Acetaminophen No Help for Osteoarthritis

The San Diego Union Tribune had an article by Melissa Healy on March 20, 2016: Titled: "Study: Acetaminophen no Help for Osteoarthritis Pain"   So this means that very many people experiencing osteoarthritis who were taking acetaminophen were only possibly experiencing the placebo effect if they thought they felt better after taking the drug.  The study was done in Switzerland, and was published in the journal Lancet.  The same thing happened to me in the mid 1970s when I had severe neck pain, and was given ever larger doses of a drug called "Darvon"  (see on Wikipedia).  After 6 months of continuous pain, I finally went to a Chiropractor who "popped" my neck back into the correct position and the next day the pain went away.  The following year, I learned that Darvon was shown to not reduce the pain from back or neck pain.
I can't fault the drug industry, the doctors, or the FDA.  Everyone reacts differently to each drug, and since there probably aren't two sources of pain that are exactly identical, it is very difficult to test each medication against all sorts of pain.
It seems to me that everyone who is given a medicine should be given an application for their phone, which would remind them to take their pill, record when they do take the pills, and allow them to record any changes in their symptoms or pain in some regular, routine schedule.  Then, the drug manufacturer, the patient's doctor, and the FDA would have, in effect, "crowd sourced" information about how well the medication worked in each unique situation.
The study did show that diclofenac, naproxen, and ibuprofen did have some effect in reducing pain, but at recommended doses that sounded very high.   

Bleak outlook for Diabetes in the US

The San Diego Union Tribune had a column today titled "Researchers Offer Bleak Outlook on Diabetes Projections" by Soumya Karlamangla  that says that disease rates have increased 175% since 1980, and there is a huge population of people with prediabetes.  70% of the people with prediabetes will end up with the disease.
I know there is LOTs of effort to develop a cure.  There is a huge amount of advice written in newspapers and magazines for people to lose weight, exercise in order to reduce the chance of getting diabetes.  However, the results of the research so far do not seem like there will be a promising cure.  It appears there will only be methods of improving insulin control.  The approach of implanting cells in the body that will produce insulin sounds like it works, but I'm afraid it will be expensive and require significant follow up treatments and medication.
In the meantime, we need serious national leadership to set new standards for healthcare that will encourage citizens to enjoy a healthier lifestyle.  The cost of not doing it will be so high that combined with the alzheimer's care it could destroy the nation's budget.

Merkel Cell Cancer & Viral Cause

I just heard a podcast about Merkel Cell Skin Cancer on Australia Radio National's Health Report with Dr. Norman Swan..  I found that Wikipedia has an excellent description.  It is a tiny skin growth that can actually be a death warrant if not caught very quickly.  Take a look at this photo from Wikipedia:

That tiny little mark could be a type of cancer that can metastasize and spread through the body very quickly.  I seem to feel I've had similar marks like that on my body many times in my life --but they went away.   The real problem is that it doesn't appear to be anything dangerous, and most of us would ignore it and expect it to go away an a little while. What is also interesting is that it appears to affect white males between 60 to 80 more than women or other age groups. 

It also appears to be caused by virus discovered in 2008 (Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) )that many people appear to have immunity against.  People without immunity apparently are vulnerable to it. As we learn more about cancer we are finding that more and more of them are caused by viruses, or that viruses contribute in some way to the cancer.  

The rates of this type of cancer appears to be growing quickly.  Possibly due to the baby boom demographics, or is it due to more exposure to sun?  Or is the virus becoming more prevalent?  

It really seems to make it even more important for all of us, particularly in the age 60 to 80 year group, to have our skin checked professionally on a regular basis. There are specialists and support groups that can also help if we are diagnosed.  Here is one: http://www.merkelcell.org/   

Bacteriophages -- a new solution to antibiotic resistance?

Prevention magazine had an article by Koren Wetmore in the February 2015 edition that described "The Natural Superbug Cure" that no one is telling you about.  It is about Bacteriophages.  Discover Magazine also had a good article about it.  Phage Therapy is the use of specialized viruses to attack and kill disease-causing bacteria.
The use of bacteriophages to cure diseases was done a lot in Russia prior to the development of antibiotics.  Antibiotics were easier to use, and seemed safer at the time.  Since the introduction of the first antibiotics, many other antibiotics have been developed to target specific types of bacteria.  However the bacteria have developed resistance to many of the antibiotics.  It is clear that by developing more phage therapies, we can bypass that antibiotic resistance and cure some diseases that could not be cured by antibiotics.  Also, if we can hone the process and make it efficient enough, we could use phage therapy as a 'mainstream' form of fighting disease and prevent the bacteria from becoming resistant to the antibiotics.  Of course, there is also the possibility that bacteria can develop a resistance or "immunity" to the phage viruses as well.
From what I've read, I think the Government should put some significant resources into the development of phage therapy.  Others seem to think so too.   See this article in Frontiers  I see one of the problems with continuing the development of phage therapy is that it would be difficult to get a pharmaceutical company interested in developing the technology.  It could take hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, test, and get FDA approval for new types of phage therapies.  But the drug company would probably not be able to patent the idea, or get a reasonable return on the huge investment.  In situations like this, the only solution is to use public funds to develop the technology.  To be even more effective, it may require many countries to get together to share in the cost of development of the technology.  

How to Live to 100?

I saw this article by Henry S Lodge on the front page of the September 15, 2015 issue of Bottom Line Personal that explains how to improve our chances to live to 100. It is a good article, and I'm glad that Bottom Line made it available online to everyone. Dr. Henry S. Lodge is a well respected internist, who has been ranked as one of the Best Doctors in America by Castle Connolly, and he has written several books. In this article he makes several good recommendations, but it appears that the one he thinks is most important is for us to exercise! I feel like I've exercised through high school & college (cross country), then had to maintain a fitness program through 27 years of military. I sort of thought that when I hit age 70, I could slack off a bit. But Dr Lodge says "Exercise more as you get older".. He says that everyone should exercise hard at least five days a week -- but if you are 50 or older you should make it six days a week! I guess that if we do get to live to 100, we'll finally get to rest in our "final resting place."...

I also listened to a good podcast from the "Health Report" with Norman Swan about the best exercise to do to reduce dementia risk. (Link also has transcript of podcast)  In the podcast, Norman interviewed Nicola Lautenschlager who's a professor of old age psychiatry at University of Melbourne. The professor presented evidence that regular aerobic exercise does seem to slow down the development of dementia and alzheimer's disease. He says that dementia and alzheimer's disease starts in the body 30 years prior to showing symptoms, so that exercise and other "environmental factors" can have a long time to work to either accelerate or slow down the progress of the diseases.  His recommendation is for "older people" to exercise 150 minutes per week, and that if we walk, it should be at a fast pace to get our heart rate up and blood pumping!

Nobelist Talks about Exercise and Chromosome Integrity

I've always known that longer telomeres in our cells was an indication of health.  I've also known that as we age our telomeres get shorter, so the DNA in our cells are less protected from mutation.  I just heard this Scientific American 60 Second Science podcast (see below)

Nobelist Talks about Exercise and Chromosome Integrity - Scientific American  I'm amazed that exercise apparently can restore, or increase the length of the telomeres and, in effect, reduce the effect of aging. Elizabeth Blackburn won a nobel prize for her research on telomeres

Scientific American has The entire 27-minute Google Hangout with Mariette DiChristina and Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn is on their Web site. Just google Hangout and Elizabeth Blackburn.  Other research done at UCSF has now shown that telomere length can actually be reversed with exercise and a healthy lifestyle

Fried and grilled meat may raise risk of diabetes and dementia | Science | The Guardian

This appears to be another potential breakthrough on diet, health and ageing.

Fried and grilled meat may raise risk of diabetes and dementia | Science | The Guardian

I never understood why some people seem to get alzheimers, and others don't.  Why some get diabetes, and others don't.  It may be partially caused by genes.  However in so many cases, it doesn't seem to be directly related to inherited traits.  Yes, it could be caused by being overweight, over eating, too much sugar etc.  But there are so very many people who eat poor diets who don't "catch" these horrible diseases.

Maybe these scientists are on to something.  However there needs to be a lot more work to identify the "smoking gun" at the cell-mechanism level to understand why this is true.

The sad thing is that all of these dietary recommendations seem to infringe on the pleasure we get from eating.