In this week's Arrow has an update from the LowCarbUSA conference in San Diego, a visit to Vesuvius, which erupted mightily 1944 years ago, a review of some fallacies, the dark side of GLP-1 agonists, the war in Ukraine, the modern treatment of obesity, Alzheimer's and vaccines, and seed oils and politics.
A bit off-topic, but related. Watched the Netflix docudrama "PainKiller," the other day (6 episode limited series), about Oxicontin. If even a 4th of the dramatization is accurate, then wow, and it takes no effort whatsoever to understand the disaster that is the covid drug trials.
In my view, the entire system is as corrupt as it's possible to be and one wonders whether you could do better when in need with street drugs from reputable dealers who take their interest in long-term customer longevity seriously.
I *highly* recommend Sam Quinones' books "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" and "The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth."
It’s a shame because if you don’t want to take pills, it’s really hard to find any healthcare or even get good advice. 95% of doctors just give you a pill. Depressed, overweight, or acid indigestion…answers are all the same….
I'm glad you listened to the Macgregor interview on Tucker. I find him more persuasive than Pony Tail Guy. In a war with Russia in Ukraine we would lose if for no other reason than Ukraine is 5000 miles away from us but is on Russia's border. (As for dollars comparison, much of our defense budget is for salaries.) And we brag about our "sophisticated weapons" instead of our "effective weapons". We haven't fought a near peer adversary since maybe the Vietnam war. In the 60's Avis rent-a-car had an ad campaign that said, "We're number two. We try harder." The US hasn't had to try very hard because we've been number one for so long. We've bullied a lot of countries economically and financially and I think we are like the British Empire between the World Wars. Not what we used to be. I'm not optimistic about our future.
Regarding the vaxxed vs. unvaxxed studies, why not look into the Amish communities? I grew up near a large Amish community in New Wilmington, PA, and my mother worked for them at a local livestock and produce auction barn. My understanding is that they don’t vaccinate their children, or at least, not to the extent that we do, and they are very healthy, even though they aren’t very clean given they have no running water, bathrooms, or central heating in their homes. The baby bottles hang out of overalls pockets covered with flies for example. They’re probably immune to everything, given their level of exposure. They have their own schools and therefore escape medical mandates of public school systems. Just a thot.
There have been comparisons made between the Amish and non-Amish, who, by and large, are vaccinated. In these observational studies, the Amish come out ahead. But it really doesn't tell us what we want to know because it isn't a randomized controlled trial. We don't know if there is some other feature or tradition of Amish like that makes people healthier. Could be that instead of the fact that they weren't vaccinated.
To really tell what's going on, you have to randomize people into two similar groups, vaccinate one group and give the other a placebo shot. Then wait--maybe for years--to see which group ends up with more problems.
I really do not see any relationship with winning wars and GDP, especially for the US over the last 75 years. The last time the US won a significant war was WWII. Korea was not even a win. Vietnam, which I got inserted into, was a disaster. What has happened in the Middle East could hardly be viewed as a win, and then there is Afghanistan.
If the US military thinks they are going to select from a pool of autistic, fat kids with pre or existing type two diabetes to man the trenches in Ukraine, they are hallucinating. The US is not only out of ammo, it is out of bodies. And the US GDP is running on borrowed money which BRICS is on the way to devaluing. If the US can't run on debt, it will have to produce something, and you will be staring at a drugged out chronically diseased workforce. The rednecks that used to show up to fight from the Appalachian coal fields all got neutralized with OxyContin and the ones that did not succumb are obese type II diabetics. The US would not last two days in eastern Ukraine, and if they went nuclear it would be the end.
My perspective and view is probably quite biased based on being drafted into the Vietnam war at the end of 1970. Virtually everybody that I went into basic training with was a college graduate just like me. When I got to Vietnam in July 1971 the army was coming apart at the seams. There was a huge drug problem and fragging going on. Nobody I got drafted with wanted to be there, and the drill sergeants knew it, and they did not try to BS anybody. They taught the basic stuff - military customs, how to shoot, first aid, and made sure you could read a map. This was definitely not my father's war - WWII. Additionally, WWII was not quite as easy in terms of mobilization as you might imagine. The rationing stuff lasted for about 3 weeks and that is one example. There was the Lt Calley - My Lai event prior and that led to some weird so-called training which did not exactly help morale. You knew you were in a bad, nonsensical situation and there was no way out. There was no gung-ho anything.
When l landed in Long Binh in 1971 there were over 300K troops in-county and when I left in June of 1972 it was down to about 60K troops. The army had to start drug testing and if you did not pass you were medivaced back to the states. The army ran away from this war because it could not do anything else. I would not take mobilization for granted.
I love your advice to the overweight firefighter. Men usually love to eat meat and eggs and bacon and it’s all the “healthy” pasta, dry bagels, oatmeal and counting out the calories in a banana that eventually do them in and cause them ultimately to be hungry and gain weight.
Just as D was probably the best prevention against Covid, it seems that everyone should be checked for D sufficiency. Why is D the Cinderella of the biochemistry realm? It's getting tiresome, and more damaging all the time.
These things go in cycles. Right now D is having its moment in the sun. Which, BTW, is the best way to get it. People have been scared to death of going in the sun without slathering themselves with sunscreen, which blocks UVB, the wavelength that stimulate the production of vit D. So now everyone is low in vit D levels, so try to bring them up with supplementation.
I read somewhere that Vitamin D is actually formed on the oil layer of our skins and then absorbed into our bodies. This means that if you shower before going into the sun you aren't able to benefit from it. Does that make sense to you? Maybe that's why incidence of skin cancer have gone up.
When sunlight hits your skin 7-dehydrocholesterol (in the skin) absorbs UV B radiation and converts to a kind of pre-vitamin D. After a few more steps in the pathway it becomes 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which is the active version. It doesn't act through oil on the skin.
You may have been thinking about dogs. Dogs secrete a sort of sebum that gets into their coat. The sun shining on their coat actives this oily substance to a pre-vitamin D, which the dogs ingest when they groom themselves and other dogs. Nature is extremely clever.
Great start, I notice you say interviewers never push for an answer to a question. A very famous interview here in the UK the host, Jeremy Paxman, did use this technique. Here is an example of it. https://youtu.be/IqU77I40mS0?si=YUtFYfnwO5Q-5Se0&t=207
Roadway speed limits are based on optimal driving conditions (daylight hours, dry pavement, etc.), so reducing driving speed below the speed limit is legally obligatory when driving in the rain. That's my general understanding.
I agree. The argument is what is the safe speed limit under certain conditions. I would say that 45 mph is a little below that safe limit when driving on a wide freeway in the daylight in a mild rain.
I was at a rodeo in Vermont last month (no, really!) and I saw a bull stop and carefully evaluate three targets—the two rodeo clowns and the plastic dummy. He gave each a long hard stare and then went for the dummy and threw it way up in the air over his head. He then pranced back into the pen to a round of applause. He definitely had a plan. Lol
Once again, many thanks for an enlightening read. Great way to start the day. Terrifying watching that kid who got hooked by a bull - almost as terrifying as watching the Yalie outline her plan for the poor bloke to get "healthier" by losing weight - with more and more drugs probably. But when I saw her disclosures, it's a big shrug. So many in the medical profession are in that boat. Even if they aren't working with or funded by a drug company, their terrified of not doing "standard of care," which, in my not-so-humble-opinion is anything but "care" and incredibly sub-standard. I'm on a very low-dose steroid for PMR and was recently told by my rheumatologist that if I didn't agree to a monthly infusion for osteoporosis, she wouldn't give me any more steroid scripts, since my blood markers are all fine. Of course they are - I'm on a bloody steroid, but that carries no weight with her. Nothing like treating the report instead of the patient.
I'm guessing you were in a bit of a rush and it was late:
with their frigging with their emergency flashers on.
with their frigging emergency flashers on.
what he calls “The Non-Fallacy Fallacy” may also be called the “Stubbornness Fallacy”
. . .calls “The Non-Fallacy Fallacy,” which may also be called . . .
Russias economy . . . . . os a little over $2T
Russia's economy . . . . . is
(continuous glucose AND insulin monitor we’ll not know.
(continuous glucose AND insulin monitor) we’ll not know.
Of he can go on a low-carb,
Or he can go . . . .
would prefer the Yale doc’s treatment protocol than they would mine
. . . doc's treatment protocol more than they would mine? better than they would mine?
The MTD article goes on to speculate
The MNT article?
And of those who took is sporadically, 24.6 percent died.
And of those who took it sporadically, . . .
You know drill.
You know the drill.
so when the youngest graduated college
graduated FROM college - sorry, this is one of my pet peeves - to graduate college means you put a graduated line up one side of a college building - not, I assume, what your son did? Although I have to say it seems more and more to be accepted English - but it's a bit like your reaction to healthy and healthful.
I believe you missed one: according to my edition of the OED (old but good), “bullshit” is a single word. The OED noted it as “(vulg.)”, but of course the doc did not transgress in this respect. :)
Yes, I was in a major rush. I had multiple events I had to attend this week, so a lot of time was stolen that would otherwise have been available. Haste makes waste...and typos. Thanks for catching them.
It happens to us all. I tried to get in and fix yours, but Substack won't let me. Doesn't give me the option to edit comments. You'll have to live in infamy. Sorry.
Over the last couple of days, I have seen TV ads from a law office asking people to call if they have experienced stomach paralysis or other major problems while taking Ozempic, Wegovy et. al. It was on one of the minor channels that earlier this year kept running attorney ads about the Camp Lejeune water contamination settlement.
Our defense budget includes a lot more money going to salaries and pensions than Russia. In a few years, we'll finally have the ability to produce artillery shells at a small fraction of Russia's ability. If we were politically committed to defending ourselves, Russia would not be competitive regarding weaponry, but we're not. Our nuclear weapons went outside their expiration date over ten years ago.
Politically we're divided into two factions: Communists (Democrat Party) and Right-wing Communists (Republicans). Both groups support Russia in the conflict.
Our whole country needs to read *J.R. Nyquist* to get the big picture.
The EU may be hiding a potential public issue by financially supporting these young Ukrainian males: Why have so many Ukrainian young men sought to avoid defending their country?
A Sunday quickie for Dr. Mike. On The Peoples Pharmacy, Steve Nissen is promoting the latest drug trial that will lower LDL “the bad cholesterol and raise the good cholesterol”. More so in combo with Zetia. Of course. Has this show ever asked you on, Mike? Sounds like he is touting a brand new article, don’t know the full details yet.
A bit off-topic, but related. Watched the Netflix docudrama "PainKiller," the other day (6 episode limited series), about Oxicontin. If even a 4th of the dramatization is accurate, then wow, and it takes no effort whatsoever to understand the disaster that is the covid drug trials.
In my view, the entire system is as corrupt as it's possible to be and one wonders whether you could do better when in need with street drugs from reputable dealers who take their interest in long-term customer longevity seriously.
I haven't watched "Painkiller," but I intend to when I get the time. I agree re the corruption of the system. Sucks.
I didn't know Netflix had produced their own series about Oxy. There's a series on Hulu called "Dopesick" which I watched. It was excellent.
I *highly* recommend Sam Quinones' books "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" and "The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth."
It’s a shame because if you don’t want to take pills, it’s really hard to find any healthcare or even get good advice. 95% of doctors just give you a pill. Depressed, overweight, or acid indigestion…answers are all the same….
That's why they call it allopathic medicine.
Must be why I always confuse it with idiopathic ;-)
I'm glad you listened to the Macgregor interview on Tucker. I find him more persuasive than Pony Tail Guy. In a war with Russia in Ukraine we would lose if for no other reason than Ukraine is 5000 miles away from us but is on Russia's border. (As for dollars comparison, much of our defense budget is for salaries.) And we brag about our "sophisticated weapons" instead of our "effective weapons". We haven't fought a near peer adversary since maybe the Vietnam war. In the 60's Avis rent-a-car had an ad campaign that said, "We're number two. We try harder." The US hasn't had to try very hard because we've been number one for so long. We've bullied a lot of countries economically and financially and I think we are like the British Empire between the World Wars. Not what we used to be. I'm not optimistic about our future.
Regarding the vaxxed vs. unvaxxed studies, why not look into the Amish communities? I grew up near a large Amish community in New Wilmington, PA, and my mother worked for them at a local livestock and produce auction barn. My understanding is that they don’t vaccinate their children, or at least, not to the extent that we do, and they are very healthy, even though they aren’t very clean given they have no running water, bathrooms, or central heating in their homes. The baby bottles hang out of overalls pockets covered with flies for example. They’re probably immune to everything, given their level of exposure. They have their own schools and therefore escape medical mandates of public school systems. Just a thot.
There have been comparisons made between the Amish and non-Amish, who, by and large, are vaccinated. In these observational studies, the Amish come out ahead. But it really doesn't tell us what we want to know because it isn't a randomized controlled trial. We don't know if there is some other feature or tradition of Amish like that makes people healthier. Could be that instead of the fact that they weren't vaccinated.
To really tell what's going on, you have to randomize people into two similar groups, vaccinate one group and give the other a placebo shot. Then wait--maybe for years--to see which group ends up with more problems.
I really do not see any relationship with winning wars and GDP, especially for the US over the last 75 years. The last time the US won a significant war was WWII. Korea was not even a win. Vietnam, which I got inserted into, was a disaster. What has happened in the Middle East could hardly be viewed as a win, and then there is Afghanistan.
If the US military thinks they are going to select from a pool of autistic, fat kids with pre or existing type two diabetes to man the trenches in Ukraine, they are hallucinating. The US is not only out of ammo, it is out of bodies. And the US GDP is running on borrowed money which BRICS is on the way to devaluing. If the US can't run on debt, it will have to produce something, and you will be staring at a drugged out chronically diseased workforce. The rednecks that used to show up to fight from the Appalachian coal fields all got neutralized with OxyContin and the ones that did not succumb are obese type II diabetics. The US would not last two days in eastern Ukraine, and if they went nuclear it would be the end.
I'm not sure I agree with your assessment. I suspect the US could mobilize fairly quickly if it needed to. Just like it did in WWII.
My perspective and view is probably quite biased based on being drafted into the Vietnam war at the end of 1970. Virtually everybody that I went into basic training with was a college graduate just like me. When I got to Vietnam in July 1971 the army was coming apart at the seams. There was a huge drug problem and fragging going on. Nobody I got drafted with wanted to be there, and the drill sergeants knew it, and they did not try to BS anybody. They taught the basic stuff - military customs, how to shoot, first aid, and made sure you could read a map. This was definitely not my father's war - WWII. Additionally, WWII was not quite as easy in terms of mobilization as you might imagine. The rationing stuff lasted for about 3 weeks and that is one example. There was the Lt Calley - My Lai event prior and that led to some weird so-called training which did not exactly help morale. You knew you were in a bad, nonsensical situation and there was no way out. There was no gung-ho anything.
When l landed in Long Binh in 1971 there were over 300K troops in-county and when I left in June of 1972 it was down to about 60K troops. The army had to start drug testing and if you did not pass you were medivaced back to the states. The army ran away from this war because it could not do anything else. I would not take mobilization for granted.
I love your advice to the overweight firefighter. Men usually love to eat meat and eggs and bacon and it’s all the “healthy” pasta, dry bagels, oatmeal and counting out the calories in a banana that eventually do them in and cause them ultimately to be hungry and gain weight.
Good to see your familiarization with the comments of Col. MacGregor. They're all we have to know.
Re: Alzheimer's, I note that dementia risk may be 40% less if vitamin D is supplemented. https://www.ucalgary.ca/news/taking-vitamin-d-could-help-prevent-dementia-study-finds
Just as D was probably the best prevention against Covid, it seems that everyone should be checked for D sufficiency. Why is D the Cinderella of the biochemistry realm? It's getting tiresome, and more damaging all the time.
These things go in cycles. Right now D is having its moment in the sun. Which, BTW, is the best way to get it. People have been scared to death of going in the sun without slathering themselves with sunscreen, which blocks UVB, the wavelength that stimulate the production of vit D. So now everyone is low in vit D levels, so try to bring them up with supplementation.
I read somewhere that Vitamin D is actually formed on the oil layer of our skins and then absorbed into our bodies. This means that if you shower before going into the sun you aren't able to benefit from it. Does that make sense to you? Maybe that's why incidence of skin cancer have gone up.
When sunlight hits your skin 7-dehydrocholesterol (in the skin) absorbs UV B radiation and converts to a kind of pre-vitamin D. After a few more steps in the pathway it becomes 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which is the active version. It doesn't act through oil on the skin.
Thanks. I didn't want to have to give up my morning shower.
You may have been thinking about dogs. Dogs secrete a sort of sebum that gets into their coat. The sun shining on their coat actives this oily substance to a pre-vitamin D, which the dogs ingest when they groom themselves and other dogs. Nature is extremely clever.
Great start, I notice you say interviewers never push for an answer to a question. A very famous interview here in the UK the host, Jeremy Paxman, did use this technique. Here is an example of it. https://youtu.be/IqU77I40mS0?si=YUtFYfnwO5Q-5Se0&t=207
Roadway speed limits are based on optimal driving conditions (daylight hours, dry pavement, etc.), so reducing driving speed below the speed limit is legally obligatory when driving in the rain. That's my general understanding.
I agree. The argument is what is the safe speed limit under certain conditions. I would say that 45 mph is a little below that safe limit when driving on a wide freeway in the daylight in a mild rain.
I think the rule is as safe as conditions allow. That might mean that the speed limit is a safe speed even when its raining .
Loved the Pamplona video. i wonder what the poor guy did, if anything, to trigger that reaction?
I don' know, but I saw the same thing both times I was involved. A bull tears into the crowd, but singles out one person to really lay the horns to.
I was at a rodeo in Vermont last month (no, really!) and I saw a bull stop and carefully evaluate three targets—the two rodeo clowns and the plastic dummy. He gave each a long hard stare and then went for the dummy and threw it way up in the air over his head. He then pranced back into the pen to a round of applause. He definitely had a plan. Lol
Once again, many thanks for an enlightening read. Great way to start the day. Terrifying watching that kid who got hooked by a bull - almost as terrifying as watching the Yalie outline her plan for the poor bloke to get "healthier" by losing weight - with more and more drugs probably. But when I saw her disclosures, it's a big shrug. So many in the medical profession are in that boat. Even if they aren't working with or funded by a drug company, their terrified of not doing "standard of care," which, in my not-so-humble-opinion is anything but "care" and incredibly sub-standard. I'm on a very low-dose steroid for PMR and was recently told by my rheumatologist that if I didn't agree to a monthly infusion for osteoporosis, she wouldn't give me any more steroid scripts, since my blood markers are all fine. Of course they are - I'm on a bloody steroid, but that carries no weight with her. Nothing like treating the report instead of the patient.
I'm guessing you were in a bit of a rush and it was late:
with their frigging with their emergency flashers on.
with their frigging emergency flashers on.
what he calls “The Non-Fallacy Fallacy” may also be called the “Stubbornness Fallacy”
. . .calls “The Non-Fallacy Fallacy,” which may also be called . . .
Russias economy . . . . . os a little over $2T
Russia's economy . . . . . is
(continuous glucose AND insulin monitor we’ll not know.
(continuous glucose AND insulin monitor) we’ll not know.
Of he can go on a low-carb,
Or he can go . . . .
would prefer the Yale doc’s treatment protocol than they would mine
. . . doc's treatment protocol more than they would mine? better than they would mine?
The MTD article goes on to speculate
The MNT article?
And of those who took is sporadically, 24.6 percent died.
And of those who took it sporadically, . . .
You know drill.
You know the drill.
so when the youngest graduated college
graduated FROM college - sorry, this is one of my pet peeves - to graduate college means you put a graduated line up one side of a college building - not, I assume, what your son did? Although I have to say it seems more and more to be accepted English - but it's a bit like your reaction to healthy and healthful.
I believe you missed one: according to my edition of the OED (old but good), “bullshit” is a single word. The OED noted it as “(vulg.)”, but of course the doc did not transgress in this respect. :)
Not nearly as dramatic as the B and S. Sorry.
Yes, I was in a major rush. I had multiple events I had to attend this week, so a lot of time was stolen that would otherwise have been available. Haste makes waste...and typos. Thanks for catching them.
Marcia, you do a great job, but I found one the 5th sentence of your comments:
their terrified of not doing
they’re terrified of not doing
They're terrified of not doing . . . nothing like not editing my own comments!
It happens to us all. I tried to get in and fix yours, but Substack won't let me. Doesn't give me the option to edit comments. You'll have to live in infamy. Sorry.
These days it may be a good place to live . . . yeah?
Over the last couple of days, I have seen TV ads from a law office asking people to call if they have experienced stomach paralysis or other major problems while taking Ozempic, Wegovy et. al. It was on one of the minor channels that earlier this year kept running attorney ads about the Camp Lejeune water contamination settlement.
I suspect it won't be long before the airwaves are covered with such ads.
Our defense budget includes a lot more money going to salaries and pensions than Russia. In a few years, we'll finally have the ability to produce artillery shells at a small fraction of Russia's ability. If we were politically committed to defending ourselves, Russia would not be competitive regarding weaponry, but we're not. Our nuclear weapons went outside their expiration date over ten years ago.
Politically we're divided into two factions: Communists (Democrat Party) and Right-wing Communists (Republicans). Both groups support Russia in the conflict.
Our whole country needs to read *J.R. Nyquist* to get the big picture.
I haven't read Jeff's stuff in a while. I give him a look.
I think you meant to say both groups support Ukraine. I haven't seen any politician siding with Russia.
Yes, you're right, I didn't express myself correctly there.
I was thinking about Biden's limited aid to the Ukraine war effort and the independent media's sympathy for Russia.
The EU may be hiding a potential public issue by financially supporting these young Ukrainian males: Why have so many Ukrainian young men sought to avoid defending their country?
That is my question, too. If they are abandoning their own country, why should we be footing the bill for the war?
We're also paying for Ukrainian government salaries and pensions.
The lawsuits have begun: https://www.biospace.com/article/novo-nordisk-eli-lilly-sued-over-stomach-paralysis-allegations-regarding-glp-1-drugs/
And they will multiply.
A Sunday quickie for Dr. Mike. On The Peoples Pharmacy, Steve Nissen is promoting the latest drug trial that will lower LDL “the bad cholesterol and raise the good cholesterol”. More so in combo with Zetia. Of course. Has this show ever asked you on, Mike? Sounds like he is touting a brand new article, don’t know the full details yet.