Are Antibiotics Killing You?

by John Bremner

Thank god for doctors and for antibiotics. They save millions of lives every year, but there is a dark side to the use of antibiotics that is not quite so well known. For example, did you know that there is a commonly used antibiotic that can kill, like ecstasy, on the very first dose you take?

The trouble with antibiotics is that they are just so good at what they do, that we start begging for antibiotics as soon as we get ill, and doctors who are already under huge pressures at work just dont have the time to argue. Its easier to give in, and as likely as not the antibiotic will do the job, and not kill you.

Side-effects

However, most antibiotics have some adverse effects, and the side-effects of some commonly used antibiotics can be very dangerous. Plus, the bugs that typically affect us are growing more and more resistant to antibiotics, with the result that there are now E.coli bugs, like the potentially deadly strain, 0157:H7 that are resistant to almost everything medically available, including broad-spectrum antibiotics.

If thats not enough to make you think twice, there is also the effect that antibiotics have on your immune system. When your body defeats an attack by a bug it becomes stronger, and will probably always defeat that bug. However, every time you take a course of antibiotics, you are taking away your immune systems power.

The dilemma is that you may need to take them to save your life, for example if your kidney is compromised by a bacterial infection. But once youve taken broad-spectrum antibiotics, and they no longer work for you, your options become extremely limited. Doctors end up having to prescribe huge doses of antibiotics with cumulative side-effects so dangerous that you may suffer for the rest of your life as a result. Not to mention the damage to your immune system.

Cost of Treatment and How you are Affected

The bugs that affect us mutate so often that no two infections are the same. This means that antibiotics should ideally be tested against a laboratory grown culture of your infection to see which will be most effective. Using a targeted antibiotic that has been tested to see if it kills your particular infection is like using a magic bullet. It will be highly effective, and have fewer side-effects than a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

However, this is expensive. It is cheaper for the doctor to prescribe an antibiotic that is known to be fairly effective against most typical infections that cause similar symptoms to those you are experiencing. The results wont be as good as a targeted antibiotic, the side-effects will probably be worse, and one in five people will probably still have the infection after six weeks because of this strategy, but its a less expensive option for the NHS than having to pay for detailed lab tests. Its also faster to treat you this way, so if it works for you, you are one less patient to have to deal with next week.

The Dangers

As an example of the dangers of broad-spectrum treatment, some of the side-effects of the fluoroquinolene based antibiotics often used against resistant infections include joint pain and tendon tearing, fluorodosis (fluorine poisoning) heart attack, heart murmur, palpitations, angina, cerebral thrombosis, sudden death on first dose, liver failure, jaundice, gastrointestinal bleeding, diarrhoea, ulcerative colitis, burst intestine, vomiting, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, anaphylactic shock, skin dying or falling off, dermatitis, vasculitis, angioedema, swelling of the lips, eyes, or face, fever, chills, lupus, and going purple.

According to Drug Watch, adverse affects are reported by 35% of women using antibiotics. While its true that most people dont have the more severe side-effects, if you are one of the unlucky ones, you can be permanently damaged. Fluorodosis, for example, causes severe joint pains, as your body tries to deal with the excess fluorine in your system by depositing it on your bones and joints. Its also very difficult to treat, and doctors often mistake the symptoms for arthritis.

M. H. Dahir a Pharmaceutical Association Chairman, says in his article The Dangers of Indomethacin:

"If a bacterium is responsible, it is extremely important for the doctor to know which specific bug is causing the trouble so that he can treat it with the right drug. Using a broad-spectrum antibiotic is a cop-out. It is the lazy way to do medicine, since it allows the doctor to cut out the time necessary to do a proper laboratory work-up and diagnosis."

What to do if you get adverse reactions...

If, after starting a course of antibiotic treatment, you start to get unusual symptoms, such as fever, nausea, a sudden rash, intense itching, stiffness, severe abdominal pain, or swelling, stop taking the antibiotic, and consult your doctor immediately.

The very worst side-effects happen when you are allergic to an antibiotic. Your doctor should be able to provide a non-related antibiotic that wont produce the same adverse reaction.

You can also look for alternative therapies. For example, statistics show that the sugar-related product D-Mannose (available from www.sweet-cures.com) is more effective than most antibiotics for the majority of urinary tract infections, and it works against antibiotic resistant strains of E.coli the cause of most recurrent cystitis infections. It is also claimed to be totally harmless, even for babies.

And the list goes on:

For throat infections, traditional remedies such as gargling with alcohol are often as effective as any antibiotic.

Manuka honey from New Zealand, available from most health food stores, is known to kill the Helicobacter pylori bug that causes duodenal or stomach ulcers.

Galangal has been used since the times of St. Hildegard of Bingen for catarrh, and it doesnt give you a dry mouth or other diuretic side-effects like Sudafed.

Salt water is as good a decongestant as most commercially available nasal sprays.

Cider vinegar and a diet change can deal with arthritis more efficiently than most drugs, and instead of side-effects, you get healthy.

For depression, St Johns Wort is non-addictive, unlike Prozac, and there are fewer side-effects.

Asthmatic or wheezy? Getting a cold? Mix some black cumin seeds with honey and garlic. Used since the times of the Pharaohs, this is cheaper and more effective than any medical preparation, and wont cause brain tumours, unlike some of the medical decongestants available.

The fact is that most of the time, no matter what ailment you are suffering from, you can do better than taking the standard prescription. And think of the money youll save the health service, and all the time youll save your doctor.

Oops, sorry to inform you that your operation was unnecessary

Some people are locked into the idea that the doctor knows best, but although this may sometimes be true, medical training often ignores the huge legacy of knowledge from folk medicine and from other cultures, which were in use long before the fairly recent science of medicine came into being. How many surgeons would tell you to take a pint of olive oil and the juice of three lemons (slowly or youll vomit it back up) to get rid of gallstones? Or would they rather do a bladderectomy?

In the same way, most trips to the hospital or doctor can be dispensed with.

It is up to ourselves to take charge of our own health. Some solid research can make us experts in our own conditions and allow us to take charge of our own treatment.

----------

More info: John Bremner

email: john@bladder--infection.com

www.bladder--infection.com

+44 (0) 1904-340916

John Bremner is an expert on bladder infections, UTIs and cystitis. He is controverssial, highly informed, not afraid to speak out, and available for interview. You can contact him on email: john@bladder--infection.com

www.bladder--infection.com

+44 (0) 1904-340916

Food for thought: Crop diversity is dying
By Elisabeth Rosenthal International Herald
Tribune
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005


ROME José Esquinas-Alcázar regards the corn laid
out in rows with the love and admiration that
sommeliers reserve for bottles in a fine wine cellar.
To the untrained eye, it is a collection of misshapen
ears: Long, short, blue, yellow, white, spotted,
covered in dirt.

"Look at this beauty!" he exclaims. "Some are good
for starch, some for popcorn. Some grow in the cold.
Some are good fried, some broiled. The taste for
each is completely different.

"Diversity is what makes us happy, gives us choice
and keeps us free. And it's tragic because this is
what we are losing."

Esquinas, a top official at the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization in Rome, has spent
decades campaigning to preserve plants that are
used for food, which are becoming extinct at an
alarming rate.

Last year, his efforts culminated in the adoption of
the United Nations Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture, which requires
countries to preserve existing crops and creates an
international system for sharing crops and plant
genes.

But much has already been lost.

Historically, humans utilized more than 7,000 plant
species to meet their basic food needs, Esquinas
says. Today, due to the limitations of modern large-
scale, mechanized farming, only 150 plant species
are under cultivation, and the majority of humans
live on only 12 plant species, according to research
by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Most types of food, for example the tomato, consist
of several different species, and each species may
contain dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties. In the
last century, dozens of varieties of corn, wheat and
potato have disappeared.

"This is not nearly as sexy as a panda going extinct,
but the losses are far more dangerous for our
survival," Esquinas said in his office on the outskirts
of Rome.

The result for humans is a more one-dimensional
diet, where tomatoes look and taste the same and
only one type of corn or potato may be available on
supermarket shelves.

The consequences are potentially dire: As species
drop out, the world loses the genetic diversity that
has allowed farmers and scientists to breed new
types of seed crops that can adapt to changing
conditions - a hotter, drier growing season, for
example, or the invasion of a new bacterial pest.

"If you have climate change or environmental
change, you need to search through those plants to
find one that is adapted to the new conditions," he
said.

The loss of food plant species is directly related to
the 20th century "green revolution," in which
farmers adopted streamlined agricultural techniques
to increase production of food. To maximize crop
yields, they chose a few high-yield, uniform crops
that grew predictably and could be planted and
harvested mechanically. With irrigation,
mechanization, fertilizers and pesticides at their
disposal, farmers in developed nations were able to
maintain control over growing conditions.

The result was plentiful food, but far less variety in
the types of seeds and foods planted - which,
occasionally, led to disastrous vulnerability. In 1970,
for example, more than half of the corn crop in the
southern United States succumbed to an unusual
fungus because the corn was all grown from one
seed type that is particularly susceptible to that
disease.

While modern farmers tend to favor a few crops,
traditional small-scale farmers took the opposite
approach: maintaining and growing a wide variety of
crops and seeds in order to survive, since they had
little control over things like soil, weather, and pests.
To ensure there was food on the table, their best bet
was to plant a range of crops - some that thrived in
heat and others that could withstand cold, for
example.

Their storehouses and fields were (and are) the
world's gold mine of plant genetic resources. Indeed,
after the unusual fungus damaged the U.S. corn crop
in 1970, scientists modified the U.S. corn seed with a
gene borrowed from a type of African maize that was
resistant to the fungus.

But this kind of resource is being lost as land is
urbanized and as traditional farming practices in
Latin America and Africa fall by the wayside.

Esquinas ticks off crops that have disappeared from
the world's fields: Of the nearly 8,000 varieties of
apple that grew in the United States at the turn of
the century, more than 95 percent no longer exist. In
Mexico, only 20 percent of the corn types recorded
in 1930 can now be found. Only 10 percent of the
10,000 wheat varieties grown in China in 1949
remain in use.

Paying homage to the bounty and variety of nature
has been a lifelong obsession for Esquinas, who grew
up in a Spanish family that had farmed for
generations. In the late 1960s, he did his doctoral
research on genetic diversity of the Spanish melon,
traveling by bus, foot and horse to collect 370
varieties of seed from small farmers all over Spain.

Later, he grew the fruits and characterized the
physical and chemical differences between melon
types, creating a melon family tree.

More recently, at the anthropological museum in
Cairo, he focused on a particular treasure from the
tomb of King Tut, one that other tourists might have
overlooked among the precious trinkets and gold: a
small partitioned box holding more than 25 varieties
of barley seed, each in its own compartment.

"They recognized that these seeds were a
treasure," Esquinas says. "My conclusion as a plant
geneticist is that he was buried with all these seeds
because he didn't know what kind of soil and
humidity or rain there would be in the underworld!"

Today, Esquinas's mission is to ensure that food
plants are protected, both in "banks" and in the
field, so that the bounty of nature - and the genetic
diversity behind it - is preserved.

Since many crops have already disappeared in the
West, farmers in the developing world must be
compensated for maintaining and sharing their plant
varieties, he says.

When Esquinas was collecting melon seeds, he
accompanied a farmer to a remote village by
donkey, where he was presented with seeds for a
melon that the farmer insisted was exceptionally
hearty.

When he analyzed the seed back in the lab, he
discovered that it was resistant to many diseases,
and genes from that melon have since been
introduced into numerous commercial fruits.

Various institutes and universities around the world
maintain seed collections. The French National
Institute for Agricultural Research, for example,
maintains 4,000 lines of maize. But Esquinas says
that a more systematic effort is needed.

Maintaining diversity in food is not just about
survival, but also about the quality of life, and people
must be taught to appreciate it, he said.

In the past two decades, "People have learned to
drink wine - to notice the distinctions: this one is
smoky or sweet and that one aromatic," he said.
"But all food has variety - rice has it, potatoes have
it. You don't know a good wine the first time you
drink. We need to develop our taste for foods like
these, too."






Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune
| www.iht.com

The Challenge of Leadership

Benjamin Franklin played a lot of roles, but primarily,
you'd have to call him a thinker. He knew how to think.
And that led him to act. In our current lingo, we could say
that he knew how to think outside the box. His approach
to solving problems wasn't restricted to the solutions that
were already on the table. He could come up with new
solutions. That's how he came to be an inventor. You have
to think up the solution in your mind before you create the
solution.

Franklin knew to think in simple terms. He needed to
reach the books on the high shelf so he invented an
extension rod that operated with a simple pull string. You
push the extension rod up to the book you wanted, pull the
string and the clamp would hold the book. Very simple.

Franklin didn't invent street lights, although he's given
credit for it on occasion. But in his day, if you had to be
out on the streets at night, you carried your own light.
Since everybody was accustomed to carrying their own
light, nobody saw the need to put lights on the streets.
Carrying a light was not the best solution, but it was the
solution that everyone was used to.

And Franklin correctly anticipated that a recommendation
to the town council to light the streets at night would
cause a big fuss about who would pay for all that expense.
And who needed them anyway since everyone already
had their own light to carry.

So Franklin had a new thought. He bought a lamp and
hung it on a pole outside his house. Before long a
neighbor down the street got a light and hung it on a pole
outside his own house. The idea caught on and soon the
city council took on the idea of street lights for the town.
They bought Ben Franklin's idea without him ever saying
a word.

This is what we call leading by example.

Know Thy Food Label
by C. R. Ellsworth


Whether you're concerned about cancer,
cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or simply losing
weight, you want to eat a healthy diet and focus
on foods that are high in vitamins, minerals, and
phytonutrients, and balanced in fats, carbs,
proteins.

There is only one way to incorporate healthy foods
into our diet and that is to make the decision to
do it! Practical information about the nutrition
and safety of the foods we consume is absolutely
vital in making this decision.

One way to learn more about what we eat, is to
snoop around the supermarket. Check-out package
labels to see what manufactures are adding (or
removing) from the foods we eat. Read the
information on the package and start making
comparisons to determine which foods are the best
for YOU. Know about nutritional labeling and the
sometimes sneaky ways that manufacturers have of
hiding what is in the food. Know and understand
ingredient declarations, how they are used, and
what a few of the "technical" terms mean. Are the
unfamiliar ingredients good or bad for your
health?

Since 1994 food manufacturers have been required
by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
include food labels (or Nutrition Facts labels) on
product packaging so that consumers have accurate
nutritional information about the food they
purchase. But food labels are more than just a
federal requirement – once you understand the
information they provide, you can use food labels
as a guide to planning healthier meals and
snacks.

Food labels are required on almost all foods,
except those that don't provide many nutrients
such as coffee, alcohol and spices. Although some
restaurants provide information about the food
they serve, they aren't required to have labels.
The FDA recommends that sellers provide
nutritional information on produce, meat, poultry
and seafood, but it's strictly voluntary.

What Is a Serving?

At the top of a food label under Nutrition Facts,
you'll see the serving size and the number of
servings in the package. The rest of the nutrition
information in the label is based on one serving.

Calories, Calories From Fat and Percent Daily
Values

This part of a food label provides the calories
per serving and the calories that come from fat.
If you need to know the total number of calories
you eat every day or the number of calories that
come from fat, this section provides that
information. Remember that this part of the label
doesn't tell you whether you are eating saturated
or unsaturated fat.

On the right side of a food label, you'll see a
column that lists percentages. These percentages
refer to the percent daily values (%DV). Percent
daily values tell you how much of something,
whether it's fat, sugar or vitamin A, one serving
will give you compared to how much you need for
the entire day. It will help you gauge the
percentage of a nutrient requirement met by one
serving of the product. One way to use this
section of the label is when you comparison shop.
For example, if you're concerned with sodium, you
can look at two foods and choose the food with the
lower % DV. Are you trying to eat a low-fat diet?
Look for foods that have a lower percent daily
value of fat.

The %DV is based on how much or how little of the
key nutrients you should eat whether you eat 2,000
or 2,500 calories a day. So if you eat a
2,000-calorie diet, you should eat less than 65
grams of fat in all the foods you eat for the day.
If you're eating 12 grams of fat in your one
serving of macaroni and cheese (remember that's
one cup), you can calculate how much fat you have
left for the day. You can use the bottom part of
the food label in white to compare what you are
eating to the % DV you're allowed for that
nutrient, whether it's fat, sodium or fiber. If
you need more or less than 2,000 or 2,500
calories, you'll need to adjust this accordingly.

Nutrients

Fat, Sugar, Sodium and Carbohydrate

The sections on a food label shows the name of a
nutrient and the amount of that nutrient provided
by one serving of food. You may need to know this
information, especially if you have high blood
pressure, diabetes or are eating a diet that
restricts certain nutrients such as sodium or
carbohydrates.

Food labels also include information about how
much sugar and protein is in the food. If you are
following a low-sugar diet or you're monitoring
your protein intake, it's easy to spot how much of
those nutrients are contained in one serving.

Vitamins, Minerals and Other Information

The light purple part of the label lists
nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food and
their percent daily values. Try to average 100% DV
every day for vitamins A and C, calcium, iron and
fiber. Do the opposite with fat, saturated fat,
sodium and cholesterol. Try to eat less than 100%
DV of these.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reading a Food
Label

Until you become accustomed to reading food
labels, it's easy to become confused. Avoid these
common mistakes when reading labels:

-A label may say that the food is reduced fat or
reduced sodium. That means that the amount of fat
or sodium has been reduced by 25% from the
original product. It doesn't mean, however, that
the food is low in fat or sodium. For example, if
a can of soup originally had 1,000 milligrams of
sodium, the reduced sodium product would still be
a high-sodium food.

-Don't confuse the % DV for fat with the
percentage of calories from fat. If the % DV is
15% that doesn't mean that 15% of the calories
comes from fat. Rather, it means that you're using
up 15% of all the fat you need for a day with one
serving (based on a meal plan of 2,000 calories
per day).

-Don't make the mistake of assuming that the
amount of sugar on a label means that the sugar
has been added. For example, milk naturally has
sugar, which is called lactose. But that doesn't
mean you should stop drinking milk because milk is
full of other important nutrients including
calcium.

Reading Label Lingo

In addition to requiring that packaged foods
contain a Nutrition Facts label, the FDA also
regulates the use of phrases and terms used on the
product packaging. Here's a list of common phrases
you may see on your food packaging and what they
actually mean.

No fat or fat free - Contains less than 1/2 gram
of fat per serving Lower or reduced fat: Contains
at least 25 percent less per serving than the
reference food. (An example might be reduced fat
cream cheese, which would have at least 25 percent
less fat than original cream cheese.)

Low fat - Contains less than 3 grams of fat per
serving.

Lite - Contains 1/3 the calories or 1/2 the fat
per serving of the original version or a similar
product.

No calories or calorie free - Contains less than 5
calories per serving.

Low calories - Contains 1/3 the calories of the
original version or a similar product.

Sugar free - Contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar
per serving.

Reduced sugar - at least 25% less sugar per
serving than the reference food.

No preservatives - Contains no preservatives
(chemical or natural).

No preservatives added - Contains no added
chemicals to preserve the product. Some of these
products may contain natural preservatives.

Low sodium - Contains less than 140 mgs of sodium
per serving.

No salt or salt free - Contains less than 5 mgs of
sodium per serving.

High fiber - 5 g or more per serving (Foods making
high-fiber claims must meet the definition for low
fat, or the level of total fat must appear next to
the high-fiber claim).

Good source of fiber - 2.5 g to 4.9 g. per
serving.

More or added fiber - Contains at least 2.5 g more
per serving than the reference food.

With a little practice, you will be able to put
your new found knowledge about food labeling to
work. Reassess your diet and decide what needs to
be changed. Start by eliminating the foods that
don't measure-up to your nutritional wants and
needs, and replacing them with more nutritional
substitutes.

And while you're at it, visit the FDA website and
learn about the new labeling requirements,
including those for "trans" fat. Like saturated
fats, trans fats can raise levels of low-density
lipoproteins (LDL) and increase your risk of heart
disease. The "Nutrition Facts" panel on food
packaging must provide this information beginning
January 1, 2006, but most manufacturers will start
providing it sooner.

Excerpts From Senate Document #264

"Some of our lands, even in a virgin state, never
were well balanced in mineral content, and unhappily
for us, we have been systematically robbing the poor
soils and the good soils alike of the very substances
necessary to health, growth, long life, and resistance
to disease.

Up to the time I began experimenting, almost
nothing had been done to make good the theft. The
more I studied nutritional problems and the effects
of mineral deficiencies upon disease, the more
plainly I saw that here lay the most direct approach
to better health, and the more important it became in
my mind to find a method of restoring those missing
minerals to our foods."

--------------------------------------------------------

A 10-year test with rats proved that by withholding
calcium they can be bred down to a third the size of
those fed with an adequate amount of that mineral.
Their intelligence, too, can be controlled by mineral
feeding as readily as can their size, their bony
structure, and their general health.

--------------------------------------------------------

The public can help; it can hasten the change. How?
By demanding quality of food. By insisting that our
doctors and our health departments establish
scientific standards of nutritional value. The growers
will quickly respond. They can put back those
minerals almost overnight and by doing so they can
actually make money through bigger and better
crops. It is simpler to cure sick soils than sick
people - which shall we choose?"

--------------------------------------------------------

[EDITOR'S NOTE: It would seem that what we
chose instead was NPK, chemotherapy, prednisone,
below- the knee amputations, pacemakers, bypass
surgery, lift- gates and wheelchairs. One fourth of
our Gross National Product (1.2 trillion dollars) is
now spent on medical care, affectionately referred to
(by doctors and drug reps) as "health care."]