Gyroscopic Investing

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:20 pm**

Oregon Governor Resigns over Green Energy Cronyism Scandal

"SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned Friday, giving in to mounting pressure to abandon his office amid suspicions that his fiancee used her relationship with him to land contracts for her green-energy consulting business."

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... m-scandal/

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:22 pm**

madbean wrote:
Mountaineer wrote: Well, I'm about 15 or so years into the statins. But, who am I and what is this forum? And, spelln dunt cant.

... Mountaineer
If it wasn't for guinea pigs like you I don't think I would have even considered taking a statin. I've had the experience of being prescribed a much-hyped drug that was eventually forced off the market due to adverse affects, namely Vioxx. Fortunately, I didn't have health insurance at the time so I only went through a couple of bottles.

But people have been taking statins for 25 years now. Although I've heard anecdotal stories of long term side-effects, if they were as unsafe as some people claim one would think there would be more conclusive proof of that by now.

My bigger concern was that the doctor was prescribing something known to alter blood chemistry before actually figuring out what was causing the symptoms I was actually complaining about. If she didn't know what it was, how could she know that a statin wouldn't make it worse? I guess experimentation is the only way. If I don't post again, you'll know what happened to me.

Hmmmm. We have something else in common. Vioxx. I survived after first ibuprofen or asprin (caused heavy nosebleeds), Celebrex, then Vioxx until it was pulled from the market, then back to Celebrex, then to Aleve OTC, then to almost nothing but an Aleve a time or two a month at most. Honestly, as best as I can remember, the only thing that helped much was Vioxx but I'm beginning to think it was a placebo effect since I'm now older with creakier joints and don't really experience much pain at all; maybe I wore the burrs off.

I'll be looking for your posts before I call the police to investigate who your doc is, or was.

... Mountaineer

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:31 pm**

moda0306 wrote:
Do we really trust the agriculture/food/medical industries in the absence of government to give us accurate information?

I will answer your question a hearty YES for the agricultural chemicals that were invented, tested extensively, tested on inhouse farms for a couple of years, before ever being sold - my comment is only for the company I worked for. I conducted safety/health/environmental audits of the laboratories, manufacturing facilities local and international, marketing/sales organization, and test farms during much of my career. I can't imagine a more ethical company to work for; reflecting back on that time, I would now say it was likely more ethical than many of the churches I've attended

. In over three decades, I was never once asked directly or indirectly or even minutely implied to falsify anything and was instructed by the highest level of management to the lowest level laborer to ALWAYS tell the truth, no matter what the economic penalty might be. Our standards for acceptable performance were far higher than anything the government required. I don't know what the situation is now, I've been retired for a while. Hopefully, they have not deteriorated in ethics. Your mileage may differ.

... Mountaineer

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:49 pm**

I'm seeing another faux scientific agenda developing, earthquakes due to fracking. Has anyone else noticed it?

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 4:16 pm**

MachineGhost wrote:
madbean wrote: I found it kind of interesting that she not only prescribed the expensive Crestor but also Nexium, which did me no good and even made things worse, I believe. Both are made by Astra-Zeneca. Makes you wonder if she's either getting a kickback from them or they are just good at marketing to doctors.
You can look up your physician's kickbacks here: http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Wow, I found mine on the list but it was Johnson and Johnson for $350, not Astra Zenica.

An even more curious fact - that website revealed 68 doctors with the last name of Shah taking kickbacks in the state of Florida, compared to the last name of Smith which had only 51. I'll let the inferences pass without comment.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 5:14 pm**

My parents, contractor and a few older friends loooove their statins.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 5:41 pm**

Reub wrote: I'm seeing another faux scientific agenda developing, earthquakes due to fracking. Has anyone else noticed it?

You must not be doing or observing sufficient "global warming product shoveling" and have too much time on your hands to allow you to develop hypotheses like the fracking earthquake thing-a-ma-bob --- drive up to Boston and give a hand.

... Mountaineer

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 8:21 pm**

Yes. This global warming is sure producing some snow and ice, which the last time I checked was below freezing. Up is down. Black is white.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 8:49 pm**

Reub wrote: Yes. This global warming is sure producing some snow and ice, which the last time I checked was below freezing. Up is down. Night is day.

Sigh. I should be valentining right now, but since the missus is far, far away for a while, I have time to point you to this tonight:
Jan 6, 2014
Climate Change Might Just Be Driving the Historic Cold Snap
Climate change skeptics are pointing to the record cold weather as evidence that the globe isn't warming. But it could be that melting Arctic ice is making sudden cold snaps more likely—not less

http://science.time.com/2014/01/06/clim ... d-weather/

And now, back to nutrition...

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:39 pm**

Has ice ever melted before global warming?

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:09 pm**

Mountaineer wrote: Edit: This link does not make statins sound quite as bad as the above. MG, What do you think?

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/Consume ... 293330.htm

It's what I would expect from regulatory captured government agency 60%+ funded by Big Pharma. So it's not what I would call impartial evidence. Analogy: the credit rating agency monopolies and their role in the subprime crisis.

P.S. I would stick to reading the actual scientific literature and not what mouthpieces say is so and so.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:15 pm**

MangoMan wrote: Please clarify: Are the memory problems related to the CoQ-10 depletion, or directly due to the introduction of statins?

It is from starving the body of cholesterol.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:18 pm**

MangoMan wrote: Thanks. I used to take fish oil daily but have cut back to every other day because my primary care doc said they think the [alleged] increased risk of prostate cancer outweighs the benefits to the heart.

You need a new physician. There is no increased risk of prostate cancer from fish oil. The fact that your physician is reading sensational media scare headlines highly indicates that he lacks critical thinking skills.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:18 pm**

MachineGhost wrote:
madbean wrote: I found it kind of interesting that she not only prescribed the expensive Crestor but also Nexium, which did me no good and even made things worse, I believe. Both are made by Astra-Zeneca. Makes you wonder if she's either getting a kickback from them or they are just good at marketing to doctors.
You can look up your physician's kickbacks here: http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Thanks for that link. It appears to include data from the Sunshine Act server.

I'm listed on that database for a few hundred $$ from drug companies. That's because the staff arranged lunches provided by the drug reps for a weekly research conference. I hated that more than I can say, but I was too low on the totem pole to get anything done about it, and the others were afraid of annoying our already passive-aggressive unionized staff. Amusingly, I was "charged" $40+ for lunches (which btw were pretty crappy) that took place whether I was there or not...e.g. for a couple of them I was out of the country!

Once I got onto the Sunshine act portal, I tried to fight the ones that obviously I wasn't present for. The drug companies of course had the last word, and they simply denied my claims. I printed off a copy of my drug company "charges" and sent them around to the faculty in my division. That finally did it. All drug reps were permanently banned and the lunches were cancelled. I got a few phone calls from some of the companies after that, all of which I refused to answer.

Anyway the point is that there's this "can't fight city hall" culture in the medical world, and that comes through quite nicely in the article. The lowfat dogma is still alive and well, and the topic of "continuing medical education" exams. It will be a long, long time before that changes. Ironically, many doctors I know are well aware that it's bunk and apply that knowledge to their own lives, but still won't pass it on to patients.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:24 pm**

madbean wrote: But people have been taking statins for 25 years now. Although I've heard anecdotal stories of long term side-effects, if they were as unsafe as some people claim one would think there would be more conclusive proof of that by now.

The paper referenced in the link I posted for Mountaineer is the very start of the conclusive proof. It takes time for negative symptoms to snowball, time for scientists to pay attention to the snowball, time for the greedy trial lawyers to get on board and finally a lot of time as the very last to pay attention is always Big Pharma/FDA.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:32 pm**

moda0306 wrote: Do we really trust the agriculture/food/medical industries in the absence of government to give us accurate information?

Do you really trust the government to give you accurate information when there is regulatory capture? There's a big difference between the independent peer review process of calculating inflation accurately with the CPI and the negligient crony committme non-response of authorizing Frankenfoods/drugs not proven safe because the so-called safety data was provided by the vested interest in question.

This is not a "government" problem. This is an informational asymmetry and a public laziness problem. If the public put half the effort they do into following which sports team is drafting who back into their own personal health (and the emotional energy as well), both government and industry would be far more efficient at producing quality information.

It's not that simple. "Government" is a cultural impact "authority" and certain political ideologies and/or generations conflate that with truthfulness and acting in a citizens's best interest, as you can surmise from this very own thread. The bigger problem is capitalism always corrupts "government" and exploits this cognitive bias. If people are willing to literally torture other people on command from "government" or "authority" as the infamous experiments showed, do you really think they will resist anything less??? Especially puerile crap like "cholesterol causes heart disease", "saturated fat causes clogged arteries", etc. backed up by an army of registered-licensed dietician do-gooders and bureaucrat careerists to foster it onto everyone guillable? We're not so far off from the real world Animal Farm, you know.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:36 pm**

MangoMan wrote: Thanks for the link. Good info. I will go back to daily supplementation.

Make sure you buy true fish oil, i.e. triglycerides and not ethyl esters (which is marine biodisel oil).

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2015 10:47 pm**

WiseOne wrote: Anyway the point is that there's this "can't fight city hall" culture in the medical world, and that comes through quite nicely in the article. The lowfat dogma is still alive and well, and the topic of "continuing medical education" exams. It will be a long, long time before that changes. Ironically, many doctors I know are well aware that it's bunk and apply that knowledge to their own lives, but still won't pass it on to patients.

Well, they can be sued for not following one-size-fits-all "standard of care". Who would want to take that risk with all that medical debt?!!

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:01 am**

MangoMan wrote: I have been using this, which someone here recommended in another thread. [Vitacost item # 790011160366]

That looks like ethyl esters and you also want a high DHA fish oil, not high EPA. EPA is essentially a filler byproduct and is useless without the presence of aspirin. DHA is the true EFA and EPA is made from it as needed. Read the Permanent Regime thread and look at my regime for what I use.

If you feel adventurous and want to test your Jarrow: http://fishoildetective.com/burning-fish-oils.html 

That being said, if you want to stick to marine biodiesel oil for whatever crazy reason, you need to take it with a high fat meal of 50g or more to ensure absorption comparable to triglyceride fish oil.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:03 am**

I think they ultimately get it wrong so often because they are never able to control all the confounding factors in their studies. Also, many studies that are used to draw conclusions are of poor quality and often seem to be observational.

For those studies that try to break down foods into their constituent parts, I think this post (see below) from Stephan sums up well the dangers of nutrient isolation studies. I think when it comes to nutrition, a great deal of individuals practice too much hubris when drawing conclusions.

There is still much that we don't know in this field, so take all information with a grain of salt.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 ... onism.html

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:15 am**

MachineGhost wrote:
MangoMan wrote: Please clarify: Are the memory problems related to the CoQ-10 depletion, or directly due to the introduction of statins?
It is from starving the body of cholesterol.

Precisely... even when you reduce your dietary cholesterol intake, your liver will still produce the extra that is needed. When you throw in statins, it's the equivalent of throwing a monkey wrench into the human machine. There are some studies that show that statins reduce the cardiovascular risk... but I'm wondering what it would do to overall mortality. I'm definitely skeptical, but I am not a doctor and not authorized to give medical advise, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm not sure if it's acceptable to partially correct one health risk by tinkering with the human metabolism using drugs, especially when we don't have a good understanding of what the long term effects might be.

You may well be trading in a lower risk of cardiovascular disease with a higher risk of getting cancer or Alzheimer's... I really don't know.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:39 am**

Lets be frank here, statins are an outdated 1970's technology based on a complete misunderstanding of the role and function of cholesterol, LDL and HDL in the body. If raising HDL was the panacea it is claimed to be, then why doese mortality go up when HDL levels are raised? The real horror show here is in using millions of trusting people as guinea pigs in a crony capitalist science experiment that has lasted over 33 years now. I'm still waiting for the mother of all class action lawsuits.

If it were really as simple as forcing the liver to evacuate all cholesterol from the body, statins would have been self-evident a fantastical success as the polio vaccine was.

We would NEVER hear the end of it, because if there is one thing government and big business authorities absolutely love to do, it is draping themselves with idols of legitimacy.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:28 am**

MG, I read that the latest iteration of Soylent replaced fish oil (herring, mackerel) with algal (algae) oil for Omega 3. Any comments on that?

I assume it's good because that's where some of the fish themselves get their Omega 3's.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:34 am**

My doctor was only listed for $353 in meals from Johnson and Johnson. That's either one very expensive meal or she must have had a few of them but I can't fault someone too much for taking up an offer for a free meal if that's all there was to it.

On the other hand we looked up the doctor my wife works for part time as a lab technician and he had several pages worth of kickbacks of all kinds totaling probably more than $200k. Now my wife knows where he got the money for the fancy sports car he keeps in the garage. At least he passes some of it along to his employees in the form of free breakfast and lunch every day at work.

WiseOne wrote:
MachineGhost wrote:
madbean wrote: I found it kind of interesting that she not only prescribed the expensive Crestor but also Nexium, which did me no good and even made things worse, I believe. Both are made by Astra-Zeneca. Makes you wonder if she's either getting a kickback from them or they are just good at marketing to doctors.
You can look up your physician's kickbacks here: http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
Thanks for that link. It appears to include data from the Sunshine Act server.

I'm listed on that database for a few hundred $$ from drug companies. That's because the staff arranged lunches provided by the drug reps for a weekly research conference. I hated that more than I can say, but I was too low on the totem pole to get anything done about it, and the others were afraid of annoying our already passive-aggressive unionized staff. Amusingly, I was "charged" $40+ for lunches (which btw were pretty crappy) that took place whether I was there or not...e.g. for a couple of them I was out of the country!

Once I got onto the Sunshine act portal, I tried to fight the ones that obviously I wasn't present for. The drug companies of course had the last word, and they simply denied my claims. I printed off a copy of my drug company "charges" and sent them around to the faculty in my division. That finally did it. All drug reps were permanently banned and the lunches were cancelled. I got a few phone calls from some of the companies after that, all of which I refused to answer.

Anyway the point is that there's this "can't fight city hall" culture in the medical world, and that comes through quite nicely in the article. The lowfat dogma is still alive and well, and the topic of "continuing medical education" exams. It will be a long, long time before that changes. Ironically, many doctors I know are well aware that it's bunk and apply that knowledge to their own lives, but still won't pass it on to patients.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:50 am**

sixdollars wrote: Precisely... even when you reduce your dietary cholesterol intake, your liver will still produce the extra that is needed. When you throw in statins, it's the equivalent of throwing a monkey wrench into the human machine. There are some studies that show that statins reduce the cardiovascular risk... but I'm wondering what it would do to overall mortality.

As I understand it, with 25 years of prescribing statins there has been no reduction in overall mortality from heart attacks, only a reduction in the number of heart attacks and that number does not even appear to be very large to me.

Thanks to MG's link I got my blood test results from Quest in less then 24 hours and it showed a total cholesterol number of 293 which is apparently quite high but my HDL which is the so-called good cholesterol was also high at 54 so with that evidence I'm pretty sure I'm going to terminate the statins after the first round to make my doctor happy. As to why my body is naturally producing cholesterol numbers that are high, I guess that will remain a mystery. I didn't have this problem (if it is a problem) as late as my 50's. It only started in my 60's.

My test results also had some very good news. After confiding in my doctor that I had been a heavy drinker for a number of years she ordered every possible liver test that I think she could have, resulting in 7 vials of blood being drawn and looking at the results every single liver test shows that it is functioning perfectly. So I'm ready to celebrate with a couple of beers.

Gyroscopic Investing

Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?

Re: Nutrition Scientists - why are they wrong so often?