I hate Dr Oz

 General Health  4 Responses »
Apr 112012
 

I’ve always thought of him [and still do] as nothing more than a shill for the vitamin and supplement industry, promoting products that do nothing more than line the pockets of himself, and the industry that produces the products he is constantly touting.

I’m not even sure why I bother watching him, but I did so yesterday, and it just further solidified my position.

His first guest was a self appointed diet guru. He was providing information on how to eat healthier, and while some of the info may have had some merit, two bits of information stood out that I had a great deal of trouble with.

The first was adding sugar to vegetables, supposedly to make vegetables taste better, encouraging people to eat them more. While eating more vegetables is certainly good advice, I’m not so sure adding sugar is such a good idea. Sure it will make your vegetables taste better, but adding sugar to anything will make it taste better. And how much sugar is enough or too much? Where do you draw the line? He didn’t provide that information.

The second thing that got me, was about energy drinks. His contention was instead of drinking the energy drink, simply swish it around in your mouth, and then spit it out. This supposedly will trick your brain into thinking it’s receiving an energy boost from the sugar.

Now while it may trick your brain into thinking it received an energy boost from the sugar, I doubt very seriously it can trick your body into performing like it just received the energy boost it never received. Trust me as someone who has bonked before, when that happens, your body needs real energy, not an imagined one.

He then had some expert, I think from the Mayo Clinic, talking about the importance of antioxidants. The contention was you need to increase your intake of antioxidants to counter the effects of breathing. It was implied [at least I inferred] that oxygen molecules from the air you breathe attach to your DNA (or something like that) increasing your risk of cancer, and only by increasing your antioxidant intake can you counter those effects.

There was also some mention of increasing the effectiveness of your white cells, i.e. boosting your immune system, to fight disease. At that point I couldn’t take it anymore, and had to shut it off.

I hate repeating myself, but YOU CAN’T BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. And even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. How can you control what effect a boosted immune system will have? Will it start attacking your good cells, and forget about the bad cells? That’s exactly what cancer is, and I don’t think it’s a risk worth taking.

Certainly you need to eat a healthy, well balanced diet, something most of modern society doesn’t do. It’s the surest way to helping prevent diseases, obesity, etc. Just don’t waste your money on vitamins and supplements you don’t need, and won’t do you any good, except maybe to cause the exact things you’re trying to prevent, and definitely lighten your pocketbook.

Instead, spend that money you’ve saved on a gym membership, new running shoes, or even a new bike, and get out and exercise more. You’ll find that a lot more beneficial.

Just my opinion!

 

If springtime doesn’t come around soon…………

 Life  1 Response »
Feb 292012
 

Right about now you’re probably thinking, here we go again, more complaining. You might have been right too, if it weren’t for the following post I received the other day.

the next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you coul…

What’s interesting about this comment, besides the fact there is some truth to it, it was spam. I know it was spam because it came from someone with a “buy ambien” website, and some other drug links. Spam posts aren’t unusual, I get lots of them, but they’re usually accompanied by a comment praising my blog, and noting how informative it is.

So it was a surprise when I read it, something I don’t usually do. It was as if actual [living] person, not a computer, was behind this post, issuing me a wake up call. The only question is, will it work?

Well, at least for today, I won’t complain about how freakin’ cold its been (40°F this morning), nor the fact Edie and I experienced our second corked bottle of wine, in the past week, last night.

Instead, I’ll just leave it here for all to ponder your own complaints, as well as the things you can be thankful and happy about.

Rating US health care providers

 Health Care, My MCL  2 Responses »
Jan 272012
 

I’d bet if you took a survey in the US, you’d find most people are pretty happy with their current health care provider(s). Let’s face it, most people aren’t sick, and even when they do get sick, their own immune systems can fix most anything on its own. For most other ailments a visit to a primary care physician can easily diagnose and prescribe the necessary action to resolve the matter quickly.

So why do we even try to rate health care providers? I for one have never been a fan of health care provider ratings, because it can’t be done reliably. Health care is not an exact science. It is an art [of sorts], and trying to apply statistical measures to it are at best suspect.

Even trying to track the things that could be measured objectively, such as in patient infection rates, readmissions, etc. can’t be relied upon, because in a for-profit health care system, absent of regulation (like in the US), the incentive is to skew the data to produce positive results. And you sure can’t rely on data supplied by patients either, because most people aren’t knowledgeable enough about medicine, and are subject to personal prejudices.

Still that doesn’t stop people from trying. There’s a new website being developed by a multiple myeloma survivor, attempting to present data comparing survival rates of multiple myeloma patients by doctors, hospitals and regions in order to quantify the best in each category.

Despite the well intentioned efforts I’m sure this person has, I can’t help but ask myself why bother?

Certainly this information might be useful, but like I outlined above, you just can’t rely on the integrity of the data, especially, as in this case, when the data is being supplied directly by the doctors and hospitals being rated.

And even if you could rationalize the integrity of the data in this instance, the number of variables that exist [and not included] are endless, and difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.

For example, how far along has the disease progressed in a particular patient? How do we know if the health care providers, with the worst survival rates, weren’t just being inundated with the worst and most difficult cases? Identifying those health care providers as poor performers would not only be doing a disservice to the health care providers, but also to the patients who might steer clear of them.

And how do you quantify the aggressiveness of a disease? One thing I’ve learned throughout all this is, while there may only be one disease, there are numerous variants of each, some aggressive, and some not so agressive. Even if the doctors and hospitals were able to run all the tests necessary to categorize the aggressiveness of a disease (a cost which incidentally would be exorbitant), one has to keep in mind we are all different, and in any number of cases, those with poor prognostic indicators can perform extremely well, while those with good prognostic indicators can perform poorly.

Then there’s age to consider. How do you factor that into account? Are all 60 year olds in the same physical condition?

Just look at Joe Paterno. He died extremely quick after we first learned of his diagnosis. Do we really think he wasn’t receiving the best care? Should the hospital and doctor be penalized for that?

While I applaud the effort, simply because anything that keeps cancer survivors occupied, and not constantly worrying about their fate, has to be beneficial, I would be extremely skeptical of any of the ratings provided by this website, or any similar ones.

Posting on how to be better, more informed and proactive patients (one of the original goals of this blog), in my opinion, would be time better spent.

The only way to be sure we’re receiving the best possible care is to be knowledgeable of our disease. We’re not all blessed with being able to see a hematologist/oncologist that focuses solely on our particular disease, so asking the right questions, and supplying your doctor(s) with up to date information is absolutely vital.

Doctors are only human. They see many patients, all presenting differently. It would be naive to think any hematologist/oncologists has the ability to keep up with all the advances in the treatment of the myriad of cancers they deal with on a daily basis.

Staying informed and helping your doctor by supplying him/her with the latest information regarding your disease is something I have found every doctor I have had contact with to be very grateful for.

All you really need to know is, a proactive patient is a good patient, and the one who will likely survive the longest!

I feel the need to rant!

 Life, Philosophy, Politics  1 Response »
Sep 112011
 

For starters, I hate people who refuse to get a flu shot, or other vaccinations for that matter. Some people think they are a conspiracy to make us sick. Others just think they don’t work. That’s one reason I stopped working. Two people in the office didn’t believe they worked. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they think they can get the flu from a flu shot. And this is despite the fact they always got the flu (and still came to work).

I get one ever year even though most medical experts don’t believe they work on the immune compromised. Mostly I depend on others getting their flu shot to protect me. Fortunately I managed to avoid the flu this past season, and I’m hoping for the same again this flu season.

So everyone PLEASE get your flu shot! If not for yourself, then for me. :)

I also hate riding my bike in the rain. That happened yesterday, and I was not a happy camper. It wasn’t raining when I started out, and I didn’t think it was supposed to rain (although it did look pretty ominous), but somewhere along the road, I got soaked. The worst part is your shoes and feet getting soaking wet, not to mention the cold. I will admit though, the hot shower did feel pretty good afterwards.

Facebook is another thing I am learning to dislike more and more everyday. It occupies too much of some peoples time. I especially hate the re-post requests, i.e. repost if you are or know of someone with cancer, if you know someone in the military etc. and the invites to different events or whatever. If I’m interested in something, I’m sure I’ll find out about it some other way. But mostly I just don’t need to know what my friends and relatives are doing every single minute of every single day.

And finally, I hate people who think supply side economics works. (OK, You didn’t think I let you get away without at least one political rant for the day.)

I believe in demand side economics. If people want/need something bad enough [take drugs for instance], businesses [drug dealers] will pop up to supply that demand, regardless of the impediments [taxes, regulations, police] put in their way.

You can make all the widgets you want, I’m not going to buy them no matter how little they cost. (Remember the Edsel?)

But make something I need, or even just want, I will buy it regardless of the cost, that is assuming I have enough money to buy it.

What to do about unwanted mail?

 Off Topic  6 Responses »
Jan 062011
 

Are you as perturbed about junk mail as me? It seems that’s all I get any more in the mail. I would even include it as another one of those pet peeves of mine.

I especially hate it when my credit card companies sends me checks to use instead of my credit card, which I have to waste time shredding. And what’s the point of that anyways? The reason I have a credit card is so I don’t have to use checks.

Well, if you are as aggravated as me about junk mail, then have I got a plan. It’s actually not my plan. I got it from a friend, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea.

Now, whenever I get an offer for something in the mail, instead of throwing it directly in the trash, I take any documents which don’t contain my name, and return them to that company in the prepaid envelope.

Obviously this won’t work if there’s not a prepaid envelope included. I’m not about to waste any money doing this, but it seems quite a bit of junk mail does include a prepaid envelope.

While this approach likely won’t end junk mail, hopefully it will create enough extra work for the companies, and make their dealing with it as annoying as it is for me having to deal with their unwanted junk.

Plus, if I can get a movement going here, maybe we can finally eliminate junk mail.

And when you really think about it, why do we even need mail delivery. If it meant eliminating all the unwanted mail, I’d be all for getting rid of daily mail delivery. I can’t think of anything that can’t be paid online, or received via email or by UPS, Fedex etc. And think how much money our cities, counties and states could saved if they stopped sending billing notifications through the mail, and used e-mail instead.

At first I laughed when I read Prop’s 20 & 27

 Politics  No Responses »
Oct 242010
 

But then I cried!

Proposition 20, removes elected representatives from the process of establishing congressional districts and transfers that authority to the recently-authorized 14-member redistricting commission comprised of Democrats, Republicans, and representatives of neither party.

Not necessarily a bad idea, but Proposition 27 eliminates the [recently-authorized] 14-member redistricting commission and consolidates the authority for establishing state Assembly, Senate and Board of Equalization districts with elected representatives who draw congressional districts.

That is just getting ridiculous! What happens if both propositions pass?

What California really needs is a proposition to end all propositions, or if we don’t want elected representatives to run the state, then how about a proposition to disband the legislature, and put everything up for a vote of the people [letting the special interests run the state]?

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