Doing Things the Right Way – Corporate Care
By Mark Schauss | July 27, 2008
A company out of Lincoln, Nebraska, is doing things the right way according to this article from CNN. They try to create a corporate culture that cares about promoting healthy habits for their employees. Not only is it good for the people who work for them, it saves them a substantial amount of money.
Promoting health and helping your company be green, is not just good for our world, it’s good for your business.
Topics: Health, Opinion, Our World | No Comments »
Boulderfest 2008 Presentation
By Mark Schauss | July 20, 2008
If you go over to my other blog site, MarkSchauss.com, you can download a copy of the PowerPoint presentation I gave at the Boulderfest 2008 in Broomfield, Colorado this past weekend. It gave an overview of the different lab tests that give clinical relevance to a number of disorders from autism to asthma, from infertility and pregnancy to type II diabetes.
If anyone wants to use the presentation or any of the slides, please feel free to do so but do give me some recognition.
Topics: Environment, Health, Laboratory Tests, Neurological Disorders, Opinion, Research | No Comments »
Cholesterol Drugs for Children? You Must Be Kidding!
By Mark Schauss | July 9, 2008
When I first read the article at MSNBC, I checked my calendar to see if somehow it was April Fools Day and some one was playing a very bad joke on me. If there was ever a sign that personal responsibilty, parental control, and medical idiocy all joined forces at the same time, this is it. To advocate the use of stain drugs whose efficacy is already under suspicion in adults, for children, is the highest level of malpractice I have seen to date.
In an earlier series of posts on this blog site, I attack the whole notion of cholesterol and heart disease. Here, the American Academy of Pediatrics in their concern about obesity, decide that instead of pounding on people to stop feeding their kids like pigs on the slop line and to cut back of high-fructose corn syrup, they should give the precious snowflakes a drug instead. This is horrible theory. Aside from the obvious issues of side-effects, long-term issues, this solves nothing. What they should be screaming about is how people who are the parents of waddling kids shop at Costco and Wall-Mart, stuffing their shopping carts with donuts, huge boxes of sugar laden cereals, cases of sodas and all sorts of junk food. This is what they should be focusing on but I guess there is no money in it for them.
Without lifestyle changes, these children will not be any healthier in the future, they will be at a greater risk to need more drugs to counteract the effects of the statins and they will be told the message that drugs, not personal choice is the way to deal with life’s issues.
Does anyone ever wonder any more that illicit drug use is so high in this country? The pharmaceutical industry has made it a mantra that drug intake is the way to a happier and healthier life, not eating right and exercising.
This nonsense is about pediatricians removing themselves from the difficult task of telling the parents to take control of their kids diets and making it clear that being obese is their fault. It’s a cop-out. The American Academy of Pediatrics should be ashamed of themselves especially since Dr. Stephen Davis of the Academy has worked as a consultant to Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co., but not on matters involving their cholesterol drugs but so what, they are the biggest drug pushers in the world.
Topics: Drugs, Food, Health, Healthcare, Life, Opinion, pharmaceuticals, Research | No Comments »
Placebo – Obecalp – A New Way to Treat Patients
By Mark Schauss | July 2, 2008
Coming soon to a store near you will be a cherry flavored placebo for children. According to the New York Times and reviews by Dr. Martin Stein, the placebo Obecalp will be available to give to kids (Obecalp spelled backwards is placebo). Turns out that 10-20% of children with ADHD react positively to placebos so this may be worth a try. The only problem I see is that the cherry flavor may be synthetic and may increase the ADHD behavior in some kids.
I wonder how much research was done in the use of the flavor and colorings in the placebo. My guess is that they did no studies on this issue. Why should they as big pharma never looks into the effect of additives on behavior? That might show that food colorings and additives are causes of ADHD and that the drugs they use are worthless.
Topics: brain nutrition, Drugs, Health, Neurological Disorders, Opinion | No Comments »
Trans Fats – Ban the Garbage
By Mark Schauss | July 1, 2008
Trans fats are about the most health damaging thing you can ingest short of poison. While it is coming out of a lot of foods, because of labeling laws, manufacturers can list 0 grams of trans fats but still have it in the food as long as it is less than .5 grams per serving. I want to thank Jolene Park for sending out her blog email (which all of you should subscribe to) about trans fats today. A link she included is for a website dedicated to banning trans fats.
My mentor, John Kitkoski, told me many years ago that ingesting trans fats is like eating 10-40 motor oil. It is a picture that my mind could never forget so it was easy for me to never get into eating food made with the garbage. If you are going to do one thing to improve your health today it should be to eliminate trans fats from your diet completely.
Topics: Health, Research | No Comments »
Food Additives – The Ones to Avoid
By Mark Schauss | June 5, 2008
Jean Weiss wrote an interesting article for MSN Health & Fitness about the 12 Food Additives to Avoid. Sage advice from Ms. Weiss. One of the issues Tasya, my daughter has had to deal with is her sensitivity to a number of food additives, especially aspartame (a real neurotoxic poison) and food dyes.
In many people, food sensitivities are a real issue and can cause everything from irritable bowel syndrome to migraines and seizures. Other people see an increase in pain due to arthritis due to the inflammatory reactions that foods can cause. Each person has a different array of foods that they are sensitive to and the only way to find out what you are sensitive to is the LEAP test. Here is what Tasya’s test looked like. If you are interested in finding out more about doing this test, you can contact me by email me at markschauss at gmail dot com.
Topics: Epilepsy, Food, Health, Healthcare, Laboratory Tests, Neurological Disorders | No Comments »
How to Restart Your Sleep Cycle
By Mark Schauss | June 3, 2008
For many of us who travel a lot, especially across multiple time-zones, getting back in the swing of things, especially when it comes to sleep, is really difficult. But researchers at the Harvard Medical School may have an answer and it is fasting. Imagine instead of taking a week to reset your internal clock you can do it in one day. Lead researcher, Clifford Saper said “The neat thing about this second clock is that it can override the main clock … and you should just flip into that new time zone in one day.“
Here is how it works, just stop eating for 12-16 hours before you want to be awake and eat a good healthy meal. If you want to begin waking up at 3:00am, then you need to stop eating at 11:00am to 3:00pm the previous day. For those of us on the west coast who want to set ourselves for an early rise on the east coast, here is a simple way to get it done. So if you are going to Tokyo from say Colorado, just figure what time you would have breakfast on Tokyo time and fast for the 12-16 hours prior.
Why does this work? Here is an excerpt from the May 22nd issue of the journal Science.
“For a small mammal, finding food on a daily basis is a critical mission. Even a few days of starvation, a common threat in natural environments, may result in death,” the study said.
“Hence, it is adaptive for animals to have a secondary “master clock” that can allow the animal to switch its behavioral patterns rapidly after a period of starvation to maximize the opportunity of finding food sources at the same time on following days.”
The shift is a survival mechanism in small mammals that forces them to change their sleeping patterns, Fuller suggests. One starvation cycle is enough to override the traditional light-based circadian clock, the study suggests.
“This new timepiece enables animals to switch their sleep and wake schedules in order to maximize their opportunity of finding food.”
“A period of fasting with no food at all for about 16 hours is enough to engage this new clock,” says Saper.
“So, in this case, simply avoiding any food on the plane, and then eating as soon as you land, should help you to adjust – and avoid some of the uncomfortable feelings of jet lag.”
Now you know how to avoid jet lag and reset your internal circadian clock quickly.
Topics: Health, Life, Research | No Comments »
Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Health Insurance
By Mark Schauss | June 2, 2008
In today’s ever escalating health insurance cost atmosphere, insurers try to get you to use the least of your benefits while charging you more and more every year. I’ve seen this scenario play out with my daughter Tasya, when Mega Health and Life Insurance screwed us by saying that the MRIs and CT scans she had were unnecessary even though it is considered the standard of care for newly diagnosed epileptics. BTW, never buy insurance from those people, it’s a waste of money.
While using the program Stumble, I came across the following article entitled Nine Secrets Health Insurers Don’t Want You To Know. Here is the nine topics they discuss. I suggest you read the article carefully if it interests you
- Don’t pay if you don’t have a say.
- You may be eligible for more coverage.
- To get tested, talk up your symptoms.
- Stall first, answer questions later.
- Letters are your best bet.
- Doctors can be good weapons.
- A little research can go a long way.
- There are ways to get drugs cheaper.
- An advocate can help you win.
Good advice that everyone with health issues should know about
Topics: Health, Healthcare, Laboratory Tests, pharmaceuticals | 2 Comments »
Phthalates in Your World
By Mark Schauss | May 27, 2008
One of my favorite organizations in the fight against our toxic world is the Environmental Working Group. They send out regular emails about issues relating to our environment and today’s was particularly interesting as it had a link to their Enviroblog talking about phathalates, that insidious plasticizer that is in all of our bodies.
Here is a little snipit of information you can find by going to the blog:
“Phthalates are endocrine disruptors linked to problems of the reproductive system, including decreased sperm motility and concentration in men and genital abnormalities in baby boys. (Oh, and did you know that average sperm counts have decreased significantly since the 1940’s?) More recently they’ve also been linked to asthma and allergies.”
It’s time to first get this chemical out of all products that our children have access to and then out of all of the products that adults come in contact with. They are finding this chemical in all of our bodies and the industry refuses to acknowledge its affects on human health despite the evidence. Go to the link posted here and read up on how to lower your exposure as well as your children’s.
Topics: Environment, Health, Research, Toxicity | No Comments »
Couple of “Greening” Websites
By Mark Schauss | May 21, 2008
I’m always on the outlook for new ideas, as well as old ones, to decrease my environmental footprint and to share my findings with everyone. Here are a few websites I have found with ideas on how to “green” your life.
Live Science has a top 10 list of things to do to Green Your Home. One problem though with it, as one of comments pointed out is that while it is nice to tell you what to do, it is important to tell you how to do it more effectively.
Here is a link to how to implement some of the ideas in a printable PDF file.
Treehugger.com is a great website to learn about all things green. Here is a link to some real usable information on green cleaning.
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Health, Our World, Solvents, Toxicity, Websites | No Comments »