Things your altie health practitioner won't tell you

EoR has noted how independent, balanced, knowledgeable health researcher Dr Peter Dingle has exposed the biased, corrupt, evil Big Pharma running of the scientific medical press.

Since Dr Dingle clearly loathes how Big Pharma cherry picks data, ignores and suppresses unwanted results, and is solely interested in its own business interests, he looks forward to him noting the following news.

Dr Dingle detests statins. They're part of the Big Pharma plot to kill us all. But now it seems that statins actually help the immune system.

Widely prescribed for their cholesterol-lowering properties, recent clinical research indicates that statins can produce a second, significant health benefit: lowering the risk of severe bacterial infections such as pneumonia and sepsis. A new explanation for these findings has been discovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, who describe for the first time how statins activate the bacterial killing properties of white blood cells.

The research is published in the November 18, 2010 issue of Cell Host & Microbe.

This would seem to be wholly in line with the altie need to constantly 'boost' the immune system.

Elsewhere, Associate Professor Michael Gard has a new book out, arguing that the 'obesity epidemic' has been greatly distorted.

“The book will inform those who are interested in the way Western countries tend to breed health panics,” he said. “While there was an element of truth about the obesity ‘epidemic’, it never was, and is not now, nearly as serious as declared by some. The book is a case study in how and why health panics - as scientific, political and cultural issues - grow and spread.”

[...]

“The point of this book is that in their attempts to raise awareness about obesity, many interest groups completely exaggerated the problem. As far as health resources are concerned, a huge amount of wasteful and ineffective policy has been enacted. This is why hysterias like the ‘obesity epidemic’ matter; they divert our attention away from the important challenges that face us,” he said.

Since Dr Dingle believes that his dog eats better than you, and that our children are doomed to die at a younger age than their parents, he should welcome such news and let his devoted followers know about this as well.

Of course, if you do believe there's an 'obesity epidemic', then you also need to explain why it's affecting pets, laboratory animals and feral rats.

There are several theories as to why animals and humans might be getting fatter even without the help of fast food and desk-jockey jobs, Allison said. Pathogens could be to blame: A virus called adenovirus 36 has been linked to obesity in both humans and animals. Hormone-disrupting compounds, or endocrine disruptors, have been shown to trigger obesity in mice exposed to the compounds in utero.

The change could be something as simple as our increasingly artificial environments, Allison said. Light pollution and sleep disruption have been linked to obesity. It's even possible that air conditioning and central heat are to blame.

Personally, EoR thinks wi-fi is to blame (which must be true because the Dutch government are trying to cover up the awful truth).

Then there's the terrible deficiencies of Vitamin D in the population? According to the Institute of Medicine (considering only the US and Canada):

Based on the committee's analysis, the number of people in North America declared to have vitamin D deficiency has been overestimated. The error stems in part from the fact that there is no standard for determining whether someone is deficient. In fact, a person might be told they have deficient or sufficient levels depending on the laboratory that conducts their blood test, the researchers said.

And while studies based on dietary intake show the majority of North Americans don't get enough vitamin D from the food they eat, other findings reveal that most people do have sufficient vitamin D in their blood. The missing piece of the puzzle is the sun — sunlight triggers the production of vitamin D from other compounds in the body. The report indicates that for many individuals, the sun is an important contributor to a person's overall vitamin D levels.

And, just like all those superfoods and magical supplements, too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing:

The committee also weighed in on the upper limits for vitamin D and calcium intake. Getting too much calcium could put people at risk for kidney stones, and too much vitamin D could damage the heart and kidneys and may increase the risk of death, the researchers said.

And what about the news that fruit and vegetables aren't really that important in preventing cancer?

Eating lots of fruit and vegetables will do little to reduce your risk of developing cancer, according to a review of a decade of research involving more than a million people. It concluded that maintaining a healthy weight and cutting down on smoking and drinking are far better ways to ward off the disease.

The study was large and published in a reputable journal (not Nova):

In an article published today in the British Journal of Cancer, Key summarised the epidemiological evidence from more than a million people taking part in several dozen long-term research projects looking at the amount of fruit and vegetables people eat and their overall cancer risk. He also studied specific cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, lung and breast.

Key found little, if any, connection between eating lots of fruits and vegetables and the likelihood of developing cancer. "The conclusion implies that, at least in relatively well-nourished westernised populations, a general increase in total fruit and vegetable intake will not have a large impact on cancer rates," he wrote. "A certain level of intake is necessary to prevent nutrient deficiencies, but intakes above that level do not make the relavant tissues 'super healthy'."