASSIUM I MEAN….
I have written previously to sing the praises of magnesium and now I carry thetorch for potassium. Potassium should be the third most common element in your bodybut often, for several reasons. it is not. Many people are on diuretics for their bloodpressure, heart failure, or edema and, unless they are careful with their electrolytes,their potassium can go dangerously low. You have to be careful because certain bloodpressure pills like ACE inhibitors and ARBs can cause your potassium to go too high.Even certain diuretics can be associated with high potassium . Both high and lowpotassium are dangerous. Luckily your doctor can and should be checking this on aregular basis with your bloodwork.
Potassium is crucial for the normal function of your heart, your nervous systemand muscle function. It is also important in blood pressure management. If yourPotassium or Magnesium are too low that can cause your blood pressure to go up.That’s right…a shortage of either element can be a cause of your hypertension. Theseminerals should be checked in every patient with a blood pressure problem and berepleated before your doctor reaches for the blood pressure pills. The reason thatpotassium is important in blood pressure control is because it has a significant effecton muscle contraction and arterial wall relaxation, but most Americans reportedly gethalf of the recommended daily allowance. A banana a day is not enough potassium tomake a real difference in your health. The average reported intake of potassium fromfood is about half of the 4,700 milligrams (mg) recommended. Research demonstratesthat these low levels of potassium may have a significant impact on blood pressure,especially as it relates to the amount of salt normally found in a Western diet accordingto Dr. Paul Welton, professor of epidemiology at Tulane School of Public Health andTropical Medicine, who did an analysis in 1997 of over 29 trials that demonstrated lowlevels of potassium resulted in higher systolic blood pressure readings. According toDr Welton studies performed since then have found similar results.
“The evidence is very strong and very consistent. A higher potassium intakemay blunt the effects of excess salt on blood pressure. Potassium’s effect isbigger in people who have higher blood pressure, bigger in older people,bigger in people who are consuming a lot of salt and bigger in black people.”
Other recent research found that “women without hypertension who consumed themost potassium (nearly 3,200 mg/day) had a 21 percent reduced risk of stroke. Further, women who consumed the most potassium were 12 percent less likely to die during thestudy period than those who consumed the least”
According to a recent review article by Dr Mercola “Potassium should be thethird most abundant mineral in the human body. Adequate amounts of potassium arealso associated with quicker recovery from exercise and improved muscle strength. Asan electrolyte, potassium helps to regulate the fluid balance in your cells and throughoutyour body. Fluid balance is essential to maintaining life, preventing dehydration at thecellular level and maintaining brain function. Potassium is important in the transmissionof nerve impulses in your brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system.”
There is evidence that low levels of potassium have been linked with high levelsof insulin and glucose, associated with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. So ,clearly, keeping your potassium at the right level is important. As I said earlier, if youhave any doubts about your potassium level you can easily have your blood checked butyou have to ask for the more sensitive Red Blood Cell Potassium if you want realaccuracy. As Dr Mercola points out “Getting nutrients from your food instead ofsupplements is preferable as your food contains more than a single nutrient and indifferent forms. For instance, potassium found in fruits and vegetables is potassiumcitrate or potassium malate, while supplements are often potassium chloride. Thecitrate and malate forms help produce alkali, which may promote bone health andpreserve lean muscle mass as you age.
So when you are told your blood pressure is too high, rather than reach for yetanother medication, why not look at your magnesium and potassium intake and theirlevels in your blood and work on the basis of your illness than on just trying to medicateit away. The pills will lower your blood pressure but they don’t address the underlyingcause of your high blood pressure and they have many many side effects. Work withyour doctor to focus on the basics…improving your diet, replacing electrolytes, gettingsome exercise etc. If you don’t manage your wellness the medical profession willmanage your illness but we don’t have a great track record of restoring your health.Remember what Thomas Edison said way back in 1903.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care ofthe human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Until then…getwell….stay well.
JANUARY 2021 TABLEHOPPING
Great Barrington Declaration https://gbdeclaration.org/
Sounds like a somber and weighty peace treaty but the Great Barrington Declaration is nothing of the sort. Rather, the Declaration is an open letter published on October 4th 2020 to world leaders beseeching them to avoid another COVID 19 lockdown. Named after a place in Massachusetts the Declaration is the work of three scientists ….each of whom are experts in this field.
Recurrent lockdowns seem to be sweeping the globe as I write this in early December. Lockdown fatigue is also quite prominent but we are told to appeal to reason and follow the science and listen to the experts. Which science and which experts are you hearing from? Since the mainstream media and our governmental authorities are doing a good job presenting the pro- lockdown side let me present a different point of view. Of course, it’s not just my opinion, it’s the opinion of three very different but very accomplished scientists from some of the absolute top education institutions in America. That’s what makes this so important and so credible. I am not quoting some obscure academician from a nowhere junior college.
The “experts”touted by the media say millions of lives have been saved by the lockdowns. These scientists argue just the opposite. Here are the bios taken directly from the website.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.
Dr. Sunetra Gupta , professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya , professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
A little more about Dr Bhattacharya who recently elaborated on the Declaration in an article written in Imprimis..a publication of Hillsdale college.
Dr Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, where he received both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in economics. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of the Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. A co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, his research has been published in economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals.
So Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. Pretty impressive lineup of scientists with special expertise in this area who have reviewed the data and have concluded that the lockdown has been a global disaster with terrible consequences especially among the poor. Here I quote directly from his remarks “ Those who dare to talk about the tremendous economic harms that have followed from the lockdowns are accused of heartlessness. Economic considerations are nothing compared to saving lives, they are told. So I’m not going to talk about the economic effects—I’m going to talk about the deadly effects on health, beginning with the fact that the U.N. has estimated that 130 million additional people will starve this year as a result of the economic damage resulting from the lockdowns In the last 20 years we’ve lifted one billion people worldwide out of poverty. This year we are reversing that progress to the extent—it bears repeating—that an estimated 130 million more people will starve.”
Here is a copy of the Great Barrington Declaration for your own perusal. I am one of the 36,000 thousand physicians who have signed the Declaration along with 600,000 private citizens and over 12,000 medical and public health scientists. If we have to trust the experts …why not these experts…?
The Great Barrington Declaration – As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.
Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.
As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.
On October 4, 2020, this declaration was authored and signed in Great Barrington, United States.
DECEMBER 2020 TABLEHOPPING
TIS THE SEASON
Well, the coronavirus continues its wrecking ball ways with our lives both personally and professionally and it’s certainly had a big effect on our holidays. With that in mind I am not going to nag you this season about too much eggnog…too much Netflix bingeing…or too little exercise. I am not going to spend this column on advice for getting through the holidays which are always a stressful period for some people even in the best of times. Maybe having so many events cancelled or prohibited will give those people more time to focus on what’s important or at least to de-stress. What I am going to write about is some Christmas gift suggestions that you might not have thought about. Don’t expect ugly sweaters, exercise videos or a tin of muffins on this list. Obviously, gym memberships and season tickets are off the table right now as well.
First , why not give the gift of information and have it be the gift that keeps on giving. I am talking about getting your friends and loved ones a health newsletter. For years I have given a subscription to my friends and family to Reason the libertainian magazine just to give them a different perspective but at this point in our lives I worry more about their health than their political leanings. Sure, you can go to Cleveland Clinic or Harvard Health Letter but may I suggest you take a little walk on the wild side and try Dr Sherry Rogers newsletter and get a completely different perspective on your health and healthcare from the regular medical establishment. And you can order it digitally so no worries about the mail, etc. It’s available from Prestige Publishing on the net. Dr Rogers looks at your health from a molecular level instead of a body organ level to get to the real heart of illness. If your mitochondria aren’t happy you aren’t happy and your corner doctor really doesn’t know how to evaluate that. Of course , you know that you need to measure insulin resistance and your essential fatty acid Omega 3:6 ratio and your triglyceride/ HDL ratio etc and Dr Rogers covers all this each month.
Next, if you really love someone get them a heart scan. Heart disease is the number one killer in America and often strikes without warning. Most people just don’t think about their health until something goes wrong. Your family member or friend’s heart and health are too important for that. Get them a Calcium Score. Not a stress test…that type of heart test will only be abnormal when it’s the end of the line. Get them a Cardiac Calcium Score. This is a 120 dollar scan done right here in town and measures the calcium in a patient’s heart arteries. Many studies have shown a very good correlation between the amount of calcium in your arteries with the likelihood of having a heart attack or sudden death in the future. NASA uses it but the vast majority of local cardiologists prefer the old fashioned but high tech stress test even though the calcium score can show you about possible heart trouble building up years and years before things get to stenting or bypass. I say make this a gift because typically insurance will not cover this test yet even though it’s been around for 20 years. Watch the documentary “Widowmaker” for free on YouTube and decide for yourself.
If you want to keep your gift giving local, why not give the gift of Optimism by setting your friend or loved one up with Tim Smith’s Smile Therapy. This is an internet service that starts each day with an uplifting quote, sentiment or story. How you start your day determines your day and who doesn’t need a little positivity first thing in the morning. It’s another gift that keeps on giving. Mr Smith is a local guy and a positive force in the Universe so check out his website for yourself or someone you care about. .
Let’s finish off high tech and personal. Why not get something for yourself. Why not treat yourself to the possibility you can change something in yourself. I have had multiple patients tell me that they changed something about themselves..some habit or activity ..using the Noom app on their phone. There are a variety of apps to help you change yourself whether it’s to stop smoking or to lose weight. You use that phone for many questionable or unimportant things..why not harness its potential to really make a positive impact on your health. You never know until you try so what’s stopping you from trying ? Until next column and next year….Get Well and Stay Well..
NOVEMBER 2020 TABLE HOPPING ARTICLE
TO SUPPLEMENT OR NOT TO SUPPLEMENT THAT IS THE QUESTION
Let’s talk collagen it’s the major structural protein in numerous tissues of the body including your tendons or ligaments, the blood vessels, the muscles, the gut tissues and your skin and cartilage. According to Rhonda Patrick found my fitness. They are the most abundant proteins in the body compromising about 30% of the total protein Mass unfortunately aging reduces protein synthesis and one protein synthesis that’s reduced in aging is collagen so as you get older you don’t make collagen as frequently or as copiously as when you’re younger.
Now you’re familiar with the double helix that’s DNA but collagen has a triple helix that is composed of about 1400 amino acids. There have been 28 distinct collagen proteins identified and they differ in their interactions with other proteins and location within the body. For instance , collagen type 1 and type 3 in the connective tissues, the tendons, the corneas, the bones, the skin and blood vessels Collagen type 2 is found primarily in cartilage cells. Collagen types 1, 2, and 3 are the most abundant collagen types in the body and are made up primarily of glycine, proline and hydroxyproline; these are individual amino acids that are linked together to form these collagen complexes. The sequence of the amino acids and the relative amounts determine whether it’s type 1 2 or 3 etc.
Why am I taking you down this little science highway? Because college is important and there’s something you can do about the fact that it slows down as you age.Collagen type 1 2 and 3 are typically hydrolyzed and used as oral supplements which have shown promise in improving skin health ,decreasing joint pain and improving hypertension no less. When you take natural collagen and heat it up you denature it and you get shorter peptide chains and it forms gelatin Again, it’s the same amino acids; glycine Proline and hydroxyproline. The one amino acid that seems to be absent is the essential amino acid tryptophan so you can’t use collagen as a general protein supplement even though it contains amino acids. You can get this hydrolyzed collagen from chickens, marine animals, pigs and cows. The one concern regarding sourcing your collagen is that if you get it from non bovine sources you do not have to worry about the possibility of mad cow disease People think that bone broth is a good source of collagen but the key components of amino acids, that are, glycine , proline and hydroxyproline were found in lower concentrations in bone broth compared to typical collagen supplements. So , I don’t think bone broth is necessarily a great collagen source but I do think it’s nutritious. Now, once you are taking your collagen how is it absorbed ? Well, hydrolyzed collagen, the kind you get when you buy it in the store probably is even better absorbed because it’s shorter chains then undenatured collagen straight from the source be it marine or mammal.
I had read previously that the collagen that you ingest doesn’t necessarily go into the joints but the ingestion of the collagen prompts the body to produce its own cartilage which is deposited in the joints. However , according to Rhonda Patrick (foundmy fitness.com) at least in rats the oral consumption of hydrolyzed collagen is deposited directly into the skin and joints. Rhonda Patrick points out that by the time a person reaches 80 years old collagen production in the skin has decreased by 70% compared to young adults. Of the skins total collagen, type 1 collagen comprises about 80% with type 2 comprising 15%. Topical collagen as used in cosmetics really doesn’t have a direct effect on collagen stimulation or production in the skin it does hydrate the skin and makes wrinkles less prominent. The topical preparation is not being incorporated into the actual skin but the ingestion of oral hydrolyzed collagen has shown positive effects on improving skin aging and is incorporated into the dermis itself.
As outlined again in foundmyfitness.com, oral intake of hydrolyzed collagen elicited the reversal in the natural decline of skin’s elasticity in aging women There are other critical components as well including Chondroitin sulfate which is an important structural component of cartilage while hyaluronic acid is a structural component of cartilage, connective, epithelial, and neural tissue.
What about collagen supplements in osteoarthritis? Several studies have shown that both placebo and commercial supplements report significant decrease in pain compared to baseline but there is a big difference between the collagen product 35% reduction and 15% reduction with placebo. So placebo helped but clearly collagen supplements worked twice as well as placebo with no serious adverse events reported in this trial.
Furthermore, hydrolyzed collagen may be helpful to bone health. Randomized controlled studies found that hydrolyzed collagen increase bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. Interestingly enough, hydrolyzed collagen has been shown to have a beneficial effect even in rheumatoid arthritis and I’m not talkin 1% or 2% Improvement I’m talking 30% – 50% Improvement in either morning stiffness, swollen joint count , 50 foot walking time etc.
Hydrolyzed collagen has also been studied in athletic joint pain and again both placebo and collagen diminish pain but as before collagen diminishes it by 40% and placebo by 28% so it’s not overwhelming but there’s a positive benefit with no obvious side effects.
Now for the most interesting part, hydrolyzed collagen may be effective at reducing blood pressure and improving metabolic function of people with type 2 diabetes. Multiple studies have found that hydrolyzed collagen primarily from marine sources (bones and skin if you must know ) exhibits antihypertensive activity. There are no big human studies proving that collagen lowers blood pressure yet.. Marine hydrolyzed collagen has also been shown to improve glucose sensitivity and insulin resistance in rodent studies. Most of us aren’t rats but still it’s supportive evidence and in humans hydrolyzed collagen powder induced a notable decrease in hemoglobin A1c including the fact that those receiving hydrolyzed collagen had a 20% decrease in fasting blood glucose after 3 months.
What’s the right dose? Well that’s a good question. Different studies have used 50 mL of liquid supplement containing 1000 mg. Some studies use 300mg twice a day or a gram twice a day to studies that used 5 grams twice-a-day etcetera so draw your own conclusions as to the appropriate and righteous dose for you. If you suffer from hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, athletic pain, changes in your skin etcetera why not take a month or two of this supplement and see for yourself if you feel better. Many people do and the dangers seem quite limited. For references go to found my fitness.com… type in collagen and you’ll see that everything I’ve written here is well-documented and footnoted etcetera.