Health News
New study reveals how digital technologies are shaping the global recovery
Latest Network Readiness Index ranks world’s most ‘network ready’ markets Washington DC, 2 December 2021 – The latest results and rankings of the Network Readiness Index (NRI) were released today by the Portulans Institute, revealing how countries around the world are leveraging information technologies to emerge from the COVID pandemic and become ‘network ready’. This […]
Latest Network Readiness Index ranks world’s most ‘network ready’ markets
Washington DC, 2 December 2021 – The latest results and rankings of the Network Readiness Index (NRI) were released today by the Portulans Institute, revealing how countries around the world are leveraging information technologies to emerge from the COVID pandemic and become ‘network ready’. This latest edition – the third compiled by the Portulans Institute since taking over the Index from the World Economic Forum in 2019 – ranks a total of 130 global economies based on their performance across 60 variables. STL, the industry leading integrator of digital networks, is the NRI’s official knowledge partner.
The findings are included in a new report published today, ‘Shaping the Global Recovery: How digital technologies can help make the post-COVID world more equal’.
Key takeaways:
Europe the most ‘network ready’
The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are named as the top three most ‘network ready’ societies. This makes Europe (with eight countries in the global top ten) the best performing global region on the Index.
US and China leading the way in tech
The US remains the global leader when it comes to technology; ranking in the top five in each of the Technology sub-pillars (Access, Content, Future Technologies). China, meanwhile, is a leading player in areas such as artificial intelligence, e-commerce and 5G, but only ranks #29 overall.
India is a rising star
Among the world’s largest economies, India was notable for rising places 21 places compared to last year’s ranking, rising to #67. This performance, beyond technical aspects, captures India’s digital network accessibility, including the affordability of mobile devices and tariffs in the country.
Pandemic sees Africa fall further behind
Africa continues to trail other regions, especially when it comes to access, affordability, and usage of ICTs. The pandemic has further amplified inequalities through recognizable social, economic and political changes, which became particularly evident in terms of vaccination and debt-financing.
Soumitra Dutta, co-founder and president, Portulans Institute:
“The COVID pandemic has been a global tipping point in the adoption of technology. It arrived at a time when many digital technologies had reached a degree of maturity, allowing them to be deployed on a large scale rapidly. This report measures the impact of this accelerated digital transformation on governments, businesses, and individuals.”
Bruno Lanvin, co-founder and director, Portulans Institute:
“A strong recovery is now taking place in many parts of the world, and digitization will be one of its core drivers. However, several factors could derail the recovery train, including a lack of digital talents and skills, and a possible resurgence of the digital divide between rich and poor countries. Technology can help us avoid a ‘K-shaped recovery’, but this requires immediate and coordinated efforts in three key areas: infrastructure, education, and governance.”
Ankit Agarwal, Managing Director, STL:
“With the world migrating to digital faster than ever, networks are at the center of the world’s socio-economic development. This year’s NRI report reflects how countries have embraced digital transformation and lays out a roadmap for economies to accelerate their digital journeys. STL is excited to partner with the Portulans Institute for this initiative as we believe network readiness is the cornerstone for achieving global growth, while transforming billions of lives.”
The NRI 2021 rankings
The NRI is organized around four key pillars: Technology, People, Governance, and Impact, with sub categories within each pillar, spanning 60 metrics overall.
Even though the top ten countries from the NRI 2021 remain the same as last year, there has been significant changes within the group. The Netherlands moved up three positions to take the number one spot from Sweden, which has held that position since 2019. The US is now ranked in the top five for the first time in the 2019-2021 period.
The top ten countries in NRI 2021 are all high-income economies. The US (#4) and Singapore (#7) are the only markets in the top ten outside of Europe.
PILLARS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Economy | NRI Rank | NRI Score | Technology | People | Governance | Impact | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Netherlands | 1 | 82.06 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sweden | 2 | 81.57 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Denmark | 3 | 81.24 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 7 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
United States | 4 | 81.09 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finland | 5 | 80.47 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Switzerland | 6 | 80.2 | 2 | 12 | 11 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Singapore | 7 | 80.01 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Germany | 8 | 78.95 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Norway | 9 | 78.49 | 13 | 6 | 1 | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
United Kingdom | 10 | 76.6 Source: RealWire Continue Reading Health NewsHow to Avoid Being Fooled at the SupermarketHow and what you eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are you paying for this homogenized, cheap and convenient food? This video investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on your plate, and reveals the telltale signs that the food you buy […] How and what you eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are you paying for this homogenized, cheap and convenient food? This video investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on your plate, and reveals the telltale signs that the food you buy may not have been grown in the way you think. Health NewsHow to Spot and Treat a Heart AttackIn the U.S., a heart attack occurs every 40 seconds, impacting approximately 805,000 people annually. Among them, 605,000 experience their first heart attack. Further, in about 1 in 5 cases, the heart attack is “silent,” meaning heart damage has occurred, but the person isn’t aware of it.1 Knowing the symptoms of a heart attack — and the related but different cardiac arrest — is important so you can get emergency medical care without delay. What Is a Heart Attack — and What Are the Symptoms?A heart attack, also known as a myocardial infarction, occurs when blood flow to the heart becomes suddenly blocked. Without enough oxygen, the heart muscle becomes damaged and may begin to die, which is why restoring blood flow quickly is essential. Most often, there’s a complete or partial blockage in an artery near the heart that causes the heart attack. Coronary heart disease, which involves plaque building up in the arteries, is often a contributing factor. The plaque buildup can narrow the arteries, blocking blood flow. Common symptoms of a heart attack include:2
These symptoms may come and go and can vary in intensity. Low levels of oxygen in the blood, known as hypoxemia, can also occur, as can pulmonary edema, which is fluid accumulation in the lungs. If the heart is unable to supply blood to the body, a sudden drop in blood pressure, or cardiogenic shock, can also occur.3 Men and Women May Experience Different Heart Attack SymptomsKeep in mind that not every heart attack comes along with the “textbook” symptoms of chest pain or shortness of breath. Women are more likely to experience unconventional heart attack symptoms such as fatigue and nausea, in contrast to men who commonly manifest classic signs, including chest pain. This may be why, despite a greater incidence of heart attacks in men compared to women, females have an elevated one-year mortality rate post-attack.4 Researchers with Nova Southeastern University in Florida conducted a systematic review of 74 studies examining differences in heart attack symptoms among women and men, revealing certain parallels. Both genders commonly reported chest pain and chest tightness or pressure as prevalent symptoms upon hospital arrival, as indicated in the findings published in Cureus.5 However, men reported chest pain as their primary symptom 13% to 15% more frequently than women and displayed a higher propensity for experiencing burning or pricking pain and sweating. Shared symptoms among both genders included chest, arm or jaw pain with sensations of dullness, heaviness, tightness or crushing. Women, on the other hand, were prone to atypical symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, dizziness and fear of death. Noteworthy variations were observed in the location of pain, with women more frequently experiencing discomfort in the jaw, neck, upper back, left arm, left shoulder, left hand and abdomen. Additionally, women exhibited a broader spectrum of symptoms, with a higher prevalence. In comparison to men, women aged 18 to 55 reported 10% more symptoms during a heart attack, while those aged 75 and above had 17% more symptoms. Further, some people experience subtle symptoms in the days and weeks leading up to a heart attack. In some cases, symptoms may begin a year in advance. Known as prodromal symptoms, these occur more often in females than males and include, in order of prevalence:6
What Is Cardiac Arrest?Cardiac arrest occurs suddenly due to a malfunction in the heart that causes it to stop beating. Some cases of cardiac arrest have no symptoms. In other instances, the following symptoms may occur prior to the event:7
While blood loss, lack of oxygen and high levels of potassium and magnesium — which can cause arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat — can lead to cardiac arrest, there are three primary causes:8 1. Arrhythmia — An electrical signal in the heart may lead to an irregular heartbeat known as ventricular fibrillation, which is the No. 1 cause of cardiac arrest. It describes a heartbeat so rapid that the heart trembles instead of pumping blood. 2. Cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart) — This leads to abnormal heart contractions. 3. Coronary artery disease — If coronary arteries become blocked by plaque, it restricts blood flow to the heart. Left untreated, this may lead to heart failure or arrhythmia, which can trigger cardiac arrest. While cardiac arrest often occurs without warning or a known underlying cause, there are certain risk factors known to increase the risk, which include:9
What’s the Difference Between Heart Attack and Cardiac Arrest?Unlike a heart attack, which occurs due to obstructed blood flow to the heart — typically with the heart maintaining its rhythm — a cardiac arrest results in loss of consciousness and absence of a pulse.10 As noted by the American Heart Association (AHA), “A heart attack is a ‘circulation’ problem and sudden cardiac arrest is an ‘electrical’ problem.”11 The most immediate and recognizable difference is that a heart attack sufferer remains conscious with a beating heart, whereas an individual experiencing sudden cardiac arrest loses consciousness and lacks a detectable heartbeat. While a heart attack disrupts the heart muscle’s oxygen supply, cardiac arrest interferes with its electrical impulses. During a heart attack, reduced blood flow may deprive part of the heart of oxygen, yet other segments of the muscle continue contracting. Conversely, physical ailments such as cardiomyopathy, heart failure or arrhythmias affect the heart’s electrical system during cardiac arrest. Notably, experiencing a heart attack heightens the risk of sudden cardiac arrest due to the impact on the heart’s electrical system caused by oxygen deprivation.12 In essence, insufficient oxygen supply to the heart muscle during a heart attack impairs its electrical impulses, potentially precipitating cardiac arrest. What to Do in the Event of a Heart Attack or Cardiac ArrestBoth a heart attack and cardiac arrest are life-threatening conditions that need emergency medical attention. Call 911 and get to an emergency room as soon as possible. If you have access to an automated external defibrillator (AED), it should be immediately used to assist a person in cardiac arrest, in which the person is unresponsive and not breathing. AEDs are required in certain public spaces in many U.S. states, including schools, athletic facilities, casinos and public golf courses.13 When emergency medical personnel arrive to help a person in cardiac arrest, they will use a defibrillator immediately. After the shock is delivered, begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or chest compressions immediately, continuing for two minutes before checking to see if another shock is needed. If you don’t have access to an AED, CPR or chest compressions should be given to the person in cardiac arrest while you wait for emergency personnel. For people with health care experience or those proficient in CPR, AHA advocates for traditional CPR, involving chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing, in a 30-to-2 ratio — 30 compressions followed by two breaths, repeating this sequence. But for the general populace, AHA recommends and emphasizes the efficacy of hands-only CPR, also known as compression-only CPR. The gist is to push hard and fast in the center of the chest.14 Acting fast is crucial, as each minute that CPR is delayed, the person’s chance of survival goes down by 10%.15 So doing something, even if it isn’t perfect, is usually better than doing nothing. Fortunately, hands-only CPR is straightforward and involves the following steps:16
Sadly, about 90% of people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting die. However, if CPR is administered immediately, the person’s chance of survival can double or triple.19 Methylene Blue and Melatonin — Two Must-Haves in Case of Heart AttackI recommend having methylene blue — the precursor molecule for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine — and melatonin readily available at home in case of a heart attack. While sudden death is the most common symptom of heart disease, surviving individuals face the serious threat of reperfusion injury, where cellular dysfunction and death may worsen following the restoration of blood flow. Methylene blue administration can significantly mitigate tissue damage; however, proper dosage is crucial to avoid overdose. Use a microspoon for precise measurement, as discussed in my interview with Francisco Gonzalez-Lima, Ph.D., an expert on methylene blue. For nonacute, longer-term treatments, including dementia prevention and treatment, post-stroke care, cognitive enhancement and overall health optimization, low doses of 0.5 milligram (mg) to 1 mg per kilogram of body weight are recommended. Additionally, keep melatonin on hand in a 10 mg sublingual dose. This potent antioxidant can minimize reperfusion injury if taken immediately after a heart attack or stroke. Administer methylene blue within minutes of the cardiac event as well to meet the critical time threshold, underscoring the importance of keeping these items in your emergency medical kit.20 Heart Attack Treatment, Recovery and PreventionOnce you are in the hospital, doctors will work to stabilize your condition by providing oxygen and medications to dissolve blood clots. Interventions to help restore blood flow, including coronary angioplasty and coronary artery bypass, may also be needed. Many people not only survive heart attacks but go on to live long, healthy lives post-attack. Cardiac rehabilitation is often recommended and involves a supervised program of physical activity, dietary changes and stress relief. For many, normal activities can be resumed within a few weeks of the event. Keep in mind that once you’ve had a heart attack, your risk of another increases. This is why lifestyle changes are so important, not only for building a healthy heart, but for keeping it that way. This includes eating right, avoiding excess linoleic acid from seed oils, exercising, dealing with stress and getting proper sleep. For instance, women with low fitness levels have a higher risk of dying from any cause, including cardiac arrest.21 While cardiac arrest often occurs unexpectedly, leading an ongoing heart-healthy lifestyle is the best approach to prevention. With that in mind, many conditions, including heart disease, appear to be rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction.22 Ubiquinol — the reduced, electron-rich form of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) that your body produces naturally — plays an important role in the electron transport chain of your mitochondria, where it facilitates the conversion of energy substrates and oxygen into the biological energy (adenosine triphosphate, or ATP) needed by your cells for life, repair and regeneration. If you don’t get enough of this important compound, your heart health could suffer, as CoQ10 is a key player in heart health. In fact, 75% of ischemic heart disease patients have low levels of CoQ10.23 Depending on your age and health status, supplementation may be necessary to keep your CoQ10 levels high enough for optimal health. Young people are able to use CoQ10 supplements quite well, but older people do better with ubiquinol, as it’s more readily absorbed. The suggested dose is usually between 30 mg to 100 mg per day if you’re healthy, or 60 to 1,200 mg daily if you’re sick or have underlying health conditions.24 If you have an active lifestyle, exercise a lot or are under a lot of stress, you may want to increase your dose to 200 to 300 mg per day. If you take a statin drug, you need at least 100 mg to 200 mg of ubiquinol or CoQ10 per day, or more. Ideally, you’ll want to work with your physician to determine your ideal dose. Health NewsConsequences of Low-Carb DietsA keto diet can provide almost instant relief for certain symptoms and sometimes can even lead to rapid weight loss. While many may experience short-term benefits, there are long-term consequences of low-carb diets that can make your health worse than before you started. This article will address just two concerns of making your body rely on gluconeogenesis (the backup pathway to make the body produce its own carbs internally when we do not consume enough dietarily). But first — addressing some common arguments for low-carb. Temporary Symptom Suppression Versus True HealingThe removal of an entire food group (like carbs) can certainly improve symptoms. For example — maybe there was a carb source you were consuming that was really aggravating your gut. Removing gut triggers will always make us feel better! But there is a big difference between temporary symptom suppression and true healing — as restriction always comes with long-term costs. Running on stress hormones (which can occur in low-carb diets) may feel good at first, but they will quickly leave your body even more depleted than when you started. Eating low-carb does not improve metabolic flexibility. Removing carbs doesn’t fix a damaged glucose metabolism — as being low-carb for a long period of time actually induces physiological insulin resistance.
It’s like skipping leg day since you don’t have strong leg muscles. But you don’t experience any pain since the leg muscles were not worked! If you don’t use it, you lose it! (Don’t worry — this can be fixed! But avoiding carbs isn’t what fixes your glucose metabolism machinery — it just avoids the trigger). Endogenous Glucose Production Is Not OptimalOthers may argue that carbs aren’t even needed in the first place with statements along the lines of — “But the body can make all the carbs it needs! Carbs are a non-essential nutrient!” Yes, this is true. The body can make its own carbs since carbs are essential for survival. But is it optimal to force our body to do this? No! A counter to this “our body can make all the carbs it needs” is that our body can also make fat inside of our body2 if we don’t consume any dietarily. Is this optimal? Of course not. Certain parts of our body require carbohydrates to function and cannot use fatty acids or ketones for energy. Some examples include:
Thus, it is essential that the body maintains a minimum blood glucose concentration to supply at least these cells with glucose. If we do not eat enough carbs, our body will make them inside of us because they are vital for our survival. So, someone on a low-carb diet will thus rely more on a process called gluconeogenesis — a metabolic pathway that turns non-glucose substrates (dietary protein, dietary fat, and our own precious muscle tissue) into glucose.3 There is always some level of gluconeogenesis happening in the background. But this process gets upregulated when restricting dietary carbs. Long-Term Consequences of Low-Carb DietingAre there long-term consequences to rely on this pathway excessively? Long-term consequences to make our bodies generate carbs rather than consume them dietarily? I think so, yes. Whether or not excessive gluconeogenesis is a good or bad thing depends on how you define health. Under the “pro metabolic” (aka bioenergetic) lens, a healthy body is really good at converting the food we eat into energy to maximize ATP (cellular energy) production. A sign of a strong and robust metabolism is a high body temperature, as heat is generated as a byproduct of generating energy. The more energy (ATP) our body produces from the food we eat, the more functions our body can run. The more we will thrive, not just survive. My personal “light bulb moment” that made me realize low-carb was not serving me well was when I first measured my body temperature — my temp was 96.5 degrees Fahrenheit! (Humans should reach 98.6 deg F mid-day) So my low body temperature was a clear sign that I was surviving in a low energy state, not thriving. The less ATP our body has, the more “non-essential tasks” (like hair growth, a healthy libido, etc.) will need to be down regulated in order to prioritize the essential tasks to keep us alive. Characteristics of a Thriving BodyA thriving body will thus have the following characteristics:
If you have these things, GREAT! Don’t change a thing! But many people on low-carb diets DO NOT and their thyroid hormone status is hindered. And this is not always due to the thyroid gland itself. The thyroid actually produces very little of the active thyroid hormones. It mainly produces the precursors. The liver is responsible for producing most of the active thyroid hormone (T3) by converting T4 into T3. Cortisol, which can be chronically elevated on a low-carb diet, blocks that conversion.4 And even without cortisol, not consuming many carbs leads to low T3 production5 since T3 production is dependent on liver glucose and glycogen status.6 In clinical studies a calorie restricted, low-carb diet depresses T3 levels similar to starvation, where a calorie restricted diet with carbs does not.7 And some low-carb advocates will argue that you don’t need as much active thyroid hormone (T3). Well, low T3 will lead to low hypothyroid symptoms, regardless of the diet you’re on. Thyroid health and the state of your metabolism go hand in hand since the thyroid is the master metabolism regulator.8 Thyroid hormone T3 is inextricably related to cellular CO2 production and metabolic rate.9 Yes, our thyroid & body can function with lower T3, but I would argue that it is not optimal. There are SO many benefits to having more active thyroid hormone (T3).10 The thyroid’s hormones regulate vital bodily functions such as respiration, heart rate, muscle strength, body temperature, digestion, the conversion of beta-carotene to Vitamin A, and the conversion of cholesterol to downstream steroid hormones and protective hormones. So, it makes sense why the liver would reduce T3 levels with a low-carb diet. Why would your body produce a hormone (T3) that increases your metabolism and makes you burn more energy when it doesn’t have enough glucose coming in? Let’s now dive into just two concerns about long-term reliance on excessive gluconeogenesis (required on low-carb diets). Gluconeogenesis Is Inefficient and Requires a Lot of EnergyOverall, six ATP worth of energy is invested to produce one molecule of glucose, which gives us only two ATP when broken down through glycolysis. It’s like trading $ 6 bills for $ 2 bills.
This is expensive and not efficient, using up valuable energy reserves slowly over time — why would our body choose this pathway unless it absolutely needs to? And since gluconeogenesis largely occurs in the liver, why would we want to burden the liver even more when it already has over 500 functions and is busy detoxing for us? Most people are in a low energy state to begin with — why dig ourselves into a deeper hole? Wouldn’t we want to choose a path were more ATP is generated so that our bodies have the energy to perform more functions? Gluconeogenesis Is Regulated by Stress Hormones
While there are some studies showing that fat adapted athletes do not have higher blood cortisol levels, we have to remember that tissue and blood levels of cortisol can be different,12 and it is hard to easily measure tissue levels of cortisol.
Elevated stress hormones will be very catabolic in the long run. Meaning, muscles can get wasted away slowly over time. I was certainly in denial at the time, but my lifting numbers (squat and deadlift weights) and muscle mass went DOWN while I went low/zero-carb for an extended period of time. “But what about *insert muscular low-carb person*?” For these individuals you may idolize that eat zero-carb and strength train — you have to ask yourself, did those individuals build their muscle mass before switching to this no carb lifestyle? And are they now just maintaining or very slowly losing muscle over time? Have you seen DEXA scans before and after their dietary switch? Dr. Peter Attia (who used to be a proponent of keto and fasting), noticed for himself and a number of his patients who were strength training and consuming low-carb diets experience ‘body recomposition gone wrong’ (through DEXA scans). Over time (over a few years), himself and his patients maintained their weight. But in the background, they were losing muscle tissue (due to excessive gluconeogenesis) and increasing fat mass. This is not what we want! Can you gain muscle on a low-carb/zero-carb diet — sure! There are always exceptions! But why would you choose the harder path? (If this was a better way to build muscle, trust me, bodybuilders would be keto or zero-carb. But they aren’t.) This type of zero-carb muscle building approach is such a delicate balance of your fat and protein macros. You need to consume high fat to provide energy and get you into ketosis. But if you don’t consume enough protein, your body will break down your muscle tissue at higher rates to get ahold of some amino acids. But too high of protein will kick you out of ketosis due to higher rates of gluconeogenesis. WHY NOT JUST GIVE THE BODY WHAT IT NEEDS? (Carbs) Because many people are convinced that a low-carb state is somehow optimal and improves metabolic flexibility and is required to lose weight (not true). I get it — I was deep into that ideology! AND many people have damaged glucose metabolisms — so avoiding the use of the damaged machinery can feel good in the short-term. So, avoiding the use of the “damaged machinery” can feel good in the short-term. But continuously restricting carbs is avoiding the use of a damaged glucose metabolism. It isn’t fixing it. And there are tremendous health benefits to improving your glucose metabolism! Of course, transitioning from a crappy standard American diet filled with processed food and PUFAs to a whole food, low/zero-carb approach will bring tremendous benefits. And again, if you are doing well — don’t change a thing! How Can I Add Carbs Back In?Always start slow! If you haven’t consumed carbs in a long time and add them in abruptly, how can you expect your body to know what to do with them? Start with one source that you enjoy and digest well, and slowly increase the amount of it you consume over time. As you slowly increase your carbs, it can help to slightly reduce fat consumption in parallel. The goal is to get to a place where you can consume carbs and moderate fat levels (more of a mixed diet), but that requires a well-functioning glucose metabolic machinery. Tracking this data using an app like Cronometer can really help you move the needle forward with your health. In parallel, track your body temperature to see what foods (and amounts) are raising your body temperature (and metabolism) over time. This type of an experiment allows you to take a “metabolism focused” approach instead of a fear-based, restrictive approach. Calories in vs. calories out still matters when it comes to fat loss phases and long-term health — but when you have a better metabolism, the calories OUT side of the equation increases — the body uses more of the food we consume to generate energy, instead of storing it as body fat. Meaning, you can eat more calories while maintaining (or even losing) weight, making weight maintenance a lot more sustainable. My personal experience: After about 1.5 years of taking a low-carb approach, I finally “woke up” that I was driving myself into the ground. It felt good, until it didn’t. I became irritable, developed more and more food sensitivities, was losing hair, had no libido, lost strength and muscle mass and more. Excessively relying on gluconeogenesis down regulated my metabolism and thyroid health over time. And under the “bioenergetic lens” — that is just surviving, not thriving. Short-term band-aid solution, not long-term, sustainable health. Making slow dietary changes while monitoring my body temperature and pulse was key to helping me get out of a low-metabolic state. I now consume over 3,000 calories as a 135-pound woman! In SummaryIf we understand how our physiology works, why not give it what it needs? Gluconeogenesis is an inefficient and “expensive” process that uses up valuable energy when the process is unregulated. Not consuming carbs may “work” and provide digestive relief (relative to a diet filled with hard-to-digest carbs and high amounts of PUFAs). But at what cost? What processes and functions will get down regulated to allow for this excessive gluconeogenesis? Sleep problems? Digestive issues? Hair loss? Hormonal problems? Low libido? Low energy? Skin issues? If what you are doing now is working for you (high body temps, good sleep, good poops, strong libido and hormones, good skin and hair health, and are happy/treat people kindly) — don’t change a thing. But if you are pushing a diet ideology that has led you on a hamster wheel of weight, binge, and health cycles — don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone and try something new.
If you are looking for more assistance in improving your metabolism, adding carbs back into your diet without weight gain, and reversing out of a low-carb diet — my sister and I teach you how to do so in our in-depth course called Rooted in Resilience, along with a ton of free downloads and information on our website, www.armstrongsisters.com. We have both been through all the diet fads and extremes out there — and all they did was lower our metabolisms in the long run. So, it is our goal to provide you with the educational tools so that you can have FOOD EDUCATION and EMPOWERMENT and not FOOD FEAR. Because understanding human physiology and energy metabolism helps YOU better cut through the noise of all the conflicting health information out there. Learning about energy metabolism was one of the reasons we wanted to start a farm and be involved in food production. The types of fat you eat can hinder how you utilize carbs, as PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids) hinder your ability to properly utilize carbs.13 For example, PUFAs negatively inhibit cytochrome C oxidase activity,14 a vital enzyme required for proper carb metabolism. And when it comes to animal fats, what your food eats, matters, as the types of fat in poultry and pork products are impacted by the types of fat in their diet. So, if fed a diet rich in PUFAs, the amount of PUFAs in the eggs, chicken, and pork fat increases. The Best Nutrition Course is NOW Available for You!!I have very good news to announce. Very shortly I will be sending out invites to train individuals interested in becoming one of my health coaches. My health coaches will be some of the best trained coaches on the planet because they will understand how biology works and how to correct it to optimize health. Many will apply but only a few will be accepted. Once they are accepted, they will be allowed to enroll in my nutritional biochemistry course at no charge. This course is based on the concepts of the late Dr. Ray Peat who popularized bioenergetic medicine. That’s a fancy word for optimizing diet choices to maximize cellular energy production. Poorly functioning mitochondria is pervasive and probably exists in 98% of the population. Diligent application of the principles outlined by Doctor Peat will help your mitochondria recover so they can produce the amount of energy they were designed to. This is important because your body needs energy to activate its intrinsic healing capacity. The foundation for the nutritional biochemistry course that will be taught to our health coaches is from a course that Ashley put together. It took her more than one year to write this course, and in my view, it is the best health course I’ve ever seen in my life. I only wish I had had this course when I first started practicing medicine. It would have been a game changer. It’s hard to imagine how many additional hundreds of millions of people I could have helped with this knowledge. Not to worry though as the knowledge is now available for you. If you are seriously interested in understanding how your body works, and more importantly, what specific actions you can take to guide it to working the way it was designed to, then this is the course you need to take. You can enroll for the course on her website. Please understand that I take no commissions from recommending this course. All the funds go directly to Ashley. She is probably the most knowledgeable farmer on the planet when it comes to health. This is why she can produce some of the healthiest food possible. But you may realize that farmers don’t earn very much, so you can support her mission to provide the world with healthy food by purchasing her course. I would encourage you to seriously consider taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge that has taken her many years to compile and make available to you in an easy to learn format. Low PUFA Eggs and Bacon From Angel Acres Egg Co. and the Nourish CooperativeThe types of fat you eat can impact how you utilize carbs, as PUFAs can hinder proper carb utilization. And when it comes to animal fats, what your food eats, matters. (If their diet is high in PUFAs, the final product will contain more PUFAs). With the current agriculture system, knowing where your food comes from is vital. The article was written by Ashley Armstrong, who is passionate about providing the highest quality food possible. Armstrong is the cofounder of Angel Acres Egg Co., which specializes in low-PUFA (polyunsaturated fat) eggs. We discussed the importance of low-PUFA eggs in a recent interview, embedded above for your convenience. Angel Acres Egg Co. ships Low PUFA eggs to all 50 states — but there is currently a waiting list as she slowly increases the number of chickens within the network to fulfill the demand. More egg boxes will be available this spring — join the waitlist for low PUFA egg boxes here. Armstrong also co-founded Nourish Cooperative which ships the best low PUFA pork, beef, cheese & A2 dairy and traditional sourdough to all 50 states. They are also close to accepting new members to the farm cooperative — join the waitlist here: nourishcooperative.com. In the video segment above, Ashley reflects on the timeline of her decision to invest her free time into regenerative farming, considering how just a few years ago, her health was far from ideal. She struggled with mitochondrial energy production, and her body was in a low thyroid state. Your body prioritizes energy for essential tasks, and decision-making requires significant energy. Your brain consumes about 20% of your body’s energy despite being only 2% of its weight. Ashley simply would not have had enough cellular energy to supply her brain to make a decision like she did unless she improved her health. Factors like excess linoleic acid, estrogen and endotoxins were depleting her cellular energy, which is crucial for making energy-intensive decisions. Her transformation underscores the power of nurturing your health to gain the energy necessary for making significant life changes. Avoiding dietary pitfalls like seed oils played a key role in this journey, enabling her to tap into a newfound capacity for brave decisions — a testament to the profound impact of regaining cellular energy on her ability to navigate life’s choices. It is my sincere desire and hope that you consider her journey to inspire and empower you to make similar choices in your own life and reclaim the Joy that you deserve. Imagine experiencing the nearly limitless Joy that Ashley has with her 1,000 chickens and four livestock guard dogs below. Health NewsSleep Promotes Brain HealthFor an activity that takes up about one-third of our lives,1 surprisingly little is known about what happens during sleep. However, part of its purpose is to help cleanse your brain, an organ that consumes about 20% of your body’s total energy expenditure.2 Your brain performs a number of complex energy-demanding processes, including neuron firing, synaptic transmission and maintenance of the ion gradients used for neural signaling. The primary source of energy for the brain is glucose, which it gets primarily from your diet. But as nutrients are consumed, metabolic waste is generated in the process.3 Your brain takes advantage of sleep — a time when your body is seemingly at rest — to flush waste and clear out debris that could otherwise lead to degenerative disease, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.4 Your Brain Detoxes via the Glymphatic SystemTo understand why sleep is so crucial for your brain, it helps to understand how the body eliminates metabolic and cellular waste. Most of your body uses the lymphatic system for this purpose. As Forbes explains:5
In the brain, however, it’s the glymphatic system that removes waste products, acting as a “brain-wide metabolite clearance system.”6 By pumping cerebrospinal fluid through your brain’s tissues, your glymphatic system flushes waste from your brain back into your circulatory system and liver for elimination. It operates similarly to the lymphatic system in the rest of your body but is specialized for the unique environment of your brain and central nervous system. The term “glymphatic” combines “glial cells,” which are cells in your brain that bring nutrients to neurons, and “lymphatic,” reflecting its similarity to the body’s lymphatic system. The glymphatic system facilitates the removal of metabolic waste products from the central nervous system (CNS). It does so through a network that involves the perivascular space — the space surrounding blood vessels — cerebrospinal fluid and glial cells. The glymphatic system is particularly active during sleep, which may actually serve to “kickstart” the system,7 highlighting the importance of a good night’s sleep for brain health. Brain Waves Help Flush Out Waste While You Sleep“The accumulation of metabolic waste is a leading cause of numerous neurological disorders, yet we still have only limited knowledge of how the brain performs self-cleansing,” researchers wrote in the journal Nature.8 While it’s known that the brain flushes out waste during sleep, the method behind remained largely unknown. But by studying the brains of sleeping mice, the Washington University School of Medicine researchers revealed that neurons underlie the process. They generate electrical signals that jump-start rhythmic brain waves, propelling cerebrospinal fluid through the brain. “Our study demonstrates that neurons serve as master organizers for brain clearance,” researchers wrote in Nature, adding:9
In other words, neurons in the brain coordinate signals to create large, rhythmic waves of electrical energy that move through the brain’s interstitial fluid, which fills the spaces around brain cells. The waves are similar to rhythmic pulses that travel through the brain’s fluid, helping to mix and move it around. These electrical waves are thought to boost the function of the glymphatic system, helping cerebrospinal fluid penetrate deeper into the brain and pick up waste, enhancing the cleaning process. When the researchers altered the waves to reduce their intensity, it significantly reduced the infiltration of cerebrospinal fluid into certain brain regions, further demonstrating the importance of these waves in the brain’s self-cleaning process. Further, when the researchers artificially generated these waves using transcranial optogenetic stimulation, a method where light is used to control cells in the brain that have been genetically modified to respond to light, it increased the movement of cerebrospinal fluid into the brain tissue, improving the clearance of waste. Interestingly, brain wave patterns change during sleep cycles, with taller brain waves moving fluid more forcefully. The researchers may conduct further research to determine why brain waves have varying rhythmicity during sleep. Study author Li-Feng Jiang-Xie explained in a news release:10
Sleep Is Crucial for Abstract LearningSleep also has a significant impact on your learning processes, enabling your brain to merge various abstract pieces of information and organize them into comprehensive patterns. This process helps in understanding the world and your experiences within it. Essentially, sleep is vital for abstract learning, which involves connecting the dots, rather than merely acquiring isolated facts. This mechanism is especially important during early development but remains a lifelong necessity. Consequently, lack of sleep can significantly affect your mental health, leading to confusion and negative emotional responses. According to professor Matthew Walker, Ph.D., founder and director of the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science and author of “Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams,” sleep affects your learning and memory processes both before and after learning, and cheating yourself of sleep on either end will impact your ability to learn.11,12 For instance, sleep is important before learning, as it helps prepare your brain to soak up new information. Walker’s research shows that sleep-deprived students have a 40% reduction in their ability to retain new information compared to those who got a full eight hours of sleep. He theorizes that your hippocampus could potentially have a time-limited capacity to store new information.13 When you remain awake for more than 16 hours, your hippocampus effectively runs out of storage space and cannot receive further input. To continue learning, you need to sleep, during which the information stored in your hippocampus is transferred into long-term storage in other parts of your brain, essentially clearing out your short-term hippocampal storage. You also need sleep after learning, to properly save and hold on to those new individual facts — and integrate the new information with what you already know. Walker states that, during sleep, your brain quite literally replays what it has learned, but at 10 to 20 times the speed of normal waking consciousness, and this is thought to be part of memory consolidation, as it increases synaptic strength. This gathering and storing of new information occurs primarily during non-REM sleep. Then, during REM sleep (dream sleep), your brain fuses all of this new information with the entirety of everything you’ve already stored in your memory banks, creating a continuously evolving and growing “mind-wide web of associations,” Walker explains.14 Poor Sleep May Make You AnxiousSleep also influences your mental health, including increasing anxiety. In research conducted by Walker and colleagues, brain scans were conducted on 18 young adults as they watched emotional videos, both after a good night’s rest and a sleepless night. Questionnaires were used to gauge anxiety levels in the study participants, while the brain scans revealed that lack of sleep dampened activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain area known to help quell anxiety, and amped up emotional centers.15 Meanwhile, those who slept well demonstrated notable declines in anxiety, with slow wave non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep appearing particularly beneficial. It’s during slow-wave NREM deep sleep that neural oscillations become synchronized and heart rate and blood pressure drop. “Deep sleep had restored the brain’s prefrontal mechanism that regulates our emotions, lowering emotional and physiological reactivity and preventing the escalation of anxiety,” Eti Ben Simon, the study’s lead author, said in a news release.16 Walker further explained:17
Lack of sleep could increase anxiety levels by up to 30%, the study found, with Walker noting, “Without sleep, it’s almost as if the brain is too heavy on the emotional accelerator pedal, without enough brake.”18 If you regularly feel emotionally off-kilter, too little sleep could be to blame. In a separate study, Walker and colleagues revealed that sleep deprivation also fuels feelings of loneliness, for instance.19 Simple Tips for Better SleepAdults need an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a night, with most doing well with about eight. If you have trouble achieving this duration, or you wake frequently during the night, it’s time to take steps to improve your sleep hygiene, starting with your bedroom. Be sure you’re sleeping in complete darkness, as light (even that from a night light or alarm clock) can disrupt your internal clock and your production of melatonin, thereby interfering with your sleep. In the morning, bright, blue-light-rich sunlight signals to your body that it’s time to wake up. At night, as the sun sets, darkness should signal to your body that it’s time to sleep. Keep the temperature cool, between 60 to 68 degrees F, and eliminate electromagnetic fields. Ideally, shut down the electricity to your bedroom by pulling your circuit breaker before bed and turning off your Wi-Fi at night. This is just a starting point. Other ways to improve your sleep including adopting a neutral sleeping position, going to be earlier and considering a separate bedroom if your partner is interfering with your sleep. If you’ve already addressed these issues and are still struggling with sleep, see my 33 healthy sleep secrets for a more comprehensive list of strategies for a better night’s rest — and a healthier brain in the process. Health NewsThe National Security State Is the Main Driver of Censorship in the USIn a February 16, 2024, interview, Tucker Carlson and Mike Benz, founder and executive director of Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), discussed the erosion of free speech. Fundamental Right to Free Speech Is at RiskAs noted by Carlson, freedom of speech, as outlined in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, is being eroded — not based on the truthfulness of information, but on whether it aligns with the agendas and narratives of those in power. This right, which has been central to the identity and exceptionalism of the United States since its inception, ensures that people can express their thoughts and beliefs without fear of censorship or persecution. This right is what distinguishes us as free individuals, opposed to slaves. And, as noted by Carlson, there’s no hate speech exception in the First Amendment.
Carlson also points out that while censorship itself is nothing new, the censorship we face today is very different from other historical instances. It’s a far more nuanced, multifaceted approach that includes societal, technological and political dimensions. Moreover, this new form of censorship is being subtly integrated into the very fabric of our daily lives, which makes it all the more insidious and difficult to combat. The phenomenon of labeling undesirable yet truthful information as “malinformation” is but one example of this. This labeling process, devoid of concern for the factual accuracy or the honesty of the expressed views, undermines the essence of free speech by restricting open discourse based on subjective criteria rather than objective truth. Importantly, the mechanisms enforcing this modern censorship are not confined to private sectors or individual platforms but are significantly directed and influenced by the U.S. government itself. This intertwining of state powers with censorship activities marks a troubling departure from traditional American values, where free speech has been held sacred. While many intuitively perceive this shift, Carlson suspects they may not fully grasp the mechanics of this censorship, or just how deeply embedded it has become in the societal and political landscape. This lack of understanding further compounds the risk, as combating an unseen or poorly comprehended threat is far more challenging. Modern Censorship Mechanics ExplainedAccording to Benz, modern censorship is based on a complex, integrated system where governmental interests, military defense strategies and corporate technologies converge to regulate and restrict free speech, moving us away from the foundational ideals of internet freedom and openness toward a more controlled and surveilled communication landscape. In the interview, he outlines the transformation from internet freedom to internet censorship, and how these changes have been influenced and directed by various government agencies and the military-industrial complex. Initially, the internet was heralded as a tool of freedom, promoting open dialogue and the exchange of ideas across borders. This freedom was supported and even exploited by entities like the Pentagon, the State Department and intelligence services to advance U.S. interests abroad, particularly in facilitating regime change by supporting dissident groups in authoritarian countries. However, this perspective has shifted dramatically in the past decades. According to Benz, the change began with the realization within U.S. and allied defense and intelligence communities that the same tools that promote freedom and regime change abroad could also be used against them, which led to a significant shift from promoting to restricting speech online.
Censorship Is Now Embedded Into the Internet InfrastructureThe mechanics of modern censorship, as described by Benz, involve a coordinated effort between governmental bodies, the defense industry and tech companies to develop and implement sophisticated methods to monitor, control, and suppress speech online under the guise of combating “disinformation” and “malinformation” for national security purposes. But, again, these efforts are not necessarily concerned with the veracity of the information but rather with its alignment with, or opposition to, certain political agendas, both national and global. These censorship mechanisms are now embedded within the very infrastructure of the internet itself, from social media platforms to search engines, and tools initially developed to protect democracy and promote free speech, such as VPNs, Tor, encryption and private browsing modes, have all been repurposed to monitor and control the flow of information instead. The involvement of major tech corporations — initially funded and supported by government grants and contracts — plays a crucial role in this transformation. For example, Google began as a project funded by a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant, awarded to founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford. This funding was part of a joint CIA-NSA program aimed at understanding how groups form and interact online, essentially tracking “birds of a feather” through search engine data aggregation. That technology is now being used to identify, monitor and silence “dissident” voices within the U.S., no matter how righteous their views may be. Legal Frameworks Now Sustains Modern CensorshipBenz also reviews the legal and institutional frameworks established to sustain this modern censorship, which allows for a seamless transition between state objectives and private sector compliance. This public-private interaction is a clear departure from the overt government censorship of old. What we now have is a far more nuanced, shadowy form of content control that blurs the lines between public and private actions against free speech. As we saw during the COVID pandemic, this also allowed government to plead innocence and pretend that the decision to censor some content was done by the companies themselves. However, between the Twitter Files, the CTIL files and the lawsuit against the Biden administration, we now have ample evidence showing that companies were pressured to comply with the government’s demand for censorship. They didn’t come up with that on their own. According to Benz, it’s quite clear that state-sponsored initiatives, supported by defense and intelligence agencies, are shaping online narratives and controlling information flow in the U.S. under the pretense that national security is at stake. As such, these initiatives have led to a form of legalized censorship. U.S.-led initiatives have also influenced internet governance and free speech regulations internationally. For example, the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) is a significant legislative move towards formalizing and legalizing online censorship. The DSA, which took effect February 17, 2024, requires tech companies to comply with stringent content moderation policies to operate within the EU market. This act represents a legal framework that extends well beyond traditional boundaries of censorship. It pushes companies to police content in accordance with European standards, which is basically just a proxy for NATO and U.S. foreign policy objectives. Collectively, these frameworks mark a global shift towards institutionalizing online censorship through legal and regulatory measures. As noted by Benz, “What I’m describing is military rule. It’s the inversion of democracy.” Building a Whole-of-Society SolutionAs explained by Benz, the censorship industry was built as a whole-of-society effort, and to combat that, we need a whole-of-society solution. According to the Department of Homeland Security, misinformation online is a whole-of-society problem that requires a whole-of-society solution. By that, they mean that four types of institutions must fuse together as a seamless whole. Those four categories and key functions are:
Benz’ organization, FFO, educates people about this structure, and the ways in which legislatures and the government can be restructured, how civil society institutions can be established, and how news media can be created to support and promote freedom rather than censorship. To learn how you can be part of the solution, check out foundationforfreedomonline.com. You can also follow Benz on Twitter. I firmly believe that we can turn this situation around, if for no other reason than the fact that there are some eight billion of us who want freedom, while those who seek to enslave us number in the thousands, or tens of thousands at the most. Either way, they’re clearly outnumbered. But we need to spread the word, and help our friends and family understand how important our decisions are. We either support the network that seeks to take our freedom, or the network that seeks to protect it. Educate yourself about what’s at stake, then trust yourself to make the right decisions. Health NewsDissolving Illusions About Vaccine SafetyIn this interview, Dr. Suzanne Humphries discusses the recent update to her classic book, “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History,” published in 2013. “Dissolving Illusions” is one of my favorite books on vaccines, so I was honored to write the foreword for this 10th anniversary edition. The ‘Safe and Effective’ Narrative Is a Carefully Fabricated IllusionThat word, “illusions,” is an apt one, because the vaccine industry really is all about promoting illusions. They intentionally deceive us about the risks and benefits of vaccines in order to make a profit, with complete disregard for human suffering.
Malicious ActsIn the interview, Humphries recounts the impetus behind the book. She first became aware that vaccines might be problematic when she was working as a nephrologist in northern Maine. After a three-years-long struggle with the hospital administration, who refused to listen to any of her concerns, she finally got out, paid off her student loans and moved into a pop-up camper on a friend’s farm in Virginia, where she wrote the first edition of “Dissolving Illusions,” together with Roman Bystrianyk, who had been researching the history of disease and vaccines since 1998. She spent the next seven years giving lectures around the world, and got her fair share of death threats. The brake line on her car was sabotaged, someone shot a crossbow arrow into the ground in front of her front door, and an obvious nut job detailed how he intended to torture and kill her in horrible ways. All for speaking out about the hazards of vaccines and the lies that keep the vaccine industry going.
CDC Has Been Hiding Vaccine Injuries for YearsHumphries also recounts how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been hiding vaccine injuries by deleting reports filed.
What’s in the ‘Dissolving Illusions’ Update?One of the silver linings of the COVID mass injection campaign is that it has awakened many to the notion that vaccines aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The COVID shots are so toxic, even though the injuries are being swept under the carpet like never before, there are just so many of them that the carnage cannot be hidden. And, because government and health authorities refuse to acknowledge the problem, many are now questioning all vaccines, not just the COVID shot.
The Polio IllusionBased on the available science, Humphries is convinced that one of the reasons the polio vaccine doesn’t work is because polio isn’t caused by an infectious virus. It’s caused by toxins. Poliovirus is a commensal virus that is completely harmless in the absence of toxic onslaught.
Are Viruses Real?By now, you’ve probably heard the theory that there are no viruses, period. That the entire field of virology is a hoax, and that what we perceive as viruses are merely a type of cellular debris being shed when your body is trying to detox. Having delved deep into the science of infectious disease, Humphries disagrees with this theory. Viruses do exist. The question is whether they’re as dangerous as they’re made out to be. Humphries comments:
Changing Definitions Is Part of the IllusionThe changing of definitions is part of the vaccine industry’s playbook. They had to do the same for the COVID pandemic. Not only was the definition of “pandemic” changed, but also the definition of a “vaccine,” to allow for the use of experimental modified RNA gene therapy.
Another part of the fraud is using another vaccine as the control in lieu of a true placebo. You simply cannot prove a vaccine is safe by comparing it to another, most likely unsafe, vaccine. Yet that’s how it’s done. By using a toxic “control,” many of the adverse effects are automatically hidden as people in the control group end up suffering similar adverse events, and at a similar rate. This tactic was used in some of the COVID shot trials as well. Why You Don’t Need a Tetanus VaccineAccording to Humphries, there are no worthwhile vaccines, not even smallpox or tetanus, and certainly not the polio vaccine. She’s treated several cases of tetanus in the last five years, including in at least one fully vaccinated individual, using high-dose intravenous vitamin C and other essential nutrients. One of the reasons why this works is because tetanus is not a viral disease. It’s a bacterial disease caused by the Clostridium tetani bacterium, an obligate anaerobe. It can reside in soils, but it can also reside in your intestine where there’s no oxygen. Oxygen is toxic to it. If you expose that organism to oxygen, as you do with vitamin C (because the metabolite of vitamin C is hydrogen peroxide), it’s instantaneously killed. Ozone therapy would likely be even more effective, for this reason. So, if you get tetanus from a wound, the last thing you need is a tetanus shot or tetanus antibodies. All you need to do is apply ozone to the wound. It’ll instantly destroy the bacteria. Applying hydrogen peroxide would also work. As explained by Humphries, vitamin C is also a neutralizer of toxins, which is another reason it works. Tetanus is a spore, and it transforms under anaerobic conditions into a toxin-producing organism. If you can neutralize the toxin and kill the microbe, then you’ve won the battle. One hundred percent, we’ve won the battle. Humphries comments:
More InformationWhat people have to realize is that the schemes used to push the COVID shots is nothing new. “It’s pretty much exactly the same as it’s been for 225 years, where the recipients are not the beneficiaries of this technology and humanity is not getting healthier by any means as a result of it,” Humphries says. To truly understand the vaccine industry’s modus operandi, be sure to pick up Humphries’ “Dissolving Illusions” 10th anniversary edition. It’s coming out in two forms: a standard hard copy, and a special coffee table edition. The standard hard copy has been translated into 10 languages, with more coming. Kindle and audio book formats are also available. Also consider picking up a copy of “The Dissolving Illusion’s Companion” book, which features the quotes of hundreds of doctors, stories of vaccination tragedies, the timeline of vaccines, rare documents that have been scrubbed off the internet, a recommended reading list and much more. For more details and free sample chapters, see dissolvingillusions.com. In closing, Humphries comments:
Health NewsAre Baby Carrots as Good for You as Full Size?Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published February 4, 2017. Carrots, and especially baby carrots, are a popular snack in the U.S., for adults and children alike. Parents use the bite-sized, sweet treats in children’s lunches to boost the nutrient value of their mid-day meal. They are easy to dip, snack on and require little to no preparation. Baby carrots today are a breed apart from the original product, which were peeled and reshaped from broken or misshapen larger carrots. California carrot farmer Mike Yurosek was the entrepreneur in the 1980s who reshaped the way you think about carrots.1 As Yurosek’s method of peeling and reshaping has evolved over the years, the popularity of the product has grown. Today, farmers produce hybrid carrots designed to meet the needs of the consumer who wants a fresh out-of-the-bag snack without the hassle of peeling and cleaning. But, does all that convenience come at a price? Do Small Size Carrots Have Full-Size Nutrients?Baby carrots appeal to many, as they both taste good and deliver an additional nutritional punch to a diet potentially high in processed foods. Carrots are a root vegetable that are commonly orange in color. Purple, black, red, white and yellow varieties have also been developed, although not as baby carrots. The current 2-inch carrots are cut from a special variety of plant that grows slim and remains tender.2 The ends of the carrots, or broken pieces, are now used for juicing or are processed into cattle feed. The carrots used for baby carrots are grown in close proximity, to encourage the root to grow deep and slender, as well as being harvested approximately 40 to 60 days earlier than full grown variety.3 Baby carrots are also not peeled as they once were. Instead, the carrots are shaped from small, slender carrots that don’t have the characteristic lighter colored core, and then are buffed and polished in a tumble drum.4 According to a comparison between baby carrots5 and full-sized carrots6 in the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference Release, baby carrots have slightly more water and slightly fewer calories. They each have approximately the same amount of sugar, but baby carrots have less iron, phosphorus and magnesium. Comparing 100 grams of each type of carrot, baby carrots also carry less vitamin A and vitamin C, but significantly more folate than the larger variety. Although the nutrient value between the two types of carrots is not equal, this may be offset if you are more tempted to eat a greater number of baby carrots than you are the larger, thicker variety. Benefits of Carrots and Beta-CaroteneIn this short video, I briefly go over the role and importance of antioxidants to your health. Carrots are a potent source of antioxidants in your diet, including lycopene, beta-carotene and vitamin A. Half a cup of chopped carrots, whether the larger or smaller baby carrot, contains over 200% of the average daily recommended amount of vitamin A. The high vitamin A content comes from beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in your liver. Beta-carotene is also a strong antioxidant, effective against free radicals and reducing oxidative stress. By developing a habit of including carrots in your daily diet, you will enjoy some important health benefits.
Cutting Carrots May Enhance the Nutrient ValueSince baby carrots are buffed, removing the outer protective layer, they require refrigeration to extend their shelf life. Even in the refrigerator, they may start to spoil within 30 days of picking and processing. Many of the health benefits of carrots come from their strong antioxidant activity, which may be enhanced through cooking or cutting the vegetable. Plants have a rudimentary form of communication and a means of protection. In one study, researchers discovered when a tobacco plant was attacked by a specific insect, the plant released a compound that attracted the insect’s predator, thus protecting itself.30 This same process of chemical change may increase the antioxidant concentration in a carrot after it has been cut. Both humans and plants use antioxidants to limit the damaging effects of oxidative reactions and stress in cells. Oxidative stress may predispose you to diseases, such as heart disease and cancer. Plant-based phenolic antioxidants may reduce the risk of developing these conditions.31 Some of the phenolic antioxidants produced by plants appear in blood plasma and tissue, which may improve the function of these antioxidants in your body. Studies suggest that wounding a carrot by cutting or shredding will increase the production of antioxidants in the plant. Author of one study, Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, Ph.D., director of the Plant Bioactives & Bioprocessing Research Lab at Texas A&M University, commented:32
Researchers found the more the plant was wounded or stressed, the greater the antioxidant production at the cellular level.33 The higher the intensity of the damage, the longer the plant produced antioxidants, measured over four days during the study, making carrots rich sources of phenolic antioxidant compounds. Cooking Your Carrots May Release More CarotenoidsCooking carrots may also increase the level of beta-carotene and phenolic acids produced by the carrot. Since raw carrots have a tough cell wall, less than 25% of the beta-carotene in carrots is able to be converted into vitamin A.34 During cooking the cellulose walls are dissolved, freeing up nutrients. An increase in total carotenoids available after steam blanching have been demonstrated. When dehydrated, the carotenoids are protected but do not increase. Another study evaluating the effects of boiling, steaming and frying on carotenoids in vegetables, found steamed vegetables kept the best texture quality, but all three means of cooking demonstrated an overall increase in values.35 Just resist the urge to cut your carrots before cooking to make more antioxidants available for absorption. Baby Carrots Take a Chlorine BathPart of the process baby carrots undergo before reaching the grocery store is a chlorine bath. The largest carrot farm, Grimmway Farms, reports that chlorine is used on all their baby carrots to prevent food poisoning.36 After their chlorine wash they are rinsed, packaged and shipped. Chlorine is also used to extend the shelf life of the baby carrots.37 As baby carrots begin to age they develop a white appearance on the outer layer. This doesn’t affect the nutrient value of the carrots, but does impact how appetizing they appear. Buffing and processing baby carrots increase the rate at which the carrots begin deteriorating and develop a white blush on the exterior caused from drying out.38 The rate at which this white coating appears will depend upon the condition of the carrots before processing, the amount of abrasiveness of the processing and the humidity levels during storage. Chlorine, used to clean and preserve the carrots, is a common chemical found in your water supply, pesticides, paper and plastics. In the last 30 years, a growing body of evidence has suggested that chlorine and by-products trigger significant negative health conditions. Although the amount of chlorine in baby carrots is minute, it is added to your overall toxic burden from other sources. It isn’t the chlorine that causes the problems, but rather the disinfection byproducts (DBPs) produced when chlorine interacts with organic matter. These byproducts are far more toxic than the chlorine, including trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. In this instance, the term organic is used to mean a compound that is carbon-based. This means these byproducts are produced in all carrots, whether toxic pesticides were used in the growing process or not. Long-term risks of exposure to DBPs include excessive free radical formation, which accelerates aging and vulnerability to gene mutation and cancer. More than 600 DBPs have been discovered, some of which are linked to liver malfunction, arteriosclerotic damage and neurodegenerative changes.39 Scientists are only beginning to understand the long- and short-term impact of chlorine-based chemicals. The healthiest option is to buy whole, unprocessed carrots — ideally organic — then wash, peel and cut them yourself. Create a Super TrioHere are three excerpts from studies showing how ginger, turmeric and carrots — three superfoods — were effective in both treatment and prevention of several cancers: • Ginger — “Although the medicinal properties of ginger have been known for thousands of years, a significant number of in vitro, in vivo, and epidemiological studies further provide substantial evidence that ginger and its active compounds are effective against wide variety of human diseases including GI [gastrointestinal] cancer. Ginger has been found to be effective against various GI cancers such as gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, colorectal cancer and cholangiocarcinoma.”40 • Turmeric — “Curcumin is among the more successful chemopreventive compounds investigated in recent years, and is currently in human trials to prevent cancer. The mechanism of action of curcumin is complex and likely multifactorial. We have made the unexpected observation that curcumin strikingly modulates proteins of iron metabolism in cells and in tissues, suggesting that curcumin has properties of an iron chelator.”41 • Carrots — This study has shown that extracts from carrots can induce apoptosis and cause cell cycle arrest in leukemia cell lines.42 Get all three of these powerful antioxidants in one delicious dish: Steam a few cups of carrots in a few tablespoons of water, just until tender-crisp. Add a few teaspoons of butter, sea salt to taste and a half-teaspoon each of grated turmeric and ginger (or half that amount of the ground variety). To serve, mash lightly or serve whole for a wildly healthy, delicious side dish. Health NewsJust How Far Will the FDA Go to Protect a Bad Drug?In yesterday’s article, I reviewed the immensely concerning data that emerged throughout the SSRI antidepressant trials. Sadly, rather than this data being listened to, it was given a pass by the FDA, a pattern we have tragically seen occur with numerous highly lucrative pharmaceuticals. In my eyes, three things stand out about the SSRI saga. The first is that numerous whistleblowers came forward and provided clear proof of exactly how this corruption transpired. The second is that the corruption reached the highest levels of government. The third is that the FDA went to incredible lengths to protect the SSRIs, something many of us would not believe could be possible had we not just witnessed it throughout COVID-19. Note: One of the greatest issues with the SSRIs is how addictive the drugs are (stopping them can cause severe withdrawals which are highly damaging to the nervous system and sometimes precipitate violent psychosis). If you are considering stopping them, I strongly recommend working with a health professional who is experienced in this regard. For those who do not have access to one, I compiled a detailed summary of how to safely withdraw from them here (in the second half of this article). John VirapenIt is exceedingly rare for a pharmaceutical executive to speak out against their industry (as doing so will permanently blacklist them from being hired again). In turn, the only ones I know of (besides an executive I’ve privately corresponded with) are Peter Rost and John Virapen, both of whom found themselves in very unique circumstances which enabled and compelled them to speak out against their industry and disclose the sociopathic behavior they observed within it. Note: Rost’s story, along with similar accounts from the other Pfizer whistleblowers can be found in this article and this article. One of the pharmaceutical executives directly involved in obtaining the approval for the original SSRI antidepressant, Prozac, developed a great deal of guilt for what he was complicit in once a large number of SSRI-linked deaths occurred. In turn, after he was unjustly fired, John Virapen chose to speak out. Virapen chronicled those events in “Side Effects: Death — Confessions of a Pharma Insider.” These included outrageous acts of bribery to get his drugs approved, and photographing physicians with prostitutes provided by Eli Lilly so that they could be blackmailed into prescribing Lilly’s drugs. For those interested, this is a brief talk that Virapen gave about his experiences. I greatly appreciate the fact he used candid language rather than the euphemisms almost everyone else does: At the start of the saga, Lilly’s senior management knew Prozac was garbage and wanted to shelve the drug, but since Lilly in dire financial straits they decided to go all in on the approval of Prozac in the hope it could save the company. Prozac, in turn, had initially been proposed as a treatment for weight loss (as this side effect of Prozac had been observed in treatment subjects). However, Lilly ultimately concluded (as explained above) it would be much easier to create the illusion Prozac treated “depression” and then get a post-marketing approval for the treatment of weight loss. As Prozac took off, it became clear that depression was a much better market, and the obesity aspect was forgotten. Lilly then used a common industry tactic and worked tirelessly to expand the definition of depression so that everyone could become eligible for the drug and aggressively marketed this need for happiness to the public, before long, transforming depression from a rare to a common one. Unfortunately, while the marketing machine had no difficulties creating a demand for Prozac, the initial clinical trial data made it abundantly clear that the first SSRI, Prozac, was dangerous and ineffective. Lilly settled on the strategy of obtaining regulatory approval in Sweden, and using this approval as a precedent to obtain approval in other countries. Virapen was assigned to this task and told by his superiors that if he failed, his career was over. Virapen, unfortunately, discovered that whenever he provided Lilly’s clinical trial data to experts, they laughed and had trouble believing he was actually seeking regulatory approval as Prozac’s trial data was just that bad. Sweden (following their regulatory procedures) elected to allow an outside independent expert to make the final determination on whether Prozac should be approved or not. The identity of this expert witness was concealed, but Virapen was able to determine that it was Anders Forsman, a forensic psychiatrist and member of the legal council on the Swedish National Board of Health. After meeting with Virapen, Forsman proposed an untraceable bribe. Then, upon receiving payment, wrote a glowing letter in support of Prozac, fully reversing his previous position (he had ridiculed it just two weeks before) and guided Virapen through re-writing the trial to conceal the 5 attempted (4 of which were successful) SSRI suicides in it. Forsman’s “expert” opinion resulted in Prozac being partially approved and formally priced for reimbursement in Sweden, which was then used as a precedent to market it around the world at that same lucrative price. Note: After leaving Lilly, Virapen tried to have Forsman prosecuted for bribery. Despite the chairman for the Institute against Bribery submitting a report to the Department of Justice affirming bribery had indeed occurred, Forsman (who repeatedly lied throughout the process) was not prosecuted because he was not an official employee of the agency. Forsman in turn was allowed to continue his professional career and was employed by the state long after the investigation ended. Virapen noted that during this time, German drug regulators who had clearly and unambiguously stated that Prozac was “totally unsuitable for the treatment of depression” suddenly reversed their position, leading Virapen to suspect that similar under-the-table activity must have occurred in Germany. David Healey, a doctor and director of the North Wales School of psychological medicine, likewise concluded that the German approval was due to “unorthodox lobbying methods exercised on independent members of the regulatory authorities.” Note: A key reason why the German regulators initially refused to approve Prozac was because the specific criteria used for determining an improvement in depression was highly subjective and the benefit was only being reported by the trial psychiatrists but not the participants themselves. Not long after saving Eli Lilly, Virapen was fired. Virapen believes he was fired because he was a man of color in an otherwise Caucasian company (he was told this by his supervisor). Peter Gøtzsche, a leading expert in pharmaceutical research fraud, on the other hand, attributed this to typical organized crime tactics where Lilly sought to conceal their illegal activity by firing Virapen and his two assistants (as immediately after their abrupt termination, none of them were permitted to access their offices, and thus could not obtain any of the files that proved that they had bribed Forsman). In short, given how horrendous the data supporting their safety and efficacy was, you must be wondering how the SSRIs made it through the regulatory approval process. George H.W. BushThere is a lot of dark history to the Bush family. The Bush dynasty was founded by Prescott Bush, who built his family fortune by collaborating with the Nazis directly against the wishes of the U.S. government (The Guardian, for example, confirms it here). His son, George H.W. Bush had the unique accomplishment of being the only CIA chief to later become president, and during his brief tenure there was responsible for numerous crimes against humanity in South America. After leaving the CIA once Carter became president, Bush (senior) served as a board member for Eli Lilly. He then joined the Reagan Administration as Vice President, where he helped to push through the catastrophic decision for the FDA to approve aspartame for consumer use (aspartame was so dangerous even the FDA did not want to approve it). After succeeding Ronald Reagan as President, Bush chose Dan Quayle as his Vice President:
Bush’s son, President George W. Bush likewise followed in his father’s footsteps and appointed Eli Lilly executives to senior positions within his administration. In fact, he even inserted a provision into the Patriot Act to exempt vaccine manufacturers, including Eli Lilly, from liability for thimerosal (Mercury) within vaccinations. In short, Bush profoundly changed the FDA’s regulatory conduct. Consider this example shared by John Virapen that occurred a few years before Bush became president. In 1980, Eli Lilly applied for the approval of benoxaprofen, and aggressively promoted this new blockbuster medication. Not long after being approved, in 1982, benoxaprofen was taken off the market after being linked to a small number of deaths, and Eli Lilly underwent a lengthy investigation conducted by the Justice Department, where it was concluded that Lilly intentionally covered up the deaths caused by their drug. Benoxaprofen is banned, but nothing remotely similar has been done for the SSRIs. SSRIs and the FDAThe FDA’s treatment of the SSRIs is one of the only instances I know of, where, like the COVID vaccines, the agency has not only ignored, but actively tried to conceal a horrific number of adverse events for a pharmaceutical despite receiving widespread protest from the public. This was most likely heavily influenced by the Bush Administration being in bed with Eli Lilly. As such, it is insightful to see how this has played out over decades, as we ponder how the FDA will handle the COVID vaccines and what we need to do to address this mess. First, consider the FDA’s behavior when Bush was not yet the president:
Prozac was ultimately approved in December 1987, at which point 3 of the 4 studies that this approval was based upon used benzodiazepines to conceal the agitating or psychotic syndromes created by the SSRI drugs. Note: A good case can be made that many of the benefits attributed to SSRIs actually were due to the benzodiazepines that were used concurrently with them. Once Prozac entered the market in 1988, adverse event reports began to accumulate, and by 1991, Prozac had one of the highest rates of adverse events ever reported to FAERS (similar to VAERS but for other pharmaceutical injuries). As there was less regulatory capture at the time, these red flags were sufficient to convene a Congressional hearing on the SSRIs (whereas today, except for one held a month ago by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, this still has not happened for the COVID-19 vaccines). Note: In the first nine years, the FDA received 39,000 adverse event reports, far more than for any other drug. In those, there were thousands of suicides (e.g., by 1999 over 2000 Prozac suicides had been reported), horrendous crimes, hostility, psychoses, confusion, abnormal thinking, convulsions, amnesia and sexual dysfunction. A 1991 FDA hearing was convened where many witnesses told stories about out-of-character suicides and homicides. The advisory committee members, many of whom had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies producing SSRIs, ignored those reports and unanimously rejected the following proposal:
Note: Internal Lilly documents revealed that the FDA had already been working with Lilly on the suicide issue (and that previously Lilly had disclosed to German regulators that Prozac doubled the risk of suicide compared to placebo). However, at the meeting, the chair of the FDA committee interrupted an outside expert who tried to share this, resulting in most of the presentation being conducted by Lilly employees who were able to present Lilly’s narrative to everyone). Similarly, at the time this hearing occurred, the FDA’s own employees had been raising concerns about the safety of Prozac. Furthermore, a later obtained document showed that the FDA knew that the suicide rate on Prozac was 0.52% (vs. 0.18% on placebo), and that in Pfizer’s Zoloft submission (which reported a 26% decrease in suicide attempts), when the FDA counted the deaths correctly, there was actually a 29% increase in them. Sadly, buying out “expert” committees is a standard industry practice. To further illustrate the illegitimacy of these committees (who are entrusted to decide much of public policy), consider this report from Kim Witczak, a citizen activist who was able be appointed to one of them:
As detailed above, lawsuits against SSRI manufacturers like Lilly have repeatedly revealed those companies deliberately concealed the adverse events that occurred in their trials. Similarly, Lilly also chose to commit fraud by illegally failing to report 76 of 97 cases of suicidality from Prozac in a post-marketing surveillance study it submitted to the FDA. Furthermore, Lilly also failed to report that, Cymbalta, an SNRI frequently marketed for treating chronic pain, was found to cause severe withdrawals once discontinued in half of those who had received it for at least 8 weeks. In turn, in the first quarter of 2012, more reports were submitted to the FDA on serious drug withdrawal effects for Cymbalta than for any other regularly monitored drug, including two opioids. Note: Paxil is also notorious for being highly addictive (e.g., in their original license application they stated 30% of trial subjects experienced withdrawals), but for the first ten years it was on the market, GSK adamantly claimed it was not addictive. Eventually (in 2001) the WHO stated Paxil had the greatest withdrawal issues of any SSRI on the market (which was followed by a warning from the FDA in 2002). GSK in turn finally “admitted” this by revising its prescribing instructions to state the risk of withdrawals was not 0.2% but instead 25% (a 125 fold increase). Organized Cover-UpsOne of the most blatant examples of how far the FDA will go to protect the industry occurred in 2003, when while examining a clinical trial for giving Paxil to children, the FDA noticed that more episodes of “emotional lability” (rapid, often exaggerated changes in mood) were reported in children on Paxil than those on a placebo. The FDA decided to investigate what the actual symptom Paxil’s manufacturer was concealing behind this label, and was informed most cases referred to suicidality. One of the FDA’s safety officers, Andrew Mosholder, a child psychiatrist, further investigated this issue and concluded that 22 studies showed that children given antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to become suicidal as those given placebos. His superiors at the FDA who had recently hidden Paxil’s tendency to cause suicidality in children predictably disputed his report, and did not allow it to be released to the public or presented at an advisory meeting. A year later in 2004, the report was leaked, and in a very telling move, the FDA chose to conduct a criminal investigation of the leak rather than address the clear safety concerns it had raised. Kim Witczak spearheaded many different initiatives against the SSRIs. For example, she filed a wrongful death, failure to warn lawsuit against Pfizer (which Pfizer responded to by sending investigators around her neighborhood to dig up dirt on her). Her lawsuit was able to obtain many crucial documents from Pfizer proving that they knew how dangerous their SSRI was (including the same out-of-body experiences which her husband had had before killing himself). Her lawsuit eventually provided the ammunition to get a black box warning (easily visible red-alerts the FDA occasionally mandates for pharmaceuticals) placed on the SSRIs. Note: Documents showed that Lilly initially planned to have a warning for Prozac causing psychosis in the USA package insert, but ultimately only did so in Germany, as their regulators, unlike the FDA, required Lilly to insert this warning. Because of her efforts, like the previous example showed, Witczak was provided with a direct view into the corruption within the FDA. For example, this is how they addressed the “problem” that lawsuits against the SSRI manufacturers were causing their confidential documents (detailing the actual harms of the drugs) to be released:
Sadly, paying off regulators (e.g., by giving them cushy jobs of the pharmaceutical industry) is very common (the practice is known as the “revolving door”). For instance, many of the authors of government studies (e.g., FDA employees) who questionably determined the SSRIs were “safe and effective” were also paid off by the SSRI manufacturers. In 2004, due to the mounting political pressure, the FDA finally released a black box warning linking SSRIs to increased suicidality in children. Despite knowing about this problem long before the SSRIs came to market, it took over two decades for the FDA to provide this critical warning. More importantly, this only happened after massive public pressure, countless lawsuits proving these effects were deliberately concealed by the manufacturers, public hearings, and leaked reports publicly shaming the FDA. Note: In 2006, the warning was extended to everyone under the age of 25. As this cut off was completely arbitrary (many of the SSRI suicides occurred in much older individuals) a large press conference was organized the day beforehand so those believing it needed to be applied to all ages could have the time to speak the FDA would not permit them to have during its hearing. Although their action did not convince the FDA to change course, next year in 2006, the FDA did and applied that warning to all ages groups. By 1990, the public was demanding for the FDA to determine if SSRIs were linked to increased suicidality. As the evidence proving this was unambiguous, the FDA deliberately avoided publishing a report on this topic. Sixteen years later, shortly after the FDA was exposed for suppressing the link between suicidality in children and SSRIs, the FDA finally published a meta-analysis addressing this question. The 2006 meta-analysis encompassed 372 placebo-controlled trials of SSRIs (and related drugs) involving 100,000 patients, and showed that up to the age of 40, SSRIs increased suicidal behavior, while in older patients SSRIs decreased this risk. Note: A common tactic in the pharmaceutical industry is to hyper-focus on one specific set of side effects so that the other side effects can be covered up. For example, from comparing the incidences of blood clots I hear about relative to the percentage of people who chose the J&J vaccine, I am relatively certain that the mRNA vaccines are more likely to cause blood clots than J&J’s, but whenever this topic is raised, people default to believing only J&J can cause blood clots since it was linked to a few cases of central venous thrombosis and there was a brief period where the vaccine was suspended by the FDA to “assess” this risk. I suspect that the FDA’s long-delayed meta-analysis and the black box warning were a direct response to the leaked report proving an indisputable link between SSRIs and adolescent suicidality that was produced to shield the other side effects from scrutiny. Sadly, these warnings have done very little to curb the usage of these drugs, as evidenced by how large their market has become. Rather they served as a way to protect that market as they both were an alternative to pulling the drugs (which is what should have happened) and downplayed the side effects as much as possible (e.g., borrowing from the industry’s playbook, “abnormal thoughts” became abnormal dreams). Furthermore, the FDA’s meta-analysis almost certainly also understated the risk. For example, the FDA gave the studies they analyzed a free pass on the variety of design flaws that made it easy to conceal their adverse events. In fact, the FDA reached out to many of the SSRI manufacturers and asked them to adjudicate (remove) possibly suicide-related adverse events in their trials as they saw fit and send those results to the FDA. When analyzing the 2006 meta-analysis, Gøtzsche found numerous other signs of deliberate fraud by the FDA. For example, in many cases (often due to data revealed from litigation), a single study within the meta-analysis was shown to contain more cases of suicide from an SSRI than the 5 suicides the FDA claimed had occurred throughout all 372 of its studies. From extensively reviewing all the data, Peter Gøtzsche, reached the overall conclusion that there are likely to have been 15 times more suicides on antidepressant drugs than reported by the FDA in its 2006 meta-analysis. Note: In 2006, 35 million was spent by American’s National Institutes of Mental Health to conduct the STAR*D study, which assessed if SSRIs cured “treatment resistant” depression (making it the largest study on SSRI efficacy ever conducted) and was designed to assess typical patients in real life scenarios (although the care they received was likely better than what is seen in clinical practice). It found 3% or less of subjects had their depression cured (with it not remitting for the year of observation within the trial). However, the NIMH repeatedly stated “about 70% of those who did not withdraw from the study became symptom-free,” significantly exaggerated the improvements in the patients, and that SSRI treatment was far more effective that placebo, despite no placebos being used in the trial. In my personal opinion, when your results are off by an order of magnitude, this can only occur through deliberate fraud, something many of us have regrettably come to realize has occurred at both the CDC and the FDA throughout the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. As it so happened, by 2013, the FDA employee in charge of the 2006 meta-analysis had completely transitioned to the private sector and had made a consulting firm dedicated to helping psychiatric drugs sail through the FDA. Note: A variety of other large studies have used similar methods to conceal the dangers of the SSRIs. Since I can’t cover all of them here, I chose to focus on ones conducted by the US government. The Big LieWhen Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1925, he described how people could be induced to believe a colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” While he initially used this idea to attack others (e.g., the Jews), before long he fully adopted it, allowing the Nazi regime to become one of the most powerful forces of propaganda in history. Many others have also used this approach. For example (as discussed in a recent article), for decades, US health authorities (and professional medical associations) have repeated the mantra that their vaccine is “safe and effective” while simultaneously suppressing all evidence to the contrary (e.g., from their own scientists). This in turn has resulted in numerous disastrous vaccines (which everyone knew were bad) being pushed onto the market and not being taken off until a significant amount of injuries had occurred. With the SSRIs, we see a similar degree of audacity, as time and time again the SSRI advocates will insist their drugs are safe and effective despite all evidence to the contrary. For example:
Note: The UK drug regulators also lied to the public to cover for GSK (which is based in the UK) by stating that the discovery Paxil caused those suicides was completely new to the company (whereas documents showed it had in fact known about it for at least eight years). Furthermore, when US senator Charles Grassley later asked GSK for how long the company had known that paroxetine increases the suicide risk, GSK repeated this lie, claiming GSK had not detected the risk until 2006. Given their willingness to blatantly lie, even to a US Senator, it should come as no surprise these companies concocted elaborate ways to silence their critics. For example, GSK has publicly stated:
Many psychiatrists (especially those being paid off by the pharmaceutical industry) in turn have used similar arguments to silence all criticisms of their drugs. Sadly these tactics are not unique to the psychiatric industry. For example, in a previous article I discussed the significant dangers (and complete lack of benefit) from statins. In turn, whenever statins are questioned, rather that defend them, cardiologists will often insist you are “killing patients” by scaring them away from the drugs, and this argument has been successfully against both physicians and news programs which questioned statins. In turn, as you might guess, that tactic has also been used against critics of the SSRIs.
Likewise, this same playbook has been used against critics of a controversial vaccine. Sadly, since there had been numerous trial runs with other deadly products, by the time COVID-19 happened, the “dangerous misinformation” playbook had been developed, and that label was immediately plastered onto anyone who questioned any part of the pandemic response (e.g., the lockdowns, the suppression of early treatment or the COVID-19 vaccines). This in turn set the stage for where it somehow became acceptable to argue people should be forced to vaccinate against their will despite a significant amount of evidence (and public opinion) existing that argued against vaccinating. In many ways, this is not that different from how psychiatric medication mandates are often pushed upon patients who (due to their side effects) simply do not want them. Note: There are many sad stories of this — including numerous ones where the courts supported the psychiatric mandate no matter how much work was done to overturn them. ConclusionIn my eyes, one of the most important things to consider in this article is just how many people are taking SSRIs, and by extension, just how many injuries the percentages I provided in this article translate to. Whenever a drug is being considered for approval, one of the primary concerns by the regulator used to be the total expected harms suggested by the preliminary data — yet as we can see both in the SSRI saga and throughout COVID-19, that principle has simply been discarded. As I ponder how things could have gotten this way and how symbiotic the relationship has become between the pharmaceutical companies and the drug regulators, I am reminded of this iconic scene from Idiocracy: The saddest thing about the SSRI saga is that as inexcusable as it was, things were much less corrupt then than they are now, especially within the federal government. At the time that the public challenged the SSRIs, the media would air stories critical of the malfeasance within the federal government and lawsuits could compel the pharmaceutical companies to disclose the harms they were hiding from the public, and Congress was willing to investigate. Now, all the vaccine manufacturers have almost complete protection from liability and except for a few commentators on Fox News, no one so much as dares to question the vaccines (or any other pharmaceutical for that matter). One comment Kim made on our sad state of affairs really stuck with me: Note: Renowned journalist Sharyl Attkisson has made an excellent case the prolific censorship we have become accustomed to began during the Obama presidency. My hope is that the harm of the COVID-19 vaccines is so egregious and unambiguous, and more importantly, has affected so many people, that it will prompt enough public outcry to fix or at least improve this systemic corruption. In this series, I have tried to illustrate how the gross malfeasance that allowed the SSRIs to be brought onto the market and kept there despite countless red flags telling the FDA the drugs were not safe. Overcoming the pressure to take these drugs off the market in turn required a lot of money to be behind those drugs. In the final part of this series, we will explore how the SSRI industry convinced the world everyone needed their (typically worthless) pills (while simultaneously causing many effective SSRI treatments to be dismissed and forgotten). Much of our culture is shaped by the pharmaceutical industry brands diseases and I believe the tactics they use must be recognized so our society stops falling victim to them. I thank each of you for reading this series and helping bring attention to this tragedy as many people I am close to have been. A Note From Dr. Mercola About the AuthorA Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician in the Midwest and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. I appreciate his exceptional insight on a wide range of topics and I’m grateful to share them. I also respect his desire to remain anonymous as he is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD’s work, be sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack. |