Statins might not slash the risk of dying from heart disease: study claims the cheap cholesterol-busting pills offer no 'consistent benefit

I’ve studied the research on statins extensively. Being trained in statistics and critical thinking, and having a world-class bullshit meter, I can say unequivocally that statins are one of the biggest frauds in medical history. Actually, that’s putting it kindly: they are actively damaging tens or hundreds of millions of people in just about every area of health, degrading a critical area of physiological function and thus affecting everything in a bad way (except perhaps a mild anti-inflammatory benefit, which is probably the only benefit they have).

All about statins and statin reading list.

UPDATE:

BMJ: Hit or miss: the new cholesterol targets

Emphasis added.

...These population studies suggest that, despite the widespread use of statins, there has been no accom- panying decline in the risk of cardiovascular events or cardiovas- cular mortality. In fact, there is some evidence that statin usage may lead to unhealthy behaviours that may actually increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The evidence presented in this analysis adds to the chorus that challenges our current approach to cardiovascular disease prevention through targeted reductions of LDL-C. Given the lack of clarity on how best to prevent cardiovascular disease, we encourage informed decision-making. Ideally, this includes a discussion of absolute risk reduction and/or number needed to treat at an individual patient level in addition to reviewing the potential benefits and harms of any intervention.

WIND: note the refreshing sanity check of "absolute risk reduction”, versus the unethical (highly misleading) relative risk reduction approach quoted by statin makers and most doctors. While the conclusions are weak sauce, the massive harm that is being done makes any voice that questions the wisdom of poisoning a key biological system very welcome.

Even with this voice of sanity, the limited analysis that is being done is ludicrous because 75% of the story is missing—at a minimum, 75% of statin side effects are never reported—and that has been proven in multiple studies—doctors just do not bother and frequently dismiss complaints. Not to mention the damage that is done is rarely if ever diagnosed properly and attributed to the true root cause—statin usage.

Below, I’m quoting here below from The Daily Mail—not exactly my preferred source—but I’ll find the original studies and read up on the apparent re-awakening to actual scientific analysis.

Daily Mail: Statins may not slash the risk of dying from heart disease: Controversial study claims the cheap cholesterol-busting pills offer no 'consistent benefit'

Scientists analysed 35 studies into the effects of the drugs which lower 'bad' LDL cholesterol and found the pills have no consistent benefit.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found three quarters of all trials reported no reduction in mortality among those who took the drugs.

...

Lead author Dr Robert DuBroff, from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, said that 'it seems intuitive and logical' to target LDL cholesterol because it is considered essential for the development of cardiovascular disease.

But, they added: 'Considering that dozens of trials of LDL-cholesterol reduction have failed to demonstrate a consistent benefit, we should question the validity of this theory.

Commonly reported side effects include headache, muscle pain and nausea, and statins can also increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hepatitis, pancreatitis and vision problems or memory loss.

WIND: what they did NOT study was the myriad and horrible side effects of statins!

Side-effects are under-reported by at least 75%. Zero benefit, myriad problems, some horrible and debilitating life changing problems. Prescribing statins is with rare exception medical malpractice, by any objective standard.

Commonly reported side effects include headache, muscle pain and nausea, and statins can also increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hepatitis, pancreatitis and vision problems or memory loss.

How Long-Term Endurance Exercise Impacts Your Genes: “Cell: Skeletal Muscle Transcriptomic Comparison between Long-Term Trained and Untrained Men and Women”

Wither COVID-19 and magnesium deficiency and their impacts versus exercise or lack thereof?

Cell: Skeletal Muscle Transcriptomic Comparison between Long-Term Trained and Untrained Men and Women

Physical exercise specifically alters skeletal muscle in an exercise-modality-dependent manner. Mitochondrial content, capillary density, and various metabolic substrate transporters are all increased with endurance training. With regards to strength training, muscle hypertrophy is the most prominent change.

Tissue alterations common to both exercise modalities are improved insulin sensitivity, increased muscle glycogen, and a shift in skeletal muscle fiber type composition (Lieber, 2010). These adaptations can largely be attributed to changes in gene activity and post-translational protein modifications in response to repeated exercise bouts (Chapman and Sundberg, 2019).

In addition to these changes in skeletal muscle, regular physical activity has numerous specific health benefits. These include improved well-being, increased quality of life, lengthened lifespan, enhanced cognitive function, and the prevention and treatment of various diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sarcopenia, osteoporosis, and cancer (Neufer et al., 2015, Mijwel et al., 2018).

Although the benefits of physical activity are well documented, the mechanisms behind how physical activity promotes health and prevents disease are less understood. Given this lack of mechanistic knowledge, grant support for research in the area of physical activity has recently been prioritized (Neufer et al., 2015). Understanding the mechanisms of action behind the massively beneficial effects of physical activity can bring us closer to developing therapies for individuals for whom regular physical activity is not possible, such as in patients with cachexia, paralysis, severe joint pain, or in the morbidly obese.

...Although understanding acute adaptation to exercise is interesting and useful, it is important to emphasize that regular exercise performed over decades is what profoundly promotes health and prevents disease. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate skeletal muscle transcriptomics in long-term endurance-trained and long-term strength-trained humans compared with healthy controls to understand how skeletal muscle adapts to lifelong training.

... following short-term (6–12 months) exercise training programs, individuals with impaired metabolism shifted their gene expression to become more transcriptionally similar to our long-term endurance trained groups....

In summary, our data provide an extensive examination of the accumulated transcriptional changes that occur with decades-long endurance and resistance training in humans. Of note, we observed that endurance training in both women and men drastically alters the transcriptome. These transcriptional changes with endurance training exceed the differences found between MCs and FCs as well as in strength-trained versus untrained men. Furthermore, these data provide evidence that skeletal muscle gene expression differences between men and women at baseline decrease following extensive endurance training. Additionally, only a few genes were differentially regulated between strength-trained athletes and controls. Thus, we hypothesize that the accumulated changes associated with resistance training are primarily relegated to protein levels instead of alterations in the resting baseline transcriptome. Finally, a comparative analysis revealed that following endurance-training programs of 6–12 months, individuals with impaired metabolism shifted their gene expression to become more transcriptionally similar to our long-term endurance-trained groups.

WIND: allopathic medicine doctors: what are YOU doing to cajole your patients into improving their lives via exercise? This applies to internists, pulmonologists, allergists, cardiologists and many more fields of medicine. If you are not prioritizing exercise and developing strategies for success for your patients, including followup and support, then you are failing at the core goal of your profession. Yeah it’s damn hard today fo sure, and no I don’t care how much you are paid—it’s on you to take the Hippocratic oath seriously—you know what you signed up for when you chose medicine and a little creativity and effort goes a loooooong way. Do it right, or get the hell out of the profession.

Anyone unwilling to eat properly and get at least some regular exercise hurts all of society. The lack of personal responsibility in this area and so many others dominates society today, undermining and destabilizing the structure of modern life.

Everyone gets what they deserve in life*—couch potatoes get no sympathy from me as it costs me money directly (extra high insurance rates) along with massive negative societal impacts. As for parents with children—it is nothing short of child abuse to fail to insist that a child exercise every day at least half an hour.

* For those who take everything literally, I’m obviously not talking about the uncontrollable factors in life!

SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19 China Virus: Hysterical Policies for COVID-19 are a Massively Destructive Economic Earthquake in context of a blip in death rate

• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Recommendations for Healthy Body and Immune System
• Recommended Books for Health and Wellness
• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Low Vitamin D Puts You at Risk; get it Via Sunlight
• Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin C, Vitamin D
• Do Experts have Functioning Brains in Terms of Minimizing Damage?
• View all SARS CoV2 posts.

You won’t hear this on the “news”*.

San Mateo County, CA: COVID-19 statistics as of July 27, 2020

Here’s a little perspective on the ongoing mass hysteria on the COVID-19 thing. The whole state of California is seeing massive economic destruction which will end up killing far more people than COVID-19, and killing younger people too—the loss of many more years of lifespan.

Is the COVID-19 China virus “just the flu”? Certainly not, but it’s also not the problem it is painted to be. We did not know that in February but we sure know it now—but now it is all about mass hysteria, crushingly destructive policies, outright tyranny and... the right policy is infecting as many low-risk people as quickly as possible—not crushing lives and income for years on end.

All graphs and data mislead for various reasons, but here are some key points:

• As shown below, the deaths from COVID-19 are through July 27, but it’s not over yet and there will be more deaths. Still, the deaths versus the population of 771000 people amount to 0.015%, or 1 in 6533. And 95% of those deaths are those 70 years or older, whose expected lifespan ranges from short to very short. My guess is that most of those people had underlying comorbidities such that their true expected lifespan might be as low as 7 years on average. And how much of the high-risk population was actually infected... no one knows.
• The statistics are grossly misleading without subtracting the baseline death rate for the victims—is that 10% or 50% or what? It’s not zero, and given that the most victims had comorbidities, a significant portion of the alleged CV19 deaths would have occurred from some other cause. In other words, it might be that 30 of those 118 people would have died one way or another without CV19. Unless this baseline is subtracted out, the statistics are little better than government propaganda.
• The alleged cases are bullshit GIGO—the true number is surely vastly higher. Anyone lacking overt symptoms is discouraged from getting tested, and we have no random sampling program in place. Worse, the tests themselves have very high error rates—15% or even 30% false negative rates.

So many statistical questions remain untold by authorities and for those that exist, the data is GIGO junk data.

Then we have the alleged “experts”—doctors. Sorry doctors, most of you have little to no knowledge to be useful outside your narrow specialty and most of you are far less qualified than I am on statistics and data analysis. And when I was infected it was clear that I was far more knowedgeable than my internist doctor. Worse and this is an ongoing debacle for decades now—doctors are for the most part useless for prevention—idiot savants that never address nutritional deficiencies as a means of strengthening public health—medical malpractice to be overly kind.

Recently my daughter came in contact with a co-worker who lives with an infected grandmother. It was a hassle to get a test (discouraged if not symptomatic), and it takes 7-10 days for results. Of what use is testing when the INCOMPETENT F***ING GOVERNMENT cannot tell you within one day what the results are? Afterall, in 7-10 days an infected person coudl have infected dozens or hundreds of people—consider this worker in a store serving beverages.

I have two 80-year-old parents and I don’t want them to die—but I’m not going to submit to the intellectual fraud of the “news” media, the incompetence, lies and ignorance of the allopathic medical establishment, nor the feckless physical tyranny of our idiot politicians.

Going out on a limb, I’ll claim that the impact of economic destruction will be at least 10X worse than COVID-19, in terms of lifespan years lost, and that excludes the massive psychological and financial toll and loss of hopes and dreams for small business owners in particular.

Even today, epidemiologists estimate that (worldwide) 14500 people per day are dying because of programs halted due to COVID-19—not from COVID-19 itself! The idiocy of hysterical government policies is literally killing far more people than COVID-19. We should be seeking maximum infection rates that keep the hospitals viable!

* The social programming networks. Only the rare person actually has an independent opinion, rather it is assigned to them via the social programming networks (“news”).

Source: https://www.smchealth.org/coronavirus-county-data-dashboard

San Mateo County, CA: COVID-19 statistics as of July 27, 2020

SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Low Vitamin D Puts You at Risk; get it Via Sunlight

• SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Recommendations for Healthy Body and Immune System
• Recommended Books for Health and Wellness
• Magnesium, Vitamin K2, Vitamin C, Vitamin D
• View all SARS CoV2 posts.

Correlation is not causation, and yet COVID-19 mortality is strongly associated with Vitamin D deficiency, and it has long been known that Vitamin D deficiency is associated with poor immune system function.

If you supplement with Vitamin D (e.g cholecalciferol), it is essential that you also supplement with magnesium as well as Vitamin K2.

Get your skin in the game!

Get 20 minutes of mid-day SUNLIGHT EVERY DAY on as much skin as possible for maximum Vitamin D production. You want the UV-B rays that are strongest at mid-day for maximum effect. This is how the human body evolved over eons to make Vitamin D. Do not use sunscreen except on sensitive areas like the face and scalp.

Dark skin? You may need much longer exposure because very dark skin can block up to 99% of UV-B rays—so unless you can spend hours with lots of skin in the sun, you’ll need to supplement.

Taking a statin? That's a fast way to a physical and mental health disaster. Among numerous other bodily functions, cholesterol is critical for Vitamin D production in the skin.

Yes, sunlight in moderation without sunscreen is healthy and necessary in spite of the idiotic claims made by the medical establishment which ignore its critical role in health. Whole body health is the ticket, and our genetic makeup doesn’t make Vitamin D via sunlight as some kind of accident!

If you do use sunscreen, stick to zinc oxide, which blocks (reflects away) all types of UV rays. My prediction is that in 10-20 years, it will be shown that most sunscreens contribute to skin cancer by suppressing the UV rays that are needed by the body for Vitamin D production (thus impairing the immune system that kills cancer cells early), and allowing through the UV rays that are associated with skin cancer.

Recommended Books for Health and Wellness

It’s your life at stake! If you just follow your doctor’s advice you’re in for a lifetime of problems! For doctor advice on nutrition , your doctor and/or medical organizations are just about the LAST place to look. See ethics in medicine and particularly.

This list from Your Doctor is NOT Responsible for Your Health—YOU Are! Recommended Reading to Open Your Mind and Ask the Right Questions.

Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox by Dr. Kate Rhéaume-Bleue BSc ND

All about Vitamin K2.

Vitamin K2 might be the single most important vitamin of all, yet it was not until 2007 it as formerly identified.

Critically important read, particularly those supplementing with Vitamin D3. Very thorough look at the role Vitamin K2 (“Activator X”) plays in health, though knowledge of it lay semi hidden for nearly 80 years after its discovery by dentist Dr. Price.

The Magnesium Miracle by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND

All about magnesium.

Critically important read, particularly those supplementing with Vitamin D3 and/or calcium. Vitamin K2 along with magnesium is critical for bone health.

Eye opener, though it strikes me that Dr. Dean is too tightly coupled to her area of study and should consult with Dr. Kate Rhéaume-Bleue BSc ND of Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox, and vice versa, for cross pollination of ideas and rigorous debate of a few points.

Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins, 3rd Edition, by MD JD Thomas E Levy

All about Vitamin C.

Intravenous high-dose vitamin C can CURE polio in just 4 days, and ditto for many other infectious agents. It can also clear many toxins and poisons. Yet the modern medical profession takes a head-in-the-sand view of Vitamin C, letting people suffer and die instead of using it.

Lies My Doctor Told Me Second Edition: Medical Myths That Can Harm Your Health, by Ken D. Berry MD, FAAFP

This book confirms many of my pet theories. A few things I disagree with based on hard data of my own, namely the calories in/out thing for extreme athletes, though I do not dispute it for ordinary exercise. Point is, even if only 75% of the ideas here are correct (and I believe that is a very low estimate), then millions of people are being damaged by doctors.

The Truth about Statins, by Barbara H Roberts, MD

The Truth about Statins is shocking in revealing the intellectual fraud, financial conflicts of interest, shoddy studies, of the $30B statin industry. Statins are in effect a slow-acting poison on every system in the body. The original Ansel Keys cholesterol claims were such an intellectual fraud as to beggar belief. About 70% of side effects are dismissed and never reported by doctors, thus statins are “safe” (ask MD and astronaut Duane Graveline about that!).

All while diet has been proven to be superior to a statin for most people, and with numerous beneficial effects and no negative effects. A fact suppressed and ignored by nearly all of the medical establishment.

The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease - and the Statin-Free Plan That Will, by Jonny Bowden Ph.D, C.N.S and Stephen Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C.

This book is in a similar vein as the above book.

The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr. Malcom Kendrick

Dr. Malcom Kendrick, MD, eviscerates, deracinates, destroys, and demolishes the diet-cholesterol myths and the LDL-heart risk frauds and the statin conspiracy (my term, not his explicitly). By citing directly the studies that purport to prove it. Fascinating work.

MDs—you don’t have to agree with everything or even most of it, but if you can 'walk away' after this blow-by-blow of so many medical lies rejecting them all, then you are harming your patients and have no business being an MD. Take the challenge of this and all the books I list, and run them through your head. Surely a trained MD can detect and discard bad arguments, so what do you have to lose? Problem is—the truth can never be forced out once it impinges, so you are warned. Study up on how to recognize cognitive dissonance in yourself before reading, holding yourself to the highest standards.

The intellectual fraud in the cholesterol and heart disease area and its incestuous amplification within the medical establishment is staggering. You do NOT need to be a doctor to understand the outrageous contradictions, financial conflicts of interest, lies, the ad-hoc instantiation of ad-hoc hypotheses constantly needed to fix the constantly changing cholesterol/heart disease theory, the selective omission of data, the biased choice of cohorts, the shameless dismissal of contrary data, etc.

IMO, if you are an MD and have NOT listened to The Great Cholesterol Con (or its equivalent), you might be intellectually and professionally ignorant and therefore incompetent to render advice on heart health. And thus harming your patients. You should just STOP until you can commit to a few hundred hours of this book and many others. I mean that with a tinge of real anger at the medical establishment (not a comment on any particular doctor), because when you learn what has actually come to pass in intellectual amplification, rationalization and sometimes outright intellectual fraud, you yourself should be very angry at how you were hoaxed and duped. If you are an older MD, how much of what you learned in medical school has been debunked or at least had doubt cast upon it?

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Die, by Nina Teicholz

This book should be required baseline reading for all DOCTORS at the least*, as it goes through 60 years of nutrition science (so much of it now debunked), based on eight years of reviewing the medical literature, and hundreds of interviews of leading experts, systematically addressing the sordid (my word for it) history of nutrition “science”. It is very thorough and objectively done, so consider it to be a baseline reference to be read FIRST before other lighter fare on nutrition.

My take-away is simple: most of what has passed for “healthy eating” is based on pseudo-science, outright debunked myths that persist even among doctors, financial conflicts of interest (doctors and food companies), and most of all: government recommendations that have a purely political/financial basis stemming from a “scientific” basis that any honest scientist would reject out of hand.

* Most doctors have nil training in nutrition, which is surely a good thing given the godawful state of nutrition science. And yet IMO food is by orders of magnitude more important than all medical drugs put together, in terms of public health in general, which is a train-wreck disaster here in 2020: soaring rates of obesity, diabetes and many other health problems which we can now treat much better, but whose underlying causes are surely diet in large measure.

Eat the Yolks, by Liz Wolfe

I do NOT recommend this book until AFTER you have read The Big Fat Surprise..., above. That’s because this book is more of a lifestyle book, whereas the The Big Fat Surprise is a blow-by-blow work that is needed to evaluate the suggestions in this book. That said, if you want a quick introduction that is an easy listen, this book is for you.

Eat Fat, Get Thin, by Mark Hyman

As with Eat the Yolks, my recommendation is the same: read The Big Fat Surprise first.

Other

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, by Daniel H. Pink

How to make your effectiveness better, just by when you do things.

Bone Health with Vitamin K2: Delicious Grass-Fed Ghee

Your Doctor is NOT Responsible for Your Health—YOU Are! Recommended Reading to Open Your Mind and Ask the Right Questions

Vitamin K2 is essential for bone health by carboxylating proteins that allow calcium into bones. No K2 means bone healt doesn’t happen. Yet most people get way too little vitamin K2, letting calcium float around and slowly deposite itself in all the wrong places. Vitamin K2 is thus also essential for preventing problems that result from excessive calcium in the diet. Think atherosclerosis. And magnesiumis also essential along with Vitamin K2.

READ: Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients

Getting Vitamin K2 can be tough in a world of factory foods and industrial meat—stay away from all such foods if you can; if a food has more than a few ingredients, it is probably a bad idea—eat unprocessd whole foods whenever possible.

Vitamin K2 sources

Do not assume that other brands or variants are equally good as those listed here.

Supplement choice: emu oil and Vitamin K2 supplements. I advise supplementing when food sources become problematic (e.g., in winter in particular) and/or just to hit it from all sides along with food.

Food choices, all excellent

In general, yellow animal fat indicates Vitamin K2 and beta carotene (both) and this has a distinct pleasant natural taste very different from factory meat/butter.

Tip: fry eggs or meat in grass-fed ghee or duck fat.

• EPIC Duck Fat — top choice from food source without having to buy expensive grass-fed meat.
• Grass-fed beef — real grass fed beef —beware of beef fed anything but fresh green growing grass, and avoid claimed grass-fed beef finished on corn.
• Eggs from pasture-raised chickens. Yolks should be intensely orange and shells should be very strong —if not, the egg is nutritionally deficient.
• Natto, if you like slimy stinky stuff.
• Grass-fed ghee. Should be yellow and made ONLY when the cows are eating fresh green growing grass. Excellent high-grade choices are Grass-Fed Ghee by 4th & Heart and Bulletproof Grass-Fed Ghee.

   

Bulletproof Grass-Fed Ghee, 4th & Heart Grass-Fed Ghee

UPDATE on Mercedes Sprinter Issues and Breakdowns: Sprinter Will Not Move, RPMs Drop Very Low

See details in: Mercedes Sprinter Issues and Breakdowns: Sprinter Will Not Go, RPMs Drop Very Low (Normal idle, put into D or R, RPMs drop, Engine Lugs

Charles H writes in July 2020:

Just wanted to let you know I am dealing with what looks to be the same situation now. In my case, I have a 2018 170 ext 4x4 that has ~6200 miles on it.

Recently encountered this same problem when starting the van after it has been sitting multiple hours, either overnight, or all day (engine is cold). The van will start immediately, as before. However, if I put the van in gear (either D or R) and press the accelerator, the engine RPMs do not change (or drop slightly), and the van either doesn't move, or moves very slowly. There are no indicators or warning lights. Once it warms up, anywhere from 3-5 minutes, it drives normally, and if turned off, will restart and drive without issue. This behavior has only happened when we are above 8000 feet (in the Eastern Sierras).

The air temperature has been between 58-80°F for the times this has occurred. The first time this happened was about a month ago, since then it has been occurring with a greater frequency.

I took it to the dealership in San Diego where we purchased it. They said there were no codes and that if it happened again I should leave the van with them for a week or so.

I'm not sure if this behavior is altitude related; if it is they probably won't ever find the problem in San Diego. They were also suggesting a service A, at a cost of $794, which seems high to me. I'm not sure if there is a software update that needs to be installed or not, but I haven't had any software updates installed yet, so this occurred in a "stock" vehicle.  It also hasn't occurred when at sea level and below 40 F.  Tom S suggested to start with looking at the EGR, and indicated that sometimes either at altitude or in cold weather the EGR will stick open until the engine warms up, at which time it will begin to work.  So, I'm going to be looking into that.

WIND: as of July 2020, I am pretty sure that altitude is a factor, since I experienced the same stall multiple times in May 2020 at an altitude of ~8000 feet and temperatures in the 50° to 60°F range. However, cold temperatures may exacerbate it. I had a transmission part replaced in March 2020, the stall is still there, and the dealer has nothing further to say about—they have given up. God help us getting this damned bug fixed by Mercedes—it may be mechanical, but I suspect a software bug.

Mercedes “Service A” is a major ripoff: it’s an oil change overpriced by 4X. I have my Sprinter oil changed at Jiffy Lube for a grand total of about $160 including a $20 Mercedes oil filter and $90 of super premium oil (far superior to the Mobil 1 garbage oil that Mercedes dealers use). Compare that to the $794 cost above.

COVID-19: Emergence of the Aggressive Social Conformity Agressors

See SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People.

Readers know that I have been a vocal proponent of (effective) face masks and called for them early and loudly. Indeed I urged readers to buy masks while they could be had way back in January, seeing COVID-19 for what it was well before the clueless experts caught on.

We know now objectively that while COVID-19 can be a killer, it is not much more than a blip versus the overall death rate* and the overreaction is killing people, probably far more than COVID-19 will ever kill.

But masks are not for everyone. And at this point, except for the good ideas of high-risk people protecting themselves with properly fitted N95/N100 masks and certain facilities and similar measures, I deem masks dubious at best—hugely leaky, worn wrong and largely now counter-productive. The right thing is to aim for for high rates infection of low-risk people ASAP and to make sure those who want or need to protect themselves have a supply of N95/N100 masks.

* Graph the latest alleged COVID-19 deaths versus the baseline death rate, and see for yourself.

Gary J writes:

Masks are not innocuous.  I am a septuagenarian with diminished lung capacity.

N100 mask gave me headaches and breathlessness.  Had to wear mask (surgical) at banker meeting for half an hour.  Afterwards barely made it to car before passing out. Woke up to find I had left car door.

Also I have a congenital anomaly that results in aspirating certain food particles.

Moist environment caused by mask aggravates the effects of that condition.

Yet I have people yelling at me for not wearing a mask.  (At Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California they had employees driving golf carts around using megaphones telling people to keep masks on even when isolated.)

WIND: surgical masks are a BAD JOKE in terms of protecting an elderly person from infection. But masks as commonly used today are about protecting others from an infected person.

Gary J should see if he can find a 3M valved N95 or N100 mask (the valve blocks inhalation but allows exhalation). These should allow plenty of airflow versus unvalved masks. But even a valved mask can cause issues from some people with impaired lung function.

We have gone far beyond the point of social acceptance of masks to mass conformity, which brings with it all the ugly behaviors of self-righteous enforcers. Permission not needed to harrass and even attack the non-conformers.

Social conformity has long been an organizing principle of human society. It is useful, but also vicious. We are now seeing the vicious side emerge. You may justifiably consider yourself a patriot for wearing a mask to protect others, but the second you start harassing others in outdoor spaces, you have crossed the line to being an asshole or worse.

Do I wear a mask? Sure, out of respect to others (if only to allay their fears), and in a more practical sense: to avoid assholes harassing me. But since I am all but certain I already had and got over COVID-19, I consider it a useless nuisance for me—it’s all about social conformity now.

Up to 300 Million People May Be Infected by COVID-19, Stanford Guru John Ioannidis Says + Feckless Leaders Killing People

See SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People.

The economic and personal carnage from COVID-19 continues. No, not from the virus.

Dr. Ioannidis: Globally, the lockdown measures have increased the number of people at risk of starvation to 1.1 billion, and they are putting at risk millions of lives, with the potential resurgence of tuberculosis, childhood diseases like measles where vaccination programs are disrupted, and malaria.

At 1000 times less than the impact of the 1918 flu (see interview), COVID-19 is now a world-wide tragedy because of feckless “leaders”. These politicians are indirectly killing and damaging people by the tens of millions (a gross underestimate). They are unwilling or unable to use any rational form of risk assessment. And that includes most “experts”—nothing more than fools sporting fancy degrees but lacking all wisdom and perspective of the real world.

Protect the high-risk population with special measures, but let everyone else get on with life. Because people are literally dying and many more will die from the bad policies in place.

But not all experts are fools—see the excerpts below.

The “leadership” is needlessly destroying lives and indirectly killing people, all for something that is now known to be little more than a blip versus overall death rates (check out the California baseline death rate vs COVID as just one example).

It is no accident that the social programming* “reporting” on the infection rate is a daily mainstay while the death rate is all but ignored. And not a peep is heard of the only meaningful metric for managing this crisis: the excess death rate — deaths vs expected baseline deaths had COVID-19 not occurred.

Worse, the “death rate” does not take into account lifespan years. The vast majority of COVID-19 deaths are of those having comorbidities—in other words, they might have died at the drop of a hat from just about anything just about any time. Sad no matter what, but most such victims had little life left and of poor quality (pain and suffering, dementia, etc).

If an 81 year-old requiring special care has a life expectancy of a few (low quality) life-years at best, why are we crushing the lives of tens of millions of low-risk people and literally killing younger people from other causes, people who lose 20/30/40 lifespan years? From a public health policy perspective, this is not just bad risk management, it is cruel and vicious.

* The propaganda produced by the “media”, which was once known as “news”.

Up to 300 Million People May Be Infected by Covid-19, Stanford Guru John Ioannidis Says

Emphasis added.

Leading epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University estimates that about 150-300 million or more people have already been infected by COVID-19 around the world, far more than the 10 million documented cases.

In an interview with Greek Reporter, the Greek American scientist warns, however, that the draconian lockdowns imposed in many countries may have the opposite effect of what was intended. “Globally, the lockdown measures have increased the number of people at risk of starvation to 1.1 billion, and they are putting at risk millions of lives,” he says.

It was just three months ago, soon after the onset of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, when Dr. Ioannidis wrote an article for the journal STAT excoriating the US and other countries for not conducting enough testing, and deploring how little real evidence there was of true infection rates, which he feared might soar and create widespread societal unrest.

Dr. Ioannidis:  ...a very crude estimate might suggest that about 150-300 million or more people have already been infected around the world, far more than the 10 million documented cases. It could even be substantially larger, if antibodies do not develop in a large share of people who get through the infection without symptoms or sparse symptoms.

Dr. Ioannidis: 0.05% to 1% is a reasonable range for what the data tell us now for the infection fatality rate, with a median of about 0.25%. The death rate in a given country depends a lot on the age-structure, who are the people infected, and how they are managed. For people younger than 45, the infection fatality rate is almost 0%. For 45 to 70, it is probably about 0.05-0.3%. For those above 70, it escalates substantially, to 1% or higher for those over 85. For frail, debilitated elderly people with multiple health problems who are infected in nursing homes, it can go up to 25% during major outbreaks in these facilities.

Dr. Ioannidis:  ...COVID-19 has become a notifiable disease so it is readily recorded in death certificates. What we do know, however, is that the vast majority of people who die with a COVID-19 label have at least one and typically many other comorbidities. This means that often they have other reasons that would lead them to death. The relative contribution of COVID-19 needs very careful audit and evaluation of medical records.

Dr. Ioannidis: ...In terms of numbers of lives lost, so far the COVID-19 impact is about 1% of the 1918 influenza. In terms of quality-adjusted person-years lost, the impact of COVID-19 is about 0.1% of 1918 influenza, since the 1918 influenza killed mostly young healthy people (average age 28), while the average age of death with COVID-19 is 80 years, with several comorbidities.

Dr. Ioannidis: The predictions of most mathematical models in terms of how many beds and how many ICU beds would be required were astronomically wrong. Indeed, the health system was not overrun in any location in the USA, although several hospitals were stressed. Conversely, the health care system was severely damaged in many places because of the measures taken.

Dr. Ioannidis: ...“Major consequences on the economy, society and mental health” have already occurred. I hope they are reversible, and this depends to a large extent on whether we can avoid prolonging the draconian lockdowns and manage to deal with COVID-19 in a smart, precision-risk targeted approach, rather than blindly shutting down everything... Globally, the lockdown measures have increased the number of people at risk of starvation to 1.1 billion, and they are putting at risk millions of lives, with the potential resurgence of tuberculosis, childhood diseases like measles where vaccination programs are disrupted, and malaria. I hope that policymakers look at the big picture of all the potential problems and not only on the very important, but relatively thin slice of evidence that is COVID-19.

WIND: there you have it, a voice of sanity. Glad to see that at least one expert has something adult to say.

Will our leaders listen? Nope.

Since our leaders will not listen and persist in killer policies, the public is wholly justified in revolting against restrictions that damage lives and livelihoods for years or decades to come based on false premises and GIGO data and feckless risk management.

Oh, and that’s setting aside the deaths caused by infantile COVID-19 policies, which will at this point will surely dwarf deaths from COVID-10 itself. Killer politicians are in control.

Where does the Constitution allow for constitutional rights to be blasted away by fiat, for a pandemic or other reason? These leaders are wiping their asses using the Constitution as toilet paper. Calling COVID-19 a “war” does not cut it. Shame on the feckless Supreme Court—a politicized and polarized group of out of touch losers unable and unwilling to protect the most basic rights this country was founded on.

PubMed: Short-term Magnesium Deficiency Downregulates Telomerase, Upregulates Neutral Sphingomyelinase and Induces Oxidative DNA Damage in Cardiovascular Tissues: Relevance to Atherogenesis, Cardiovascular Diseases and Aging

See prior posts on magnesium and magnesium deficiency.

Short-term Magnesium Deficiency Downregulates Telomerase, Upregulates Neutral Sphingomyelinase and Induces Oxidative DNA Damage in Cardiovascular Tissues: Relevance to Atherogenesis, Cardiovascular Diseases and Aging

Summary below from Dr. Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.

Aging and Magnesium Deficiency

It’s common knowledge that over the age of sixty-five, many people show metabolic decline, with the appearance of atherosclerosis, hypertension, cardio vascular diseases, and type 2 diabetes, culminating in congestive heart failure. All of the attributes of aging have been associated clinically and experimentally with magnesium deficiency. The authors make the following very important observation: “The aging process is also associated with an increase in the levels of proinflammatory cytokines in tissues and cells all present in Mg-deficient animals, tissues, and different cell types.”

Oxidative Stress, Telomerase, and the Heart Certain markers of oxidative stress appear in cardiovascular tissues and DNA with an accompanying decrease in ionized magnesium levels. This indicates that magnesium deficiency could lead to multiple mutations in the genomes of multiple cell lines. The Alturas’ study shows that magnesium deficiency shaves off the ends of telomeres, which can be equated with aging and cardiovascular changes including hypertension, decreased ejection fraction, and cardiac failure.

Magnesium Deficiency and Endothelial Damage Studies by the Alturas in the late 1980s demonstrated changes in the endothelial lining of blood vessels due to magnesium deficiency. The Alturas say that magnesium’s importance in controlling microcirculation and in lipid buildup in the arterial walls is still being overlooked by the next generation of researchers.

[WIND: more like willfully ignored by sticking to dogmatic mainstream echo-chamber status-based “thinking”, a de-facto proof of systemic ethical misconduct in the research field, see recommended books].

Magnesium Deficiency  and  Chronic  Stress Recent studies confirm that short-term magnesium deficiency causes marked reduction in heart cellular glutathione and in cells activating nitric oxide synthases that protect DNA. These findings support the theory that magnesium deficiency can cause mutations in many types of cells.

Magnesium Deficiency and Heart Failure All studies to date have confirmed, experimentally and clinically, that congestive heart failure is an inevitability by age seventy-five to eighty-five for people in magnesium-deficient states.

Magnesium and Cell Signaling for the Heart In the mid-1990s, the Alturas theorized that magnesium ions function as extracellular signals in the pathobiology of cardiovascular disease. A total of forty-two studies now support that theory. Magnesium has a critical role in the regulation of cardiac hemodynamics; vascular tone and reactivity; endothelial functions; carbohydrate, nucleotide, and lipid metabolism; prevention of free radical formation; and stabilization of the genome. Another seventeen studies find that magnesium has a crucial role in control of calcium uptake, subcellular content, and subcellular distribution in smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, and cardiac muscle cells.

Magnesium Deficiency  and  Genotoxicity Summing up the role of magnesium in our genes, the Alturas point out that magnesium deficiency can induce cell cycle arrest (and senescence), can initiate programmed cell death, and is associated with DNA damage (genotoxic events). These magnesium- deficiency-related changes can occur in multiple cell types, including cardiac and vascular smooth muscle cells. Of note is that atherosclerotic plaque in the arterial walls of hypertensive patients shows considerable DNA damage, activation of DNA repair pathways, increased expression of p53 (a tumor suppressor protein), oxidation, apoptosis, and increased levels of ceramide (a waxy lipid).

In addition to the important role of therapeutic amounts of magnesium daily, diet, exercise and the quality of your mind space play roles in longevity and wellness.  Tonight on my radio show we’ll disc

WIND: the allopathic medical establishment is wholly incompetent at preventing disease or improving health, remains willfully clueless on magnesium deficiency and nutrition in all forms, and remains committed to the hippocratic-oath-breaking mentality of one symptom / one diagnosis / one drug practices.

* Indeed the mainstream medical profession has in effect been about inducing disease and damaging health for decades now, by virtue of terrible advice on diet and heart health, along with total ignorance of nutrition and disdain for preventing illness in the first place by rigorous study. Instead the industry has become all about expensive drugs to treat preventable conditions. The medical establishment is utterly corrupt intellectually and ethically and financially. Talk to any honest MD and you’ll hear very disturbing things about how medicine is now practiced.

Response from my Doctor on COVID-19 Antibody Test

See SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People.

Back in April, I suffered through 2.5 weeks of issues that corespond to the onset, duration and symptoms of COVID-19. I have long since recovered, with no ill effects that I am aware of.

A few days ago, I wrote a note to my internist doctor asking for the COVID-19 IgG antibody test. I just wanted to confirm that what I had was indeed COVID-19. I thought that the IgG test had a ~100% test specificity, but now I don’t know what to think on test accuracy.

Doctor response to my inquiry

Name and facility obfuscated. Emphasis added.

Sure, I can order the antibody blood testing though if you want me to order that.

Here's some additional information about the antibody test though which I recommend you read. https://www.idsociety.org/globalassets/idsa/public-health/covid-19/idsa-covid-19-antibody-testing-primer.pdf . This test isn't for everyone and there are limitations to what it tells us.

The antibody test is not a perfect test there can be fairly high amounts of false results. Many infectious disease specialists aren't recommending these be done routinely.  In theory the antibody test would be helpful to tell us if you really had the infection and were immune, however it isn't guaranteed to be the case if people test positive.  For our own ******* health lab I have heard the sensitivity and specificity are not so good and we get a more false positive results.  Any positive results also will be reported to the public health department might need further followup testing and/or isolation.

Stanford has a better antibody test that apparently has better sensitivity and specificity than the one available at Quest but I don't have the actual numbers on that. We can still draw your blood for the test at our labs and have it sent over to Stanford to be analyzed.  I don't know the cost for these tests at this time either but have heard it might be about $70 or it might be covered completely by insurance.

If you still want this test, I would recommend the Stanford antibody test to be drawn by our lab for you and then I can place the order for you.  

Also, you have to be free of symptoms and exposures and you have to answer questions within two days before you come to our lab. We are required to ask you the following questions.

1. In the last 7 days, have you experienced any of the following New or Worsening symptoms: cough, breathing problems, fever, chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache, vomiting, diarrhea or loss of taste or smell?
2. In the last 14 days, have you had close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19?
3. Do you currently live in a Skilled Nursing or Long Term Care Facility?
4. Do you currently live in an Assisted Living Facility or a Shelter?

 If any of these symptoms change within the next day or so please give us a call so that we can further discuss the next steps.

WIND: As I have no interest in having the county health department order me into self-quarantine for two weeks, I do not intend to get a test at this time.

Speaking to my prior post, it’s clear that this doctor lacks confidence in the test accuracy at the facility he is employed in. That facility is using an inferior test according to this doctor! What does that tell you about all the GIGO data used to formulate public policy?

Experts and the Media are Engaged in COVID-19 Propaganda Based on Error-Prone Tests (test sensitivity and test specificity)

See SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People.

With COVID-19, science is more of a slogan than anything approaching reality. Our “experts” continue to equate positive infection test results from highly suspect tests with actual infections.

COVID-19 tests in use have error rates that makes the results highly suspect, particularly when applied to largely uninfected populations. And there is no significant randomized selection for testing—as anti-scientific as it gets.

The tests cannot even be considered as valid science, since few have been validated under myriad varying collection conditions (e.g. the nasal swab tests).

COVID-19 deaths in California are barely a blip, yet the economic destruction proceeds apace, with Palo Alto (for example) a ghost town compared to its usual beehive activity.

False positive and false negative

Suppose that 1000 uninfected people are tested. If the test specificity is 97%, then 30 people will test as infected (false positive)!

Next, test 1000 infected people. If the test sensitivity is 97%, then 30 people will test as not infected (false negative), and they will go on to infect others.

Just try getting authoritative (non marketing, independent peer-validated research) on the real false positive and false negative rates. The news is propaganda, press releases are not credible. Yet lives and businesses are being destroyed by the heavy hand of government using this anti-science GIGO “data”.

With COVID-19, the accuracy of testing depends on which test is used, the type of specimen tested, how it was collected and the duration of illness. Combine that with false positives and false negatives and count me out on giving the data credibility.

Understanding medical tests: sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value

Sensitivity measures how often a test correctly generates a positive result for people who have the condition that’s being tested for (also known as the “true positive” rate). A test that’s highly sensitive will flag almost everyone who has the disease and not generate many false-negative results. (Example: a test with 90% sensitivity will correctly return a positive result for 90% of people who have the disease, but will return a negative result — a false-negative — for 10% of the people who have the disease and should have tested positive.)

Specificity measures a test’s ability to correctly generate a negative result for people who don’t have the condition that’s being tested for (also known as the “true negative” rate). A high-specificity test will correctly rule out almost everyone who doesn’t have the disease and won’t generate many false-positive results. (Example: a test with 90% specificity will correctly return a negative result for 90% of people who don’t have the disease, but will return a positive result — a false-positive — for 10% of the people who don’t have the disease and should have tested negative.)

COVID-19: Public Policy Uses the Infection Rate, but ignores the Key Metric —  do Experts have Functioning Brains in Terms of Minimizing Damage?

See SARS CoV2 aka COVID-19: Time to Steepen the Curve and Accelerate Infection of Low-Risk People.

With more testing and more people mingling and getting infected, the news media is all agog about the rising number of infections. Which is a highly misleading thing unless referenced against the testing rate—which uses unreliable tests and self-selection sampling. The data remains GIGO and does not pass muster as defensible science.

Still, it seems clear that there are a lot more infections. And that is a Good Thing: unless we want to drag out the misery for years and put high-risk people at continuous risk for a long time, the right thing to do is to infect as many low-risk people as fast as possible, while protecting high-risk people and ensuring that treatment capacity remains well within sustainable limits. Try finding that thought process in the mainstream news media or from any experts.

Given that COVID-19 is not going away and must run its course, the only metric that matters is whether medical facilities can handle the influx of those needing COVID-19 care. How many people are infected is a counterproductive proxy for the core issue of reaching herd immunity while minimizing damage.

It is unethical to in effect kill people by delay in medical treatment for numerous other medical reasons (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, deaths resulting from economic stress, etc) But that is exactly what public policy continues to do. The failure of our experts to take on the responsibility of fixing the broken narrative has several explanations, none of which should give anyone confidence in 'experts'.

In the end, deaths from COVID-19 might pale in comparison from needless deaths from other causes because no experts are calling for a proper risk management approach. And many of the CV19 deaths are in high-risk people with short expected lifespans who might have died within a few years in any case. I have two parents about 80 years old and I don’t want to lose them to COVID-19, but as public policy goes we should be talking about loss of lifespan of the population, not about absolute numbers of deaths.

Meanwhile, allopathic medical doctors fail to make any connection between baseline health and nutrition and nutrient deficiency, particularly Vitamin D, Vitamin C, magnesium. And thus those who should be preventing severe cases of COVID-19 sit around doing nothing to increase the baseline health of the population, let alone look into relatively cheap treatments like intravenous Vitamin C, proven to kill even nasty viruses like poliomyelitis.

Is it too cynical to suggest that attention to last-gasp $3000 drug treatments for severely-ill COVID-19 patients are displacing inexpensive nutritional support that could be applied to an entire population to save tens of thousands of lives, if not more? This is the same broken record of statins versus magnesium deficiency—the morally and financially corrupt medical establishment avoiding prevention like the plague in favor of dubious treatments for life-threatening conditions—see for example Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis. It’s not much different than buying a new car and never changing the oil, then continuously fixing all the broken parts.

Science Daily: “Declining Eyesight Improved by Looking at Deep Red Light” — Retinal Mitochondrial Health

Among other improvements from magnesium supplementation and especially lung function, recent magnesium supplementation gives me the distinct impression that my dim-light eyesight has improved, though I have no hard data to back up that claim.

Some caution is advised, as this is a very small study (cohort of 12 male and 12 female subjects).

Science Daily: Declining Eyesight Improved by Looking at Deep Red Light

Staring at a deep red light for three minutes a day can significantly improve declining eyesight, finds a new UCL-led study, the first of its kind in humans.

Scientists believe the discovery, published in the Journals of Gerontology, could signal the dawn of new affordable home-based eye therapies, helping the millions of people globally with naturally declining vision.

...

In humans around 40 years-old, cells in the eye's retina begin to age, and the pace of this ageing is caused, in part, when the cell's mitochondria, whose role is to produce energy (known as ATP) and boost cell function, also start to decline.

Mitochondrial density is greatest in the retina's photoreceptor cells, which have high energy demands. As a result, the retina ages faster than other organs, with a 70% ATP reduction over life, causing a significant decline in photoreceptor function as they lack the energy to perform their normal role.

Researchers built on their previous findings in mice, bumblebees and fruit flies, which all found significant improvements in the function of the retina's photoreceptors when their eyes were exposed to 670 nanometre (long wavelength) deep red light.

"Mitochondria have specific light absorbance characteristics influencing their performance: longer wavelengths spanning 650 to 1000nm are absorbed and improve mitochondrial performance to increase energy production," said Professor Jeffery.

... Professor Jeffery said: "Our study shows that it is possible to significantly improve vision that has declined in aged individuals using simple brief exposures to light wavelengths that recharge the energy system that has declined in the retina cells, rather like re-charging a battery.

"The technology is simple and very safe, using a deep red light of a specific wavelength, that is absorbed by mitochondria in the retina that supply energy for cellular function.

WIND: will this finding be noted among allopathic medical doctors given that it is prevention and not a treatment requiring an expensive drug treatment? It it holds up to scrutiny, could this effect improve other aspects of eye health?

Wavelength of 670nm is very deep red, close to the faux-infrared cutoff wavelength I have long favored for infrared photography of around 720nm. At least half the energy of sunlight is very deep red and infrared, a fact that a camera modified for IR will tell you just based on exposure time. So I wonder what simply going outdoors in bright sun achieves?

Protecting eyes from both UV and IR with sunglasses always seemed like the smart move, but now it seems that some infrared exposure might be a good thing: does getting out into the sun without sunglasses for a short period where there is a lot of reflected light (say a beach or snow) perhaps yield a dose of infrared that is beneficial for your eyes?

See also Death Valley Eureka Dunes in Infrared.

Eureaka Dunes in infrared

f9 @ 1/200 sec, ISO 200; 2007-02-24 13:35:54
Canon EOS 5D + Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS @ 24mm

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Summitting White Mountain Peak on Mountain Bike — Minimal Snow

The magnesium supplementation I’ve been doing has my lungs working as good as they have in a decade.

Which helped a lot with my 12-pounds-too-heavy body and out-of-shape legs as I worked higher and higher towards the 14252' summit of White Mountain Peak.

The road to the summit is largely free of snow requiring only short hike-a-bike diversions. Within a week the entire route should be ridable. My Moots Mooto X YBB performed flawlessly as usual—eight years and going strong.

View past Marmot Meadow to White Mountain Peak

f1.8 @ 1/2500 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 14:36:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 12825 ft / 3909 m

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High point before descending to saddle prior to final summit pitch

f1.8 @ 1/2900 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 14:53:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 13127 ft / 4001 m

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Snow cups at 13600', view to summit hut

f1.8 @ 1/12000 sec panorama, ISO 25; 2020-06-19 15:43:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 13626 ft / 4153 m

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Lingering snow not far below summit hut

f1.8 @ 1/8000 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:15:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 14067 ft / 4288 m

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f1.8 @ 1/4600 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:10:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m

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f1.8 @ 1/2000 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:25:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8
ENV: White Mountain Peak, altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m, 50°F / 10°C

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View southeast from White Mountain Peak

f1.8 @ 1/4600 sec panorama, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:16:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m

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View south from White Mountain Peak

f1.8 @ 1/2300 sec panorama, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:42:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m

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View southeast to southwest from White Mountain Peak

f2.8 @ 1/1050 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:42:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8 ENV: altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m

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Selfie with Moots MootoX YBB on White Mountain Peak

f1.8 @ 1/2700 sec, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:34:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8
ENV: White Mountain Peak, altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m, 50°F / 10°C

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Panorama to south from White Mountain Peak

f1.8 @ 1/4400 sec panorama 9 frames cylindrical, ISO 20; 2020-06-19 16:36:09
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0 mm f/2.8 @ 28mm equiv (4mm)
ENV: White Mountain Peak, altitude 14252 ft / 4344 m, 50°F / 10°C

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Tired and done

f1.8 @ 1/1000 sec, ISO 32; 2020-06-19 18:56:00
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus 4.0mm f/1.8
ENV: White Mountain Road, altitude 11876 ft / 3620 m, 50°F / 10°C

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Don’t Treat Asthma, CURE It! Magnesium Supplementation has Banished My Small Airway Pulmonary Issues; ZERO need for prescription inhaler for 3 weeks running

See also: Magnesium Personal Findings: Brain, Lungs and Asthma, Sleep, Urinary Flow, Muscle Spasms

Update July 2020: back at sea level for a week (where effects of altitude acclimatization are mostly gone), it feels like I hardly have to breathe even riding at a steady 210 watts (my bicycling power meter makes effort level rigorously objective). My heart rate is very low relative the power output. Clearly I am getting notably more efficient oxygen intake—the physiological evidence is compelling—I have tracked my performance for decades including recording power and heart rate for a decade, and what I am seeing is remarkable.

The ReMag magnesium I’ve been taking has my small airways working as good as they have in a decade. That and my total lack of need for any prescription inhaler is unprecedented in 30 years. And it’s especially remarkable given dust and pollen in recent weeks.

Best choice for magnesium supplementation

Yesterday, I rode to the summit of White Mountain Peak (14252' elevation) and my lung function was strikingly good. My muscle strength and anaerobic threshold not so much, but those are training issues—none done this year in those areas. However, the spectacular lung function significantly overcame the anaerobic threshold limitations.

Also I was able to breath through my nose (mouth closed) up to about 12800' on moderate grades and even right up to the summit so long as the grade was slight. That too is unprecedented; it means that my lungs are operating at high efficiency. And I have narrow nasal passages / sinuses that have not provided good airflow for years.

Finally, I also found that with only 36 hours acclimatization that I could hold my breath for 100 seconds at 11600' elevation, another indicator of outstanding lung function.

Finally finally: I am no longer sleeping and waking up with a woolly dry tongue; I am able to sleep and breathe through my nose instead of lapsing into open-mouth breathing, a known damager of overall health.

Curing instead of treating your asthma

I’m not saying that sensitive lungs will never be sensitive or that lungs won’t react to heavy pollen loads and such. But between getting magnesium levels up to snuff and perhaps using CBD as well, it might be that the need for prescription inhaler treatment will largely vaporize.

If you’re asthmatic and are assuming you must remain on a prescription inhaler forever, think again. Your condition will surely be improved if not cured by appropriate magnesium supplementation. Moreover, many prescription inhalers like albuterol have serious and dangerous rebound effects as well as losing effectiveness quickly. Dangerous stuff if you can avoid it.

Relying on expensive and risky prescription drugs foisted on patients by most allopathic medical doctors (near-zero training or knowledge of nutrition!), think this situation over and work with your doctor on moving away from prescription inhaler. Be warned however that 99% of MDs are grossly ignorant of nutrition and of magnesium and many if not most will be highly resistant to the idea and might scoff or even dismiss your inquiring mind out their own insecurity and ignorance (and/or harried schedule). And don’t get suckered into the highly unreliable serum magnesium test—see Testing for Magnesium Deficiency.

A chance meeting of an RN who works with dangerous asthmatic conditions

On the way up to the summit of White Mountain Peak, I ran into a fellow adventurer and we chatted for 10 minutes or so. I remarked on how well my lungs were working since I started magnesium supplementation. He (Chris) turned out to be an RN who tells me that they routinely use intravenous magnesium sulfate to treat severe asthma and can watch the lungs open up and relax in short order. It is highly effective and a go-to treatment.

What does that tell you about MDs who keep giving you prescription inhalers while never even discussing treating or curing asthma by fixing a nutritional deficiency? You have nothing to lose by fixing magnesium deficiency and a great deal to gain. If your MD won’t 'deal', seek out another.

Testing for Magnesium Deficiency: the Magnesium RBC Test

Testing for magnesium deficiency is perhaps a waste of money since it is just smarter and easier to go directly to magnesium supplementation, given that the modern diet is highly deficient in magnesium, and the body quickly excretes any excess.zz

However, a test might be of interest and of some value in justifying magnesium supplementation to a wary physician who knows nothing about it.

If a magnesium test turns up a deficiency, other nutrient deficiency issues might be present as well, so think in terms of total nutrition since fixing one deficiency may leave others unaddressed. Optimal health requires full nutrition; no single nutrient can do that—see Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients.

Things you should know about testing for magnesium deficiency

You get get a magnesium RBC test at RequestATest.com.

• The best available test is the magnesium RBC test. It is not as good as the ionized magnesium test, but it correlates strongly and the ionized magnesium is generally only available in research labs.
• The serum magnesium test is highly misleading and unreliable. It an show high serum levels even with extreme tissue deficiency. You should either politely educate this doctor or find a different doctor, because s/he is working out of gross ignorance.

Things you should know about medical doctors and the medical establishment

• Very few doctors have significant training in nutrition. Medical schools just don’t bother.
• Few doctors are even aware of magnesium deficiency. Or the massive public health crisis that magnesium deficiency causes just in the realm of cardiovascular health, and that is the tip of the iceberg.
• Sadly, in my own experience, many doctors have stopped learning and have little interest in prevention and cure and have an attitude of nothing to learn from their patients.
• Most doctors take what they learned in some fixed medical textbook as more inviolate than the Bible. If it isn’t in there it doesn’t exist. If it is in there, it is The Gospel. This situation is a disaster for patients, particularly with older doctors who have not made the effort to continue training throughout their lives.

See also:

• Magnesium Supplementation Personal Findings: Brain, Lungs and Asthma, Sleep, Urinary Flow, Muscle Spasms
• Magnesium Deficiency — “BMJ: just 6–12 weeks of strenuous physical activity can lead to magnesium deficiency”
• BMJ: “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis”
• Magnesium Intake Is Inversely Associated With Coronary Artery Calcification
• Your Doctor is NOT Responsible for Your Health—YOU Are! Recommended Reading to Open Your Mind and Ask the Right Questions, Because Your Life Depends On It
• Health and Vitality Start with getting Key Nutrients.

WSJ: U.S. Blood Reserves Are Critically Low

See all COVID-19 posts and all Vitamin C posts.

WSJ: U.S. Blood Reserves Are Critically Low.

Majority of nation’s blood banks have one-day supply or less of Type O blood, officials say.

The U.S. blood supply is at critically low levels after Covid-19 shutdowns have emptied community centers, universities, places of worship and other venues where blood drives typically occur.

The American Red Cross, which supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood, said more than 30,000 planned blood drives have been canceled since mid-March.

Even as some businesses, schools and community groups make plans to reopen in coming months, they have told the Red Cross they don’t anticipate sponsoring blood drives in the near future.

...The majority of the nation’s blood banks now have a one-day supply or less of Type O blood, according to blood bank officials. Typically, blood banks try to maintain a three-to-four-day supply. Type O blood is in the most demand because it can be given to people in any blood group.

...Blood banks, hospitals and other collectors are looking for ways to motivate people to come donate. The Red Cross is offering a $5 Amazon.com gift card via email to people who come in to donate through June 30. Last month, the organization offered a Red Cross T-shirt by mail to donors.

...Brian Gannon, chief executive of Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in Houston, which serves around 175 hospitals and health-care institutions, said starting June 14 his center would test blood donations for antibodies to the Covid-19 infection, a motivational offer that other blood centers also have been making.

...

Give blood if you can. Many people cannot donate because of certain conditions or past infections, so the pool of donors is smaller than one might think.

I am an O+ blood type (widely compatible*) and I am considering giving blood, but doing so seems incompatible with high altitude hikes and thus my work, so I have not yet decided whether to proceed. I need to look at how much blood is taken and the recovery time and how it might impact my ability to work—I am in no position to give up any income whatsoever.

Getting paid for donating blood is not a consideration for me in this matter... but why are people not paid a market price for their blood? Outrageous hospital fees profit the medical industry handsomely—but that you cannot get paid good money for your own blood strikes me as a grotesque inversion of morality.

O-positive vs O-negative blood

The closest blood type to universal donor is O-negative blood, given to high risk patients such as preemies and children in need eg “pedipac”. Blood must test negative for CMV in particular for children, in addition to being free of a variety of other diseases.

For emergency transfusions, blood group type O negative blood is the variety of blood that has the lowest risk of causing serious reactions for most people who receive it. Because of this, it's sometimes called the universal blood donor type.

lood group types are based on proteins called antigens that are present on red blood cells. There are major antigens and minor antigens coating the red blood cells. Based on the major antigens, blood groups may be classified as one of these four types:
- Type A

- Type B
- Type AB
- Type O

Blood is also classified by rhesus (Rh) factor. If your blood has the Rh factor, you're Rh positive. If your blood lacks the Rh factor, you're Rh negative.

Ideally, blood transfusions are done with donated blood that's an exact match for type and Rh factor. Even then, small samples of the recipient's and donor's blood are mixed to check compatibility in a process known as crossmatching.

In an emergency, type O negative red blood cells may be given to anyone — especially if the situation is life-threatening or the matching blood type is in short supply.

Peter O writes:

I've given gallons of blood over the years, starting in high school (I'm now in my 40's). If you give in the traditional fashion (i.e., whole blood), they take 1 pint. I've always enjoyed the process, and personally have experienced a feeling similar to a runner's high for a few days after giving (although not always). Sometimes you get a green phlebotomist who has trouble finding the vein, but that's been rare. Never any major negative effects, but I'm not an endurance athlete, nor do I live at a high altitude. However I do run, bike, & hike, and like to think I'm in tune with my body. It seems to take a week to feel 100% back up to speed. They say you should wait ~56 days between donations, so I can only presume it takes roughly that long on average to fully restore your supply, but my guess is that varies based on health and nutrition.

I always give through the Red Cross. They do offer the alternative of giving platelets or plasma instead of whole blood. In each case, your blood is separated in a machine and red blood cells and plasma (or platelets) returned to you, which speeds up recovery time and limits stress on your body. I've never done this, but many people do. It takes a bit longer (~1.25 hrs) due to the separation process. Might be a better option if you are concerned about recovery time.

The toughest part is finding a place to donate and scheduling. They don't make it easy. I typically give at blood drives hosted by employers, but that is non-existent now with COVID/working from home. I think that's probably the biggest hit to blood supplies -- the lack of easy access to donate. Red Cross should really get the Bloodmobiles out into some of these suburban locations where folks are working from home and have time to give, if it's made more convenient.

WIND: I imagine that ordinary exercise is not much affected, But try working out at up to 95% of max heart rate even at sea level, and a loss of oxygen (blood carrying capacity) is a big deal, not to mention at 11800' where I am now. If it takes a week to feel normal with casual exercise, then serious training surely is much longer.

If you want less of anything, tax it, or charge for it, or add friction.

The blood donation situation hits 2 of those three points: you as a donor not only get no compensation but in effect have to shell out money to donate. The friction of time spent and thus income lost (for me at least) means very high friction. And that’s not even counting the physical impact.

I agree that access is too hard—for me it would scarf up nearly half a day by the time I drive/park/donate/wait/drive home. That’s a HUGE hit to me as a self-employed person. Why the hell should I donate half a day of my time (time = money) which in effect is writing a check for the privilege of donating blood? Why don’t I get a free health care visit with a doctor, as these institutions ream me with a huge bill for a basic 10-minute medical checkup e.g. $400 for a dermatology exam? This is a grossly unethical state of affairs in which the medical establishment profits at the expense of donors. The only thing that makes me consider donating blood is that there is a person out there who well benefit. The in-between stuff is disgusting.

Rainer U writes:

Concerning blood donations: I am a blood donator with the German Red Cross since many years and it never affected my cycling sports. They always take 500ml (= half a litre) and usually urge me not to enter races or embark onto very long tours for the next three days. This is it. Usually they tour the inner cities and market places with specially equipped trucks, which can process five donators simultaneously. So people can donate on-the-fly while they are in the city for shopping.

You are right that one could expect some kind of compensation for a donation. Sometimes they indeed hand out little presents (umbrellas, power banks and the like), but not on a regular basis.

For me it is, among other things, a contribution to the society. What I get in return is a safe life in a society which works quite well and helps me in times of trouble.

WIND: I’ll end up donating at some point, not for “society” but for that face or two I know I’ll have helped. But maybe that is saying the same thing a different way.

I think Europeans don’t quite understand how expensive and f*ed up our health care system is, so compensation for blood donation in the context of financial ruin for some of us takes on a whole new perspective. My financial life was destroyed by ObamaCare so it’s “personal” for me.

Physicians Weekly: “High-Dose IV Vitamin C on ARDS by COVID-19: A Possible Low-Cost Ally With a Wide Margin of Safety”

See all COVID-19 posts and all Vitamin C posts.

Best Vitamin C? It might be wise at the first sign of COVID-19 to use as much true Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C as your bowels will tolerate.

ARDS = Acute respiratory distress syndrome

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) occurs when fluid builds up in the tiny, elastic air sacs (alveoli) in your lungs. The fluid keeps your lungs from filling with enough air, which means less oxygen reaches your bloodstream. This deprives your organs of the oxygen they need to function.

ARDS typically occurs in people who are already critically ill or who have significant injuries. Severe shortness of breath — the main symptom of ARDS — usually develops within a few hours to a few days after the precipitating injury or infection.

Many people who develop ARDS don't survive. The risk of death increases with age and severity of illness. Of the people who do survive ARDS, some recover completely while others experience lasting damage to their lungs.

Physicians Weekly: “High-Dose IV Vitamin C on ARDS by COVID-19: A Possible Low-Cost Ally With a Wide Margin of Safety”

Note “intravenous Vitamin C” reference, a topic I discuss in Vitamin C: a cure for lethal viral infections including Poliomyelitis, and could it cure COVID-19? The Groundbreaking Work of Doctor F.R. Klenner and How It was Ignored.

Intravenous vitamin C has been the object of numerous studies regarding its function as adjuvant therapy on critical patients’ care, included ARDS of diverse etiology. In the context of a coronavirus pandemic, with an elevated morbimortality and pressure over the sanitary system, it is of vital importance to use every available resource to improve patients’ outcomes in an accessible and safe way. In this article, I briefly analyze the evidence around the use of vitamin C in the critical patient and its potential benefits on admission time, intubation time and mortality on patients affected by ARDS.

...Humans are one of the few vertebrates that can’t synthesize vitamin C, therefore it is considered to be an essential nutrient. It’s estimated that 7% of the general population is deficient in vitamin C, but this percentage increases to 47% in admitted patients...

...Therapeutic effects are achieved with plasmatic levels in the range of 20-49 mmol/L (100 times higher than those achieved by oral intake) only possible with intravenous infusion.

...Regarding the evidence around vitamin C’s mechanisms of action, certain preclinical findings might explain the effects observed on respiratory distress. Vitamin C down-regulates inflammatory genes and inhibits the cytokine storm responsible for the activation of pulmonary neutrophils, therefore protecting alveolar capillaries from inflammatory damage. In addition to this, it enhances alveolary fluid clearance by increasing the water transporter channel expression.

In regards to its safety, most studies report no adverse effects on large doses of vitamin C. On rare occasions, the following have been described: Hypersensitivity, oxalate urolithiasis, iron overload in haemochromatosis and anaemia among others, most of them with a prevalence less than 1%. It has also been described the inaccuracy of bedside glucometry when using vitamin C and it is advised to corroborate findings with laboratory results.

We live in times of incalculable need. Worldwide medical supplies are in shortage, costs threat to crush even the wealthiest of health care systems, and above all the wellbeing of millions of humans is at risk. Treatment of severe ARDS from COVID-19 is an ongoing challenge and a specific treatment could be months ahead. The evidence around vitamin C is scarce but promising. There probably never was and never will be a better time than the current to explore and make use of every possible tool that could allow us to improve patients’ prognosis and expand the body of evidence for the benefit of all.

Kudos to the doctor who wrote this! But the risks are far smaller than virtually all prescription drugs, so the excessive caution is just ridiculous. When proper risk assessment is done, it goes beyond idiotic to not to move aggressively to intravenous Vitamin C for impacted patients.

AWESOME to see at least some doctors saying that nutrition may be a factor in mitigating COVID-19—which of course it is—nutrition being the most imporant factor of all fir a strong immune system and that starts by avoiding all nutritional deficiencies.

The reason that admitted patients are deficient in Vitamin C is that Vitamin C is used by the body to combat viruses and bacterio and their toxins. Very high dose intravenous Vitamin C has been proven to CURE severe viral illnesses in as little as 4 days. But this fact is little known, not in the accepted medical textbooks and ignored by the allopathic (traditional ) medical establishment. Studies showing it doesn’t work are awesomely flawed in failing to use the protocols of F. R. Klenner and therefore erroneously “prove” that it does not work.

WHY are we letting patients go acute when multiple nutritional deficiencies can be addressed for the entire population at a cost per person far less than 0.1% of the cost of a hospitalization? Deficiencies of Vitamin D deficiency, magnesium deficiency are tightly linked to immune system function. And why is intravenous Vitamin C not a top worldwide health priority? Maybe the same reason that the allopathic medical establishment ignores magnesium deficiency as a driver of the suffering and death of tens of millions—money and arrogance. Word is getting out but very slowly because few doctors dare to do anything but follow dogmatic medical practice—a fundamentally unethical approach to human health.

See all posts on ethics in medicine and articles like A Prescription for Harm: the Modus Operandi of Modern Medicine.