The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.

You think carbohydrates aren’t addictive?  You think it’s easy to give them up?  You don’t think it possible that people might prefer carbs to life?

Think again.

A story appeared in the online version of Time Magazine last year that I read when it came out, put aside to blog about later, then got sidetracked.  A reader sent me a link to it a few days ago, which brought it back to the front of my mind.

The article discusses a study being done in Germany using a carb-restricted diet to fight cancer.  In pre-WWII days, a German scientist, Otto Warburg, received a Nobel Prize for his work in sussing out the fact that cancer cells don’t generate energy the same way that normal cells do.  Cancer cells get their energy, not like normal cells, from the mitochondrial oxidation of fat, but from glycolysis, the breakdown of glucose withing the cytoplasm (the liquid part of the cell).  This different metabolism of cancer cells that sets them apart from normal cells is called the Warburg effect.  Warburg thought until his dying day that this difference is what causes cancer, and although it is true that people with elevated levels of insulin and glucose do develop more cancers, most scientists in the field don’t believe that the Warburg effect is the driving force behind the development of cancer.

But it stands to reason that it can be used to treat cancer that is already growing.  Since cancers can’t really get nourishment from anything but glucose, it stands to reason that cutting off this supply would, at the very least, slow down tumor growth, especially in aggressive, fast-growing cancers requiring a lot of glucose to fuel their rapid growth.

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For the second time in as many days I’ve been inspired by a New York Times column.  Everywhere you turn it seems, you hear people lamenting that we could reduce health care costs so much if only we were more in tune with preventative care.  Everyone pays it lip service, including the two candidates for president who both pride themselves on straight talk.  Writes Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine at Dartmouth in today’s paper:

Senator John McCain argues that “the best care is preventative care,” and his health care reform plan claims that “by emphasizing prevention” and other measures “we can reduce health care costs.” Senator Barack Obama’s plan says, “Simply put, in the absence of a radical shift towards prevention and public health, we will not be successful in containing medical costs or improving the health of the American people.”

It may sound like common sense. But it is still a myth.

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I’ve made mention in these pages numerous times of the dubious practice of medical researchers being on the payrolls of the pharmaceutical industry.  I’ve known about these shady alliances for my entire career, but what I didn’t know was just how lucrative they were for the researchers involved.  This past weekend both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported on drug company payments to a prominent Emory University psychiatrist and researcher and former editor of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Senator Charles Grassley (R. Iowa) is probing into this mess because any federally-funded research is supposed to free of financial conflicts of interest.  Enforcement of these rules is usually left to the universities employing the researchers, which are apparently easily flim flammed by the researchers involved.  In the specific case reported by both papers, the Emory researcher Dr. Charles Nemeroff, was instructed by Emory not to take more than $10,000 per year from GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company for whom he was doing research on their bestselling antidepressant drug Paxil.  But despite his assurances to Emory that his income from Glaxo was within the limits, Dr. Nemeroff’s take was just a little more. Read more »

I’m putting this post up today and leaving it throughout the weekend because I believe it is so important that everyone watch the videos at the bottom.

These long must-watch videos are in two parts: the first part is by a defense attorney discussing the unbelievable complexity of the law, especially federal law, and the difficulty of simply going through life without knowingly or unknowingly breaking some kind of law.  And he discusses the dangers of talking to the police without a lawyer present.  The second part is a talk by a police detective confirming everything the attorney says and, fascinatingly, discussing his own tricks, learned in over 25 years of police work, to get people to talk to him and even to confess to crimes.

I’ll probably alienate any readers who are involved in law enforcement, which isn’t my intention.  I’m sure that if any law enforcement officials were suddenly under investigation, they wouldn’t say a word without their lawyer present.  The rest of us need these same protections.

I’m not presenting these videos for any criminals who may be reading, but for the average citizen who happens to get crosswise with the police.  Every single police officer I know (and I know a half dozen or so) are hard working, dedicated, responsible, and even kind-hearted folks, but they can make mistakes.  I make mistakes, so I figure they can too.  The officer speaking on the last part of this video says that he doesn’t really interrogate people that he doesn’t think are already guilty.  So, you are basically assumed guilty if you’re under investigation for whatever.  And if the officer is mistaken, you can be in real trouble.  You can’t talk your way out of it; you can only make it worse.  When you watch these videos, you’ll see what I mean.

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