One of the most distressing things about practicing medicine these days is the blind faith that most people, doctors and patients, have in cholesterol pills like Lipitor, Crestor, Vytorin, and Zocor, just to name a few of the most popular. This faith comes not from gullibility, but from carefully crafted drug company misdirection. There's no question statins reduce your LDL levels. The question is, do we really need to reduce your LDL to 100 or less? Sean Croxton invited me onto his show yesterday to clear up this confusion over the value of statins and shed some light on their…
A lot of folks keen on losing weight have been convinced that a diet low in fat and protein and high in carbohydrates is the way to go. Seems intuitive, doesn’t it?: Don’t eat fat and you won’t get fat. That’s why, odds are, this year someone at your Thanksgiving table will be giving thanks without giving your perfectly browned holiday turkey a second look. Instead they’ll be opting to load their plate with their favorite high-carb “health foods”—sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. If you’re a regular reader of my blogs, you already know what I think of high-carb…
CNN keeps airing “The Last Heart Attack,” in which Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells the story of how and why President Bill Clinton was put on a vegan diet by Dr. Dean Ornish, and how Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's #1 selling book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease echos the same dietary advice. As you know, reversing disease is something I care a lot about, but I'm not convinced Dr. Essylstyn's heart attack proof diet is delivering what he promises. Does this story really have a happy ending? Early in the show Dr. Gupta discusses Clinton’s strict vegan diet and defines its underlying philosophy:…
Vitamin D is known to reduce bone loss, but the NEJM advises against its use. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, which has recently tarnished its reputation by refusing to publish articles unfavorable to popular prescription drugs, is barreling forward this week with its anti-natural, anti-health approach to medicine in asserting that vitamin D should not be universally recommended for postmenopausal women with low levels of vitamin D, and stating that we need a 5-year randomized trial before we can safely recommend its use for reducing the risk of heart disease or cancer.*The journal describes a postmenopausal woman in her…
