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At first, my doctor is Dr. Hugh Robinson. I always feel that one of the blessings I enjoy from settling down in Canada is to be able to meet such doctors like Dr. Robinson.

He seems to listen to my complaints and then gives directions from his intuitions, which happen to be always correct.  He is not afraid of giving me seemingly un-conventional advice. All members of my family trust him 100%.  Recently, I had an expensive checkup in Korea. Dr. Robinson already knew what the results would be even before I shared the report with him.  He told me that I would be a lot better off if I had spent the checkup money somewhere else, like traveling to sunny places during the rainy winter time. I could not agree more.

I also know Dr. Jeon who is one the most famous cancer specialists in the world. He is always so intuitive and down-to-earth…Frankly, it is only after I met him that I was set free from the fear of cancer.

These days, not many doctor-patient relations areas this intuitive and this personal.  I dare to even to put a number. I think that through impersonalization, we are losing at least 60 percent of all the medical or therapeutic benefits that we could have obtained. This may be one of the reasons why those unlicensed quacks often are known to have remarkable therapeutic records, not infrequently higher than regular fully and legally licensed doctors.

In Korea, in some famous hospitals, a doctor usually is known to spend 30 seconds per patient…I did not believe it until I actually saw my mother, who was a VIP patient in a hosptial. It was 83 years old my mother who cracked a joke to break the ice, which the doctor ignored. He just prescribed something coldly.  What was so sad about the encounter was that my mother who was so proud of her son, me, doing Eleotin business bragged about her son manufacturing Eleotin. The doctor without asking any question, shot back at my mother “Granny. Don’t take it” That is all. No question, no investigation, I was there.  I was totally embarassed.   My poor mother stopped taking our product for her diabetes since then for fear of antagonizing the doctor…My mother passed away last year. I still feel that she could be still with me unless she had another listening doctor….

I do not hesitate a moment to cite “Impersonalization” as the most grave medical blunder of all times.

Doctors are not Gods. They are wonderful people with great training. But, they are still people who make mistakes. From now on, we will introduce some of the frequent blunders and some of the most wonderful miracles. Here is the first one.

“Doctors are likely to underestimate the danger of frequently changing nurses or having insufficient nurses. When you select a hospital and a doctor, tell them that this is an important issue. Statistics seem to demonstrate that many (a great many) medical accidents and blunders happen due to this. Doctors do not seem to fully understand this. “

Eating Nuts Improves Diabetes Control
Nuts such as peanuts are shown to control blood sugar levels.  A new study indicates that replacing carbohydrates with two ounces of nuts every day improves blood glucose and cholesterol control in people with type 2 diabetes.

In the research conducted at the University of Toronto, 117 men and women with type 2 diabetes were randomized into three groups where they received either a full portion of mixed nuts, a half portion of both nuts and muffins, or a full portion of muffins. Participants’ fasting blood glucose levels were tested every other week.

After three months, participants receiving the full portion of nuts showed the biggest decrease in glycated hemoglobin, a measure of blood glucose control.  The difference was significantly more than the decrease shown in the participants receiving the half portion of nuts and muffins, and in those solely receiving muffins.  Nuts intake also decreased bad LDL cholesterol in the blood compared to the other groups.

David Jenkins, MD, PhD, principal researcher and a pioneer in the diabetes study said, “Nuts can make a valuable contribution to the diabetic diet by replacing high glycemic index carbohydrates with vegetable fats and proteins which have been shown to be associated with better cardiovascular health and diabetes prevention.”  The study was reported in the recent issue of ‘Diabetic Diet’ published by the American Diabetes Association.

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com

Building Muscle Can Reduce Diabetes Risk

Increasing your muscle mass can help lower the risk for type 2 diabetes, which means weight training is very important to avoid diabetes.

A new study shows that for each 10 percent increase in the skeletal muscle index (SMI) – the ratio of muscle mass to total body weight – there was an 11 percent reduction in insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.  There was also a 12 percent reduction in pre-diabetes, a condition characterized by higher-than-normal blood sugar levels.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed data from 13,644 adults who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.  “Our findings suggest that beyond focusing on losing weight to improve metabolic health, there may be a role for maintaining fitness and building muscle mass,” said Dr. Preethi Srikanthan, professor of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

“This is a welcome message for many overweight patients who experience difficulty in achieving weight loss, as any effort to get moving and keep fit should be seen as laudable and contributing to metabolic change,” she added.  The study appears in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com

Vitamin D Linked to Diabetes

Lower levels of vitamin D are linked to a higher risk of developing diabetes.  In a new study following more than 5,000 people for 5 years, the researchers found those with lower than average vitamin D levels had 57 percent increased risk of developing type II diabetes compared to people with levels in the recommended range.

“Lower levels of vitamin D circulating in the bloodstream were associated with an increased risk of developing type II diabetes, even though our findings do not prove cause and effect,” said lead author Dr. Claudia Gagnon, a fellow at the Western Hospital at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

To see if vitamin D levels influenced insulin sensitivity and diabetes risk, Gagnon’s team measured the vitamin D blood levels of 5,200 people without diabetes.  After 5 years, the researchers measured vitamin D levels again and found that twice as many people with low blood levels of vitamin D later developed diabetes, compared to those with blood levels in the normal range.  Given the risk factors for diabetes such as age, waist circumference and family history, the increased risk from low vitamin D levels was translated to 57 percent.

Vitamin D, well known for its role in working together with the calcium to the bones, is produced by the body in response to the sunlight as well as it happens naturally in some foods such as eggs, cod and salmon.

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Any Eleotin Experience to Share?

FDA Warns of Bladder Cancer Risk with Actos

Patients taking the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone) for more than a year may have an increased risk of bladder cancer, according to the FDA. The warning came few days after German and France banned the use of the drug, citing similar concerns.

In a study involving more than 193,000 diabetics, compared to never being exposed to pioglitazone, the pioglitazone therapy for longer than 12 months was associated with a 40 percent increase in risk for bladder cancer, the FDA said. The five-year data of an ongoing ten-year study show that patients with the longest exposure to and the highest cumulative dose of the drug were at greater risk.

The new cancer warning will be required to appear on the labeling. The FDA is advising doctors not to use Actos in patients with bladder cancer and said diabetes patients should tell their doctor if they are having symptoms of bladder cancer such as blood or red color in urine, an urgent need to urinate or pain while urinating and pain in back or lower abdomen.

Actos is now the second medication in a class of drugs called thiazolidinedione (TZD) to be associated with serious side effects within the past year. Last year, the use of Avandia (rosiglitazone) was severely restricted in several countries including the U.S. because of an increased risk of heart attacks.

Actos is used to control blood sugar and is sold alone or in combination with metformin and glimepiride. Actos, Takeda Pharmaceuticals’ best-selling drug approved in 1999, was prescribed to more than 2 million patients with sales of $3.4 billion in 2010.

Since information about the potential bladder cancer risk associated with Actos first surfaced last year, a number of former users diagnosed with bladder cancer are considering pursuing an Actos lawsuit against Takeda Pharmaceuticals for failing to fully research the side effects of the medication or adequately warn about the potential risk of bladder cancer.

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com

Lack of Sleep Leads to Weight Gain

Sleep deprivation slows your metabolism down, which could lead to obesity.  A recent study shows that lack of sleep puts a drag on metabolism, causing the body to use less energy and gain weight.

Christian Benedict of Uppsala University in Sweden who led the study said that the results suggest that getting plenty of sleep might prevent weight gain.  “Our findings show that one night of sleep deprivation acutely reduces energy expenditure in healthy men,” he wrote.

To identify the exact mechanisms by which a lack of sleep might have these effects, researchers put 14 male college students through a series of sleep ‘conditions’ including curtailed sleep, no sleep, and normal sleep.  They then measured changes in food intake, blood sugar, hormone levels and indicators of metabolic rate.

They found that even a single night of missed sleep slowed metabolism the next morning, reducing energy expenditure for tasks like breathing and digestion from 5 to 20 percent, compared with the morning after a good night’s sleep.  The participants also had higher morning levels of blood sugar, appetite-regulating hormones, and stress hormones after sleep disruption.

The study, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adds to evidence that sleep loss can promote weight gain not just by boosting hunger but also by slowing the rate at which calories are burned.  Previous studies have observed that people who sleep five hours or less are more prone to weight gain and weight-related diseases such as type II diabetes.

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com

World’s Most Advanced Fitness Socks

I am a twice Olympian who still trains and competes later in life.  Lately, someone gave me a pair of a new revolutionary-type sock that is supposed to help peripheral circulation and stimulate reflex points in the foot, with a total improvement in the physiology of lower leg and overall “less tired” feeling of some 25%.

So I put them on and tried them out on my usual interval training bush hill climb.  This has steep pitches interspersed with flatter areas, then more and steeper pitches and so on, which is ideal for training in most sports.  The problem is that it starts fairly steep and the first anaerobic (movement without oxygen) minute or so and beyond is painful with lactic acid build-up before the aerobic cycle kicks in, and lactic acid is removed.

To my surprise, the lactic acid phase was cut in half to make my legs less painful and my legs felt particularly good for the whole session.  I did this again in the next day, with even better result.  Now I wear them about everywhere, and get less leg-tiredness and a nice ‘relaxed feeling’ in them.  I think they would improve performance, just that extra edge, in most sports.

– Dr. Michael Sichel, DO, ND, PhD.

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com

Deadly Combination of Depression and Diabetes

Diabetics who also suffer from depression have a significantly higher risk for mortality.  In a recent study by Harvard School of Public Health, researchers found a 35% increased risk for any death for those with diabetes only, a 44% increased risk for those with depression only, and twice the risk for those with both compared with their counterparts with neither condition.

The study was performed on 78,282 former nurses aged 54 to 79, and published in the January 2011 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Symptoms of depression affect between 20% and 25% of patients with diabetes, which is nearly twice as many as individuals without diabetes, the researchers note.  Depression is known to be associated with poor glycemic control, an increased risk of diabetes complications, and isolation from the social network.

“Our findings suggest that these two conditions of depression and diabetes, which often go hand in hand, create a vicious cycle or what I call ‘a double whammy’ in terms of health outcomes,” said research team member Dr. Frank Hu, MD, professor of nutrition and epidemiology.  “So it’s very important for patients and clinicians to address these conditions at the same time in terms of prevention and management,” he added.

                          

For more information, visit www.eastwoodcompanies.com / www.medireport.com  Or email us at info@eastwoodcos.com