Mini Band Tension

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/band_strength.htm

If you are using mini bands for Westside barbell training, the estimated band tensions are at the link above.

Statin Quick Hit

"A tennis-playing 68-year-old, Dr. H. Denman Scott was talked into taking Lipitor in 2006 by his doctor because his "bad" cholesterol (LDL) was a borderline 130. "I had no symptoms," he says, but he followed the doctor's advice, and the drug dropped his LDL to 60. Then Scott, a retired professor of medicine, began to have muscle pain. After 10 months on the drug, he woke one morning with paralyzing soreness. "I thought it was Lipitor-related," he says. "I'd seen it in a lot of people I had taken care of over the years." Scott stopped taking the drug, and two months later the aches went away.

In clinical trials of statins, side effects were relatively rare. But many doctors believe they are more common in the real world, afflicting perhaps as many as 15% of patients. After muscle aches, prominently mentioned on Lipitor's label, common complaints include cognitive problems ranging from mild confusion to loss of memory. Former astronaut and retired family doctor Duane Graveline says that he "descended into the black pit of amnesia" both times he was put on Lipitor, prompting him to write a book and set up a Web site on statins' side effects.

One trial also showed an association between statin use and cancer. Proponents argue that was an anomaly. "You need to look at the big picture rather than worrying yourself to death over individual trials," says Dr. Scott Grundy, the lead author of national guidelines for statin use and who has received honoraria from Pfizer (PFE). But the big picture is still fuzzy. The safety of statins in long-term use "is an incredibly important question for which we have very little data," says Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California at San Diego. "

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_04/b4068057096279.htm

Mike Eades, More on Statins 2

"The only evidence that statins produce any decrease in all-cause mortality is in men under the age of 65 who have established heart disease. For women of all ages with and without heart disease and for men of all ages without heart disease, these drugs don’t bring about a decrease in all-cause mortality.

And in that small subset of people for whom they do work – men under the age or 65 with a history of heart disease (not a history of high cholesterol, but a documented history of having experienced a heart attack), the evidence is that they don’t work all that well.

What do you mean they don’t work all that well? Robert Jarvik tells us in the ubiquitous Lipitor ads that the drug reduces the risk of heart disease by 36 percent in these people.

The dramatic 36% figure has an asterisk. Read the smaller type. It says: “That means in a large clinical study, 3% of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2% of patients taking Lipitor.”

Now do some simple math. The numbers in that sentence mean that for every 100 people in the trial, which lasted 3 1/3 years, three people on placebos and two people on Lipitor had heart attacks. The difference credited to the drug? One fewer heart attack per 100 people. So to spare one person a heart attack, 100 people had to take Lipitor for more than three years. The other 99 got no measurable benefit. Or to put it in terms of a little-known but useful statistic, the number needed to treat (or NNT) for one person to benefit is 100.

Compare that with, say, today’s standard antibiotic therapy to eradicate ulcer-causing H. pylori stomach bacteria. The NNT is 1.1. Give the drugs to 11 people, and 10 will be cured.

A low NNT is the sort of effective response many patients expect from the drugs they take. When Wright and others explain to patients without prior heart disease that only 1 in 100 is likely to benefit from taking statins for years, most are astonished. Many, like Winn, choose to opt out."

In clinical trials of statins, side effects were relatively rare. But many doctors believe they are more common in the real world, afflicting perhaps as many as 15% of patients. After muscle aches, prominently mentioned on Lipitor’s label, common complaints include cognitive problems ranging from mild confusion to loss of memory. Former astronaut and retired family doctor Duane Graveline says that he “descended into the black pit of amnesia” both times he was put on Lipitor, prompting him to write a book and set up a Web site on statins’ side effects.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/a-bad-week-for-statins/

Happy Fourth of July!

What does the fourth mean to you?

For me it is a chance to mark an incredible event - a group of people chose an incredible idealistic goal, and succeeded.  They shed a tyrant and replaced him with a document that states we are all entitled, by virtue of being created, to the same liberty and privilege under the law.   In fact, they defined the purpose of law as the service of liberty - mine and yours.  They struggled mightily and devised a government large enough to defend us from a foreign invader, while confining our protector (that same Federal Government), to a very small entity.

They Founders, remarkable mainly for their intelligence and role in a critical moment in history, knew that it would be difficult to make a government large enough to be useful in the national defense but constrained enough that it would not become a threat to individual liberty - and they were right.  But in spite of the many offenses to liberty that our government has and does practice, we Americans enjoy more liberty than virtually every other nation's citizenry.

Our choice to pursue a life not constrained by poor food quality or physical frailty is a luxury not to be taken for granted.  Today, I'll celebrate the circumstances that have allowed me to live as I do.

Mike Eades, More on Statins

Do they have enough "critical thinking skills to wonder about the hypothesis that LDL-cholesterol is really a problem.

The next day the New York Times, in an article that wasn’t all that anti-statin, started thusly:

For decades, the theory that lowering cholesterol is always beneficial has been a core principle of cardiology. It has been accepted by doctors and used by drug makers to win quick approval for new medicines to reduce cholesterol.

But now some prominent cardiologists say the results of two recent clinical trials have raised serious questions about that theory — and the value of two widely used cholesterol-lowering medicines, Zetia and its sister drug, Vytorin. Other new cholesterol-fighting drugs, including one that Merck hopes to begin selling this year, may also require closer scrutiny, they say.

Dr. Steven E. Nissen weighed in with his interview with Katie Couric on CBS that I posted earlier.

And the Wall Street Journal in it’s Health Blog anticipated a slew of lawsuits against the makers of Vytorin and maybe other statins to follow.

But the big daddy of them all has yet to hit the newsstands but has already been blasted over the internet. The next issue of Business Week, due to hit the stands next Monday, has been up online for the past few days, and it contains several articles, including the cover article, that are devastating for the makers of statin drugs.

The cover article titled Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good starts right off in lock step with what I wrote in my Queen Mother of all statin posts a year or so ago. The Business Week piece starts with an interview with James M. Wright, a professor at the University of British Columbia and the director of the Canadian government-funded Therapeutics Initiative, an agency that analyzes drug data to see how well they actually work. Dr. Wright had one of his patients – Martin Winn – on a statin for a mildly elevated cholesterol level when the light bulb flashed on.

Wright saw, the drugs can be life-saving in patients who already have suffered heart attacks, somewhat reducing the chances of a recurrence that could lead to an early death. But Wright had a surprise when he looked at the data for the majority of patients, like Winn, who don’t have heart disease. He found no benefit in people over the age of 65, no matter how much their cholesterol declines, and no benefit in women of any age. He did see a small reduction in the number of heart attacks for middle-aged men taking statins in clinical trials. But even for these men, there was no overall reduction in total deaths or illnesses requiring hospitalization—despite big reductions in “bad” cholesterol. “Most people are taking something with no chance of benefit and a risk of harm,” says Wright. Based on the evidence, and the fact that Winn didn’t actually have angina, Wright changed his mind about treating him with statins—and Winn, too, was persuaded. “Because there’s no apparent benefit,” he says, “I don’t take them anymore.”

As I reported in my post the only evidence that statins produce any decrease in all-cause mortality is in men under the age of 65 who have established heart disease. For women of all ages with and without heart disease and for men of all ages without heart disease, these drugs don’t bring about a decrease in all-cause mortality.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/a-bad-week-for-statins/

Diabetic Caveman

Why I Eat Like A Caveman

By: Eric Devine | June 21, 2010 
Categories: Featured, Food & Nutrition | Tags: Caveman Diet, HbA1c, Paleolithic Diet

No one would argue that actually living in conditions similar to a caveman’s would be beneficial for health, since lack of shelter, illness, injuries and predators led to relatively short life spans (approximately 30 years) for early man. What the cavemen ate, however, known today as the Paleolithic diet, was very beneficial for health.  It was, in fact, exactly what the human body was designed to eat.  The Paleolithic diet can provide anyone with a healthful eating plan, and holds special promise for diabetics.  I have type 1 diabetes, and for several years I’ve been experiencing its benefits.

What is the Paleolithic diet?

The Paleolithic diet categorizes food into two groups, in and out.

In foods are foods that humans ate prior to agriculture and animal husbandry (meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruit, berries, mushrooms, etc).  Out, or Neolithic Era foods, are foods that resulted from agriculture or animal husbandry.

This sweeping cut removes a vast quantity of the foods we eat on a daily basis, most notably grains (including pasta and bread), dairy and refined sugars.

The question you are probably asking is why would someone eat this way?

The answer is multi-fold. Many who eat in this manner extol the virtue of “removing the toxins” from their highly processed diets. Others speak of truly “getting back to their roots” in a way unlike any other. The most fundamental reason to consider eating a Paleolithic diet has to due with evolution.

Early man was limited in his ability to eat many of the items in the aforementioned out list because they are inedible in their raw state. Then a wondrous discovery took place – fire.  And with fire, previously inedible foods became palatable.  Then, about 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution took place.  At this juncture, our current grain-based diet came to be.  And with time came the modern staples such as flour, bread, noodles and pasta, but the human body was unprepared for such things.

The human genome has been relatively stable for the past 40,000 years, requiring little variation in diet. The breakthrough of nutrition attainability that came with cooking and agriculture ran counter to our needs, but was so enjoyable that it rapidly replaced our “natural” bounty.

The argument from the Paleolithic camp centers on the rise in health issues, disease and disabilities that some attribute to the consumption of the formerly inedible food choices. If we simply ate like our ancestors, instead of subsisting on the grain-based diet of today, various ailments might be significantly reduced or non-existent in the population.

This idea turns the traditional food pyramid on its head, considering its foundation is carbohydrate rich foods. And there is increasing evidence that indicates the type of diet recommended in the USDA’s food pyramid is discordant with the type of diet with which humans evolved.

The Paleolithic Diet and Diabetes

Whether or not you are on board with the notion of the Paleolithic diet being superior to our modern Western diet, one point that cannot be dismissed is that the diet can have very positive implications for those with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

All of the foods listed as edible by Paleolithic standards are low on the glycemic index (a qualitative indicator of  a carbohydrate’s ability to raise blood glucose levels). Eating foods that are high on the glycemic index, which includes all of the foods on the out list, will place an unnecessary demand on the pancreas for those with type 2 diabetes, which could result in insulin resistance. For those with type 1 diabetes, limiting food intake to low glycemic foods decreases the demand for insulin injections and the associated “spikes” of blood sugar.

Eating according to Paleolithic standards removes the stress on the body that eating refined carbohydrates creates, and decreases the requisite insulin demand, thus creating a more balanced biological state.

The Caveman Cometh and I Followed

The “caveman diet” is on the rise and growing in popularity, as evidenced by many health and exercise related programs that promote its benefits: Art DeVany; Crossfit: Forging Elite Fitness, The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint. Even the New York Times has reported on the caveman lifestyle, The New Age Cavemen and the City.

All this coverage allows individuals to become informed, to maybe test the regimen, and hopefully find the benefits I have found.  My diabetes has always been under control. I have never had an HbA1cover 6.5, but as many will argue, the HbA1c isn’t the be all and end all marker of healthy living with diabetes. In fact, many of my best results, those in the 4-5 range, were comprised of heavy amounts of low blood sugar levels. I “rode the rollercoaster” of high carbohydrate consumption, followed by insulin, followed by hunger, oftentimes because of inaccurate dosing and episodes of hypoglycemia. When I switched to a lower glycemic diet, and then Paleolithic altogether, the roller coaster ride came to a halt.

Once I became accustomed to not having the constant “sugar on board” I found my glucose levels to be more constant. I had fewer lows and fewer highs, but my HbA1c remained the same.  I was not only healthy by our medical standards, but I was truly living in a state of constant health.  I have been in this state for two years and have found an improvement in my mental acuity, energy and overall sense of wellbeing – all elements that by the very nature of our disease can be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.  Getting back to my roots and unearthing the meal plan of our ancestors has not only improved my diabetes, it has enabled me to live my life to the fullest.

http://asweetlife.org/a-sweet-life-staff/featured/why-i-eat-like-a-caveman/8447/

WHS - Benefit of Pastured Dairy

Dairy - complex issue, but pastured is the way to go.

"Pastured Dairy may Prevent Heart Attacks

Not all dairy is created equal. Dairy from grain-fed and pasture-fed cows differs in a number of ways. Pastured dairy contains more fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamin K2, vitamin A, vitamin E, carotenes and omega-3 fatty acids. It also contains more conjugated linoleic acid, a fat-soluble molecule that has been under intense study due to its ability to inhibit obesity and cancer in animals. The findings in human supplementation trials have been mixed, some confirming the animal studies and others not. In feeding experiments in cows, Dr. T. R. Dhiman and colleagues found the following (1):

Cows grazing pasture and receiving no supplemental feed had 500% more conjugated linoleic acid in milk fat than cows fed typical dairy diets.

Fat from ruminants such as cows, sheep and goats is the main source of CLA in the human diet. CLA is fat-soluble. Therefore, skim milk doesn't contain any. It's also present in human body fat in proportion to dietary intake. This can come from dairy or flesh.

In a recent article from the AJCN, Dr. Liesbeth Smit and colleagues examined the level of CLA in the body fat of Costa Rican adults who had suffered a heart attack, and compared it to another group who had not (a case-control study, for the aficionados). People with the highest level of CLA in their body fat were 49% less likely to have had a heart attack, compared to those with the lowest level (2).

Since dairy was the main source of CLA in this population, the association between CLA and heart attack risk is inextricable from the other components in pastured dairy fat. In other words, CLA is simply a marker of pastured dairy fat intake in this population, and the (possible) benefit could just as easily have come from vitamin K2 or something else in the fat.

This study isn't the first one to suggest that pastured dairy fat may be uniquely protective. The Rotterdam and EPIC studies found that a higher vitamin K2 intake is associated with a lower risk of heart attack, cancer and overall mortality (3, 4, 5). In the 1940s, Dr. Weston Price estimated that pastured dairy contains up to 50 times more vitamin K2 than grain-fed dairy. He summarized his findings in the classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. This finding has not been repeated in recent times, but I have a little hunch that may change soon..."

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/pastured-dairy-may-prevent-heart.html