Positive Health Online

Patients Not Told of Statins Risk

by Lucy Johnston

A WORLD leading heart specialist says side effects of statins are commonplace and patients are not being warned of the risks.

New guidance by drug watchdog the National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) promoting widespread use of statins is doing a “disservice to doctors and patients”, warned US ­Professor John Abramson.

Nice wants statins used by at least one in four adults

Professor Abramson, of the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, highlighted a study of 62,000 patient records that showed more than 17 per cent on statins reported side- effects.

• Research into 107,000 patients who took statins over eight years found half stopped the drugs at least temporarily;
• One in five reported muscular pain, memory problems or nervous system problems;
• Other side-effects include ­diabetes, impotence, cataracts, fatigue and liver dysfunction;
• The findings, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, ­contradict research sponsored by statin manufacturers that suggests side effects occur in less than one per cent of patients.

The Nice proposal has been criticised by many ­doctors who say benefits for low-risk patients often do not outweigh possible side effects. Independent evidence reveals the harms outweigh the benefits in a healthy population. This research is borne out by other independent community based studies which show up to 40 per cent of patients stop taking statins within a year, mainly because of side effects. Another study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, showed 40 per cent of women taking ­statins suffered fatigue.

Professor Abramson said: “If you narrowly focus on heart ­disease, taking a statin can have a small benefit of reducing the risk of a heart attack for a small number of people but if you broaden the focus there is no overall net benefit.”

London cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said: “Although there is a role for statins in patients with established heart disease, independent evidence reveals the harms outweigh the benefits in a healthy population.”

Last week the Sunday Express revealed that eight out of 12 members who sat on the Nice statins panel that drew up the guidance have financial ties to companies that make the pills or next-generation, cholesterol-­lowering drugs under trial. Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston, a member of the Parliamentary Health Select Committee, will call on it to investigate our ­finding. The former GP said: “It is a concern as this panel’s decision has such widespread implications for prescribing and cost to the NHS.”

Related articles

• Health chief slams statins: Millions face terrible side effects as prescription escalates
• Experts recommending statins are paid by drugs firms

Further Information

Source NHRI Mail <info@naturalhealthresearch.org>

Carpet Bombing Cancer with Invincible Oxygen

by Dr Mark Sircus Ac OMD DM(P)

This is exactly what you want to do to your cancer tumours. You want to blast them with oxygen. In my book Anti-Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy I introduce oxygen itself as the ultimate chemotherapy. Pharmaceutical scientists would not ever have thought of this freebie though it does cost money to concentrate it to the levels necessary to annihilate cancer cells.

With oxygen doctors can blast cancer cells to smithereens and patients can do it in the comfort of their own homes. The fact that we can stratify tumours based on hypoxia (low oxygen conditions) gives us a clue to cancer cells greatest vulnerability—oxygen. Cancer shares a common vulnerability with viruses, bacteria and fungi all of who hate high levels of oxygen.

When we send in unending waves of oxygen into cancer cells, just like in warfare, we can carpet bomb them with oxygen to soften them up before going in for the kill. Research scientists from the Cancer Research UK-MRC Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology & Biology at the University of Oxford have discovered that oxygen makes cancer cells weak and less resistant to treatment. Previously scientists have tried to cut off the blood (thus oxygen) thought to be fuelling tumour growth. The idea has been to starve and kill the tumour. When we use oxygen as a treatment it actually improves the blood vessels within the tumours thus increasing the concentration of oxygen present.

Oxygen stimulates the growth of new blood vessels in tumours and the common belief is that this leads to metastasis and genetic instability in cancer.[1] The theory follows that breathing oxygen or enriching the oxygen content of hypoxic (low in oxygen) cancer tissues improves therapy. Instead of boosting a tumour’s growth potential, it has the opposite effect and weakens the cancer cells from the inside, making them much more sensitive to harsh radiotherapy or any therapy that is applied for cancer treatment. Cancer cells fight to survive but oxygen makes them vulnerable to any other treatment used. Cancers low in oxygen are three times more resistant to radiotherapy. Restoring oxygen levels to that of a normal cell makes the tumours three times more sensitive to treatment.

UT Southwestern scientists led by Dr. Ralph Mason reported in the online issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine that countering hypoxic and aggressive tumours with an "oxygen challenge" — inhaling oxygen while monitoring tumour response — coincides with a greater delay in tumour growth in an irradiated animal model.[2]

Scientists at the University of Colorado Cancer Center said, “It seems as if a tumour deprived of oxygen would shrink. However, numerous studies have shown that tumour hypoxia, in which portions of the tumour have significantly low oxygen concentrations, is in fact linked with more aggressive tumour behavior and poorer prognosis. It’s as if rather than succumbing to gently hypoxic conditions, the lack of oxygen commonly created as a tumour outgrows its blood supply signals a tumour to grow and metastasize in search of new oxygen sources — for example, hypoxic bladder cancers are likely to metastasize to the lungs, which is frequently deadly.”[3]

A team of researchers lead by Dr. Bradly Wouters, at the University of Toronto, Canada assert that tumours with large areas with low levels of oxygen (areas known as hypoxic regions) are associated with poor prognosis and treatment response.[4] Not all the regions of a tumour are equal in terms of their oxygen levels. One clinically important implication of this is that tumours with large areas with low levels of oxygen (areas known as hypoxic regions) are associated with poor prognosis and treatment response.

Dr. Paolo Michieli and colleagues, at the University of Turin Medical School, Italy found that tumours rely on hypoxia to promote their own expansion. Hypoxia is a key factor driving tumour progression. This is a hallmark of malignant tumours and has been suggested to promote tumour progression.[5]

Dr. Chiang and colleagues at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) say, “Cells initially shut down the most energy-costly processes, such as growth, when they’re under hypoxic stress.”[6]

Scientists from the Manchester Cancer Research Centre have affirmed that tumours with lower levels of oxygen often respond less well to radiation therapy. Being able to measure how well-oxygenated an individual’s tumour is would give doctors a valuable way of identifying which patients might benefit from treatment with oxygen.[7]

Researchers at the University of Washington and Washington State University have also recently reported in the journal Anticancer Research that an environment of pure oxygen at three-and-a-half times normal air pressure adds significantly to the effectiveness of a natural compound already shown to kill cancerous cells. In the new study, using artemisinin or high-pressure oxygen alone on a culture of human leukemia cells reduced the cancer cells growth by 15%. Using them in combination reduced the cells growth by 38%, a 50% increase in artemisinin’s effectiveness.

“If you combine high-pressure oxygen with artemisinin you can get a much better curing effect,” said author Henry Lai, a UW research professor of bioengineering. “We only measured up to 48 hours. Over longer time periods we expect the synergistic effects to be even more dramatic.”

In Scientific American we read Dr. Jeanne Drisko, at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City telling us that vitamin C given intravenously can have the effect by promoting the formation of hydrogen peroxide. “Cancer cells are particularly susceptible to damage by such reactive oxygen-containing compounds.

Oxygen is Invincible

Oxygen is invincible in its ability to give or take away life and that goes as much for cancer cells as it does for healthy human cells. Oxygen can heal and it can kill so it is perfect for infections of all types. Every ozone user knows this. One cannot stay physically present on earth forever but with enough oxygen enduring youth can be ours until our time is up!

Although oxygen will not save everyone oxygen does operate at the heart of life, along with its sister, CO2. There is nothing more basic to life, so command of both carbon dioxide and oxygen give us what we need to fight cancer and many other serious diseases. The only safe way to use oxygen at high enough levels to kill all cancer cells is when it is used with carbon dioxide.

We already know that Carbogen (a mixture of 95% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide is inhaled as an adjunct to treatment for various oncologic applications. Tumours are generally hypoxic in nature and researchers theorize that increasing the tumour oxygenation during administration of treatments, such as radiotherapy, make the tumour more susceptible to the therapy being administered.

One can fight cancer with many tumour reducing substances but without oxygen as the primal substance in abundance one’s efforts will be impotent. There are many ways to help oxygen delivery capacity but the best way is by insuring that carbon dioxide is present in sufficient quantities and then flood the cells with oxygen.

Of course magnesium will oil the process and is necessary for optimal oxygen carrying capacity as well as for controlling calcium, cell wall permeability, insulin production and cell wall receptivity to it. Selenium and sulfur, cousins with oxygen on the periodic table, offer other dimensions on oxygen. Bicarbonate is another form of CO2 and this is why I am in love with magnesium bicarbonate added to everyone’s water.

Digital Thermography will tell patients and their doctors exactly where the enemy is. The images produced from digital thermography cameras are really electronic data of absolute temperature measurements that can be viewed as an electronic image presenting a spectrum of colors that indicate increased or decreased levels of infrared radiation (heat) being emitted from your own body’s surface. Cancers at different stages have an increased tissue metabolism resulting from rapid multiplication of the cells. Increased metabolism can generate heat that may be detected as an asymmetry in your scan. Thermography detects the resulting heat from biochemical reactions and physiology and is distinctly different from tissue structure-based diagnostic methods, such as MRI, mammograms, and ultrasounds.

Thermography is another method of screening for breast and other cancers that is completely safe, non-invasive, does not subject your body to harmful radiation and doesn’t hurt at all. Current research has determined that the key to breast cancer survival hinges upon it being detected as early as possible. If discovered in its earliest stages, 95% cure rates are possible.

Digital Infrared Imaging is based on the principle that metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing breast cancer is almost always higher than in normal breast tissue.

In an ever-increasing need for nutrients, cancerous tumours increase circulation to their cells by holding open existing blood vessels, opening dormant vessels and creating new ones (called neoangiogenesis). This process frequently results in an increase in regional surface temperatures of the breast.

Digital Infrared Imaging uses ultra-sensitive medical infrared cameras and sophisticated computers to detect, analyze and produce high-resolution images of these temperature variations. Because of extreme sensitivity these temperature variations may be among the earliest signs of breast cancer and/or a pre-cancerous state of the breasts and other cancerous tissues.

Just like the CIA and Pentagon have their high-resolution digital cameras looking down on us from space we can use a Digital infrared camera and look into our bodies for the first signs of oxygen depletion, which will show up as inflammation. Much better to prevent cancer with oxygen then wait for that nasty moment when receiving a diagnosis of cancer.

In September 2009 I wrote, "My overall treatment philosophy for cancer is to trap the cancer in a deadly crossfire and demolish it with safe concentrated nutritional medicinals and solid health practices including plenty of sun exposure, exercise, touch via massage, and breathing techniques.” At that point sodium bicarbonate was my main weapon of choice, and it still is along with magnesium, iodine and selenium. But now we have the ability to recruit the heaviest weapon against cancer there ever will be and that is oxygen.

Everyone who has used a Hyperbaric Oxygen chamber knows of the hidden power of oxygen. Anti-Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy uses a new intense way of doing Oxygen Multi Step Therapy otherwise known as Exercise with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT). It is a safe way to get massive amounts of oxygen into your bloodstream.

In a nutshell, you breathe an oxygen mixture while you walk on a treadmill or ride a standing bicycle. The Live Oxygen and Extreme Oxygen systems provide the most innovative systems for everyone from cancer patients to high performance athletes and everyone in-between. EWOT does not require a prescription. No oxygen tanks to pay for each month. All you need is an oxygen generator, which takes room air and removes the nitrogen, providing up to 95% pure oxygen and the EWOT to Live O2 Upgrade Kit. 

Increasing your oxygen levels can offer amazing metabolism & immune function improvement. Most diseases thrive in low oxygen environments. The healthful benefits of EWOT include higher oxygen levels to all parts of the body. Keep the body highly oxygenated and reduce the risk of many diseases. Anti-Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy incorporates Live Oxygen Therapy along with my full Natural Allopathic Protocol to provide a learnable form of medicine that one can practise in the comfort and safety of one’s own home.

I have put the Live Oxygen system as the lead protocol item ahead of the former heavyweight champion of Natural Allopathic Medicine, which was magnesium. Though oxygen training cannot be done correctly without significant magnesium supplementation this system of intense oxygen training is the tiger tank of the entire medical world. It will do some heavy lifting medically speaking for patients with severe and even desperate situations. Oxygen therapy is as wonderful as it is because more oxygen translates into more cellular energy, more healing energy and more energy to help us feel good and perform better in life. And importantly, when enough oxygen rushes into oxygen deficient cells, there is instant energy available for detoxification of cellular poisons that have been building up.

References

[1] Cancer-related inflammation, the seventh hallmark of cancer: links to genetic instability;Francesco Colotta1et al; Carcinogenesis vol.30 no.7 pp.1073–1081, 2009;
Nerviano Medical Sciences, Nerviano, 20014 Nerviano, Milan, I;  http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/7/1073.full.pdf

[2] UT Southwestern Medical Center. "Oxygen – key to most life – decelerates many cancer tumors when combined with radiation therapy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 July 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130723154959.htm>.

[3] S. Thomas, M. Harding, S. C. Smith, J. B. Overdevest, M. D. Nitz, H. F. Frierson, S. A. Tomlins, G. Kristiansen, D. Theodorescu. CD24 is an effector of HIF-1 driven primary tumor growth and metastasis. Cancer Research, 2012; DOI:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-3666;  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120913123516.htm

[4] Kasper M.a. Rouschop, Twan Van Den Beucken, Ludwig Dubois, Hanneke Niessen, Johan Bussink, Kim Savelkouls, Tom Keulers, Hilda Mujcic, Willy Landuyt, Jan Willem Voncken, Philippe Lambin, Albert J. Van Der Kogel, Marianne Koritzinsky, and Bradly G. Wouters. The unfolded protein response protects human tumor cells during hypoxia through regulation of the autophagy genes MAP1LC3B and ATG5. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2009; DOI: 10.1172/JCI40027

[5] Maria Galluzzo, Selma Pennacchietti, Stefania Rosano, Paolo M. Comoglio and Paolo Michieli. Prevention of hypoxia by myoglobin expression in human tumor cells promotes differentiation and inhibits metastasis. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2009; DOI: 10.1172/JCI36579

[6] Burnham Institute. (2009, August 9). Unraveling How Cells Respond To Low Oxygen. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090805164915.htm

[7] Manchester University. (2013, November 7). Oxygen levels in tumors affect response to treatment. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131107094416.htm

Dr Mark Sircus Ac OMD DM(P)

Director International Medical Veritas Association

Doctor of Oriental and Pastoral Medicine

http://drsircus.com/