LILL's LIST

Everyone is weighing in on what type of health care plan we should have. Some people think it should be universal – a government funded and run system that covers everyone from cradle to grave. Other people think that’s too radical and prefer a system that more closely resembles what many people have now – privately run, for-profit health care insurance companies funded by employers and employees. My opinion is that it doesn’t much matter which of the current versions of health care plans eventually gets through Congress and into circulation. None of them will help very much because they don’t address the real health problems in America.

They’ll work for the pharmaceutical and food companies, who are the real cause of our health care crisis. They’ll work for the lobbyists who make sure that the drugging of America and the sorry state of our food supply aren’t even mentioned as a contributing factor in why so many people are sick in America or not as healthy as they could be. They’ll work for the Cancer Society and the Heart Association and the other organizations that have people wearing pink and donating money to “cure” the big diseases that kill so many of us. But they won’t help most of us get cured or – more importantly – prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the conditions that are so intimately connected with the “Big Three”: Obesity and Poor Nutrition. Nor will they do anything to address the fact that almost half of the population takes at least one prescription drug and almost all of us eat way too much sugar, empty calories and food with pesticide, fungicide and herbicide residue in it.

How in the world can we expect to be healthy when we eat crap? Sometimes, in the case of animals that have eaten feed made from other animals – literally. Does no one else think that it’s ironic that so many people take prescription medicine for heartburn, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes rather than make better food choices, eat less or exercise so that they’d lose enough weight to reduce or eliminate these problems?

And, even if everyone of us gets a health care plan, where are the doctors who will care for us? There aren’t enough general practice physicians now to see everyone who can afford to go to them. So, if all of a sudden there are millions more people able to go to a doctor, how will this work? It’s obvious that the educational system we have for producing doctors needs an overhaul immediately and that should be part of any health care plan. However, there are still quotas for how many doctors can be trained and it still costs way too much for that training. How about if doctors could get subsidies if they “gave back” to communities that need physicians? That would allow them to start their professional lives without the burden of huge loans to pay back.

And, how about if we go back to billing for doctor’s visits and not for procedures? That all started when insurance companies got involved, because the bean counters needed to have a code for every little thing that happened during a doctor/patient visit. It’s also how visits went from around a half hour to between ten and fifteen minutes.  And, back to increasing the number of doctors again, that also would help with the time factor. A doctor just can’t get to know a patient in fifteen minutes. A patient can’t cover everything they need to say in that amount of time. Maybe if doctors had more time to talk to patients about eating healthier, losing weight and exercising, more people would get the message.

Unfortunately, because most people spend a lot more time watching TV than they do in their doctor’s office, it’s the drug companies with their endless commercials that are listened to and taken to heart. When did we accept the completely irrational idea that most of us need a prescription drug every day? Think back to as recently as twenty years ago. How many prescriptions did it take to keep you alive then? How many pills did our parents and their parents take? My grandfather lived to be 89 and never took so much as an aspirin. My mother lived to be 87 and, until the last few years of her life, never took anything except for two prescriptions for antibiotics for a urinary tract infection.  When I heard about it, I told her about how cranberry juice can prevent them and she started drinking a small glass daily and never had any more problems.

And this leads to my last concern about how health care is viewed in this and other industrialized nations. Natural is bad and unreliable and only doctors and pharmaceutical companies know what’s good for us. Now, I’m not advocating that we completely avoid allopathic drugs. There’s a place for them in modern medicine and it would be foolish to say that they’re bad or worthless. On the other hand, I’m really tired of reading about how dangerous it is to rely on natural methods, because they’re unproven, don’t work and are outright dangerous. Dismissing all naturopathic treatments, herbs and home remedies as worthless is just wrong. There are many time-proven natural remedies that work as well – or better – than anything. I’m thinking of a recent study I just read about that found that dark honey worked better than dextromethorphan for coughs in children and another study on Manuka honey’s ability to cure MRSA infections – even ones that are resistant to Vancomycin.

I know from personal experience that drinking vinegar and honey helps my digestion and lowers my blood pressure. I also know that ginger helped my friend’s morning sickness and that cinnamon lowers blood sugar. Not all natural treatments are worthwhile, but then again, neither are all allopathic drugs and treatments. We need to use common sense for health care, which brings me back to why our nation’s brand of “health care” doesn’t care for our health. It focuses on fixing what’s wrong with us, instead of preventing what goes wrong if we don’t eat and live the way we should. Until we understand that, we’ll just keep getting sicker and no amount of drugs or money will be able to save us.

According to an article in Science Daily, scientists have developed a weapon to fight Colony Collapse. The really neat part of this is that the weapon is bees. That’s right. The mite-fighting bees have been specially bred to search out Varroa mites and remove them from the nest.

Varroa mites, aka  “vampire mites” are thought to be a significant contributing factor in Colony Collapse, which threatens bee populations around the world – and thus the human food supply also. The tiny mite establishes itself in the cells that nourish bee pupa, then reproduces inside the sealed cell, so it’s hard for the bees to find it and remove it.

The little blood-suckers then feed on the bees’ lymph fluid and blood and, once established, are very hard to get rid of. The sealed chambers, which are designed to protect the baby bees, also protect the baby mites until they’re large enough to do a lot of damage. One-fifth of Britain’s bee population was wiped out by this little invader last year. Around the world, bees died by the millions and science seemed unable to do anything about it.

Now, though, with the discovery that bees have a gene for hygiene which is more strongly expressed in some bees than others – a clean gene, if you will – they can be bred to be more aggressive about mite-removal. The new breed of bee actually chews through the wax seal and removes the mite-infested pupa, thus killing the baby mites before they can reproduce. And when Mama Mite makes more mini-mites, the cleaner bees come back and wipe them out also.

This can cut down on the mites enough to let the colony survive. While the mites aren’t the only factor in Colony Collapse – pesticides, fungicides and other pathogens may be be factors also – reducing their damage should go a long way toward helping bee populations survive while researchers work to find an answer to the problem.

Source: Science Daily-Bees Fight Back Against Colony Collapse Disorder: Some Honey Bees Toss Out Varroa Mites

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I just read a brochure outlining Safe Eating Guidelines for Fish and Shellfish in Maine. It’s put out by the state of Maine, where sport fishing is a big part of the economy. In it, Maine environmental officials urge that pregnant women and children under 8 limit their intake of some fish to two meals a month.

I don’t know about you, but when I see a warning like that, it doesn’t make me run right over to the calendar and circle the two days I’m going to put PCB‘s, Dioxin, Mercury and DDT on the dinner table.

Nope, freshwater fish caught in Maine have been off our menu for years. Ditto for fish caught offshore near the estuaries where toxins accumulate in shellfish, lobsters and fish.  We do eat wild-caught salmon, chunk light tuna on occasion and shellfish from unpolluted waters.

You might want to check your state’s advisories on fish and anything else you might eat that comes from fresh or saltwater. Also, none of these advisories take into account any of the other toxins our bodies imbibe from water, air and food. This stuff is cumulative and also most likely has a synergistic effect when combined.

And while we’re floundering around in murky waters, let’s not forget to help out our froggy little friends who are sinking fast. Fish and shellfish aren’t the only species that are facing extinction. Take a minute and hop over to Save the Frogs where you can learn more about why we can’t wait to do something about the threat that hangs over the future of whole species of frogs and toads.

Kids will like Cool Facts About Frogs and you can print out posters, donate to the non-profit organization or surf the links to other amphibian resources. Or just revel in the many beautiful pictures of these amazing little creatures and find out what a Caecilian is when it’s at home. Hey, my spell-check dictionary didn’t know what it was, do you?

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If, like most people nowadays, you’re terribly concerned with keeping yourself and your kids completely germ-free at all times, you may want to reconsider. I’ve just read about some recent scientific discoveries that shore up my belief that cleanliness isn’t next to godliness, after all.

Here are some of the interesting stories I came across as I ankled across the internet doing research on the relationship between how healthy we are and how clean we are.

Helminthic therapy, or treatment with worms that are usually considered parasitic, is not something most of us would want to contemplate. However, it’s already being tried on autoimmune diseases, autism, MS, IBS and asthma.

Researchers are also interested in how it might affect inflammation in the body, even when there’s no obvious disease causing it. Patients are injected with worm ova at intervals, depending on the type of helminth involved and its lifespan. Reportedly, there is a high rate of improvement in some diseases, compared to conventional therapies, although there are side effects, sometimes severe ones.

I would think that the biggest hurdle would be just getting people to consider the idea of being injected with parasites that mankind has spent most of its history trying to eradicate, but I suppose if you’re sick enough, you can endure anything that promises a chance at a normal life. That is, if you can call hosting parasites for a few months to a few years normal.

Not quite as radical as the worm therapy,  getting dirty is looking like the way to go if you want to be healthy. Scientists have discovered that there’s a bacteria in the soil that encourages the human body to make serotonin. This little Prozac mimic also seems to be connected to a bacteria that causes tuberculosis, but further research is needed to determine the connection.

For now, researchers are working on whether the organism will be of use in fighting Depression. I’d say it might explain why those of us who garden always feel better after we dig around in the dirt for awhile, wouldn’t you?

And now, unfortunately, I have to report that although leech therapy is still hanging in there,  maggot therapy turns out to be slightly less successful than it first appeared to be. I know I was pretty chuffed about it, but we’ll all have to ramp down our expectations a little. While it does help somewhat at debriding, it’s not all that great at the healing part. Still, what can you expect from the larval stage of a fly anyhow?

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Coca-Cola, Alcoa, Crown,Del Monte, North American Metal Packaging Alliance, Inc., Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), American Chemistry Council… These are the companies that met recently to come up with strategies to keep BPA from being banned in CA. According to an article at the Environmental Working Group’s web site, they also put up $500,00 to implement their plans.

One of their ideas is having a young pregnant woman giving speeches around the country in support of BPA’s good points. I’m not exactly sure what good things she could say about something that’s a proven endocrine system disruptor, but I’m sure they’d come up with something. They’re good at marketing slogans. Maybe, “Without BPA, What Would You Have to Worry About?”

At any rate, prepare yourself for whatever  the BPA Joint Trade Association Meeting on Communications Strategy comes up with to keep making money from something that poisons baby formula, soda and canned fruits and vegetables. While you’re waiting, you might want to totter on over to the EWG site and sign up to do some campaigning of your own against Big Business and its slimy tactics. Oh yes, and an email to the companies who think BPA is just ducky wouldn’t go amiss either. Tell them Lill – the DES Daughter – sent you.