Cardiovascular, Medicine
Ten Vital Facts to Know About “Baby Aspirin”
IF YOU HAVE NOT HAD A HEART ATTACK One – You’re in your 50s. The Medical Publication, Health After 50, reports that a panel of experts has updated the guidelines for taking Aspirin at various ages. It says you, in your 50s, have a 10 percent or greater risk of coronary attack or stroke in the next 10 years, and a life expectancy of at least 10 years with no increased risk of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding. If you meet one of these requirements it says you may be a candidate for a daily baby Aspirin (81 milligrams). You can calculate your risk of heart attack at www.cvriskcalculator. Two – You’re in your 60s. In this case, the publication says you have a...Read More
Alcohol, Alternate Treatments, Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Nutrition, Surgery
Dr. Gifford-Jones’ RX for a Long Life
One : Buy a Scale Obesity is a huge killer and it sets the stage for Type 2 diabetes, heart attack and hypertension. Be a smart consumer. Step on the scale each day so there are no surprises about weight gain. Count calories to live healthier and longer. Two : Buy a Pedometer To Count Steps Ships tied up at a dock too long get barnacles. To avoid medical barnacles, walk 10,000 steps a day. There’s no need to run the four minute mile. Remember, lions don’t buy Nike running shoes. Besides, studies show excessive exercise can cause medical problems. Three : Avoid Needless Radiation. A single CT scan delivers the same radiation as 500 chest X-rays or 1,000 dental ones. Always ask if an...Read More
Medicine, Miscellaneous
Is It Nuclear War, Viral Epidemic or Azoospermia?
It’s been said that “Those who do not remember history are destined to relive it”. Today, the problem is that none of us seem to remember history, so we’re destined to relive it one way or another. So will our civilization end with a nuclear holocaust? A world-wide viral pandemic? Or, will it be due to azoospermia? Then, whatever happens, we can give our planet back to animals who deserve it more than humans. After all, they only kill to eat! While I was in premedical training, rats taught me an important biological lesson. Place two rats in a cage and they enjoy the company. A few more keep them happy. But keep adding them, and they, like humans, start to...Read More
Medicine, Vitamins
What Are You Doing To Grandma?
Is Grandma’s doctor slowly harming her by over-medication? I’m being facetious here, as no doctor wants to injure patients. But remember, today is not the horse-and-buggy era of medical practice. Today, rushed doctor visits and potent drugs can be a hazardous combination. So can you protect a beloved grandparent? First, keep an eye on what grandparents are consuming. Studies show that 60 percent of those over 65 are taking five or more prescription drugs. This includes one in five who are taking 10 or more drugs and one in 20 using 15 or more. “Pillitis” has reached staggering levels in 2017 and it’s potentially harmful. Especially when natural remedies may treat Grandma better. Today there’s a 30 percent chance she’s taking a...Read More
Medicine, Neurology, Vitamins
Concussion: What Surprised Me about Its Treatment
How should hockey star Sidney Crosby, or my own child, be treated if he suffered a brain concussion? To answer this question I interviewed Dr. Andrew Saul, Editor-in-Chief of the Orthomolecular Medical News Service, and a world authority on nutrition. Dr. Saul confirmed what I suspected, that bruised brains are not receiving the treatment they desperately need. Newton’s Law states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Unfortunately, our Maker didn’t use screws to anchor the human brain inside its skull. So, without this protection, sudden blows to the head toss the brain against a formidable hard skull, causing various degrees of injury. But there’s a problem. It’s easy to diagnose a fractured arm, but impossible to know the...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous
A Damning Verdict; We Are a Nation of Wimps
I recently wrote that our ancestors endured great hardship when they landed in America. They hacked down forests and tried to survive in the new land. Now, they would roll over in their graves if they knew North Americans had become a nation of wimps. Readers of my column confirmed my damning verdict. J.W. from B.C responded, “Thanks for your refreshing honesty, calling a spade a spade. We do take a pill for every damn ache and pain. I don’t think you have ice-water in your veins, hope you keep up the good work, and maybe politicians will deal with drug abuse in an intelligent way instead of pandering to bleeding hearts.” D.M. of Courtenay, B.C. replied, “Your columns are inspirational...Read More
Medicine, Psychiatry
We’ve Become A Nation of Wimps
What’s wrong with North Americans? Plenty! Long ago, Immigrants landed on our hostile shores. They had no shelter, food or medical care. They hacked down forests and tried to survive. Many didn’t. They developed colds and sore backs. But they had more to do than swallow pills. Nor did they have social agencies to pamper them. Today, their offspring have become wimps, part of a drug-infested society dependent on a chemical solution for every pain. What’s happened would make our ancestors roll over several times in their graves. Is there any hope for us? Recently, the increasing cost of drugs to treat opioid abuse hit North American headlines. It’s madness that Canada has spent 300 million dollars to treat addicts! In one...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Pain
“Dying, I Don’t Want To Be There When It Happens.”
Woody Allen, when asked for his opinion about death, replied, “I don’t worry about dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens!” Unfortunately, Allen will be there and so will the rest of us. This week, why I have a personal interest in the end of life. And what can we all do to provide the best of care to loved ones near death? Years ago I conducted a five year battle to legalize heroin to ease the agony of dying cancer patients. Readers, at that time, sent me funds to help with costs. Finally, when heroin was legalized in 1998, $450,000 was left in the kitty which I donated to the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine,...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Nutrition
Losing Weight the Asinine Way
Has the medical world gone completely insane? A new medical device called “AspireAssist” to treat obesity has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. Its approval is being studied by Health Canada. The British Medical Journal agrees with my reaction when it reported, “AspireAssist surely marks the end of civilization as we know it”. This remark sounds ominous, but it’s not about a nuclear threat. Rather, about obese people who thoroughly chow down a meal, then half an hour later physically remove one third of it! Not by inserting a tube down their throat. Instead, by an endoscopic surgical procedure in which doctors insert a pencil-sized tube into the stomach. Following the meal a pump...Read More
Lungs, Medicine, Vitamins
Hillary Clinton: Did She Receive the Best RX?
Do famous people always receive superior medical care? If this were a Trivial Pursuit question, the answer would be a big “Yes”. After all, they’re famous and have the money to demand the best medical treatment. But has fame and fortune guaranteed that Clinton has been given the best advice to treat pneumonia? This week I encountered several surprises. The first surprise was that Hillary Clinton, at age 68, hadn’t collapsed earlier from this disease. Or that Donald Trump, age 70 and overweight, hasn’t as yet collapsed from coronary attack. The grueling U.S. election campaign is not designed for seniors, so something medical is bound to happen eventually. It occurred this past week. What else amazed me? Everything I read...Read More
Cancer, Medicine, Pain
Why Cancer Patients Will Suffer to Protect the Lives of Addicts
How history repeats itself! Today, politicians are once again ignoring the pain of terminal cancer patients. At the same time, they are shooting themselves in the foot by making illogical remarks about pain. This human folly takes me back 37 years. In January 1979, I wrote a New Year’s resolution in this column to petition the government to legalize medical heroin to ease the agony of terminal cancer patients. I knew that heroin had been used in English hospitals for 90 years, so why not have this painkiller available in North America? But rather than being applauded for my compassion, all hell broke loose. One well-known cancer specialist labelled me “a misinformed headline-seeking journalist”. The Cancer Society argued that morphine was as...Read More
Gastroenterology, Lifestyle, Medicine
An Update on the Risks of Heartburn Drugs
Pogo, the cartoon character, was right when he remarked, “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.” A report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that North Americans are devouring PPIs (proton pump inhibitors). These drugs decrease the amount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach to ease heartburn. But, as always, medical consumers tend to overdo a good thing and trigger a number of unintended consequences. Numbers tell the story. A few years ago doctors prescribed PPIs, such as Prevacid, Nexium and Priosec, to over 4 million Canadians and 15 million in the U.S. Now, the number is higher as some PPIs can be obtained over-the-counter. The cost? Over 80 billion! The winners are the owners of big...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous
How To Cure 42,000 Addicts Quickly
How could this medical and social disaster ever be allowed to happen? If authorities had told me that Ontario, just one Canadian province, was treating 400 addicts in methadone clinics, I’d believe them. But, the actual number is 42,000. But how many of these addicts need methadone? And what is the solution for this madness? Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, is not an arm-chair commentator on addiction. Rather, he’s an internationally renowned expert, a British psychiatrist, and prison doctor who has treated thousands of addicts over years. In his book, “Romancing Opiates”, he writes that heroin is not as highly addictive as claimed, and withdrawal not as difficult as treating an alcoholic. He claims, “It’s a myth that treating the heroin...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous
Reading History Could Save a Child’s Life
What is a parent’s greatest tragedy? It‘s the loss of a child. Recently parents in Alberta were charged with failing to provide their 19 month old boy with the necessities of life after he died due to meningitis. So how can parents avoid such a horrendous loss? And what can doctors learn from history about this lethal disease? A loving couple believed their child had croup or the flu and treated him for two weeks with natural remedies such as garlic, onions, horseradish and smoothies with hot peppers. But he finally stopped breathing and died after being rushed to the hospital. Fifty percent of cases of meningitis occur in those under five years...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Medicine, Philosophy
Medical Care Main Cause of Death
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, may be rolling over in his grave. Why? He preached “First, do no harm.” I recently read a report in the Journal of Molecular Medicine called Death by Medicine. It’s the most damning medical report card ever issued. It claims huge numbers of patients are being injured and killed by conventional medicine. There’s also a big surprise there. A huge, meticulous study concluded that every year in the U.S conventional medicine kills 800,000 patients. Compare this figure to 700,000 that die of heart disease and 500,000 from cancer. The report claims that 7.5 million medical and surgical procedures are unnecessary. Another 8.9 million patients are admitted needlessly to hospital and 2.2 million patients suffer adverse reactions to...Read More
Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Medicine
A Double-Barrelled Package to Treat Hypertension
Today millions of North Americans suffer hypertension and 99 percent are being treated by prescription drugs. Studies show that nearly 50 percent discontinue their medication due to unpleasant side-effects. But tossing away drugs is a hazardous move which can result in earlier death. This week, a double-barrelled natural remedy that helps to prevent high blood pressure. It can also be helpful to those with hypertension who wish to try managing it first without the use of prescription medication. It’s been said that “societies get the blood pressure they deserve.” It appears we deserve a lot. It’s estimated that 75 million adult North Americans have hypertension. What is more frightening is that doctors are now seeing this disease in young children who...Read More
Eyes, Ears, Nose & Throat, Gastroenterology, Medicine, Pain
Risks of Heartburn Drugs
What can the stomach tell us about the state of the nation’s health? Plenty! A report in the medical publication, “Life Extension”, states that 40 percent of North Americans suffer from heartburn every month! More appalling, 20 percent experience weekly attacks! So every year doctors write 119 million prescriptions for heartburn, generating 14 billion dollars in sales. But big sales can also mean big side-effects for unsuspecting medical consumers. What can go wrong? Proton-pump inhibitors (PPI’s) such as Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid can ease the feeling of a burning fire under the breastbone. It’s due to an over-indulgence in food and drink which pushes protein digestive enzymes and bile up into the lower end of the esophagus (food tube). This condition is...Read More
Medicine
Do You Really Need An Antibiotic?
What would it be like living in a world without antibiotics, where a simple infection could kill you? It could happen, as increasing numbers of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. But there are ways to bypass antibiotics so this frightening scenario doesn’t occur. One herbal remedy, recently imported from Europe, can help to end the remark, “We know where you’re going!” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports 440,000 Americans are sickened every year due to eating or handling food contaminated with resistant bacteria. At least 2,000 of these people die from the infection. And over half of the antibiotics used are prescribed inappropriately! In Canada, Public Health Authorities report that about 25 percent of Salmonella infections are resistant to antibiotics. It’s...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous
How to Reverse Pre-Disease
Samuel Johnson once remarked, “Nothing sharpens the wit so much as the knowledge you’re going to be hanged in the morning.” So if a doctor says, “Your blood sugar is borderline for diabetes” or “your bones are getting fragile”, he’s giving you a pre-disease warning. But does it ring the bell of trouble ahead unless you do something about it? Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, Professor of Medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, is also the author of “Less Medicine, More Health.” Welch says we should keep in mind that, “Virtually everyone, as they get older, develops some sort of pre-disease”. The outward appearance of wrinkles and graying hair are for all to see. But kidneys, hearts...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Medicine, Vitamins
There Are Still No Dead Bodies!!!
Why is it impossible for investigative media reporters to get it right about health supplements? In March of 2013 medical research showed that every day 290 North Americans die from prescription drugs. To kill the same number of people a jumbo jet plane would have to crash every day. I asked Health Canada’s forensic bureaucrats to explain where the dead bodies are who took natural supplements? I have never had a reply. Now the media are using a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S Food and Drug Administration to damn supplements. Its study of 63 hospitals over a 10 year period showed 3,667 emergency room (ER) visits and 2,154 hospitalizations from the use of...Read More
Lifestyle, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Pain
Cutting Back On Drugs Cured a Retired Minister
What’s the response that shocks me most during my many speaking tours? It’s the huge combination of drugs swallowed by many North Americans. Equally amazing, most people have no idea why they’re taking them. Over-medication is dangerous. It also results in staggering costs for the health care system. So can North Americans cut back on drugs? And what non-medication cured an ailing retired minister? The first question to ask your doctor is why you are taking so many drugs. This seems so logical it hardly needs mentioning. After all, these same people wouldn’t think twice about asking the car mechanic what was done to correct the noise in their car’s engine. So never accept a drug without asking why the...Read More
Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Medicine, Vitamins
Stroke Update: What’s Missing will Cost Lives
Every year 650,000 North Americans suffer a lethal stroke, or one that leads to debilitating mental or physical problems. The American Stroke Association (ASA) has issued an important update on how to prevent this disaster for those who have not had a major stroke or a mini one. But why do prestigious university medical centers continue to make a grievous error that costs lives? Remember, you cannot change your family history of stroke, or your age. But you can change the odds, because 90 percent of the factors that cause stroke are controllable. So here are facts you should be aware of. ANTICOAGULANTS (blood thinners) to treat A Fib, an irregular heart rate, should be used more often, but have a high...Read More
Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Medicine, Vitamins
A Shocking Finding About Aspirin and Heart Attack
Aspirin has been called the “One Cent Miracle Drug” for good reason. It’s the most widely used medical remedy in the world and available for over a hundred years to treat headaches and other pains. Millions take it to decrease the risk of heart attack and more recently, cancer. But how effective is it? And what is the recent surprise finding? In January 2011, the journal, “The Lancet”, reported data from eight studies involving 25,570 people. It concluded that a daily Aspirin decreased total cancer deaths by 24 percent after five years of use. Moreover, after people stopped Aspirin, death rates were still 20 percent lower for 15 years, largely for cancers of the colon, esophagus and prostate. Researchers also discovered...Read More
Infection, Lifestyle, Medicine, Sex, Women's Health
“DILI” Is Killing More People Every Year
North Americans must rid themselves of a major misconception. Too much Cabernet Sauvignon is not the only way to damage the liver. Today liver injury is being caused by prescription drugs, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, and some herbal supplements. More than 1,000 drugs and supplements have been associated with drug induced liver injury (DILI) which is increasing every year. Everything we consume, with both good and toxic ingredients, are eventually filtered by the liver. This organ has great regenerative powers, but it is not indestructible. Moreover, advanced age and being a woman can decrease the liver’s ability to metabolize toxic products, resulting in DILI. For example, many people take Tylenol (acetaminophen). It’s an effective pain killer if label instructions are followed, but there’s...Read More
Cardiovascular, Lifestyle, Medicine, Nutrition
Coenzyme Q10 Needed For 100 Trillion Cells
Heart failure is the fastest growing cause of heart disease in North America. What’s ironic is that the medication prescribed to prevent heart problems may in fact be causing weakened hearts and sapping energy from our 100 trillion cells. Today, with an aging population, old hearts, like old cars, can only travel so many miles before they wear out. But before this happens a car without gas comes to a sudden halt. Similarly, if the heart lacks coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), the gas that delivers energy to the heart’s muscle, it eventually develops congestive heart failure. For years doctors and the public have been told that cholesterol-lowering drugs (CLDs) are the be-all-and-end-all to prevent heart attack. But one vital point has not hit...Read More
