Dr. Tanelian's Weblog

To Soy or not to Soy?

For the past several years I have been endlessly asked, “Does soy cause breast cancer?”  I have looked through the medical literature and concluded on my own that I see no evidence to substantiate this.  Nonetheless, the media fuels this fire,

Irrespective of what the press says based on a few nonhuman “studies” this question remains.  However, common sense dictates this makes little if any sense.  The incidence of breast cancer in Humans in the 2002 Worldwide IARC CancerBase No. 5 shows that breast cancer incidence in soy consuming countries (China and Japan) is 18.7 and 32.7 per 100,000, respectively; whereas in Western nations (U.S. and U.K.) the breast cancer incidence is 101.1 and 87.2, respectively.  Strange anyone would say that soy based isoflavones are to blame for breast cancer, how about the American lifestyle?

To back this thought process up is an excellent review of soy isoflavanoids and breast cancer published in the Nutrition Journal (7:17, 2008) from the Wake Forest School of Medicine.  The authors conclude that there is little evidence that dietary isoflavones have a clinically relevant effect on breast tissue either positive or negative

Just this month in the clinical Journal of Nutrition (89: 577-583, 2009) and on Dr. Tanelian’s Medical News is a prospective study from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine showed that soy food intake was inversely associated with colorectal cancer such that soy foods decreased the relative risk of colorectal cancer risk to 0.67.

Let us review the medical literature before jumping to conclusions on all media fostered sensationalism – some may be valid, but you really want to know the whole story!

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Protein

The idea that eating protein produces “big” muscles is primitive, unsubstantiated and in the realm of pseudoscience.  Hopeful you will become Popeye if you exercise, but unless you are deficient in the fundamental amino acids necessary for protein synthesis this will not happen by consuming more protein  (see the HealthConnexin Medical News).  Real muscle development requires natural exercise and a full complement of natural nutrients.  We are not simply a steak such that one can add protein powders or solutions and it gets heavier – this is the equivalent thinking with a clay pot mentality; that if one wants a larger pot simply add more clay.  Yes, making it will make for a heavier pot, but will it be fashioned correctly?

Actually, Popeye made sense in that he advocated spinach – a highly alkalinizing food that prevents the breakdown of muscle.

Just remember Popeye was right and for more than one reason.

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Health Care Reform

What is health care reform?  Everyone wants this, yet no one knows what this is or should be.  There is widespread agreement that the U. S. health care system is broken, but what to do?  Yes, our nation’s number one problem is health care and I do believe it can be fixed; but is it in anyone’s best interest to do so? 

Clearly, this is not a new problem (at least 50 years old) and many attempts to fix health care have been repeatedly tossed away.  Why will it be different now?  Once again we are asking the monetary beneficiaries of this system (doctors, politicians, healthcare administrators, healthcare educators, drug companies, medical equipment manufacturers, etc.) to make a plan that improves (reduces) health care while their reward, sales and profits, will be reduced by reducing illness.  Therefore, does it seem possible or probable that our medical-industrial system will endorse the promotion of health and wellness?

No, it is not! So why then would anyone think this will happen within the political or current health care systems?  The only logical people to be developing and demanding a beneficial and low-cost health plan that works are those with no vested interests in illness, rather those with their own and their families health, wellness and wealth in mind – that is you and I.  Hippocrates over 2,000 years ago stated and realized this. 

Alternatively, our leaders are advocating hypothetical solutions such as electronic medical records that are totally unproven and simply line the pockets of the current medical-industrial complex.

Health will never be seen again unless we all stand up and demand a return of our health from our nation and its leaders!  By continuing as we have for the past 100 years, we all can watch the current 3 trillion dollars annually expended on sick care escalate to 4 trillion dollars within our lifetime and watch the economy falter even further. 

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Benefits of Vitamins?

Of course vitamins (13 acknowledged molecules called “vitamins” are essential for our health) and so are a multitude (1,000’s) of other molecules, but only if you are deficient in them.  Yet, we take the approach that “the more, the better” – not true.  More of any vitamin or mineral maybe better than, the same as, or worse than the amount you are already taking.  More does not necessarily mean better, yet this is our societal assumption!

 I have written numerous blogs and medical news articles about this reality.  Nonetheless, we see articles like today’s news story, “Little benefit is seen to vitamin pills”.  Sounds informative, but is that statement true?  NO.  Yes, it may be true if you already have the full complement and optimal amount of vitamins and minerals, but what if you are deficient.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s studies many if not most Americans are deficient in essential nutrients, up to 90% deficient!

The problem with all vitamin studies is that: 1) Researchers do not know where a person is starting or has been with respect to any given vitamin, 2) Is a given person deficient or exposed to an excess of any given vitamin on a regular basis, 3) Studies are too short to fully evaluate whether any vitamin is beneficial for any disease or not (this could require 60+ years of controlled data or more), and there are 100’s or more confounding factors not controlled for in any nutritional study.

Nonetheless, it is safe to say that most Americans could and would benefit from some vitamins and minerals since our foods (even organic) and water (tap, mineral or bottles) are severely lacking.

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Health Care - Update 2008

The National Coalition on Health Care sums up U.S. Health Care nicely.

http://www.nchc.org/

Some sobering facts are:

“The United States spends the most money on medical care of all advanced industrialized countries, but it performs more poorly than most on many measures of health care quality. 

There are widespread problems with the quality of much of America's health care. The disparity between the care most Americans receive and the care delivered through what are considered the nation’s best-managed care plans results in nearly 75,000 preventable deaths annually.  Billions of dollars in lost productivity and in hospital costs could be averted through more consistent delivery of evidence-based best practices in medical services and administrative practices.

Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.

Significant increases in health care costs and in health insurance premiums are affecting Americans personally and profoundly — and have become a major national economic problem.

Annual health care spending in the U.S. is $2.3 TRILLION in 2007, and is projected to reach $4.2 TRILLION or 20% of our nation’s GDP by 2016.  Health Care has been increasing two to five times the rate of inflation since 2000. These increases translate into high and rapidly escalating health insurance costs for businesses and families. Over the past five years, employers, on average, have experienced double digit increases in their health insurance premiums.

The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,100 in 2007. Workers contributed nearly $3,300, or 10 percent more than they did in 2006. The annual premiums for family coverage significantly eclipsed the gross earnings for a full-time, minimum-wage worker ($10,712).

These substantial increases — year after year — are making it more difficult for businesses to continue health coverage for employees and retirees. Employers, on average, have seen their health insurance premiums increase nearly 100 percent since 2000.

The increases in healthcare spending are making it much more difficult for individuals and families to pay their share of the cost of employer-sponsored coverage or to buy health insurance themselves. It is no coincidence that the number of Americans without health coverage has been climbing with nearly 9 million people losing their coverage between 2000 and 2006.

Surging health care costs slow the rate of job growth by making it more expensive for companies to add new workers. They also suppress wage increases for current workers by driving up total compensation costs.

As health care costs rise, corporate operating margins are cut, which reduces the capacity of firms to grow by investing in research, plant and equipment.

High and escalating out-of-pocket costs are forcing families to delay mortgage payments or sell their homes, cut back on normal household expenses such as for food and utilities, and take on onerous medical debt.

High medical costs can require retired families to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their savings for out-of-pocket health care expenses.

High insurance costs are eroding the ability of firms to fund current levels of pension and health benefits.

They put American firms at a steep disadvantage in world markets, where they have to compete against companies with much lower health care costs in the nations where they operate.

Rapidly escalating costs are producing severe long-term budgetary problems in the public sector affecting the solvency of federal and state health insurance programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

We have reached the point where the public’s main domestic concerns — the economy, jobs, and health care — are really one and the same issue. Unless the health care cost crisis is addressed, we cannot assure robust economic growth, strong job creation, or financial security for American families.

The Coalition has developed a set of fact sheets that point out the impact of rapidly escalating health care costs and insurance premiums on various aspects of our national economy.

The fact sheets listed below can be found at www.nchc.org in “Facts About Health Care”

Effects o n Workers and Their Families

Effects on Business Operations

Effects on Small Businesses

Effects on Pension Programs and Beneficiaries

Effects on the Federal Budget

Effects on State Governments

  Effects on Local Communities”

 The only real, viable solution is personal responsibility and prevention!  Why do we continually live in “Disney Land” anD expect our government will solve the problem.

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Molecular Fitness

Molecular Fitness is about helping your body perform better through optimization of the natural molecular and cellular components that are essential for life, health, mental and physical performance.

The potential benefits are vast and encompass prevention of disease as well as athletic performance and just plain feeling good and having more energy.

As for which benefit(s) are most important, this is a personal priority.  Obviously, “I feel good” seems to be most important in our “immediate gratification society”, but what about the totality of your life? 

Life is definitely about “I feel good”, but what about “I feel bad” when you are actually ill?  What about those 8 well known diseases of modern man (heart disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, ocular disease, obesity and Alzheimer’s) that you will one day succumb to?  Is there a magic cure or any cure for any of these diseases? NO!

Will you succumb to one if not all of these diseases if you live long enough?  YES

So why not feel great now, have more energy now, perform better athletically now and at the same time be preventing the multitude of diseases that potentially await you?

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

A Trillion Dollar Solution: Re-educating the Healthcare” System” could Help Bail Out America

Illness, money and our economy.

 Over the last 50 years, the results of the war against disease have been disastrous for America.   Most American’s are suffering from “healthcare” burdens.  Their hard earned dollars have been poured into healthcare without end, leaving citizens and the country in a state of financial disaster.

Presidents have called our healthcare system wonderful, “a model for the world”.  They were of course trying to get elected.  For years, advocates of “healthcare” claimed that we were winning the “War Against Disease” while the nation was expending 100’s of millions of dollars on “healthcare”.  Was this money spent on “Healthcare” or really on “Sickcare”?

The U. S. has run up an enormous tab outspending the rest of the world on “Healthcare”.  Currently, we are #1 in the world for per capita healthcare expenditure, yet #44 in the world for longevity.  Since we have begun the “War Against Disease”, we have spent trillions of dollars on a string of failed missions on individual diseases.  To head down the road to health, U.S. leaders will first have to take a brutally honest look at real costs and the real utility of their massively excessive spending.

In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau listed active hospitals in the U.S. as totaling 7,569.  With all these hospitals came a series of costly expenditures since the 1960’s and the full bill has yet to come.  While embellishing American medicine, the “War on Disease” has acted as a production line for the creation of yet more “Healthcare” outposts throughout the world.  If you were to begin the process of disentangling Americans from this world “illness” economy a vital financial empire would appear once again.

Without unjustified healthcare expenditures, expenses would immediately decline.  If current U.S. healthcare were simply brought under rational “evidence based” control there would still be significant savings.

The very opposite is happening.  Facing manpower demands on an overstretched Healthcare System the U.S. is planning to ramp up the size of its forces over the next several years.  This expansion comes with a sure-to-rise price tag and the support of both Presidential candidates.  Just attracting this many “Healthcare” providers will cost a small fortune.  This year hospitals will spend millions on advertising alone to help meet their recruiting goals.  On top of that they pay out millions in bonuses to recruits and this says nothing of how much it costs to train, equip and pay these “Healthcare professionals.

Capping, if not decreasing, the size of healthcare should be the foundation for new policy.  This would, of course, be a major departure for the U.S, Healthcare System, based upon the notion that the solution to disease is simply spending more.

The cost of manning, maintaining, and regularly upgrading healthcare facilities is already a significant financial burden for American taxpayers.  Getting out in today’s depressed market would be the financially prudent thing to do.

If the United States ever acknowledged it wasted trillions of dollars fighting “The War Against Disease”, then we might not be in such dire financial straits today.  And yet, despite the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression the U.S. continues to sink money into a “War Against Disease” with no end in sight.  The result is a sheer waste in every sense of the word.

When Americans want to get serious about a long-term strategy that brings genuine financial and national security, they will look to real cost-cutting options in medicine.   We need to stop squandering America’s resources on “Sickcare” and replace it with “True Healthcare” by having everyone take personal responsibility for their lives and their family’s lives so not to destroy our future.  We need to re-educate the medical profession and the public that prevention is the only viable long-term solution for health.  Only through these interventions will Americans enjoy a better quality and quantity of life!

 Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

PSA for Prostate Screening?

Does it make sense or is it really helpful to have a PSA blood test looking for prostate cancer?

On August 5, 2008 the Annals of Internal Medicine published the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommendations created by medical experts for Screening of Prostate Cancer (see Dr. Tanelian’s Medical News for linkage to recommendations). A list of USPSTF recommendations on cancer screening can be found at www.preventiveservices.ahrq.gov

The experts’ recommendations for men younger than age 75 are that evidence is inadequate to determine whether screening improves health outcomes.

For men age 75 or older, the benefit from treatment of prostate cancer detected by screening is small to none. Therefore, harms outweigh benefits. The harms of screening include the discomfort of prostate biopsy and the psychological harm of false-positive test results.

Another valid question is: Why Are Doctors Generally Screening All Men With PSA Tests on their Physical and General Medical Exams?

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Different nutrients (supplements) for different body parts???

What a bizarre concept – special molecules associated with health in each different organ or organ system. Yes, we are composed of different organs, but are they each composed of or need organ specific molecules? NO. Then why are there 100’s of different organ and/or condition specific supplements? My best guess is because it sounds good and people are gullible enough to buy them.

After all each organ arises from the joining of cells, which were at one time, all identical and at the molecular level remain the same throughout life for the most part. Molecules (vitamins, minerals, polyphenols. Etc.), are neither unique to nor needed more so by one organ or another. The molecules needed in one cell are for the most part necessary in all cells; life and molecules are for the most part not cell or organ specific.

Life as we know it, multicellular life, is a unique and miraculous composition of molecules, cells, organs, and species. Nonetheless, the fundamental building blocks of life, molecules, are common to all life and the molecules required for a healthy cell or a healthy body are generally the same for all people.

Understanding that different organs and different organ diseases are not generally molecule (nutrient) specific is important for our health. Yes, we need to have all the required molecules necessary for life available. However, since nearly all cells require the same molecules to function properly, then you should provide all of your cells with all required molecules. Does this mean a different supplement or molecule for each organ or organ system? NO.

One or two supplements containing all of the necessary molecules are what all of your cells, organs and body need!

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.

Urine pH and Vitamin D

Do you think this is something new? NO, not really. Rather, the sun, synthesis of Vitamin D and alkalinization of our urine are millions if not billions of years old. Man has always recognized that sun exposure was healthy and that cod liver oil was healthy, although he did not specifically know why. As early as 1951 and before, studies identified that a slightly alkaline pH is favorable for bone and health.

Back in 1951 several astute researchers (Steenbock, Bellin and Wiest) from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin recognized in their paper, Vitamin D and Urinary pH, published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry that vitamin D is associated with an elevation of urine pH (about 100-fold decrease in hydrogen ion concentration) and that this would promote bone development and logically prevent bone destruction or osteoporosis

Correspondingly, today we know that an acidic blood pH (acidosis) is associated with impaired vitamin D synthesis and cellular internalization of vitamin D through several published research studies..

Interestingly, MineralConnexin raises urine pH (alkalinizes, decreases hydrogen ion concentration) about 100-fold and improves bone density. Is it possible that osteoporosis and all bone demineralization could have been averted all along and can still be?

Yes, there is hope for remineralization and fossilization of our bone so that future generations can make sense out of finding titanium knee and hip joints in the sand.

Darrell L. Tanelian, M.D., Ph.D.