Journal editors question sale of diet pill Meridia

Told ya. Warned ya. And having been doing so for years.

Editors of a top medical journal call Meridia "another flawed diet pill" and question whether it should stay on the market as a study shows it raises the risk of heart attack and stroke in people with heart problems.

The strongly worded editorial comes two weeks before government advisers review the prescription drug, which has already been pulled in Europe. In January, U.S. drug regulators strengthened existing warnings that the appetite suppressant should not be used by those with a history of heart trouble.

In Thursday's issue, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine noted that the latest study showed weight loss with Meridia was minimal, it didn't improve cardiovascular health, and those with heart disease fared worse.

"It is difficult to discern a credible rationale for keeping this medication on the market," they wrote.

If you are fat and think there is a diet pill cure, you remain an idiot.

If you fell for the IMHO Meridia con, go here.

Egg or Cholesterol Intake in Older Adults Not Linked to Risk for Type 2 Diabetes

Eggs were bad. Now they are good.

Among older adults with limited egg intake, there is no apparent association between egg consumption or dietary cholesterol and an increased risk for incident type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a prospective study reported in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains an important public health issue in the United States," write Luc Djoussé, from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues. "There are limited and inconsistent data on the association between egg consumption and fasting glucose or incident diabetes. We assessed the association between egg intake and incident diabetes in older adults."

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?

Heart Attack, Stroke-Prone Arteries More Common in Nasty People

And more common in fat people, which means...

People with antagonistic or disagreeable personalities have thicker arterial walls that may make them more prone to heart attacks and strokes, researchers said.

The carotid artery lining was significantly thicker in people who rated low on a scale of agreeableness, reported Angelina Sutin of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues.

In a study of 5,614 residents of the Italian island of Sardinia, those ranking in the lowest 10 percent of agreeableness were 1.4 times as likely to have thickening in their lining of their carotid artery, the researchers found.

...you understand.

The Pig Is Clever Like A Fox

Oprah's participation in the weight loss debate is an Orwellian nightmare - the pig is in charge.

Well, the pig is clever like a fox.

Just in time to rollout the new version of the book she co-wrote with Bob Greene, AdipOprah, an IMHO whore-for-the-money and clear threat to people's health, devoted the cover and cover story of her O(bese), The AdipOprah magazine, to her weight woes.

In typical fatso style she basically blames her alleged mere 40-pound weight gain on her poor, defenseless, thyroid gland (again).

She is clearly spewing the slop in which she rolls.

The rollout of her “updated and revised” book together with the rollout of her personal story about why she cannot get the rolls out of her belly are an interesting coincidence.

I will bet, it was not “updated and revised” to tell people it is crap and that she and Bob are liars.

Personally, IMHO, it is nothing more than another attempt by a crooked person to rip-off money from desperate people. (According to the bovine billionaire herself, there are "more than 2.4 million" of them who read the magazine. Add to that the people who watch her TV show, listen to her radio programming, watch her TV network and visit her website and you have an awful lot of impressionable people being fooled.)

What she is talking about this 2008 holiday season is, IMHO, nothing more than another attempt at thievery. This is not new for them as Bob and Oprah, IMHO, have a history of using lies and falsified images to scam the public.

(IMHO, Oprah with Bob are every bit as crooked as Oprah is with her other boys, Mehmet and Michael, David and Jorge.)

Despite the fact that the IMHO whore-for-the-money admits that she was gaining weight beginning "in February 2007," she was too greedy to recuse herself from promoting the diet scheme concocted by her and Bob, instead averring how well it worked for her. Even to this day.

I just pulled this (12-14-08) from their diet website. The website is copyright, 2007. The hardcover edition of the book came out December 26, 2006. The paperback edition came out December 26, 2007. The "I" is fatso "O":

I lost weight in stages. First I became active, and I still work out even though I really hate it, but I know if I don’t I will end up 200 pounds again. Then I started working on my eating. I stopped eating past 7:30 at night. When Bob told me it would make a big difference in my weight, I resisted. I thought it was going to be too hard. But I was surprised to find that it wasn’t; even more surprised when it turned out to be one of the most effective changes I made.

I’ve now taken most of the bad foods out of my diet and replaced them with good. I eat smaller portions and I eat healthy foods as a way of life, not a diet to go on and off.

Liar.

And the picture used on the website to promote the diet is:

Double liar.

(Here are real images of Oprah on her/Bob's diet.

Triple liar.)

Which is the same picture (the background was changed) she and Bob used to rip people off in 2008, on their website:

Quadruple liar.

And other places on the web:



Quintuple liar.

And at a "discount":



Sextuple liar.

And they promoted her and still promote her (12-24-08) as a "success" on their diet (enlarge the image if you have to or just click on it to get to the page):

Septuple liar.

Scummy Oprah and Bob are all talk about integrity as if it means something to them. This is from the complaint to the FTC about Bob and Oprah and their false and deceptive advertising:

"As will be seen in Exhibits A, B and M, there is much made of 'truth' and 'truthfulness' by both Mr. Greene and Ms. Winfrey. Likewise, they speak of accepting responsibility for one’s actions. In fact, 'truthfulness' and 'responsibility' appear in the General Index on pages 272 and 271, respectively, in the hardcover edition.

I submit that in the FTC’s taking of its responsibility it has the opportunity to not only protect consumers from what I contend (and what I posit a reasonable consumer would contend if he/she were aware of them) are clearly false and deceptive advertising practices, but also to provide Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Greene with opportunities to accept responsibility for and the consequences of their dishonesty and untruthfulness."

You can check out the Exhibits here.

Here is their chance to stop the talk and do the walk, which, incidentally, Oprah claims is a big part of the fatso "cure":

"All you have to do is work out harder and eat less! Get your 10,000 steps in!"

What to do?

Give back all the money they took under clearly false pretenses (plus interest earned and any damages), apologize to the world, do some jail time for being the IMHO crooks they are, shut their mouths for good (and the mouths of Oprah's other experts), stop publishing/writing on topics at which they are failures, slither off into the sunset and just go away for good.

That is integrity.

Incidentally, there is one truth among all this drivel of hers.

"All you have to do is…eat less!"

If this means fewer Calories in than out, then she is right.

And what is most important is that you do not need their sh**ty book in order to do that.

Complain to the FTC about her, Bob, Mehmet, Michael, David and Jorge, so it will get these IMHO parasites out from the broadcast media.

The sooner the better. Stop them before they harm again.

You can make a difference.

Oprah and Bob Greene Scamming The Public - Again

The headline links to the Oprahcide or Death By Oprah website.

This link will take you to the Jail For Oprah website where you will find FTC complaints filed re:

Oprah and Bob and

Oprah and her diet expert's books and

Oprah, Jorge Cruise and David Katz.

Here is a picture of Bob and an Oprah that never existed in reality:



I am clear that, IMHO, Oprah and Bob are two of the leaders in the nutritional homicide movement. There are others, like Mehmet Oz, IMHO.

But what is so grossly apparently dishonest, is the Photoshopped image of AdipOprah.

Her entry into the fitness/weight loss domain is like the book Animal Farm.

The pig is in charge.

She claims to be all about integrity, but it is clear to me that she is a dishonest person who has a profit-motivated integrity of convenience that is basically the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her Photoshop.

This is how Oprah really looks.

Big and fat and with chinny chin chins.

And big thighs and fat ass.

To see more images of AdipOprah and how she really looks following Bob's and Oprah's Best Life Diet, go:

here

here

here

here

here

here

The images above cover the period of time from around the release of their book, December 26, 2006, until just about the present.



But when you are a whore for the money, well, truth in extra-large packaging goes out the door.

However, "Sale Pricing" does not.

Here is a new "deal" Bob and The Killer Queen of Daytime TV are offering.



One look at the real Oprah - same faked image.

One look at the real Oprah - same doomed to fail advice.

One look at the real Oprah - same guaranteed to make you poorer and them richer scam.

This is how The Best Life Diet is described at amazon.com:

"From the bestselling author of Get With the Program! and Bob Greene's Total Body Makeover comes The Best Life Diet, a lifetime plan for losing weight and keeping it off. Bob Greene helped Oprah achieve her dramatic weight loss, and he can help you too. You'll eat the same delicious food that Oprah enjoys, and, just like Oprah, you'll have Bob to encourage you at every step."

Just like he did for Oprah! (see images and image links above, in case you have forgotten how good Bob is and/or how fat Oprah is)

Shame on her.

She should be ashamed but I suspect she is not.

If she ever had an ounce of shame, it has likely been replaced by pounds of fat.

In Oprah's own words:

"Excerpt from The Best Life Diet (sic) - by Oprah Winfrey

You cannot ever live the life of your dreams without coming face to face with the truth. Every unwanted pound creates another layer of lies."

Right.

And Oprah is the multi-layered liar.

Laughing all the way to the bank with your money.

To find out more about what I believe is going on, read the FTC complaint filed regarding her and Bob. It is available here.

Consumer Reports - Profile In Incompetence (Update)

Today is September 02, 2010. No response from CR since June 11, 2007.

Here is a chronicle of my communications with Consumer Reports re: their June 2007 cover story on "Rating the Diets."

The quality of their work is, IMHO, shamefully shoddy and their analytical skills fatally flawed - just like diet programs.

Of particular interest is CR's response, via a Mr. Harzewski speaking for the Editors.

Read it all.

Then, you decide.

To me, these folks are dangerously incompetent.

Caveat subscriber.

To access all the Fitness Rants, click here.

Warning of missed patient safety alerts in NHS

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

NHS trusts are putting people at risk by failing to implement a critical system of safety alerts, campaigners say.

Patient Safety Alerts are issued when potentially harmful situations are identified in healthcare organisations.

Chaity Action against Medical Accidents (AVMA) said 63% of trusts in England have at least one overdue alert.

But the Department of Health said in the vast majority of cases trusts responded to alerts in good time.

AVMA asked all NHS trusts in England how many outstanding alerts they had.

The charity said there were 1,242 cases where trusts had failed to act on alerts, even after deadlines for the implementation of safer measures had passed.

These include warnings about procedures in surgery, the risk of overdoses, and using medical equipment properly.

Twenty-nine trusts said they had 10 or more overdue alerts. Some were years past the deadline for completion.

Oops.

South Carolina to cover obesity surgery next year

The state of the love Gov is trying to set another record for embarrassing, idiotic behavior - and financial suicide.

Obese government workers in South Carolina can get stomach-shrinking surgery through the state health plan under a pilot program that starts in January.

The state's employee insurance plan will cover gastric-bypass or Lap-Band surgery costs for 100 people statewide on a first-come, first-serve basis, said Stephen VanCamp, director of the employee insurance program.

The surgeries - which involve either surgically creating a smaller stomach or shrinking intake with a belt-like, adjustable device - cost about $24,000 each. Lawmakers required the test program in the 2010-11 budget as a way to address the state's growing obesity problem. The Budget and Control Board was directed to create it as part of workers' benefits plan for 2011, which it approved Thursday.

The Legislature funded the program, as well as an additional $19 million in costs next year because of the new federal health care law - largely for extending coverage to dependents up to age 26 - so employees' monthly health premiums will not change. Nearly 394,000 public workers, their dependents and retirees are covered under the state health plan...

But a Republican state senator who has sought ways to encourage residents to live healthier said it makes no sense for the state to fund the costly operations during a recession. Sen. Greg Ryberg of Aiken also doubts they will save money long-term. Last year, he proposed charging obese public workers an extra $25 monthly in their health care premiums.

Forget the 'during a recession" part.

Do not cover this IMHO malpractice, ever.

And $25 per month is too little.

Charge them more and risk pool the fat with each other.

That would be a good start to ending the overweight/obesity problem.

Higher Body Weight Cuts Some Glaucoma Risk

Bad news.

Women with higher body mass index and weight were at reduced risk of developing certain forms of glaucoma in a large cohort study, researchers said.

For each unit of body mass index, participants in the giant Nurses' Health Study showed a 6% reduction (95% CI 2% to 9%) in the rate of developing primary open-angle glaucoma with an intraocular pressure of 21 mm Hg or less at diagnosis (so-called normal tension), reported Louis R. Pasquale, MD, of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, and colleagues.

Now some of them will be able to see how fat they are.

Though they will likely still ignore it.

Note the appropriate "giant Nurses' Health Study."

Who says there is no humor in sick care?

Concern over rising NHS 'mortgage bill'

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The NHS in England faces a total bill of £65bn for new hospitals built under the private finance initiative (PFI), figures obtained by the BBC indicate.

The so-called "NHS mortgage" means that for some trusts annual repayments take up more than 10% of their turnover.

Experts said the fees, which are rising each year, mean less money for patient care and make it more difficult to achieve the savings being demanded.

Oops.

Ornish, Pritikin Cleared for Medicare Payment

More money from us to the fat.

Medicare will pay for intensive diet and exercise programs developed under the Ornish and Pritikin brands for reducing cardiovascular event risk, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced.

The agency's review of published data on the Ornish and Pritikin intensive cardiac rehabilitation programs found that they effectively slowed or reversed progression of coronary heart disease and reduce the need for coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) and percutaneous interventions.

Consequently, they are approved for coverage under Part B of Medicare, CMS said. Legislation that went into effect this year established a new benefit for intensive cardiac rehabilitation programs.

Because Medicare will make these programs available to all beneficiaries regardless of income, it expects the decision will "reduce the disparate impact of heart disease in minority populations."

More bucks, taken from us, and wasted on the calorically irresponsible who will fail at following these diets as they have failed before.

If they are going to be subsidized and choose to accept the cash, should they fail, they should re-pay the forced charity they received with interest.

Kidney stones becoming more common in kids?

Kudos, fatsos. Fat parents have fat kids.

On the other hand, there are reasons to believe that more children may be developing kidney stones, according to Routh. Obesity is a risk factor for kidney stones, and the rising rate of childhood obesity in the U.S. could be at work. Since 1980, the percentage of obese kids between ages 6 and 11 has nearly tripled to 19.6 percent in 2008 according to the Centers for Disease for Disease Control and Prevention.

If true, this is yet another form of nutritional child abuse.

Twice as many health managers as doctors as number of NHS bureaucrats soars

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The workforce of NHS penpushers grew eight times faster over the past six months than the number of doctors, figures reveal.

Despite Government promises that frontline staff will be protected as health trusts endeavour to find £20billion of 'efficiency savings' by 2014, the latest data suggests otherwise.

Oops.

Chocolate for Blood Pressure Too Hard to Stomach, Researchers Say

Like the old curse goes, "May you get what you want."

A small Australian study looking at whether it would be practical to give people dark chocolate as a treatment to lower blood pressure long term surprisingly found that half of those who were assigned to the chocolate found it difficult to eat every day; they preferred to take a lycopene capsule.

Although many people may find these results difficult to digest, lead researcher Dr Karin Ried (University of Adelaide, Australia) told heartwire that it appears there is a difference between "consuming a food item voluntarily or having to eat it on a daily basis for 12 weeks." The participants in the study, who had to eat half a bar of dark chocolate a day, "reported strong taste and concerns about fat/sugar content as reasons for unacceptability of chocolate as a long-term treatment option," she said. Ried writes about her study, which was published last year, in a letter to BMJ August 10, 2010. [sic]

Surprisingly sensible research subjects.

Obese visit GP more often than smokers, researchers say

Wasting resources with each trip.

Overweight people are more likely to make frequent trips to their GP than smokers or those who are generally unfit, say Dutch researchers.

The findings cannot be explained by overweight people having a higher risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, the analysis showed.

Rising rates of obesity means nurses may have to take some of the pressure off doctors, they said.

The research is published in Family Practice.

The team from Maastricht University looked at GP data from almost 4,500 adults.

Participants also filled in a questionnaire designed to find out about their lifestyles, such as their diet, whether they smoked, how much they drank and how much exercise they did.

They expected to find that the most unhealthy or unfit people would visit their GP more often.

But of the lifestyle factors looked at, only body mass index (BMI) was independently associated with frequent visits to the doctor.

The finding was true of both men and women and was not accounted for by higher rates of chronic illness.

Minor complaints

Although the researchers could not conclude from the study why overweight people may visit their GP more often, they speculated they may have more minor complaints, such as sleep problems or musculoskeletal pain.

And they remain fat.

'Nuff Said

Cancer Biomarkers Missing in Action

More medical vaporware.

Biomarkers for cancer -- often reported with great publicity -- routinely fail to be of clinical use, a Canadian researcher said.

Despite large investments and investigation by competent researchers, no new major cancer biomarkers have been approved for clinical use in the past quarter-century, according to Eleftherios Diamandis, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

In a commentary published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Diamandis said that's because a range of common analytical errors lead to what he called "false discovery," even when reports undergo detailed peer review and appear in high-profile journals.

Clearly the best "biomarker" is fitness.

Do yourself a favor and don't rely on the hype.

Rely on what works.

Acetaminophen Use in Adolescents May Double Risk for Asthma

And this is for a "safe" drug used for years - they will find more risk associations for the IMHO malpractice known as diet drugs.

Acetaminophen use in adolescents is linked to development and/or maintenance of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and eczema, according to the results of a global study reported online August 13 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

"This study has identified that the reported use of acetaminophen in 13- and 14-year-old adolescent children was associated with an exposure-dependent increased risk of asthma symptoms," said first author Richard W. Beasley, MD, professor of medicine at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in Wellington, in a news release, on behalf of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC).

Better not to use diet drugs - especially since they don't work, anyway.

Cancer care 'at risk' as NHS faces spending squeeze

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Cancer care and infection control are at risk as the NHS prepares to make savings, a health regulator says.

The review of 129 foundation trusts - the top performing NHS organisations - highlighted both as the sector gears up for its toughest round of savings yet.

The leading hospitals and mental health services in England are planning to make cuts of 4.4% - nearly 50% more than they have ever achieved before.

Monitor, which regulates the trusts, said the task would be "challenging".

While the NHS budget is being protected, the health service has been told to save up to £20bn by 2014 to help it cope with increasing pressures from the ageing population, rising price of drugs and lifestyle changes.

A raft of job cuts has already been announced.

But the analysis by Monitor, which covers about half of all hospital and mental health services, gives the clearest indication yet of how patient care may be affected.

A total of 34 trusts predicted performance could suffer in the coming year with 23 of them identifying cancer targets as at risk.

In particular, the trusts said aim of ensuring treatment starts within 62 days of referral was most at risk.

Cancer targets have been a controversial area in recent weeks with Labour claiming the coalition government wanted to scrap them - something which has subsequently been denied by ministers.

Other than cancer, nine trusts identified MRSA and six Clostridium difficile as areas of concern

Monitor also highlighted the fact that income over the next three years was expected to fall - the first time this has happened.

The regulator said this was expected as it reflected the current economic climate.

But it warned it expected to see "an increased in regulatory action", adding the task facing foundation trusts was "challenging, but achievable".

Dr Mark Porter, of the British Medical Association, said: "Doctors will continue to do their best for patients, but it will not always be possible for the NHS to achieve more with less and the government will ultimately have to take the responsibility for this."

Oops.

Change Promised for Hospital Quality Measures

Fit people tend to get sick less and require less hospitalization.

Many of the metrics currently used to assess quality of hospital care fail to provide true and valuable accountability, according to leaders of a key organization that helped develop them.

Quality measures now in place include some that "only give us a false sense of accomplishment and reward 'gaming'" or otherwise fail to meet basic criteria for meaningful assessments of patient care, Mark Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH, president of the Joint Commission, and colleagues wrote in the Aug. 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Get fit and avoid the failings of bad metrics.

No Cardiovascular Benefit Found for Rimonabant

More IMHO malpractice re: diet drugs.

The early promise of an anti-obesity drug may never be fulfilled following the discontinuation of a randomized trial for safety reasons and a subsequent data analysis showing no evidence of efficacy for the study's primary endpoint of reduced cardiovascular risk.

Give yourself a chance to shed the weight naturally, effectively and properly.

New 'superbug' found in UK hospitals

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn.

They say bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery...

Infections have already been passed from patient to patient in UK hospitals.

Oops.

American Dietetic Association Updated Position Paper Says Developing Lifelong Healthy Behaviors In Children Is A "Shared Responsibility"

Does that mean that the rest of us can also have the responsibility of "punishing" kids who are calorically irresponsible and their parents?

The American Dietetic Association has published an updated position paper on local support for nutrition integrity in schools that calls on schools and communities to work together to provide healthful and affordable meals for all children and to promote educational environments that help students learn and practice healthy behaviors for their entire lives.

ADA's updated position paper, published in the August issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents the Association's official stance on this health issue:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that schools and communities have a shared responsibility to provide students with access to high-quality, affordable, nutritious foods and beverages. School-based nutrition services, including the provision of meals through the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, are an integral part of the total education program. Strong wellness policies promote environments that enhance nutrition integrity and help students to develop lifelong healthy behaviors.

F**k the idiots at the ADA.

Little Interest in Drug to Prevent Prostate Cancer

If you want to try to prevent it, read on.

Physicians continue to shy away from prescribing finasteride to prevent prostate cancer, despite evidence from two large clinical trials showing that the 5 alpha-reductase inhibitor (5ARI) significantly reduced the risk, a survey showed.

Two-thirds of urologists and 80% of primary care physicians said they had never prescribed finasteride for chemoprevention, according to survey results published online in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Better not to develop prostate cancer at all and there are safer approaches than finasteride, a 5 alpha-reductase inhibitor (5ARI).

Read up on it and then go to Anabolic Clinic to learn more.