Study Blasts TV Drug Ads

Study Blasts TV Drug Ads

A study came out a few days ago showing that pharmaceutical ads are based on emotion rather than fact. Just watch the commercial and you see that the people in them are unbelievably excited about their new prescription. They feature people telling their friends about how wonderful it is and read just like a warning label, with more disclaimers than information. Below are some excerpts from the article on Live Science.

Pharmaceutical companies spent an estimated $1.9 billion on TV advertising in 2005.
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Ninety-five percent of ads made "emotional appeals," and 78 percent implied that use of the medication would result in social approval. Fifty-eight percent of the time, products were depicted as medical breakthroughs.
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According to the new study, only two developed countries -- the United States and New Zealand -- allow drug companies as much unfettered access to the TV airwaves. In fact, the average American television viewer now spends 16 hours a year watching prescription drug ads, "far exceeding the average time spent with a primary care physician,"

Basically, the pharmaceutical companies only care about getting more people on their drugs. Most of these drugs are either for made up diseases (Restless Legs Syndrome) or are created to treat a symptom (anything for cholesterol). Here's a thought when it comes time for a prescription: is it a long-term course of action? If it is, you are likely being treated for a symptom rather than a disease. From a business perspective, this is the best thing for Big Pharma's pockets; you take a drug for the rest of your life, never actually treating any underlying causes, but it makes you feel better, so you think you are better.

And there are the obligatory side effects, which are often worse than whatever it is you're being treated for. "Try some Rogaine. Get your hair back. And have a 1 in 50 shot of being impotent. But who cares? At least you'll have your hair." It is telling that Big Pharma spends more on TV advertising than most companies make in profit in a single year. You can hardly watch a 30-minute show without seeing at least one ad for drugs. We are a nation of pill-poppers and the pharmaceutical companies are getting rich off or our laziness. Everyone wants a quick pill to fix anything that their sedentary, sugar-filled lifestyle has caused, from diabetes and obesity to allergies. And in our American way, we are allowing commercial interests to override social interests by allowing Big Pharma all the access they want to our advertising mediums, including our kids. This all bodes poorly.

There is one very simple way to avoid nearly all prescriptions. Eat a healthful, whole foods diet. That means meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, oils (palm, olive, and coconut), little starch, and no sugar. Sugar and grains have numerous deleterious effects in the body, damaging the immune system and causing the bacterial environment of the intestines to get out of whack. And get some exercise too.

Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan

An excellent article by Michael Pollan. He discusses (in 12 pages...a long read) how America went from a land of food to a land of nutrients. Because of our turn to eating nutrients instead of food, we must rely on experts. It is in these experts' interest to keep us confused about what to eat. One day low-fat diets are all the rage, the next, it's low-carb. The following day, low-carb is unhealthy again. I disagree with Pollan's take on meat, but he's mostly spot on with this article.

A couple of sentences that stuck out in my mind:

Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
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Of course it's also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims , while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness.

See, you never see a health claim on lettuce because everyone knows lettuce is healthy. So many other foods in the aisles of the grocery are adorned with health claims such as "Good source of fiber" and "Eating a diet low in saturated fat is known to..." That these recommendations are based on pseudo-science is irrelevant. The government has deemed them to be correct.

I'll make it easy: Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar (from What Is CrossFit?). There's nothing more simple than that. Grains, pasteurized dairy products, soy, and anything in a brightly colored package with nutrition information and a list of ingredients are not good food. If there is a cartoon character or celebrity pushing it, it's most likely a food product, not food. There is no such thing as "junk food"; there is junk and there is food. It really is as simple as following the maxim in the first sentence to be healthy. You really won't even have to worry much about quantity as long as you're eating mainly meat and vegetables with nuts, seeds, and oils for fat; a bit of fruit for dessert; some starch from sweet potatoes and squashes; and limiting sugar to virtually none.

Eating a colorful variety of plant foods - vegetables, fruits, and tubers - ensures that you receive wide-ranging amounts of different vitamins and minerals. Meat is the most nutrient-dense food item available, and the one that has allowed the human race to evolve to such high standing. Within meat you'll find several important vitamins that are unavailable elsewehere, along with good saturated and mono-unsaturated fats (especially if it's grassfed meat). And nuts, seeds, and oils provide the fat that is necessary for proper metabolic functioning and absorption of vitamins and minerals.

Another notable:

Today, a mere four crops account for two-thirds of the calories humans eat. ... It's hard to believe that we can get everything we need from a diet consisting largely of processed corn, soybeans, wheat and rice.

Two-thirds of our calories come from foods that the human animal has not evolved to eat. Soy must be highly processed to be consumed safely and unfortunately the soy industry doesn't do this when turning out soy burgers, soy dogs, and tofu (the Chinese do when eating miso, natto, and tempeh). Corn, wheat, and rice are grain foods that must also be soaked and fermented to neutralize antinutrients and be usable by the body. Again, this isn't done by food processors. Is there any wonder why we're so unhealthy?

Shane Ellison Interviews Anthony Colpo

The Interview

Here is an interview between Shane Ellison and Anthony Colpo, of The Great Cholesterol Con fame. Anthony describes his personal journey to investigate, and ultimately write a scathing book about, the cholesterol hypothesis that prevails today. He also describes his methods of training and the type of diet he advises for his trainees. This is an excellent read as is his book. Get it at Amazon.

Should've Just Read "Lights Out"

Lights At Night

I wrote a book review of Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival previously. In this book, Wiley and Formby lay out the premise of why modern humans suffer from debilitating diseases and how light toxicity contributes. Now comes this finding that jives perfectly with that book's premise:

Night life under electric lighting may cause serious behavioral disorders and physical diseases including cancer, according to a specialist team led of the Professor N.N. Pertov Scientific Research Institute of Oncology, Russian Ministry of Healthcare, and Petrozavodsk State University, who have been investigating the effects of night-time illumination on people’s health for several years.

Basically, strong light suppresses melatonin which is necessary for proper hormonal functioning. Think about all of the little lights in your room: alarm clock, LEDs on the DVD player, light coming through the windows, etc. All of that light is wreaking havoc on your hormonal systems by suppressing melatonin release. It is important to make your room as dark as possible and sleep 7-10 (8+ is optimal) per night.

What Are You Optimistic About?

Edge.org

Every year, Edge.org asks one question, to which numerous scientists and thinkers respond. Here is this year's question, "What are you optimistic about? Why?" Read on for some interesting answers.

Carbs and Cholesterol

Carbs and Cholesterol

South Asians ate the most carbohydrate and had the lowest HDL cholesterol levels, while Chinese individuals ate the least carbohydrate and had the highest levels of the beneficial blood fat, Dr. Anwar T. Merchant of the Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario and colleagues found.

Each additional 100 gram per day of carbohydrates was tied to a 0.15 mmol/L drop in HDL cholesterol. Triacylglycerol levels also rose in tandem with carbohydrate intake.

The researchers also found that consuming more sugar-sweetened soft drinks, juices and snacks was tied to a lower HDL level.

Interesting findings, but not all that surprising for those that don't believe in the "high fat equals high cholesterol" dogma. As I've mentioned before, cholesterol is not the danger, but it may signal that the body is trying to protect itself from something. In this case, a higher intake of carbohydrates results in a higher output of insulin and higher blood sugar. Both of these things damage arteries, resulting in a need for cholesterol to patch the holes. Cholesterol is the ambulance at the scene of a crash, taking the blame for the carnage.

High Intensity Training

HIIT Training

This is a great document comparing the effects of standard, moderate intensity "cardio" against high-intensity training. High-intensity training will always prevail over low- or moderate-intensity training. Running sprint intervals is more effective at improving your athleticism than is running 3 miles everyday. Traditional "cardio" work sticks solely to the oxidative pathway, neglecting the phosphagen and glycolytic pathways, the ones that contribute to power and anaerobic capacity. In fact, distance running can actually be detrimental to anaerobic capacity in favor of aerobic capacity. Unfortunately, with the exception of endurance sports such as bicycle road racing and marathons, sports take place in the anaerobic pathways. Basketball, football, boxing and martial arts, tennis, and Olympic weightlifting all are characterized by short, high-intensity bursts followed by periods of rest. Traditional cardio also tends to convert fast-twitch muscle fibers (the power oriented ones) into slow-twitch fibers (non-power oriented)...this is why most marathoners haver very little in the way of a vertical jump. If you want to maintain power and sports capacity, high volumes of aerobic work isn't the way to do it. Try some sprint intervals.

The Value of Health Studies

Health Studies Are Worthless to Those Who Care About Health

This is a great article about why we should ignore (or rather take with a grain of salt) health studies. Steve Pavlina points out four basic truths: 1) Everyone has an agenda, 2) you never hear the whole truth, 3) you're unique, and 4) the underlying paradigm is wrong. I disagree with him that health studies are worthless, but many people put WAY too much value into them. They can provide a guide for areas of experimentation in your own health journey, but just because something works in a lab setting or someone dredged data to find some barely-there correlation (which doesn't equal causation), doesn't mean it's going to work for you.

New Cancer Drug

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

This is an interesting article from New Scientist that I happened across a few days ago. They have found a drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), that turns off the immortality of cancer cells. Cancer cells grow into a tumor because they lack the normal mitochondrial activity that signals for apoptosis, or cell death. This drug reactivates the mitochondria so that they can trigger normal cell death, returning cancerous cells to the status of every other cell. The real beauty is that it has no patent and can therefore be manufactured on the cheap. We still lack human trials, but this could be promising.

A Trans Fat By Any Other Name

New fat, same old problem with an added twist?

Study shows a new fat replacement for trans fat raises blood sugar in humans

One day we may learn that we cannot best that which Mother Nature has provided us. Whether through divine intervention, evolution, or some combination of the above, that which is found in nature is the proper food for the human animal. We tried the replacement fat thing with trans fats over the last two decades; it didn't work. We tried the indigestible fat, Olestra; it didn't work. Now we have a new trans fat that has different problems. It suppressed insulin and raises blood glucose, both forerunners of Type II diabetes. The plain truth is this: "If man made it, don't eat it" (I believe that was Jack LaLanne). Stick to meat, vegetables, oils, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. The best oils are the two saturated tropical oils, coconut and palm, and olive oil. Yes, that's right. Saturated oils are very good for you. They are resistant to the rancidity that plagues the polyunsaturated fats that are pushed on us and do not require processing to make them shelf-stable. Get some at Tropical Traditions for all your cooking needs. They are very flavorful and full of healthful vitamins, minerals, and fats. And for your own sake, avoid anything that is a man-made fat. We don't have a good track record and that doesn't appear to be changing soon.