Cushing's Syndrome cause by Cereal Grains (and/or Sugar)?

The dog of my mother has Cushing's – probably, we need to do more tests. Anyhow, the dog has a lot of problems, which may or may not be connected to Cushing's:

• (Probably) Cushing's, thin legs, bigger stomach
• Muscle problems: weakness, (temporary) limbing
• Fatigued
• Liver problems (I swear, he hasn't been drinking)
• Cataract
• Hearing problems
• Probably a few other small things

Now, the only things wrong in his nutrition were Cereal Grains and Sugar. No dairy that I know of. His nutrition contained probably some seed oil, but I don't know what. Possibly some chicken egg through noodles.

As his condition worsned, and the dog started limping, and dragging one hind-leg, we had to do something. The doctor first suspected arthitis, and the dog got anti-inflamatory medication and anti-pain medication. I changed the dogs diet at the same time and removed cereal grains and sugar for his diet. The result was that he improved somewhat.

Next he got anti-biotics and again anti-pain medicaiton. The dog improved again somewhat. I started giving the dog more carbs (rice and potatoes). The combination of anti-biotics and carbs seems to have done some help.

Now he is off the anti-biotics, and got less carbs, and the dog is more fatigued again.

Now, it is difficult to say whether the dog improved due to the medication, or due to the change in nutrition. But I'll be damned if cereal grains and sugar are not bad for dogs.

We'll keep looking. 

Let's see, this week the dog get another test, and then maybe some medication for Cushing's. It is really sad to see the dog like that, but at least it improved noticeably over the last weeks.

"Pathways to Prevention for ME/CFS"

I posted a comment on the CFIDS website regarding "Pathways to Prevention for ME/CFS":

Prevention? Prevention needs some sense of the cause(s), if I am not mistaken.

Yes, there are tentative, speculative causes. But all the so far presented "definitive" causes of ME/CFS share one thing in my eyes: complete lack of credibility. There is no trustworthy research pointing to an cause.

And would prevention look like?

For pathogens, it would be the prevention of the spreading of that pathogen. Problem is, there is no identified pathogen. Horning/Lipkin draw a blank. So against which pathogen do you want to prevent? Problem is, there are no known ones.

Sure, the psych*-doctors know that it is the patient who is to blame. Excuse my sarcasm, but to them it is the patient who is doing something wrong, in his/her wicked ways, as patients are – the patients simply "need" guidance by professional psych*-doctors. So their "prevention" would be some form of "education". Maybe teaching "resilience to fatigue"? Problem is, they think the disease exists in the minds of their patients, but their disease model exists only in the doctor's heads, not in reality.

Or do you want to somehow target groups at risk, and do something? Problem is, there are no identified risk groups. (Again pardon my sarcasm) Sure, the psych*-doctors will tell you it is crazy women who are at risk, but that is not reality – everybody is "at risk".

Did I miss some school of thought here? Oh, maybe the mainstream nutritional disciples will scare us of cholesterol, or saturated fat, or whatever they think is the current bogey man. Problem is, these things aren't the cause either.

So you need some preformed notions about ME/CFS to even consider "prevention". And the problem is that none of those preformed notions about ME/CFS are in any way backed up by robust studies.

It is noble to think about preventing ME/CFS, but unless we know more about the cause(s), any talk about "prevention" is pure fantasy, a waste of resources, and potentially quite harmful to the patient.

Try to find out affected pathways, try to find out cause(s) – and demand loud and clear that any prevention is based on clearly identified pathways and causes. I am afraid that any result of such a conference will be: "Doctors need to teach crazy women how to avoid tormenting their doctors with their problems." They might formulate it with more psych*-medical jargon, so it doesn't sound so offensive.

The CFIDS needs to be highly critical of this – otherwise this could have catastrophic effects on the people with ME/CFS.

Lipkin And Horning Draw A Blank

From the tweets from the 2014 "Stanford ME/CFS Symposium" I can see that Lipkin focuses on the "microbiome" (aka all the "good" and "bad" bacteria that live in your gut).

While he does not say it explicitly, he found no prevalent infections nor any prevalent immune system problems in people with ME/CFS. Granted, he found some leads with regards to IL-17 and eotoxins – but I am cautious and don't expect that anything will come from this.

And while I think that there is possibly a connection to the gut (and to nutrition!) in many diseases, I however think the reason that Lipkin looks in the gut is because he has exhausted the paths of inquiry that involve the body "proper".

Furthermore Lipkin appears to think that ME/CFS is one "monolithic" disease, so the only place where this one disease must hide (in his view) is in the microbiome in the gut.

I think he is wrong on two accounts:

1. I think there is good evidence that ME/CFS is not one monolithic disease, but instead a set of symptoms that can be caused by several diseases.

2. Lipkin is – as so many in medical research and the medical profession – unaware of the pathogenic potential of some the foods we eat (with dairy, cereal grains and seed oils/PUFA/TFA in my mind being probably the prime suspects).

For me, this is the disenchantment of Lipkin, as I had some hope that he might be able find at least one prevalent disease in people with ME/CFS.

(And BTW some of the things he said on "Autism and GI complains", on "Kawasaki syndrome and candida in the troposphere" and on "Chronic Lyme" are borderline woo. I do not think that Lipkin is a good ally. However if he investigates these things properly, and then clearly announces if he draws a blank, then I am OK with his lines of inquiry. The problem starts when he does not clearly say when he draws a blank…)

Personally I don't expect that Lipkin/Horning will find anything useful in the gut/microbiome – but it is good that they continue their inquiry, if only that they might spread more awareness of the disease or might find something by a lucky coincidence. One never knows…

[Postscript] One other thing is noteworthy: Lipkin found no evidence whatsoever that ME/CFS is caused by HHV-6 / HHV-6B. He found 3 or 4 patients – out of 586(!) – with HHV-6 or HHV-6B. This more or less invalidates the entire argument by the HHV proponents that ME/CFS is caused by an ongoing HHV infection. I think especially the attention given to Montoya (and others) in that regards is not warranted.

[Postscript 2] One more thing: As Lipkin didn't explicitly say it, let me put it in clear words:

Lipkin found no evidence for an ongoing infection in people with ME/CFS.

Clear enough for you?

If ME/CFS is caused* by pathogens (viruses or possibly bacteria), then they are long gone after the initial acute infection**. A case of "hit and run", if you want – the pathogen is gone, the damage stays.

No need to treat a pathogen that is gone, as that will usually do more harm than good. Or as they say at NASA:

Things are never so bad that they can't be made worse.

So the first order of business: Don't make things worse. Anti-viral and anti-bacterial and anti-whatnot medications have a high potential to make things worse – best to use them only if you are really really sure.

So, if there is no pathogen, what can you do? The best one could do is to identify the damage, and try to treat it (e.g. orthostatic intolerance with medication targeting the blood preasure – speak with your doctor!). If there is anything that alleviates symptoms, then doing it might be a good ides. Change nutrition, try a Paleo Diet, try an Eleminaion Diet. But please, stop claiming that phantom ME/CFS viruses, and phantom ME/CFS bacteria, and phantom ME/CFS fungi supposedly hide in the gut of people with ME/CFS, or in their tissues, or god knows where – you are hurting yourself and hurting other people.

PLEASE. STOP. IT.

Please?

--
* There seems however to be evidence to indicate that acute infections can cause ME/CFS in some cases.

** Unless you are one of those rare 1 in a 100 ME/CFS cases were it is clearly established that there is an ongoing infection – and no, "Chronic Lyme" is not a ongoing infection, and neither is "Candida", nor "Chlamydophila pneumoniae" or any other somesuch woo terms being peddled by people who don't know better. These are makebelieve terms that only fool people (including those who doctors who use these terms).

The second acne cause: House dust and/or house dust mites?

As I have written before, I have been having problems with acne. And while I traced down milk and dairy (and more specific pasteurized dairy) as the primary cause, my acne still didn't go away fully. I had some suspects, but I found one more I had overlooked so far: House dust and/or house dust mites…

Not sure yet, I will see if this is indeed the cause.

Unfinished Blog-Post: A Post-Mortem for Lombardi et al. 2009 - The Response to Comments

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Unfinished Blog-Post: A Post-Mortem for Lombardi et al. 2009 - The Addendum

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Unfinished Blog-Posts: Comparison between the results of Lombardi 2009 and the "Addendum"

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Unfinished Blog-Post: "February 1983: Gallo proposes that AIDS is probably caused by a retrovirus, presumably a variant of HTLV-1 or II"

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Unfinished Blog-Post: A Post-Mortem for Lombardi et al. 2009 - Unanswered Questions

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Unfinished Blog-Post: To Pull A Gallo

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

BTW: It is this post I most regred not finishing – it is mainly missing one table in the middle, listing some parallels between the story of "Fictional Gallo" and those who brought us the XMRV fraud. However the so inclined readers might be able to find parallels by themselves.

Unfinished Blog-Post: Team Gallo

A long time ago I started some blog-posts, but never found the time nor energy to finish them. Now I have long lost interest in the matter and will publish them all "as is" – maybe someone will find these raw thoughts helpful.

Do I Have A Bad Day? Or Am I Getting Ill While Being Ill?

I feel like I got ill, I feel like some virus or some bacteria hit me – in addition to my "unnormal" disease. I feel like someone had run me over with a steamroller. Though, I don't know, it could be just an exceptionally bad day with my unnormal disease – a disease which no doctor wants to have a part of (and those doctors that do want a part of, those I don't trust).

That's the annoying thing, I never know how good or bad I will feel, how much I will be able to do any given day. And I will never know when I feels worse, if that is "normal" business of my unnormal disease, if the unnormal disease is simply acting up – or if I got the flu or something in addition to my unnormal disease. Or if it was caused by something I ate yesterday, or if I did too much yesterday, or if I stayed a bit too long outside in the cold, or whatever.

This sucks.

Spam for fraudulent HIV "cure"

Just wanted to mention, I got this spam from "Gina" for a fraudulent HIV "cure" – whatever you do, keep in mind that these quacks want to take your money.

My name is Gina, i am from Cape Town in South Africa, I was once a prostitute in my area. I got effected with HIV due to the nature of my job, In May 06 2013 i was tested positive to HIV, this is a true life experience. I never taught there's some one who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but I couldn't find any solution to my disease. I always spend a lot to buy a HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, until one day i was just browsing on the internet when i came across of abuyespelltemple@xx I quickly contacted him, and he asked me some few questions and i did all things he asked me to do, i did not pay him for his service until I was finally cured, only to see that at the very day which he said i will be healed, all the strength that has left me before rush back and i became very strong and healthy. I went to hospital for the final test to the virus and the result shows i am HIV

If see such a spam comment, do not contact them! It is best to delete their spam.

[Update] Well, two spam comments on the same day, probably from some sockpuppet, on how this quack supposedly helped people with spells and holy water:

Am from UK I give thank to a great doctor who help me out of my illness I was very sick I thank god who use this man to help, it started when i travel to Florida for visit there I meet a lady not knowing to me that she HIV positive I really like the lady because she was beautiful I always see her every moment I close my eye I went to tell her how I feel for her but I don’t know if she know that she HIV I went to bed with her I contacted the virus too when I get home for month my doctor come to check on me and he discover that I have HIV he was shock and tell me I was so confused and so surprised to hear that I was taking HIV drug to cure it for good a 2year I decided to look for cure them I meet this post on internet I contacted him for help… well DR. OKORUNDO proving to be a great man and he heal me.. According to him he said is the power of his gods well I thank god am back again if you need cure for your HIV….you can still contact him or his email or number I promise he is 100% he

And this one:

I want to say hello to the world at large, I am very grateful for the good deeds DR. OKORUNDO did for me, I was a HIV patient, everything went bad for me, I couldn’t do things with my friends anymore, I loosed my job, I loosed everything, I was even waiting for death itself, I went searching on the internet I saw many testimonies on how different spell casters helped people in curing their deadly diseases, I collected one spell caster’s email, which dr.okorndo I emailed him and he answered me, I told him all problems, he ask me not to worry, that I will be free from the deadly disease, which I did, he casted the spell, and told me that he will send a holy water to me through courier services, I was surprised, because he did not mention it to me before, I paid for the courier delivery service, I got a holy water, he asked me to drink it which I did and he asked me to go for a medical check-up in a hospital, I went to the hospital I went for a HIV test, I was tested HIV negative, I was

If you contact him, I will guarantee you will loose your money and you will loose what what remains of your health.

Loose Ends And Chasing Ghosts

I might have made some progress, but some loose ends make me feel like I am chasing ghosts.

The good news is, I think I am making progress. In summer this year my health was tiny bit better then half a year before. Now it is again a tiny bit better than in summer. Alas, I do less, so maybe that is the reason why I feel better… And whenever I try to do something I still get worse. But my tolerance for doing stuff is slowly improving (I think, I have no real measure). I did some light work on Friday, and today (Saturday) I felt the work from yesterday, but could still do some more –  after that I felt awful.

One "trick" I found is that when I feel awful after doing some (light) work, I can feel better when I drink water – more water than I would normally drink (e.g. two glasses when I would drink only one). However when I drink too much, I feel sick… Fear not, I found another "trick": After drinking too much water, I need to take some sugar (a teaspoon or two, or a fruit) to feel better again. (and oh, I forgot to mention: I feel immediately better – within a couple of minutes – after I take a dump. I wish I knew if this is some blood pressure thing, or if this is some liver thing, or what.)

Another thing I noticed: When I take a bit of sugar, my nose "cleans up". Usually it feels a bit congested, but after taking a bit of sugar (which has to contain fructose – glucose alone does not do the trick!) my nose clears up and I can better breathe (BTW, funny thing, sometimes an orgasm clears up my nose as well…). However if I take to much sugar my nose "dries up" a bit. Something is wrong here, and I don't know what.

The improvement is so slow though, that it is painful (not literally painful, but every day seems like the last). And, whenever I do a bit more (maybe an hour or two a day), I get worse again.

And while I gained about one kilogram over the past month (or two), I am still eleven kilogram under my March weight. I have been carelessly eating stuff when I am not hungry, and that's the revenge for this.

What seems to unchanged is that my sleep is not a slightest bit restorative – on the contrary, I feel much better before sleep, than compared after a "good night's sleep". Shucks. In the morning my muscles hurt and they are stiff. My brain feels only half awake in the morning. I need to take a strong coffee, take a hot shower and about 2 to 3 hours to feel halfway like a human being.

Unfortunately there are still some loose ends. A couple of months ago I made an experiment of only eating fish, no more pork. During that time I developed some slight acne again. Which got slightly worse after I stopped fish and ate pork again. I even got some aphthous ulcers.

Now it took some time before the acne wound down again, during which time I removed olives, mustard, bananas and sausages from my nutrition.

Yesterday I ate a banana (not completely ripe), fish (smoked mackerel) and olives and got one slight ulcer.

So what did cause my acne/ulcers outbreak over the past months?

• Some weird fish protein / pork protein thingy
• Olives
• Mustard
• Sausages (or rather the casing of sausages)
• Bananas (possibly unripe?)
• Smoked meat/fish
• Food contaminations
• Toothpaste (certain brand)
• Something completely else
• All of the above
• Some of the above
• None of the above
• No external cause

Back to chasing ghosts…

And lest I forget: I have been occasionally eating some bread, and I do have the impression that I feel worse afterwards. The effect isn't too strong (and I could not swear that it is caused by bread), but I feel kind of "dehydrated" and "dry" for half a day to maybe one day.

The War On Cancer

Peter Attia:

… I don’t need to say much about cancer that you don’t already know. You probably know that about one in three Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime, and you probably know that about half of them will succumb to the disease. What you may not know, however, is that we have made virtually no progress in extending survival for patients with metastatic solid organ tumors since the “War on Cancer” was declared over 40 years ago. In other words, when a solid organ tumor (e.g., breast, colon, pancreatic) spreads to distant sites, the likelihood of surviving today is about what it was 40 years ago with rare exceptions. We may extend survival by a few months, but not long-term (i.e., overall) survival.

We screen better today for sure, but subtracting lead-time bias, it’s not clear this extends overall survival. We’ve had success in treating and even curing hematologic cancers (e.g., some forms of leukemia and lymphoma). Certainly testicular cancer patients (especially seminomatous) are better off today and those with GI stromal tumors (GIST), too. Surgical control of cancer is much better today and some local treatments (e.g., specific radiation), too. But for the most part, when a patient has metastatic cancer today, the likelihood of living 10 more years is virtually unchanged from 40 years ago.

…

Nutrition Research: "Dissonant With Scientific Principles"

But by not training mentees in the basics of science and skepticism, the nutrition field has fostered the use of measures that are so profoundly dissonant with scientific principles that they will never yield a definitive conclusion. As such, we now have multiple generations of nutrition researchers who dominate federal nutrition research and the peer review of that work, but lack the critical thinking skills necessary to critique or conduct sound scientific research.

Steve McIntyre has some of the details.

The ME/CFS Zoo Hypothesis

A constant question regarding ME/CFS (and fibromyalgia) goes something like this:

Is it one disease, or is it a "spectrum", or is it multiple (distinct) diseases that look the same?

I that regard: I find the "Blind men and an elephant" parable helpful – and would like to expand it.

First of all, let me recount from the Wikipedia page a slightly modified summary of the parable:

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each blind men feels a different part, but only one part, such as the trunk, or an foot, or the tusk.

A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

Afterwards the blind men talk to each other and learn that they are in complete disagreement. Some of the stories differ in how violent the conflict becomes, and how (or if) the conflict among the men and their perspectives is resolved.

In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to "see" the full elephant. When a sighted man walks by and sees the entire elephant all at once, they also learn they are blind. While one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of truth.

My impression is that many in the ME/CFS "community" think that most of the studies are equally "true" – I think that is the first mistake. To stay in the parable: Some of the blind men have never touched an elephant (or any other animal, for that matter) and simply make things up. Here you have blind men who describe not an elephant, but maybe an park bench, or an found umbrella, or maybe an object that exists only in their fantasy (and even describing that they suck). Yes Virginia, I'm talking about Lombardi, Mikovits and Ruscetti. There are others. Like those blind men trying to describe the color of the elephant. Somehow, now I have to think of the names Meirleir, Maes and Gerwyn.

And even if you sieve out all the blind men describing inanimate objects (or worse, make-believe objects), you get some who grabbed some random animal in the zoo and tried to described it. Now if they can describe two (or more) of those animals, and the differences between them, and if they do not try to make you believe that they describe the whole animal, I think they are much more trustworthy than those who want to make you believe they describe only an elephant, and that they know the entire elephant.

If you have someone who says "Here I found two animals with distinctly different tusk, one has leather like skin, the others is furry", well then we are on to something. Currently I have seen few people who would fit that bill: Alan Light (et al.), and maybe Julia Newton (come to my mind).

But one thing should be clear, all those harping about how we need better criteria to "sieve out all non-elephants" (to stay within the parable) should know that:
a) Your are an "blind men" yourself
b) You might be an "non-elephant" yourself
c) The studies you trust might describe non-elephants
d) The studies you trust might describe non-elephant animals that are different from you

Yes, better (and more stringent) criteria might be helpful, but what we need are ways to look at "a collection of zoo animals" (parable again), and learn to differentiate them properly, both in a research setting, and in a clinical setting.

"There is a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention."

Via Stan the Heretic:

There is a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention. Not only is there a dearth of evidence for primary cardiovascular protection, there is ample evidence to show that statins actually augment cardiovascular risk in women, patients with Diabetes Mellitus and in the young. Furthermore statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic artery calcification.

Don't Trust The Authorities

Milgram a fraud?

… In the fifty years since publication of Milgram’s first journal article the obedience research continues to be cited as evidence of an enduring psychological truth: inside all of us is a Nazi concentration camp guard waiting to be called into service. Yet my archival research and examination of primary sources and that of other scholars contradicts this claim.

Milgram himself was privately aware of the methodological weakness of his research and struggled with many of the issues about the validity of experiments and their generalisability beyond the lab. Privately Milgram reflected that his work was more art than science, and described himself as a “hopeful poet.” …

Positive Psychology? Smelling Bull.

Nick Brown Smelled Bull (via)