Personal Health

Research supports hope for Andropause sufferers

2011-10-03T14:16:00.001-07:00

If you read the following article you might be inclined to believe that - if you are over the age of 40 years old and tired, that you are suffering from Andropause. The reality however is that people who are purported sufferers could have any number of symptoms for other ailments; perhaps dietary or even a lack of exercise.

I am very sceptical of many of these labels which are adopted because of apparent "links". The problem with this research is that its steeped in empiricism. It is not science at all; its statistical correlation devoid of causation. Its the problem which arises from a misuse of the scientific method.

This problem is highlighted by the fact that this study discredits previous research. Who is to say that this research is any better. Is there any deductive analysis to disprove the old study, or is that just ignored. I'm very sceptical. Human ignorance abounds.

This is what happens when your hard-earned tax funds are expropriated to unconditionally support research, with no effective accountability. Its all a scam, with climate change and medical research backing pharmaceuticals the ultimate con.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Cure for diabetes imminent?

2011-06-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hope for sufferers of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Research around the world is identifying methodologies for curing both forms of diabetes. I refer potential and actual sufferers to the following websites:

1. Irish Times

2. LA Times

3. Time.com

This is surely positive news for sufferers of obesity vulnerable or stricken with diabetes.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Over-eating due to government intervention

2011-02-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

The message from the US government is eat less, and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. This is of course not new information. It's like a parent telling their children not to laze around, but who bought the TV, and placed no restrictions on its use. The problem as I see it is that democratic governments are as flawed as their totalitarian cousins. They might not extinguish your 'political existence' but that is only because they can 'enslave' your economic existence. So long as you, as an individual, don't meddle with their political longevity, they are pretty happy. When you do, then you go to goal, like Pauline Hanson in Australia, or you, as a lone individual, get assassinated. John F. Kennedy was perhaps an example of that; its hard to say since I have no compelling evidence.

In common with totalitarian regimes is that they are superficial or concrete-bound. So when a government states after years of research what we already knew - that we are eating too much - it is really missing the point. The problem is that we are eating too much because of them. The reason is more important. We are over-eating for psychological reasons. We are not dealing with the causes because evading, compartmentalising and rationalising are 'coping mechanisms' used to evade that which we do not have a strategy to otherwise resolve. When humans cannot come up with a conceptual solution to a conceptual problem - which is the intrusive government - it goes looking for a concrete solution, whether it be 'physical' anxiety such as compulsive disorders like over-eating, or 'mental anxieties' or evasions like psychosis.

The reality is that the way in which we are governed is so important that it goes to the crux of our relationship between ourselves and others (ethics) and our productivity (i.e. efficacy), our self-worth (i.e. self esteem), and our expectations (i.e. Absolute or logical standards vs moral relativism).

The government will keep advising that you curb your eating. That is like telling you to be happy, to avoid psychologically illness, and to be happy. It does not help at all. In fact, it does more worse than good. It gives people hope of a 'government solution' when they are part of the problem. Want to know more about the nature of government. If you are looking for empirical evidence of that as a research, you are falling prey to one of the greatest myths, that induction is the only basis for scientific investigation. It is the basis of society's moral scepticism.

Disclaimer: This blog could be good for your health.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Best conceived adventure survival guide

2011-02-07T13:23:00.001-08:00

The focus for most of these blog articles is internal health. This post will focus upon physical well-being in your external environment. It was inspired by this story of a 72yo man who was trapped in a flood. Humans have poorly developed critical thinking skills. There are several reasons for that:

1. Regulated living - we live in regulated or managed living spaces

2. Safety net - we have people telling us what to do, how to do it, procedures to follow, and even when we fail, there is someone to restore us to health or safety when we fail.

There are however those instances when we take it upon ourselves to engage in some adventure where we place ourselves beyond the safety, protection and responsibility of our fellow human beings. If we do not consider the risks, or take preventative steps, we can place our lives in danger, as well as the lives of those called upon to recover our bodies, or return us to safety. There are a great many adventurers in NZ, many of them tourists, who need to be recovered by rescue agencies. Here is an example of an adventurer who has had an interesting experience. It is interesting for a number of reasons:

1. He engaged in an adventure activity by himself. That is a high risk activity even if he is well-prepared. I know you can anticipate slippery surfaces, loose rocks, and take steps to avoid them, but consider that during a multi-day trek, you will make a million steps, and you will have roughly 1 second to determine the appropriateness of each step. You will be tired, you will be unfocused (by the last thousands of steps), even if you recognise that seemingly greater danger of a slippery slope. It is not worth it. I have done it myself - gone kayaking by myself. But you do need to actively plan your trip, and diligently anticipate every risk. Its hard to do when you have not been where you intend to go. How can you know ALL the conditions?

2. He took protective measures. The guy was well-prepared for his trip. He took a GPS device, he had a satellite phone, spare food and an emergency beacon. He abandoned the GPS when he was being flooded out of his tent. He could not get satellite phone reception in the storm and his emergency beacon was broken. Fortunately, he was able to fix the beacon. The moral of this tale is that even contingency plans can fail in a certain context.

3. He did not fathom how conditions could change. According to his story, the creek rose 1 metre in a few minutes. This creek gully was experiencing a flash flood which he did not anticipate. Humans have been living on the earth just 3 million years. Your active life experience is just 100 years at best. This is a very short period. We have yet to see the worst events of this planet. The terrain which you cross actually holds evidence of its risks, i.e. The huge boulders moved by rivers in flood, or glaciers in different times. The Earth has not changed; its just that we fail to appreciate that the Earth embodies change beyond our short perspective. There are often high or 'stranded' sediment deposits above normal river channels. These can suggest ancient alluvial beds stranded as the creek incised into the valley, or they might be your best indicator of what can happen when the river/creek is in flood. Acknowledging these plausible risks entails knowing something about the processes that shape the Earth, as well as some knowledge of rock and fluid mechanics, i.e. Applied physics, and this will help you develop a perspective that will preserve your life under all possible conditions.

4. He most probably did not have a plan. There are different types of plans.

a. A procedural plan allows you to get what you want.

b. A contingency plan allows you to keep what you have - that is your life.

The best laid plans are those which are based on the best possible information, which identify, assess, qualify and quantify all plausible risks. It does not mean that they are perfect. You might not want to plan for a 1-in-200 year flood condition, but you might want to be aware about the probability of a certain flood occurring. The safety precautions or contingency plan might entail very little consideration, and even the remedial measures might be simple, if they were only considered. They might not entail carrying more provisions into the bush. They might simply entail acting in a different way.

People tend to be sceptical about the need for plans. I have always been a planner. Even if not acted upon, they are useful for developing awareness of issues and perspective. People think short-range because of self-indulgent disregard for preparedness, because they lack information, or because they have a subjective disdain for objective reality. Critical thinking is loathsome to them because it entails self-discipline and judgement, whether of conditions they would prefer not to know about, or judgement of others, which they fear will be reciprocated.

Survival requires objectivity and critical thinking. We cannot always rely on the support of others. You would have disdain for these qualities, but call upon others to exercise them? Your disdain is shared by them, so you might be placing your life in the hands of disinterested savours. Self-preparedness is your most practical form of survival. This might seem like a burden until you recognise that such preparedness is actually a source of wisdom, efficacy and pride. When you realise that, you will actually embrace the process. Disdain is a position of ignorance or disempowerment.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Blood test for cancer under development

2011-01-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

This is particularly good news for people under the age of 40 years since you can rest assured that you have the least prospects of developing cancer whilst this new technology is developed, and rolled out. Researchers have developed a blood test so sensitive it is able to detect cancer cells for 13 different varieties of cancer in a single, non-evasive diagnostic test. The test is far easier than a body scan. The technology is not new. As a geologist, mining companies for decades, have long sampled rocks, soils and alluvium for gold and other minerals in concentrations of as little as 2-3 parts per billion. This is the same type of technology. The difference is that they had to first identify the cells I guess.

This is a huge development. I can even see the day when people over 40 years will get these tests for free each 6 months in exchange for blood donation. The only problem might be the fact that the world probably does not need as much blood. But this just might mean smaller blood samples. More probably it will just offset the cost. But maybe other developments like cell harvesting might subsidise such tests.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The role of exercise in your life

2010-07-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Exercise is an important aspect of every persons life. If you don’t have a career which allows you to live as our forefathers, then you are undertaking a regime it was not intended for. The old adage ‘use it or lose it’ is truer than ever, whether we are talking about you muscle strength, general fitness or even your mind.

Heart monitors has developed a test which allows you to calculate the maximum heart rate or appropriate heart rate you ought to achieve in order to achieve certain health-related goals, whether its:

1. Maintaining fitness

2. Losing weight

3. Increasing stamina

4. Increasing muscle strength

These are all goals which we can achieve at all ages, though their utility will differ at different times in your life. The best exercise regime is that which is embedded in your life, but is also flexible enough for you to adjust depending on the context of your life. For instance:

1. Establish a routine. Going to a gym 5km from your home might be a chore. But what if you made it a part of your daily routine, like always going prior to shopping for the family, or perhaps as a train stop on your way home from work. If you have an appointment some days, then you can always go another day to make up for lost time.

2. Make it serve a purpose. You are more likely to sustain an activity if you recognise the functions it serves; whether its mental alertness, toned body, physical stamina, business networking or extra-family relationships.

3. Making it fun is the best way to ensure you do it. Some of us like competitive sport because it appeals to our basic values. I hate the idea of working out in a gym, but I do like bike riding because I like exploring. I like table tennis because its competitive and is not going to strain muscles reaching for a shot.

4. Make it sustain physical health – not diminish it. I am one of the few family members who has not strained his muscles, and thus maintained an achieve exercise regime. As we get older our bodies degenerate. Our muscles weaken, our bones become brittle and they lose mass. Some sports like squash, and even tennis become too strenuous on our bodies, so more care is needed, or an alternative needs to be considered.

5. Replace fluids. If you are performing sport, drink before, during and after to ensure adequate fluids. This is particularly important if you are riding a bike because you might be on a road when you collapse from heat exhaustion or dehydration.

6. Good diet: If you exercise without a healthy diet you are actually diminishing your immune system. Ensure enough Vitamin B & C, and enough sunshine (Vitamin D).

The value of exercise has long been recognised for reducing the effects of depression, creating a more positive outlook on life, as well as conferring the positive effects of changed environment and positive body image.

The first step before you start exercising is to establish your maximum heart rate.

There is a mathematical formula to predict your Maximum Heart Rate, which is based on your age. Some formulas also consider your weight. The formula is simply:

WOMEN: HR = 226 - your age

MEN: HR = 220 - your age

If you are a 32-year-old woman, your age-adjusted maximum heart rate is 226- 32 years = 194 bpm (beats per minute).

The second task is to establish the required heart rate to achieve your exercise objective.

The following table is intended to match your exercise regime with your intended goal. For instance, if the 32yo woman above intended to simply lose weight she should exercise at 60-70% of her maximum HR of 194bpm. i.e. 116.4 to 135.8bpm. Since her goal is to lose weight, the amount of exercise she does will depend on her dietary intake of calories. Her exercise regime will however affect her metabolism.

Ideal For	Benefit Desired	Intensity Level (% Maximum heart rate)
Light Exercise	Maintain Healthy Heart/Get Fit	50% - 60%
Weight Management	Lose Weight/ Burn Fat	60% - 70%
Aerobic Base Building	Increase Stamina Aerobic Endurance	70% - 80%
Optimal Conditioning	Maintain Excellent Fitness Condition	80% - 90%
Elite Athlete	Maintain Superb Athletic Condition	90% - 100%

Source: www.heartmonitors.com/exercisetips/heart_rate_basics.htm

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The value of Vitamin D

2010-07-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

For years we have been told the dangers of excess exposure to sunshine. What we have not be told about is the cost of our lack of exposure to sunshine. Maybe those melanoma advertisements were just too effective? Maybe fears of ozone layer destruction made us reflect more on the intensity of the sun. Those fears were overstated however. But more probably most people simply lack sunshine exposure because of livestyle decisions. Less outdoor sport & sun, more indoor sports, if not computer games and TV.

The problem is that sunshine is a major source of Vitamin D.

What difference does Vitamin D make?

Adequate Vitamin D will reduce your risk of heart and bone diseases, cancer (some 17 different cancers by 77%, including breast & ovarian cancers), fibromyalgia and diabetes (Type-1 & Type 2), as well as auto-immune disorders like M.S. and rheumatoid arthritis. Contrary to popular belief, sunshine reduce your risk of skin cancer if exposure is not excessive. Researchers have used Vitamin D to block malignant melanoma tumors from developing in human cells. Today, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes are commonplace, while they were very rare a century ago.

Sunshine is however important for other reasons, particularly mood enhancement, who reduces a person’s vulnerability to depression and anxiety, particularly if combined with exercise. Walking in the sun will raise your spirits and it may save your life.

What are the risks?

There is a single risk of excess sun exposure – skin cancer. It is seldom a point argued in TV advertisements, but there is a single racial group whom are particularly vulnerable to skin cancer, the Celtic/Irish population, and yet the world is being scared into over-concern about skin cancer. It must be acknowledged that the amount of sun spot or solar flare activity is not constant, so neither is your exposure. Incidentally, such variabilities in solar radiation are a likely explanation for 'perceived' global warming. Regardless, sensible exposure to the sun is not dangerous under any conditions.

The role of Vitamin D

Vitamin D performs a number of roles in the body:

1. It functions as a hormone.

2. It is a vitamin

In 1990, Professor Gary Schwartz, Ph.D of Wake Forest University, made a positive correlation between the incidence of prostate cancer and a Vitamin D deficiency. Those with a Vitamin D deficiency were people who primarily live in the extreme latitudes or polar regions. Contrary to his observation, we are given warnings about the ‘summertime’ risk of solar exposure, but this fails to consider the winter deficiency. His studies in the US showed that men in the tropics (with higher sun exposure) were 20-40% less likely to develop prostate cancer than those men in northern USA. Prostate cancer patients consistently show a Vitamin D deficiency.

How Vitamin D works

Vitamin D helps your body reduce the risk of getting cancer.

1. Converts tumor cells into normal cells. Cancer cells divide rapidly in your body but don’t differentiate themselves into specific cells. Vitamin D helps this process, restoring the cancer cells to productive cells and inhibiting cancer growth.

2. Prevents cancer cells from multiplying. Cancer cells can’t reproduce and spread to new tissue when introduced to Vitamin D.7 Laboratory and animal studies show that Vitamin D prevents cancer cells from multiplying and also tells them when to die.

3. Keeps cancer from spreading. Vitamin D promotes normal cell growth. As a result, it helps prevent cancer cells from spreading.

4. Suppresses genes responsible for cell proliferation. Research shows that Vitamin D can suppress genes prone to mutation and likely to form cancerous growths.8

5. Inhibits formation of new blood vessels that feed tumors. During the creation of new blood vessels, new vessels begin to branch off existing vessels. This is bad news if they’re cancerous. For any tumor to have a chance to grow, there must be formation of new blood vessels to feed it. Vitamin D inhibits formation of these vessels naturally, starving the tumor of the nutrients it needs to grow.

How to Get Enough Vitamin D

1. Get 10 to 15 minutes a couple days a week. It’s free, and will make you feel great. Depending upon where you live, this might not be possible.

2. Eat foods with high Vitamin D. Best sources are small fish like herring, sardines, and anchovies. Stay away from the larger fish that are higher up on the food chain, as the mercury content may be too high.

3. If you can’t get enough sun because of work commitments, climate conditions, consider taking a Vitamin D supplement every day, and not just a multivitamin. Take cod liver oil, because it’s the best natural source of Vitamin D after sunshine. Just a 1,360 IU (i.e. a single teaspoon) of Vitamin D is all that is required, though you can take up to 5,000IU, particularly Vitamin D3. A multivitamin will only give you 200-400 IU of Vitamin D3.

Food Sources of Vitamin D

1 Tablespoon Cod Liver Oil 1,360IU

3-1/2 ounces of Salmon, cooked 360IU

3-1/2 ounces of Mackerel, cooked 345IU

3 ounces Tuna fish, canned in oil 200IU

1-3/4 ounces Sardines, canned in oil 250IU

8 ounces Orange juice, fortified 100IU

1 cup Milk, organic, from grass-fed cows and fortified 98IU

¾ to 1 cup of Cereal, fortified 40IU

The radicalisation of science

Note how society is full of self-righteous, uninformed people who seize upon any popular slogan with little thought of their own. i.e. You might see a person disparage a parent for allowing their children to play in the sun. The sunscreen makers clearly have an interest in misrepresenting or sensitising your risk from sun exposure. This is despite sunshine being one of the best ways of delivering Vitamin D to the body.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Survival guide - How to perform CPR

2010-07-16T01:33:00.000-07:00

Its a basic skill that we should all know..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ArXuQwjj7Q&has_verified=1

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Cheap Health Services in the Philippines

2010-07-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

I regularly travel to the Philippines so I often avail of the cheap health care facilities in the country. The benefit of the Philippines is:
1. Cheap flights with discount airlines like Tiger Airways (Singapore), Air Asia X (Malaysia) and Cebu Pacific (Philippines). These airlines use either Manila or Clark airports in the Philippines. Air Asia X is currently expanding its destinations to Sydney and Korea, so watch these airlines.
2. Cheap accommodation in regional areas of just $US20, or $70 in central Manila, though door-to-door inquiries in Ermita will find you a place for $20/night.
3. English speaking

You can of course combine your dental and medical work with a holiday. I would suggest that you do not have to go to an expensive high-class, expensive hospital in the Philippines for test work. I found a cheap diagnostic lab in Lipa City, Batangas which does X-rays, blood tests, mamograms, etc. The turnaround is 8-24 hours, so you can hang out at Starbucks or McDonalds.

This makes sense if you travel to these places or you have dental or medical work which exceeds $US10,000. I have my teeth cleaned for about $6, though its going to be more if products are imported, or you go to classy establishments with foreign-educated doctors.

Some tips on using these services:
1. Doctors like to refer you to their mates, so they can each charge a P600 fee, and give you no advice at all. If you are rich, fine, you are helping these doctors serve the long queue of poor customers outside, as you as a foreigner are given centre-stage. Go straight to diagnostics if you know what you have.
2. Make use of any Filipino relationships you have established. If they have some family doctor, they can help you save money. The chances are that they are competent if your friend comes from a 'upper' middle class family.

Filipinos can be the worst and best people. Great friends to have if you find a good one. Some of you might be interested in retiring in the Philippines. If so check out my Philippine foreclosed property blog. On our last trip we went to Puerto Galera, which is not a bad place to retire. Many foreigners. At this point the tourist area facilities are under-capitalised, but a Robinsons shopping mall is currently under construction at Calapan.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Are you experiencing joint pain?

2010-07-13T17:07:00.000-07:00

I have for a long time been experiencing joint pain and what I thought to be "circulation issues". The incidence of this was usually associated with drinking alcohol, and I thought eating animal fats, or simply fats, but fact it was an accumulation of uric acid in my blood. I am slightly over 40yo, and such problems occur from this age, usually in men, but also in women. You can specify a blood test to test for uric acid.

If your levels are in the upper levels of the recommended range you might have a susceptibility to the build-up of uric acid. If your uric acid levels are over the recommended levels, you will want to adjust your diet, and if the problem persists, you should consider medication.

Foods containing uric acid and the compounds that metabolize into uric acid include most animal meats, such as beef, lamb, pork and seafood. Poultry and ham, the "white meats," can have some purine, so should be eaten in small amounts. The "red meats" are most detrimental, particularly bacon, because of its added processing. Alcohol and breads which contain yeast also have high uric acid so should be avoided.

Gout is a common form of arthritis arising from high levels of uric acid in the blood stream. To prevent gout, those susceptible to
uric acid accumulation need to know how to lower their uric acid levels. The easiest way to lower uric acid is though proper eating habits and medication. This means limiting alcohol and avoiding purine rich foods, which will convert to uric acid.

The good foods you can eat are:
1. Black cherry juice (or "sour cherry or bitter cherry") helps to relieve the gout symptoms in conjunction with a uric acid-reducing diet.
2. Folic acid can also assist in reducing inflammation in gout episodes.
3. Increase your intake of low-fat dairy foods to lower your uric acid levels, eg. Low fat milk, yogurt and cheese
4. Drink plenty of water to lower uric acid. I have previously criticised the need to take water because I thought the body always produces an excess (unless you do strenuous exercise or live in a tropcal/hot climate). For gout/uric sufferers at least, like myself, my previous advice does not hold. They should be having eight glasses of water a day. Liquids low in caffeine and calories help to remove uric acid from the blood stream. Mother SOMETIMES knows best after all.
5. Celery, tomatoes, cabbage, parsley, kale and all green leaf vegetables are also helpful in low uric acid diets.
6. Fresh fruits including blueberries, strawberries, bananas and cherries are some of the fruits gout sufferers should include in their diet.

Sources:
www.joint-pain.com/foods-high-in-uric-acid.html
www.ehow.com/how_2056151_lower-uric-acid-prevent-gout.html
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Best cooking method

2010-04-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

I am a low-maintenance person. I don't invest a lot of time and energy in cooking. Basically you could say I eat to survive, as opposed for the enjoyment of eating. So here is how I ensure I make my food as nutritious, flavoursome and easy to prepare as possible. Basically my system rests upon steaming.

1. Buy one of the stainless steel multi-level steamers. I have one made by 'Ideal Kitchen', Made in China, which has served me well. I have a large one, however you could save energy by getting one which matches the amount of food you need to cook (i.e. how many people you are cooking for).

2. Fill the pot with hot water - why heat up water twice (i.e. hot water cylinder & stove)

3. Use enough water that it does not burn dry

4. Cook in stages - meats and hard vegetables first (i.e. red meat, carrots, potatoes). The amount of time needed depends on how the food is prepared. If thinly sliced you can cook food for less time, and simply cook all at once.

5. Empty the ingredients on a plate. If you want to cook the ingredients, you can pour under cold water, but better to let the food simply cool.

What I do is stick to my favourite vegetables each night, but change the meat. i.e. Beef, lamb, frozen fish satchels in a plastic bag. With these satchels, I get taste variety, as I eat the vegetables using the source from the fish. i.e. Birds Eye Hoki fish in mint & mushroom sauce, if I am not mistaken. I sometimes place steamed vegetables in the hot plate with fried mince or egg, for another flavoursome option.

The benefits of this method are:

1. Reduced cleaning - I only need to wash utensils, one plate, glass lid of steamer, the steamer pot and the steamer. Simple rinse if you have just cooked. Already sterilised by hot steam. You don't have to wash the vegetables.

2. Reduced fat - Steaming removes all the animal fat

3. Kills germs - The dirt and insects which maybe in the food are killed, and they tend to fall out of the vegetables. Bacteria will be killed. Steaming offers a more even form of cooking than most forms as hot water vapour gets in everywhere.

4. Detoxifies - Any volatile chemicals like pesticides are going to be driven off

5. Safety - Mixed concerns here. Be careful not to burn yourself when lifting the lid on the steamer - those gases are hot. Its hard to set the house alight because there is no oil. Mind you I guess there is animal fat (i.e.) derived from the cooking, though its usually not much. I often burn the streamer dry, and I find it gives the food a slightly burnt taste. You will usually smell the burnt residues in the steam water before you burn the house down.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The health benefits of capsicum

2010-04-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

One of the most impressive vegetables in terms of nutrition is capsicum. I have long eaten this vegetable because of its taste. It has a great flavour, so I need not add any seasoning to my steamed vegetables. The benefits are:

1. Stabilises blood pressure

2. Improves circulation

3. Anti-fungal agent

4. Anti-flatulence agent

It is said to help you avoid heart attacks. See the following website for more information.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Coping strategy for a heart attack – Attention over 60s

2010-04-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Heart attacks become more probable over the age of 60yo. Here are some tips on how to stay alive. Firstly:

Always keep two aspirin and a bottle of water here by all the time, particularly next to your bed
Have a phone close at hand if you live alone, so you can call for help
Know the emergency number in your country, and have it programmed into your speed-dial. i.e. 911 in the USA/Canada, 000 in Australia, 111 in New Zealand, 999 in Britain, Other countries – see Wikipedia or your telephone directory
Have your neighbour’s telephone number as well.

The majority of heart attacks occur during sleep, so the victim doesn’t wake up. If you are one of the “lucky ones” who is awoken by the chest pains, then you need some information about how to react:

Do not lie down!
Immediately dissolve two aspirin in your mouth and swallow them
CALL Emergency
Unlock the front door
Phone your neighbour or a family member who lives nearby:
Hell out "heart attack!
Tell them you have taken 2 aspirin.
Take a seat on a chair or sofa near the front door, and wait for the arrival of help
DO NOT lie down ~ unless you fall down.

P.S. If you are bored, start writing your final will. My guess is you won’t be.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The benefits of Vitamin C (Swine flu)

2009-09-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a good article about the usefulness of Vitamin C in fighting swine flu.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Improving your immune system

2008-09-29T14:36:00.001-07:00

There are some interesting hypotheses around about the role of cleaning agents in undermining our immune systems, as well as causing diseases and respiratory conditions like asthma. I recently saw a study that concluded that anti-bacterial cleaning agents were sanitising our environment so muh that our immune systems were becoming hyper-sensitive.

This is interesting because I lived in the Philippines for 2 years and during the first 6 months I would often have diarrhoea as a result of the food. I was drinking distilled water though used tap water to clean my teeth. But in time my body adjusted. Being back in Australia for Spring though its evident to me that my immune system is more tolerant because I don't seem to have the same hay fever that affected me in Australia or Japan in years past. It might be too early to say. I also find that my stomach is stronger too. Food combinations that upset my stomach before no longer do. Importantly I am pretty well eating the same type of food as I did before I left. Same brands too.

I would not read too much into this anecdotal evidence.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The importance of diet and exercise to Asians

2008-07-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

Asian and other developing countries seem to be the most vulnerable in the switch to a Western diet. Australians like myself have nothing but excuses for exercising. We have beaches to run along, few trains that require chasing, and a dry, cool climate climate to do this, in a plethora of greem grassy parks.
In Asia its not as easy. Living in Tokyo there are crowded streets, but in as much as you can choose where you live it is possible to select a place where you can get exercise. In Tokyo the best place is near a river. I lived in Sumiyoshi for a period, so I could ride my bike up the river. This is pretty well the only green precinct of any size in Tokyo aside from the Imperial Garden and a few other parks (like Harajuku). In the suburbs too there are no so many parks. You almost have to go to the rice padi areas to find open space.
In the Philippines it gets even worse. You are lucky if you can find trees in Metro Manila, and still rarer to see grass outside of the scarce golf clubs in the city. Its also hot, polluted and the streets are pretty disgusting in most parts of the city. Of course you can choose where you live. I recommend a city apartment because:
1. On the weekends and at night the streets are quieter
2. You can walk around the city late at night when there is no pollution.

But herein lies the problem. Filipinos generally have little discipline. They dont eat vegetables in their diet. If you go out you will be lucky if you get any vegetables, and you will get a lot of bone and fat in your meet. Their beef & pork is literally 1/3 bone, 1/3 fat and 1/3 protein. Well if you are aspiring to get out of the Philippines, you are in luck. There are plenty of jobs for graduates in the top rankings. The problem is if you eat this crap, you will end up in hospital with hypertension and severe cramps. Why? Hello! Because you eat crap and live a sedentary life in front of a computer screen. It is near impossible to get real juice in the Philippines. Its mostly sugar and water. I mean other than pineapple juice and imported grocery items.
Herein lies the problem. The Philippines is so impressed by Western junk food that it has abandoned traditional healthy food. In the provinces they still eat a better balance of food. There is still the franchise crap, but its the 'treat' rather than the norm. It is the middle class that is too busy to think, who have a narrow materialistic conception of success that they miss the point of life - the pursuit of value in every aspect of life. Middle class Asian aspirants are so befuddled with money and what it can do that they have a single focus - to use it. But what for? Nope, not long range goals like building a career or buying a house, but to buy flash brand name clothes, cars and phone to impress their friends or GF. Its all about perceptions. A huge fraud that makes them empty people. You might well say its the same in the West, but this is more extreme. There is no genuine pride in this pursuit.
These people might get the girl of their dreams, and they can show the world that they have a trophy, but they will soon realise the cost of that pursuit. They will have acquired another empty vessel in their life, a vessel that requires an unending flow of money. They might eventually realise or they might lower themselves further to retain this false pride, this delusion of achievement. And that really stupid comment she said last week will be forgotten. They will repress it. They might even conclude that was the first time she said something stupid, instead of realising that she has been repressing all personal thoughts since they met. Live and learn...
The Western diet is crap... eat it at your peril.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The impact of fat on personal health

2008-06-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

We are told that fat or oil in our diet is bad, that western diets have too much oil. This is not strictly correct. We are not so much eating too much oil or fat (ie. solid oil) but rather:
1. Eating too much - too many calories
2. Not getting enough exercise because of our sedentary lives sitting in offices or at TV and computer screens.
3. We are eating the wrong types of fats

Our bodies actually need fat. You can simply argue that changing to other forms of nutrition will help you. If you eat too many calories they will be converted into fat regardless of the source. But there is good and bad fats (or oils). The table at this Wikipedia page "Fatty acids in dietary fats" shows that virgin olive oil is the best form of dietary or edible oil. The reason is the high proportion of mono-saturated fats. Interesting the next best oil is canola (rapeseed) oil. You will readily note that canola oil is much cheaper than olive oil. Given that its only 10% less beneficial in terms of monosaturated fats, you might want to consider it. Olive oil does have other benefits though. For cooking purposes I understand that olive oil is more stable as a cooking oil than say canola oil, so you might not want to use canola oil to many times, as it might turn carcinogenic. The flipside is that olive oil is very expensive, so better to change canola oil regularly for health reasons.
Palm oil comes in distant 3rd place, but other oils are mostly saturated fats. The problem with saturated fats is that they will be converted low density lipid (LDL) triglycerides which clog up your arteries. A high ratio of low density lipid (LDL) triglycerides to high density lipid (HDL) triglycerides is linked to cardiovascular disease and pancreatitis, but you should also avoid excess total cholesterol numbers as well. These scales are age related, so consult a doctor. I find when I dont exercise enough and eat well that my blood circulation gets a bit restricted. Your body is telling you things if you listen to it. I miss the wide range of vegetables in Australia!

I miss the freshness and variety of foods in Australia. You can find nice vegetables in the PhilippinesPhilippines in the countryside - say Laguna or Baguio - but if you buyy from an SM grocery store in Metro Manila the quality is shocking - nevermind the price. I saw lovely green beans in Laguna for P190 for 10 kilograms ($US0.40/kg). If I ate them for a month, thats 3 months supply. I dare say those Manila-bound vegetables lack refrigeration, so after the 7-8hour truck trip to Manila in a tropical climate, they are not looking the best.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Soap that works - No butts about it!

2008-03-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

I would have to be one of the greatest cynics when it comes to beauty products, but as fortune would have it, maybe I should be paying greater attention to the claims made by so called ‘experts’. I have for the last 10 years given a lot of attention to the food I eat, but cared less about my skin. Recently my girlfriend started this soap business in the Philippines, the home of virgin coconut oil. Recently I have been trialing her soap, and have been impressed by the results. I remember hearing from my hairdresser years ago that I should be using a natural shampoo to wash my hair. Now that I am loosing my hair I tend to just wash it less. But I feel more assured washing my hair with this soap as well.

For several years now I have had a patch of dry, scaly skin on my butt from long periods of mountain biking. I thought this would disappear but it never did after several long rides in Japan. I just noticed last night that the problem had finally gone away. I attribute it to the soap since nothing else has changed in the last few months.

It made me reflect on what role soap plays and how it worked. It seemed counter-intuitive that soap that removed oils & dirt from the body would place coconut oil or other oils on your skin. Then I realised that the way these things work. The trick is to have an excess of coconut oil over the active soap ingredient so residual oils are left on your skin. There was no reason to have 100% coconut oil because it would just be wasted and it would unnecessarily increase the cost of the product. Anyway claims of 100% virgin coconut oil are just for marketing since there are other ingredients like lye, fragrances and for commercial soaps even colourings and other reagents to speed up the soap making process. Needless to say these synthetic ingredients are there to speed up the process, not to help your skin, so its best to avoid commercial soaps made in factories. Fortunately the Philippines is a cheap source of ingredients so we can distribute cheaply our hand-made soaps. Aside from the fact that there are too many chemicals in our food and other products, the mark-up on these supermarket products is really excessive, particularly in the Philippines. I saw green beans in the provinces selling for P200/10 kilograms. They sell in SM or Robinsons for P20 for a 0.2kg bundle, thats a 20x mark-up for something that is aged by the time I get to the supermarket.

Another difference I observed was that my girlfriends skin was not as sensitive. Before my facial hair would irritate her skin. It would be redder and she would get pimples. But now its softer than ever. Now I can smooch with her without complaint! It has brought us closer together. I love the stuff. So far i have just used the tea tree version, but I want to try the eucalyptus based soap. You can place orders on her website if you car about your skin. I felt my butt this morning. Smooth as a babies bottom. See http://hugssoap.ecrater.com.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Treatments for skin fungus

2007-12-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I travelled to Vietnam in October. Anyone whose spent time in northern Vietnam or southern China knows that during this period the region is in a state of constant overcast. Probably all that pollution from coal-fired Chinese power stations. In any respect, having spent a month there backpacking in cheap $5/night lodgings I managed to pick up a fungal infection. The problem was not the accommodation, it was my inability to dry my towel in the humidity. None of the places I stayed had a balcony, and there was absolutely no sun for the whole period.
Of course prevention is the best cure. It would be preferably to ask the landlord to dry your towel on the roof, or to watch your towel. But should you contract fungus around your genitals as I did, you will find gungus stubbornly hard to get rid of. After treating it several times as required I found that it would come back next season.
According to a specialist in skin diseases the best approach is to apply 2 different treatments at the same time. Two different treatments work in different ways so the fungus can not so easily develop any defence to it. It will be killed off more quickly. Ensure that the treatments are based on different active compounds - so dont be fooled by different brand names. It might be the same compound under a different brand. My suggestion is to look at all different brands and buy the ones with the most divergent active compounds.

Avoiding stroke

2007-11-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

As we can see above, stroke or ‘Cerebrovascular diseases’ is the 3rd most common mode of death in the USA. Notwithstanding that heart disease and cancer are 3-4x more prevalent, the fact that 6.7% of fatalities are caused by stroke makes its avoidance even more compelling for people who have good diets, since it’s the next most likely to kill them.
You need to be careful taking statistics at face value as journalists do. You might want to consider how pertinent these statistics are to your life if you have lived a healthy life – unlike all those vile, fat Americans who can’t leave McDonalds without opening both doors. We therefore need to know to what extent these ailments are ‘bad diet related’, such that if we care about our longevity, we can focus on what’s really important, and not on what some disinterested, unhappy bureaucrat says. They haven’t got an analytical bone in their body. They will be among the first to die of heart disease…..thats karma if you ask me…..after wasting taxpayer dollars.
OK back to serious issues. Stroke is causes by a blood clot in the arteries that starves the brain of oxygen. Often strokes strike a person by surprise so its good to be aware of it, and even witnesses to a stroke can be proactive in helping their friends. Clearly there are several things that a stroke is going to cause:
1. Acute pain caused by the clot
2. Loss of brain function due to the deprivation of oxygen
Whilst onlookers can not be expected to feel the pain, they can observe symptoms like dizziness. The problem with clots is that they result in a build-up of pressure which can partially clear the clot. But without treatment the clot is likely to worsen the next time. So if the dizziness is simply attributed to ‘a bad egg’ or too much sun, a stroke victim could die without an opportunity for treatment. So to avoid death by stroke its useful if people know how to check for it. This might seem like a waste of time because its others whom will benefit – not us. All the more reason for spreading the news. A SIMPLE TEST for the onset of a stroke is to check for a Loss of bodily functioning. It may only be temporary if the clot partially clears, but its certain to clot again with greater severity if the patient does not receive treatment. The most telling sign of lost body function is lost awareness, so perform a simple 3-step test:
1. Smile Test: Ask the patient to Smile
2. Question: Ask the patient a simple question. Do they respond with clarity?
3. Energy levels: Ask the patient to raise both arms.
4. Tongue check: Ask test you can do is ask the patient to 'stick' out their tongue. If the tongue is 'crooked', or if it moves from one side or the other, this can also be an indication of a stroke.

If the patient has any difficulty with one of these tasks, call the emergency number if your country (‘000’ in the USA) and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

A neurologist can totally reverse the effects of a stroke if the patient is treated within 3 hours. He need not die and he need not experience any brain damage as a result of oxygen deprivation. Since a victim will likely be unsteady, its ideal if they can count of the support of peers.

Clearly too many people are dying because there is too little awareness of the ailments that kill us.
Dont be a statistic!

Our personal survival kit

2007-11-16T00:45:00.000-08:00

None of us know exactly when we are going to die, but we actually have a good idea of what we are likely to die of. For westerners, or at least persons eating a western diet, and living a sedentary western life, the 15 most common causes of death in 2004 according to the CDC Division of Vital Statistics were:
1. Heart disease 28.5%
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 22.8%
3. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke) 6.7%
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.1%
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 4.4%
6. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) 3%
7. Alzheimer’s disease 2.6%
8. Influenza and pneumonia 2.4%
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease) 1.7%
10. Septicemia 1.4%
11. Intentional self-harm (suicide)
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13. Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension);
14. Parkinson’s disease;
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids.

Interestingly most of these people are dying of illnesses that were caused by lifestyles that were relatively less sedentary than people are today. So might these statistics be considered normal for people whom have a more active life than normal? I actually think these statistics might be hiding something because they include people dying of age 110yo, when I think we would all like to have that choice. But aren’t we more concerned with what people are dying of ‘prematurely’? I’d like to know what people are dying of between 50-75yo, as anything over that strikes me as beyond my useful life.
It would seem incumbent upon all of us to learn how we can prevent these common causes of death, and better still helpful if we could get clear information as far as dietary advice on packaging and from health professionals, now and during schooling so good habits are adopted early. Of course some countries are already doing this…but it should be universal. Staying in the Philippines, it seems commonplace for people to eat fast food 2-3 times a day. The result is high blood cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension and likely premature death without change.
Next I will look at just one of these illnesses – stroke.

Recent health research

2007-10-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

A few interesting health tit-bits from watching Oprah - see www.oprah.com.

1. Role of fibre: Its important to include fibre in your diet to reduce your chances of constipation. Low fibre foods like yoghurt take in excess of 3ohours to pass through the body, but this is significantly reduced if you include more than 35grams of fibre in your diet per day (25g for women, 35g for men). Fibre not only regulates the flow of stool through the small intestine and bowel, but its helps to flush out toxins (that can cause colon or bowel cancer) and excess bial and sugars. The best sources of fibre are beans, bran, fruit & vegetables.
2. Importance of calcium: It has been shown that an increase in calcium in your diet helps you loose weight. Calcium is not only good for the bones, but it soaks up excess fat and secretes it. Calcium is best taken with Magnesium to improve absorption into the body, and better still if it is consumed in natural forms. eg. milk, fish, other seafood.
3. Tomatoes: If you want to protect your skin eat tomatoes. Research has shown that a protein in tomatoes called licopin results in 30% less skin damage.
4. Water: Convention has it that drinking 1.5 litres of water a day is good for your skin. Research has debunked this belief. I already thought as much because I drink very little water, and concluded that there is already plenty of water in food, and the chemical reaction that releases the energy in food results produces surplus water as well. The consequence is that I pee alot more than I drink. Tests showed that drinking water had no discernable difference of skin moisture levels or salinity. If you do strenuous exercise - thats different, you are consuming water faster than you can produce it, so when we sweat excessively, we need to replenish with water. Most foods are 40-60% water.
5. Toxins: You might have seen alot of detoxing clinics or resorts being established. Really these are alot of nonsense. Research has shown that it takes more than 10 days to reduce toxins from your body, so short internsive programs will achieve little more than a break, and perhaps a change in priorities. Toxins tend to be concentrated in fatty tissue, which means they tend to reside in the liver, brain.

A unexpected cost of 'universal' health care

2007-10-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest threats posed by western medicine is that it is highly institutionalised, as as a result its administration is highly formalised, structured, centralised, not to mention highly political. There are benefits in this approach and there are flaws. Some of the benefits are:
1. Systematic approach to research - We can have confidence procedures are being followed
2. Collaboration among professionals - We can be confident that researchers are accountable to the extent that results and conclusions are shared (within the limits of corporate disclosure)
3. Preservation of scientific standards - That the industry preserves certain standards for procedures, disclosure and compliance.

But there are also a number of problems with this approach:
1. Standardisation, and thus the possible entrenchment and non-questioning of scientific methods
2. Rationalisation of policy to preserve the reputations of imminent representatives or to promote certain political outcomes, eg. universal vaccination.
3. An deference to authority - less 'imminent' voices closer to the coal face are ignored because peak industry bodies are pursuing different agendas

One of the greatest follies I find with scientists is the over-simplification of science to achieve certain objectives, to sell a policy to a certain audience, or a desire to draw attention to certain research. There is an attempt to draw 'universal' truths from scientific research by making <5%>
The reality is that any percentage of people whom dont respond to a treatment or drug is important, and efforts should be made by drug companies to understand why certain patients dont respond to a drug, just as they study why the vast majority do. The reason they dont is to save money, and to avoid ruining a good story with bad news. If they should find compelling reasons why their product does not work, or even worse, causes severe side effects, then they fear they might be undermining corporate profitability. True in the short term, but in the long term they will be avoiding law suits and developing a much improved understanding of their products and the conditions they are treating.
At root there is of course a desire by scientists or researchers for fame or financial fortune. This need not be a problem if:
1. There is adequate disclosure
2. There is adequate opportunity for critiquing science outcomes
3. Inferences are critiqued

One of the starkling problems I have with science in medicine is the tendency to treat all people as if they are the same. The 'sameness' that makes us human beings need not imply that our bodies behave exactly the same way when certain conditions are changed. The absence of evidence for a link between autism and certain vaccinations might not be available, but if our understanding is not sufficient to eliminate the possibility, then perhaps there is a need to either better understand the medicine or to monitor symptoms. To readily the science community evades certain knowledge that disputes their beliefs.

It is precisely because of the anti-science aspects of medical science that I dispute the desirability or safety of universal vaccination. More specifically I question the use of vaccines as long as:
1. There is inadequate understanding of the <5%>
2. There is inadequate monitoring of the possible side effects of taking medicines, whether vaccinations or otherwise
3. There are safer preventative strategies that can be adopted - even if seemingly more expensive

My concern is that there is so much that researchers still dont know about the human body. There attempt to adopt 'one size fits all' problems is not science, but statistics. We can see an obvious appeal in this strategy for pharmaceutical companies because they make money whether the treatment works or not, and they are not liable unless they are negligent in responding to signs of side effects. But are they taking adequate steps to question the effectiveness of safety of their treatments. I think we have to be particularly cautious where governments are sponsoring universal health solutions like vaccination.

History is littered with examples of universal health solutions that have backfired. The most famous example was the use of formaldehyde in the 1950s (??). It seems that the link between a vaccination and autism is shaping up as another example. I think we are being sold the benefits for the sake of corporate profits without being given adequate risk analysis (disclosure) on the risks because the research is geared to selling benefits, not protecting us from the downside.

I refer you to the following blogspot where you can order the book written by a mother of an autistic child whom questioned the underlying science that fails to draw a link between the MMR vaccine and at least some incidences of autism. Her story appeared on Oprah. See http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2007/09/jenny-mccarthy-on-oprah-vaccine-injury.html.

The risks of skin cancer

2007-10-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

I just had a check up for skin cancer from an office of the NSW Cancer Council. Take a look at their website - www.cancercouncil.com.au - you will likely see some photos of skin cancer tumors.
My doctor told me the following:

Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world because of the high rates of sun exposure (because of the ideal conditions for outdoors based lifestyle) and genetic reasons
The genetic reason for high rates of skin cancer are the high ratio of Irish immigrants - the Celtic influence - in Australia
But thats not to say you can't get skin cancer - other races are just less vulnerable
The diagnosis of skin cancer suggests 2 peaks in the bell curve around the ages of 40yo and 75yo - the first for lifestyle reasons - the second degenerative diseases.
The skin cancers that you have you to be particularly concerned about is melanoma. If you have any moles that are a jet black colour this is an advantage stage of melanoma and you should see a doctor immediately. They only need to be 0.5mm into the skin before they are fatal, as the cancer cells enter the blood stream.
Clearly the best strategy is to get a check up if you have a high incidence of sun exposure, or regardless if there is any hint of Irish genes, though I suspect inter-racial gene pools might lessen the vulnerability, but I have no medical training. Anyway you should get checked up if you have black spots on you.
You should place a reminder of your PDA to perform a self-examination every 3-4 months, where you are looking for spots than are changing colour, size of shape. They maybe blotchy, multi-coloured, and grow from weeks to months.
In Australia, because of the high awareness of skin cancer, you can get an accurate diagnosis from your local GP. In other countries I would go to a specialist if you have a choice, at least for the first visit and if there is any question of a melanoma.

If you want more information on understanding skin cancer - take the following link http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=98.

Do you need health insurance?

2007-09-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

I think health insurance is the biggest scam - and 30% of people are better off without it. Here are my reasons why I discourage insurance:
1. Health insurance schemes have a profit motive. They use your money to make money so they can pay you for any health costs that you MAY incur.
2. Health fund profitability: Health funds control alot of money, which means that they invest in large companies that are liquid enough that the fund can buy & sell without impacting too greatly on the stock price. For security reasons and liquidity reasons they also invest in bonds. For this reason, if you have a good understanding of investments and enjoy it, you can actually make more money than they do. But the big benefit is that if you are healthy, you dont need to pay out any costs
3. Alternative insurance: If you think about it, we confront many types of risks in our life, whether health, car, house insurance, and we all go to private enterprise. But they have a profit motive. I think it makes alot more sense to set up a fund within your own family....extended family if you are not wealthy enough to pay your own way. Try to find an independent custodian for the funds would be my strategy for extended families because there are often favourite siblings and graft. The big benefit is the money stays within the family, and you can share resources like investment ideas.
4. No subsidisation: The problem with insurance is that our risks are not all the same but insurance premiums are within your specific age category. I'm sure laws in each country prevent discrimination by insurance companies, even rational discrimination. The implication is that if you are healthy, you are subsidising unhealthy families, whether they have a genetic disposition or just dont take care of themselves with preventative care. If you subscribe to the idea of 'social harmony' and helping others, maybe you think that, but then again maybe you prefer to decide your own benefactors.
5. Knowing the downside: Its noteworthy that alot of people just dont understand their national insurance scheme, the rules, their options, and for this reason they are not in a position to make reliable judgements about the benefits of insurance. It doesnt help that health insurance schemes are so complex. That in itself is a cost, and not reading the fine print on the contract is a BIG RISK, which is what insurance is intended to protect you from. In some countries the public health system is almost as good as the private system, and in some instances or areas it can even be better. The best way is to monitor the media, but keep those horrid stories in perspective because alot of people are satisfied with their treatment.
6. Knowing your options: We are lead to believe that you are going to be hugely exposed if you dont have health insurance, but there are options. Often you are just subjected to wait lists, sometimes without even discomfort. But I think if you cant get service from a public hospital, you can always pay. If the costs are prohibitive consider going overseas or buying your medicines online (overseas). Medical care in the Philippines or India can be as good or even better than in western countries. The reason is that the best doctors in poor countries are often foreign educated and service a small 'wealthy class'. But I advise you to pay at least to go to one of the top 5 hospitals. Beds might be $40/night. Some western public insurance schemes like Japan include dental. In Australia all taxpayers must pay Medicare, which functions essentially as a tax.
7. Personal diversification: An insurance scheme diversifies people's risks. My suggestion is that you collectivise the risks within the family or among a trusted group of friends, say your college mates, and then internalise the savings. Of course our lives change, so it makes sense to have a cashing out strategy.

Anyone interested in setting up such a scheme or participating in one can contact me.

Simple answers for complex problems

2007-09-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that a great many problems pass under the radar because governments and health professionals attempt to present complex processes or issues as simple so that they might appeal to a broader audience. Of course education demands that you tailor your communication to the intellectual capacity of the audience. But when you are addressing an audience that exhibits a wide range of intellectual capacity, doesn't it make sense to actually target your audience rather than give them a simple message. Governments are the main provider of health advice and they tend to use the television as their preferred media. The other important media are direct mailing (letterbox drops) and brochures stocked at medical centres and hospitals. The appeal of TV is that it reaches most people, but one has to wonder if the message is just too simple and thus unprovocative to make an impact. Certainly we can't leave it to the food companies to educate people in good health. Not just because they have a conflict of interest in terms of the dietary value of their foods, but becaus they are ven worse than governments in over-simplifying the message.

By way of example, about 5 years ago my doctor informed me that I had a high cholesterol level. I was eating too much cheese and white bread and doing little exercise. The reason this didn't bother me was that I was not overweight. The media had created a perception in my mind that 'fat = cholesterol'. Recognising that my perceptions about 'good health' were misguided I promptly started reading alot of health books on diet, self-improvement, etc. As a result, not only did I learn that thin people dont necessarily have low choloesterol levels, I learned that it was actually that the type of cholesterol and the ratio of HDL and LDL is more important.

The current problem is that perceptions are more important than facts, which means misinformation, lack of disclosure and context dropping are rampant in product labelling. You might ask - why is that. I think its because it costs advertisers too much to correct the perceptions of other advertisers, and there is no industry-wide effort to correct those misconceptions. Basically not only does food have to be nutritious, it has to taste good. In fact taste is a bigger selling point, because whilst we can be high-minded about help, most people circum to temptation. The implication is that food producers are left choosing between salt, sugar or fat as a way of satisfying the taste preferences of consumers. But there are other issues as well. It matters are great deal what our food looks like. So expect transition trans fatty acids so your margarine spreads easily.
Another problem is relative standards. We might be told that a certain cheese is 25% less fat, but by what standard is that good. There is a very healthy 'low cholesterol' olive oil based spread on the market that discloses that 'it is virtually free of trans fatty acids'. But there is virtually no nicotine in cigarettes as well, so one wonders about these relative standards. At the end of the day, I would suggest in 2 years time, you could be learning that:
1. Trans fatty acids are not the problem they are thought to be, in fact they have good aspects
2. Trans fatty acids are seriously carcinogenic in very small amounts.
You might wonder why food manufacturers are placing ingredients into food that they really have no understanding of. This in itself is reason enough to eat unprocessed foods like fresh fruit and vegetables. The problem is - its hard to know what is 'fresh' anymore in the sense that even these staples can pose a risk in terms of contamination by insecticides, fungicides, etc. Increasingly food producers are using genetically modified foods, and whilst many of these crops are being developed to reduce chemical application to crops, there is the possibility that the GM-solution might pose a different threat.

I have mixed thoughts on GM foods because the reasons for modifying them, or the outcome of modifying them is mixed. The rationale for tinkering with the DNA of a food gene is to:
1. Make the food look more presentable (saleable) in the store. To the extent that this gives the food a longer shelf life, more durable is a good thing, but i think the consumer would like to believe that taste, texture and juice content will remain the same. I can't believe that biotech companies would alter the good aspects of a food unless it was a compromise. The implication is that they are not just altering a single gene.
2. Make the food resistant or repulsive to insects or disease by adding certain DNA that has this characteristic

It should be apparent that the food producers concern is factors that helps the producer - not the consumer. The implication is that consumers have no advocate. It matters only that you are satisfied at the point of sale, even though you will ultimately not know until you cut open and taste the food. But thats no worse that the experience we would have with processed food, in which case we have no idea what the condition of that purated food could be, and what additives have been used to preserve colour. In these instances where consumers are treated as ignorant fools utimately it is deaths that are going to cause a revision of health/food preparation standards. The problem is - if its a slow death - from GM poisoning (if any such evidence emerges), you can bet that little will be done because its not an immediate problem and the industry will be geared up to protect their established procedures, brands or ingredients.

An example of context dropping is where you have food producers advertising 'low salt' food varieties, but they preserve taste by adding more fat and preservatives. Or a 'low sugar' has high fat, or a 'low fat' yoghurt has low sugar. The reality however is that it ultimately matters more what role a certain food plays in your diet. The implication is that people should be planning a balanced diet and have a shopping list that relates to a dietary plan. There is little consensus but the greatest support seems to be for a low GI, high carb diet with an emphasis on lean red meat and fish. The appeal of low GI carbs are that they are more slowly converted into sugars absorbed into the blood stream. Now 'low GI foods' may seem highly promising but the same problem exists - if you eat alot of 'low GI food' it will still be converted into soluble sugars, and any excess sugars will be converted into fat. The implication is that whilst complex carbohydrates (low GI) like vegetables and non-tropical fruits might be good for you, if you eat too many of them, you will put on fat.

This brings us to the last point - your overall energy balance. At the end of the day people tend to be eating more and exercising less because of changes in lifestyle, social behaviour and technology. We are playing less sport and playing more computer games or using computers. Perhaps the best opportunity to create good habits is by organising your life - schedules provide one form of structure, organised activities another. Planning is another good strategy - in the sense that you can identify all the qualities you want in a house. eg. A library 1km away with a lan to walk there. You can buy an apartment right above a shopping mall or 1km away so you get the benefit of exercise getting there. Alot of eating is actually anxiety-related. When we have a build up of mental anxiety we want a physical 'release'. We often use food to medicate these needs when in fact exercise is a better alternative. Previously I lived at Terrigal and whenever I had one of these moments I would walk along the beach - it proved to be about 3 times a day. Being near a forest is another great opportunity or just a quiet residential area.

Using medical services in developing countries

2007-08-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

This posting comes in 3 parts:
1. Medical emergency
2. Elective medical treatment by foreign doctors or dentists
3. My observations about medical services

Medical emergencies
I am an avid traveller to developing countries - having been to about 30 of them. In that time I have avoided serious medical ailments, though it has at least given me an idea of what I can expect in different countries in terms of costs, services and competency, as well as the risks from poor food preparation. So let me describe those situations.
1. Haiphong City, Halong Bay, Vietnam in 2001: This is a few years ago now, but I'm quite sure nothing has changed. I was sweating profusely with a bad fever. I went to a local first aid hospital where I managed to find a doctor that spoke English. He was rather young looking, but in my search for symptoms I noticed a yellow spot on my leg. I thought maybe an iodine deficiency or something. Actually it was just an old bruise. Anyway he seemed to have less of an idea. Really I got no help. So I decided to go to Hanoi, as I know there was a international hospital there with western doctors. Within an instant I was diagnoses flawlessly. I had food poisoning from a local restaurant where I was eating daily. Sick despite being very selective about what I ate. The other issue I had in Hanoi was a fungal infection. Basically a big 'moon-shaped' inflamation around my anal passage to be medically correct. Well I paid $US120 for that profound advice, which didn't bother me much because I was just relieved I didnt have some rare skin disease, but they charged me $20 for a generic fungal cream that would cost $6 in my country, and $3 locally. Well I will be wiser in future. They are really praying on the fact that you dont know if foreign medicines are available in the country, and where to get them. Because whom do you ask for advice - few speak English, and who knows where a drug store is unless you've need one in a developing country....well its not easy in Vietnam...but Philippines is easy.

2. Lipa City, Batangas, Philippines: Lipa is a small city 80km south of Metro Manila. It has a small hospital. I paid Y600 ($US12) to see a GP. Being a foreigner I pay alot more, but the good news is that I go to the start of the queue (20-people long). I suspect they are free patients. He gave me little time, in fact he had an assistant gather all the info, so I spent just 1minute with him...I did however get the chance to sit down. In that one minute he referred me to a urologist. The urologist had the same system, a queue outside, which I didnt have to wait through, but that was little comfort because he kept me waiting for 90mins inside his office along with 6 other people - not patients mind you, but sales people from pharmaceutical companies - Pfizer and a competitor. I thought this highly suspicious, but I guess at least he is letting them compete against each other. I'm just wondering to what extent commission will feature in the selection criteria. But anyway...he kept me waiting so long...then again....he offers me just a 30sec appointment which cost me P800 ($US16) because he has another appointment. On reflection I am paying about $US720/hour for services that would cost me $US350-400/hour in the west...and I'm waiting twice as long as any western medical centre....go figure. I didnt even get to sit down, and he sends me off to the lab. The lab seemed to be where all the work was done. Yet that cost me just P220 ($US5). I didnt bother returning to the specialist for an opinion...I just interpreted the results myself.

3. Medical Central, Robinsons Galleria Shopping Mall, Ortigas Centre, Metro Manila: I went to a local medical centre in Metro Manila. This is by no means an upmarket one. A nurse gets your pulse, and asks you the basic questions, then you wait 30-40mins for a doctor. At this place I was treated like any other patient. Thats a good thing. The service at this place was much better though since I had a 15min consultation, though I found that the staff has a low level of medical knowledge.
Another ok medical centre I found was on the 5th floor of the Shangrila Mall in Ortigas Centre, Metro Manila. Its the place I would go for minor ailments.

4. Medical City Hospital, Ortigas City, Metro Manila: This is a private hospital, and is considered one of the best in the Philippines. I found the standard of medical care equal to, if not better than any I have received in the western world. The catch though is that I paid for it. I had a blood test, stool test and scan of my intestinal organs and 2 consultations for P16,000 ($US320). Not cheap by any means. But problem resolved....I was tired after 3 weeks of non-diagnosis.....thats 3 weeks of diarhorea...and the advice....you have a bacterial infection...drink more water, avoid alcohol and oily foods. :) There are 2 other private hospitals in Metro Manila which have a similar standing of service:
5. Asia Hospital - further info coming??
6. St Lukes Hospital - further info coming??
7. Another??

What became apparent to me is that hospitals are very good because they offer a higher standard of care, they have the capacity to carry out most tests you need to perform...though I suspect if I wanted to get tested for the antibodies that would prove I had celia disease, I might need to go to a western hospital. But as it was I just had an intestinal infection and not a gluton intolerance. The cost of a room in a public hospital is about the same as a hotel (P2000 or $US40 per night). Consultations and testing might just be P1000-2000 ($US20-40) compared to P15,000-20,000 ($US300-400) at a private hospital.

Elective Medical Treatments
There are alot of skin treatment places in the Philippines though I have no idea as to the quality of care. I suspect they are not high because of the lack of codification of standards. There is however certainly a trade-off between standards and price. I'd hate to risk using a dodgy service provider who sees $$$ without any duty of care.

I met a foreign guy who was friends with a Filipino girl who recommended that I go to a certain dentist for care. I was accustomed to paying $US110 just to clean and checkup in Australia, but I paid just P600 ($US12) in the Philippines. But get this - I went to an upmarket dentist in the Rockwell Centre, Makati City, Metro Manila. This guy is well qualified and attends conferences in the USA. His equipment was more modern than anything I'd seen in Australia. Dont know why Australian dentists are so tight with their equipment. Never found one with digital cameras..but maybe that has changed since. I can tell you that the level of care and attention that I received from this upmarket dentist far exceeds anything I received from the 5-odd dentists I've been to in Australia.
Though I note that when it came to receiving 'significant care' like the recapping of 2 teeth, the cost went up considerably. I was quoted $US750....and I suspect this pricing was more in line with western prices. I suspect the motive was that I no longer appeared to have a Filipino friend. So the moral of this story is...you will get more competive prices if you have Filipino friends....better still if they ngotiate for you over the phone.
I believe there are similar opportunities to avail of cheap medical services in Thailand and India. But dont go to westerners in developing countries, as they will charge you more for the privilege, and its just possible they are there because they breached some ethical standard in their home country. Such doctors can more readily pay off an official in Asia to get a licence here. Asia is so corrupt. Alot of Asian doctors are educated in western countries....to varying degrees.
Actually my observation is that the quality of formal medical education is not so bad in developing countries, but that the low attention to medical standards and training after they have graduated is the problem. Perhaps someone can comment on this. The reason I say this is because I think you might learn alot of theory at university (in whatever subject you do), but without training in applied medicine, you are likely not going to develop into a fine doctor. That observation comes from personal experience and talking to a young medical graduate from the Philippines. He's a smart guy, and I think the lack of institutional support in the Philippines on the training side would have undermined his capacity to provide good service. So I think its more important to recognise doctors that have worked overseas as opposed to have studied their full degree in the USA. Another qualifier I will make. I think in diagnosing conditions, critical thinking is an important capability, and I dont think Asian culture is conducive to those skills. Even the western world tends to marginalise critical thinks in adulthood, but its worse in Asia. So if its not familar to them, they are unlikely to offer helpful advice.

My observations about health service
As a foreigner there is a tendency for them to charge you a 'foreign price' as opposed to the local price. They dont tend to do that however if you are accompanied by a Filipino, or better still the initial inquiry is made by a Filipino national. In case you are wondering...servicing foreigners is a very controversial issue in the Philippines. Every year the best graduate doctors, programmers and others from the best universities get offered jobs overseas. Critics argue that some of these people received free education yet render no service to Filipinos. The reality is however that these Filipinos repatriate huge amounts of money back to the Philippines - equal to 30% of the national GDP.

How to manage your health affairs

2007-08-06T18:04:00.001-07:00

The topic of this post might make you wonder - what are 'health affairs' - isn't that some government bureaucracy? Well yeh...and it exists because individuals fail to take responsibility for their personal affairs - in this case health.
I have learned the hard way that its important to have a systematic and deliberate strategy and plan for managing your life, and that the earlier you develop such a strategy the more fluid the system will operate and the less cumbersome adminstrative challenge it will become. The intent of my health strategy is to know ahead of time the way I should live in order to maximise my capacity to enjoy it, as well as to prolong my life as long as possible so I can achieve as much as possible within the limits of my 'human capability'.
It is my firm believe that having a strategy is not a waste of time. I believe that the time I spend researching health issues, understanding my body and developing my strategy is going to be repaid in several respects, which I think will become apparent over the course of this posting.
Of course there is a trade-off. I am not suggesting that we need a study health issues for years. I am well aware that there are doctors who do that. I am saying that you need to take personal responsibility for your health issues, because unless you are wealthy enough to have a personal health care expert managing the health aspects of your life, I can guarantee that you know more about aspects (symptoms, medical history) of your health than your doctor. The problem with way health is currently managed is that:

Division of responsibility: There is no clear demarcation of responsibility when you visit a doctor. Its not readily apparent what role you should perform, what your job is. Many of us just turn up and expect them to know. Certainly no one helps us, which is why we have to take pro-active steps to prepare ourselves to get the best possible outcome.
Personal interest: Apart from the initial interest in your personal history, I think doctors tend to take little interest in patients personal care. That is a sad testimony to the level of empathy that doctors generally have. I truly think most of them hate their jobs...sticking fingers up people's arses...and the need to always be there. Its a job that requires a genuine paternal care, but I think alot of doctors grow weiry of that concept over time...which was perhaps idealistically conceived. Or perhaps its because they are dealing more with foot fungus and sexually transmitted diseases than with life threatening diseases.
Conflict of interests: Often you have medical centres with their own pharmacy (drug store). It might be 'seemingly independent' but rest assured if its in the same building, there is a relationship with the owner. Its worth finding out the cost of various medicines at various stores because I have found big differences...even huge mark-ups for late night service. Your doctor might recommend a medicine that he believes will do the trick, but is that because he receives a commission from a pharmaceutical company or the pharmacy. Is he rejecting a cheaper generic product or a home remedy. I am amazed when doctors and dentists claim that the results of the medical tests you undertake is their property by virtue of them holding them. Find out your doctors policy on that issue. Since the ascension of medical centres, I think the 'commercialism' has perhaps given away to the need of patients for flexible options.
Unorganised structure: Professionals are amongst the most self-indulgent and poorly organised people on earth because they always want to do their own thing - and doctors are no exception. Consider that its only now that we are seeing computerisation of medical records, which means doctors can actually read another doctors writing. It means a doctor can have access to a patients full medical history, and easily transfer these records to other doctors.
Lack of relationship: Unless you have been able to retain the same relationship with a family doctor over the years, its likely that your doctor has joined a medical centre, where they share facilities and administrative staff. There are pros and cons to this set-up. The benefit is that doctors can make more money sharing facilities, as well as have more flexibility with working hours. The problem is that patients no longer have a relationship with their doctor, and it means that bad doctors tend to be supported by this system. Why? Because you get a 2nd opinion rather than returning to the old one.

So I offer the following health care tips:

Be selective: When you go to a medical centre, never accept just any doctor, becaus you will be assigned to the doctor that no one else wants an appointment with, whether its because they are incompetent, impersonal or inexperienced. A better strategy is to ask for any specific doctor from the list on the wall. If they are not ready, have another choice. I have routinely found that if you dont ask for a doctor, you get a bad one. Often some immigrant doctor with poor training, offered a resident work permit because of the shortage of skilled local doctors. Rural areas have little choice unfortunately.
Know your risks: Few people have the spare time to get a medical degree, or to spend weeks learning about their health isues. However it is worthwhile understanding the top 10-20 biggests threat to your gender. These lists are often provided in the newspapers and are easily found on the internet. By researching these ailments and making some notes about threats, preventative measures you can take to avoid, and symptoms you can expect to identify.
Be prepared: I dont know about you, but for years I was going to doctors and expecting them to determine my health issue with little help from me. I simply didnt give it much thought, and they showed no concern for my lack of knowledge too. The implication is that they had to search for symptoms as opposed to me telling them. I could say I was in pain, but was not particularly sure where it was. I have since learned to attend a doctor's appointment PREPARED, which means that over the 3 day period in which I am ill, I will make a note of what symptoms I feel (note anything out of the ordinary), when it occurs, how frequent, where it is, and its nature. Writing a note on my PDA ensures I dont forgot it, since its always with me.
Know your symptoms: Another aspect is knowing how to describe how I feel. Often I found I didnt have the vocabulary to describe what I was feeling, or even what constituted a symptom. But its ok if you write down unrelated issues, as the doctor will know the difference. You can find a list of symptoms that you can check on the internet. Dont rationalise a disease - so read through the list dispassionately before you attempt to match a condition to it. See www.wrongdiagnosis.com.
Do your own research: I cant understate the importance of researching your condition on the internet. Many of my doctors are impressed when I display some knowledge of my condition. My family has a history of Celiac Disease - simply a gluton (wheat) toxicity or intolerance - yet a great many doctors didnt know about it. There are websites that allow you to type in your symptoms to get a list of possible conditions. My advise is to independently research those conditions to see if you have a match. You might identify other symptoms that were not readily apparent to you. Its important that you let the doctor diagnose rather than tell him his job. Tell him you did some research on the internet...ask him why he thinks your condition is not ...... since you display symptoms ..... By keeping your doctor accountable, you can have greater confidence in his professionalism. If you are in doubt, seek a second opinion before you self-diagnose. Doing research can actually save you money and time. Knowing that I needed to fast before taking a blood test, I didnt take any food or fluids for 10 hours before my appointment. Of course you might not care if you have a free health system.
Ask questions: You need to establish whether your doctor is credible becaus you need to know whether he is in a position to know your condition, and if not whether you need to seek a 2nd opinion. Doctors are humans, so if they have a low self-esteem or pride in their position, they might not willingly convey their ignorance on a medical issue, but look for other signs, eg. Body posture or tone. But by far the best approach is critical thinking. Asking probing questions is the best approach, and research is intended to help you identify those. A good doctor will respect you for taking an interest (I have found), insecure or incompetent doctors will get defensive and attempt to derail you. Dont be perturbed, they are telling you they are not capable of helping you at the standards of service you require....so dont see them again.
Understand the doctors perspective: Understanding the motivations of your doctor can help you get better service and save money. The longer time you spend with a doctor, the more he will treat you like a human being. The more you corner him, or attack his diagnosis, the more defensive he will be. In some countries (Philippines) doctors are illegally selling medicines directly. This can bias the doctor's judgement and result in you being prescribed medicines that have more severe side-effects. Avoid these doctors as they are crossing an ethical divide. Doctors often have deadlines for meetings or a queue of patients. Dont be surprised if they short-change you on service so they can alleviate these pressures. Protect yourself.
Prevention: Determine what is a healthy way of living. I am a great believer that our bodies give us a great deal of information about our health condition. Try different diets and see what impact it has on you. Consider your level of energy, gastro-intestinal condition, flatulence, weight control. You should get blood tests for cholesterol (HDL/LDL) as well. Doctors are only concerned with our health at times of ailment, but many conditions are discovered too late, and can be avoided through prevention. I am skeptical that there is 'one diet' for all people....maybe it depends on your genetic makeup. Maybe our bodies adjust if we adopt a regular diet. Regardless, you cant ignore empirical evidence of what constitutes a healthy body.
Family History: Ask your parents and grandparents if there is any medical condition or affliction that is affecting your family that might have a genetic link. Upon identifying any such issues, research the ailment and make notes. Dont forget to provide your information to other family members. I found out that my family had incidences of celiac disease and a rare (rubbing) eye condition. Fortunately pretty good with respect to cancer.
Standards of comparison: You really dont know what a good doctor is until you've had one, so experiment with some. I dont mean just a few at your local medical centre. Go to some up-market suburbs 20km away to see what type of service wealthy people are receiving, and what they are paying for it. Professionalism is mostly the result of personal ethics rather than anything genetic. Wealthy people are accustomed to paying more for service, so expect doctors in those communities to know better. If it costs more, then economise....just go there when you have a critical ailment as opposed to a common cold.

Alot of the advise here does not just apply to personal health. I dont know much about cars, but I apply the same critical thinking skills to car mechanics. Mechanics and other tradespeople are famous for over-servicing customers with no knowledge of their field. So ask probing questions to determine how necessary a certain component replacement is. The chances are they will be applying very 'high' standards to your car, or very conservative 'replacement policies' in an attempt to increase their profits. Alot of them aren't 'directly' dishonest, but they are not acting with regard for your best interests if they dont make you informed, and that is a breach of professional standards of care for the interests of the customer.